Kodak struggles to find focus in digital era

Kodak is such an important institution that I would be crushed it if went away or was broken up and sold off in parts.

Sadly, the list of stumbles and flops from this giant is staggering.
They didn't see Fuji and their super-saturated films storming right behind them, they invested millions into their own short-lived video system after the Japanese giants owned the industry, and most recently pushed the feeble APS film format on the world just as digital was taking over.
Can they recover?
Dan C


By BEN DOBBIN
AP business writer

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- First, it was new competition. Then new technology. Now, analysts believe struggling Eastman Kodak Co. has some two to three years to find a place in the world of digital photography.
If not, the venerable pioneer of mass-market picture-taking, which grew fat in the 20th century off high-margin, silver-halide film packaged in ubiquitous yellow boxes, could begin to fade into history.
The chemical-photography businesses that turned Kodak into an American icon with one of the most recognizable brand names on Earth have been quietly on the wane for a decade -- but their decline is suddenly picking up speed as filmless digital cameras become hot sellers.
"Digital is here definitively," said Eugene Fram, a marketing professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. "The question is, can Kodak come up with the new products, the new insights that make sense out of digital? They have to be able to execute fast. They've got to differentiate themselves because they're going very heavily into a commodity market."
Kodak has poured more than $4 billion into digital research and related technologies in the last decade. It has secured hundreds of patents and developed a vast array of products and services -- some innovative, competitively priced and proving popular with consumers, such as its Picture CD software, online photo-sharing service and easy-to-use line of digital cameras.
For all that, the world's biggest photography company is still struggling to find its footing in this sizzling but rapidly evolving arena. Digital generated only about $3.8 billion of $12.8 billion in 2002 sales, and it is having to shift its cost structure to keep pace.
On Wednesday, as it reported flat sales and a 60 percent drop in second-quarter profits, Kodak turned once more to the corporate ax. It plans to eliminate up to 6,000 jobs by year-end -- shrinking its global payroll to around 62,000 from a peak of 136,500 just 20 years ago.
About half the cuts, mainly targeting the traditional photography divisions, will be made in Rochester, the fading manufacturing hub where Kodak employs fewer than 22,000 people. That will reduce its local work force to the lowest level since the Great Depression.
In Colorado, Kodak has 1,700 employees in its manufacturing operations in Windsor and about 2,000 statewide. Officials aren't sure how the cuts will affect Colorado operations.
"I think we're at the point where we have to get on with reality: The consumer traditional business is going to begin a slow decline, though it's not going to fall off a cliff," said chief executive Dan Carp, a Kodak veteran who took up the reins in 2000.
A century earlier, Kodak founder George Eastman came out with a $1 Brownie, turning point-and-shoot photography into an overnight craze. By 1927, Kodak held a virtual monopoly of the U.S. photographic industry.
By the 1980s, Kodak still cornered nearly two-thirds of color-film sales worldwide. But excessive caution in exploiting new markets, such as point-and-shoot 35mm cameras, was quickly taking its toll.
The innovative Japanese have not only plundered Kodak's fat profit margins. Tokyo-based Fuji has jumped from obscurity 25 years ago to within a whisker of edging out Kodak as No. 1.
In the even faster-paced and much more crowded digital marketplace, where profit margins are far tighter, caution could spell extinction.
"They've got 24 months to make it all happen," predicted John Larish, a consultant and writer on digital photography. "I think the optimistic side is that digital cameras will produce many more pictures to be printed, so there's a tremendous value there potentially for Kodak."
The switch by consumers to digital photography is coming on faster than expected, cutting deeply into the film, paper and photofinishing businesses that still anchor Kodak's profits and image. By year-end, industry analysts expect digital cameras to begin outselling film cameras for the first time in the United States.
"Kodak has over the last three years taken a position that it can no longer be all things to all people," said Don Franz, editor of Photofinishing News.
"It was an important move. The struggle for Kodak is to find out what parts of the market it can continue to excel in and determine what parts it should allow others to take the lead."

 

I'm sure this is only a very small element in the erosion of Kodaks market, but dropping Ektachrome 25 and expecting everyone to just use 64 was a mistake. Fuji Velvia 50F now appears to be the transparency of choice and I suspect that many people who have gone over also use Fuji negative film as well.

