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

after losing photos stored digitally...I now back them up on numerous drives...problem solved for me...

 

Ya gotta backup. All is lost without that, even with physical media. I can think of a few studio fires over the last 40-50 years where all kinds of priceless negatives and/or master tapes were lost. There was a famous case where a studio's HD library burned up... and they stored the backups in the same warehouse, so those also burned up.

 

All true, but my feeling is retention of negatives is far worse. For most people, they are thrown in a shoe box in the basement *if they are lucky*. And you can't store negatives in multiple locations like you can with digital files.

I have (hopefully) all of my negatives since I started shooting 35mm (had a 110 camera as a kid), and they are all in (mostly) chronological order, but when I asked my dad to dig up some photos of me as a kid, all he could find were prints. And he had been a photographer professionally at one time!

 

Check out the second sentence in bold. Makes you think...

dan c

http://bankruptcynews.dowjones.com/...rticle?an=DJFDBR0020120824e88op362m&r=wsjblog

 

This has me curious, I wonder how many people have kept their photo negatives? It seems the older folks did not do a good job keeping their negatives. I suspect younger folks did a better job. I have nearly all my negatives going back to the stuff I shot when I was 7-8 years old. But that just might be me (and Lukpac).

Derek

 

Perhaps younger photographer types. But younger folks in the general population? I wouldn't bet on it.

 

Is it almost over?

They're dumping the thing that was supposed to save them...home printers. WTF?!

The monthly earnings report came out and things are going from dark to darker. I almost wish they would just liquidate and get it over with. There's really no saving this company, and the longer this goes on I wonder if there will be anything left to liquidate. Just gut wrenching.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20121002/BUSINESS/310020019/Kodak?odyssey=nav|head

 

T-Max P3200 is dead

Just announced this morning via the Kodak Professional Facebook page, a film near and dear to my heart is officially discontinued.

I've suspected this would be the next emulsion to be killed off for a while now, but it's still painful to see. This was so revolutionary when it came out in the late 80s, it changed everything. I was just learning B&W photography at the time in my high school journalism class. I remember a few of my friends and I excitedly reading a Pop Photo preview of the new film, and finally getting a few rolls and doing into the night to shoot it. Photography was so exciting and novel for me back then.

dan c

From Kodak's FB announcement:

 

Yesterday Kodak announced it is spinning off its 'document and personal imaging' division to its British pension plan. I have no idea how this business deal works, but it clears Kodak of a lot of legacy costs as well as unloads it's shrinking legacy businesses.

The division includes analog still film but not motion picture film, which Kodak will keep for the time being. They plan on manufacturing film under contract to the new company, which will handle the business and marketing side now.

Not sure if this gives us a couple more years of analog film or not. It will be a temporary solution though. IIRC, Agfa did something similar several years ago and that didn't end well.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04...or-imaging-units-to-win-exit-from-bankruptcy/

dan c

 

For those of us who still work with film (motion-picture that is), this is encouraging...

http://www.studiodaily.com/2013/05/...its-film-lab-and-studio-relationship-manager/

-DLedin

 

Earlier this week it came out that Kodak is closing its acetate facility.

Acetate is the plastic base of film on which the emulsion is coated. They say they've stockpiled enough for a number of years and will use an outside supplier when they run out.

My guess is they have a pretty firm idea when they'll stop producing film altogether and made enough film base to get them through. The last real customer for analog film is cinema, of course, and that market's drying up very fast now. So really, I see this as the first seriously major step towards the end of film.

I'm continuing to stockpile Tri-X in my freezer.

http://petapixel.com/2013/06/12/kodak-axes-acetate-film-base-production/

dan c

 

Not that still photography with film is exactly on the upswing, but doesn't this only affect motion picture negative film production? I thought film for still photography hasn't used an acetate base in a long time, instead using polyester.

 

That is sad. I really, really liked to shoot in Tri-X, back in the day -- hands-down my favorite still film. I still remember it was rated at 400, which is surprisingly slow compared to modern digital cameras.

 

at this stage in my life I enjoy a high quality digital camera more than ever...I want it now, and digital gives it that to me...

 

Yeah, there's some confusion here. According to this article from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle most film, including cinema film, uses polyester. So what is acetate still used for? Perhaps sheet and medium format film?

http://www.democratandchronicle.com...30045/Kodak-ending-acetate-base-manufacturing

dan c

 

I would assume (but am not sure) that large format (still) film is also polyester.

As far as I've been able to gather, polyester is used for prints, but acetate is used for negatives, because it can be spliced with film cement, and because it breaking in a camera would cause fewer problems than the camera breaking (due to the fact that polyester is much stronger).

 

Lukpak is correct. Acetate is used in camera stocks. A quick look at Kodak's website shows that the Portra & Ektar still films are acetate for the 35mm & 120 formats. Sheet films of these stocks are estar (polyester).

In motion picture films, camera stocks are also acetate. At one time there was a choice between acetate and estar for print stocks. These days print stock is estar.

I would assume that when the article you referenced mentions polyester and motion picture film, it's referring to print stock. Running estar stock in a camera would be risky because, as lukpak mentions, in the event of a malfunction, the camera would most likely break before the stock would.

-DLedin

 

And you could "push" it to 1200 fairly easily, which was ideal for available light sports photography.

 

Cool, thanks for that.

So what we can figure here is Kodak will no longer make the acetate base used in camera negative film, which is pretty much what any of us who shoot some analog will use anyway, right? Still a shame. I also still contend that they have no long term intention of buying acetate from an outside supplier, and have stockpiled just enough to get them through a phaseout. Hopefully I'm wrong.

dan c

 

I know photojournalists had creative ways of creeping up to around 3200 with Tri-X way back in the past. It was ugly but it did the trick. IMHO it's still the most beautiful B&W film out there, and I much prefer it to converting digital to B&W. Shot between 800 and 1000 asa, it's got tonality and an intangible texture that you just can't fake.

Digital cameras now are incredible at high speeds though, there's just no denying that. The newest DSLRs can shoot into ASA numbers that would've sounded like science fiction when I was getting into photography in the late-80s. Like Vidiot said, 400 was considered 'fast' and 1600 was 'high speed'. Now a photographer can dial a Canon 1Dx up past 100,000 asa and still get very good results. Crazy stuff.

dan c

 

Interesting...I had assumed that 35mm still photography film used a polyester base these days, but the spec sheets for the pro films I've looked at show an acetate base (as DLedin indicates for Kodak above). Is this a consumer/professional distinction? While I'm not 100% certain, I could swear that all of the (consumer) negatives I've handled have been polyester.

 

Easy to confirm. Pull out a strip of negative and if you can easily tear a sprocket hole with your fingers it's acetate. Estar stretches and even then only under great under duress, it doesn't break.

 

Yeah, that's why I thought I haven't come across acetate.

 

When I process my own B&W film (Tri-X and T-Max) I tear the end tab off with my teeth rather than use scissors. (I also pry open the canister rather than use a can opener, because I like to be badass that way. ). It always rips easily but I have to get it started with my teeth, so I still don't really know if it's acetate or polyester.

dan c

 

Dan, you must be a bad ass... with excellent dental care. It is hard to imagine the estar film stock I worked with ages (and ages!) ago as being able to be ripped (though possibly the newer stuff is thinner?) As you note, we'd have scissors in the darkroom to clip off the amount of dupe stock we needed for striking a print and then we'd return the rest of the reel to the fridge.