Death of Film continues...Eastman Kodak hires bankruptcy law firm

It's so, so painful to watch this American legend fall. Why does it have to be this way.

dan c

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09...-bankruptcy-filing/?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

 

When I lived in Rochester, NY Kodak had so many employess at it's Elmgrove Ave. mega-pant that they had to stagger start and quitting times for each shift in order to ease traffic jams on the surrounding surface streets and expressways. They owned that city!

 

ironic...they invented the digital camera...wonder how stable that end is?

 

I have a real stupid question, Since I got hurt I dont go out (I only keep tabs on all things audio- video, Im great and knowelable at that but I lost my camera acumen) except for refills on meds and are retired and hate it, blah blah, but can you buy Film in the all the styles and types that you used to be able to when I was a semi pro(my words) and I did weddings and such as in the late 80s. What is left for a guy like me that has a Canon set up that initionaly cost about 1500 dollars and was the first EOS camera(1988-89 vintage and have a multitude of lenses) and still looks very current and wants to shoot film and have the option of BandW, Color, Slide, ...Whats left, does anybody know? Thanks for any help. John M. PS- everything must be digital now is that the way it is, and have a computer do all the so-called printing. Its cool really but a shame also because in my eye nothing beats film, but the sharpness that can be obtained with digital is almost sci-fi like. Anyway Thanks again.

 

Since most cameras these days look like this, I'd say Kodak is screwed.

 

Because film is obsolete?

 

Yes what a marvellous photographic legacy we will have of the early 21st century, so much quantity so much for the quality.

Dreadful.

 

Didn't anybody learn anything in the 1980s?

New management/ownership buys/takes over venerable (US) company and says they'll "reinvigorate" it. They start it chasing other trends (usually involving overseas operations) while cutting costs (usually US employees pay, benefits then entire jobs), closing or spinning off components (usually US first) and selling off irreplaceable assets to the delight of (usually overseas) competitors. The company burns through cash, flying apart with no real vision or work being done to ensure the "sustainable" and "profitable" future management promises while collecting huge paychecks and so on for themselves, until they bail out of the wreckage, possibly just to do it to another company. Wall Street acts surprised and points to all kinds of external causes. Frosting? It's yet another business that was working furiously towards the siren call of "going digital."

Maybe that isn't happening here. Sure it's tempting to say, "Film is obsolete so they're going under," but remember that Kodak is way bigger than a film company, has been diversifying for decades and even had a huge role in the invention of the new technology, digital cameras. Yet they are following the deterioration cycle anyway. I hope my cynicism here will be understood. Quite frustrating to watch.

 

Still film for your Canon is still out there. For example:
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/c1102-Color-Negative-Film-35mm

-DLedin

 

It's really sad to see these iconic companies get run into the ground.

I wonder how Fuji Film is doing.

 

yes! friggin scary! I have a gang of Digital "real" cameras....so I'm good...from 1MP-14MP.
I'm pretty happy with the result I get from these...

 

If I were running Kodak, I would do two things they arent doing now:

1) I would slant the whole company toward Photographers, both professional and amatuer. I would partner with an optics/chip company, and design and release an absolutely kick *** professional digital camera that wasnt outrageously expensive.
Then, after it was in the market for awhile, a scaled down version for amatuers at half the price.

2) I would re-embrace film and make Kodak THE place to buy and develop film. Let people buy their film direct from Kodak, and do the developing right there at Kodak as well.
Make Film a viable part of the business again......people still want it.

Let photographers know that Kodak is there for them, wether they are film, digital or whatever.

Kind of like what the "REDD" company does now.

 

This makes me sad. Kodak was a leader in digital technology but the consumer never stopped associating them with film. The truth is Kodak was ahead of the consumer market by years in pushing digital cameras. I wish they would find a way to recover.

 

Me too.....Kodak was one of the great American companies. I mean, you could say that Kodachrome Film was one of the 10 best American inventions ever.

 

This isn't a joke. I started a thread a year or two ago about how sales of all digital cameras are down due to the cameras that are built into smart phones.

 

Kodak had every opportunity to evolve into a 21st-century digital-based powerhouse, but they totally fumbled the ball. Is it too late for them to design & market a digital camera that everyone wants to own? They could have done so a long time ago & didn't. Too bad...

 

their latest Z990 is nice camera...
http://store.kodak.com/store/ekconsus/en_US/pd/MAX_Camera/productID.221644300

 

rumor has it the next iphone will have an 8mp camera.

 

It doesn't matter how many megapixels a photo censor has when it's barely the width of a blade of grass, if even that.

Hardly anybody prints photos at home, or has the desire to do so. I wonder why they invested so heavily in inkjet printers when digital photo printing is readily available at your local grocery, big box store or pharmacy?

I find it surprising that Kodak isn't making a killing in the point & shoot market.

 

I haven't used film camera's in ages.

I do think digital cameras, when they are decent, are better.

 

Kodak had one of the best R&D departments in corporate America. They invented digital photography, as mentioned, among so many other imaging technologies. Their high end CCD chip division sources the new Leica digital rangefinder. Sadly Kodak just sold off that part of the company and wants to sell off most of its digital patents to stay alive. Probably too late.

At its core, Kodak was always more of a software company over camera company. Most of the cameras they made in the film days were just a way to entice people to buy more film.

So many 'ifs'. What if Kodak saw the writing on the wall 20-years ago and bought Adobe. We'd all be using Kodak's Photoshop and Premiere if they didn't screw it up.

What if they pushed much harder in the CCD chip business and most of our cell phones had Kodak chips in them.

It's very sad. So much history and even more potential, but it's been squandered.

dan c

 

IMHO they need to work on improving noise, sensitivity and dynamic range before packing more pixels in there. :thumbsdn:

That said, it's pretty friggin' amazing how good a cellphone camera can be now. Yup, it's totally laying to waste the entry level and moderate P&S market. The DSLR and high end P&S market is still viable, and the super trendy 'mirrorless' DSLR market is red hot and just taking off. There will always be photographers and camera buffs, but the lower end of the market is toast.

dan c

 

any opinions on the Kodak 990 I liked to in the post above? I highly respect your opinion.

 

I dont understand why mobile phone manufacturers wont allow us any control over the compression settings. When you take a 5MP+ shot and find the resulting jpeg is only 700k you know its not going to work.

I'd rather be able to take just 50 half decent shots than 300 crappy useless ones.

 

Thanks! I've never played with one but on paper it looks really cool. Love the lens (wide and fast and long!). The big camera manufactures have models that share many of the same features and basic design, but this one is being sold in many places for just $250. That's a lot of camera for that kind of money.

Here's an in-depth review I found:
http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/kodak_easyshare_z990_review/

dan c