The only Kodak film I buy now is their EIR Colo(u)r Infrared and they aren't going to get fat from that

All the best - Andrew

 

Workshops often rely on sponsors to offset costs, and Kodak has been a reliable sponsor for all things photographic for generations.

I attended a workshop a couple of years ago and Kodak was a sponsor but they decided at the last minute not to send a rep.
Each student simply received 4 rolls of complimentary film. What put Kodak's problem in perspective was the fact that no one at the workshop was even shooting film. Nikon handed out D1 and CoolPix cameras, Lexar provided storage media, Adobe provided software, Apple provided workstations, and Epson provided printers and the digital projection for "slideshows".

Several months ago I went to the National Press Photographers Association convention and Kodak was nowhere to be found. They've been associated with the NPPA for decades and they weren't there. It was sad in a way.

Dan C

 

You're going to be able to develop film in fewer and fewer places. The grocery and drug stores used to get pick-up and delivery. But between digital cameras and big chains like Target and WalMart peforming developing in-house, the delivery/pick-up services no longer have the customer base to remain viable.

 

Do they still even give you an option to have film developed at something other than those shoddy in-house autodevelopers? I always opted for Kodalux or Qualex, or whatever it was called, and always got back some nice prints. For some reason those in-house developers come back with flat, uninteresting prints.

In short, I'd hate to have 'just anyone' develop my film or transparencies on a machine. I still like digital for my day to day shooting, but still like to use film for my *really* good outdoor photography.

 

There should be at least one or two "Pro" developing houses in most areas that cater to special order work such as stuff like 4 x 5 internegs from 35mm positives.

 

Kodak what?

Hey guys.
Some of you should check out the Audio Visual Science forum.
There has been a thread posted under the {digital projectors over$5000}
Follow a thread under Laser Projectors.
The coming CEDIA show in september might show you where kodak is heading.

 

By the way .
What's the situation in the states with dye transfer,dead and gone?

 

Last I heard Kodak phased out their dye transfer materials over 10 years ago, but I haven't checked about it recently.

They also killed my favorite color film of all time, Kodachrome 200. After a lot of fans made noise Kodak brought it back in limited amounts. Now it's like $20 per roll!

Dan C

 

Dan,

which Kodachrome is this ? Is it the Kodachrome KL200 ?

All the best - Andrew

 

KL200, the amateur version, is still under $10. The pro Kodachrome 200 is priced like gold.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh4/controller/home?O=&A=ShowProduct&Q=&sku=28268&BI=88

KL200 is still amazing film. Get it while you can and freeze it.
Dan C

 

You had it processed or you had dye transfer prints made?

Dan C

 

Dan,

how about this http://www.cambridgeworld.com/kodak_slide_film.htm for PKL-200

I'm a Fuji kinda guy

All the best - Andrew

 

Dye Transfer

I found this quote from this site:
http://www.plaidworks.com/ctein/dyetrans.htm

"Second, dye transfer printing requires special materials which were made only by the Eastman Kodak Company. In 1991 Kodak discontinued a special film called Pan Matrix Film which I need to make prints directly from color negatives. In 1994 Kodak abruptly and without warning ceased production of all dye transfer materials. Presently, there are no sources of new materials, although Jim Browning and others are trying to change that."

 

Nothing but the real thing can do these prints justice. They have a depth and tonality that boggles the mind.
Ernst Haas was one of the greatest masters of the process. I was lucky to see a collection of his work in the early 90s at a gallery in Santa Fe.
Again, this page doesn't do it justice.
http://nzcp.wellington.net.nz/nzcpexpo/nzcpprnt/prints03.htm

Dan C

 

The design of this site is pretty weird, but go to the color gallery for examples:

http://www.ernst-haas.com/index2.html

Dan C

 

Check this site out!

This one's very cool:

http://www.peterfetterman.com/artists/haas/haas_pic01.html

 

Here's an excellent dye transfer print by Elliot Porter.

http://www.neilfolberg.com/755.html

 

If I might be nosy Steve - whattid you shoot with some of the Bee-yootiful 25 speed film??? I have some slides of spring flowers on 25 speed Kodak from about 20 years ago that I really oughta have some prints made from - just holding the slides up to some sunlight is unbelievably beautiful. Fuji is rolling strong, but nothing looks like that sloooooooow Kodak film...