View Full Version : Kodak Axes Digicams, but keeps film
Aristophanes
02-12-2012, 10:59 AM
There is a fantastic and diverse collection of high-end gear that is now far more affordable than it ever was. And I see young people coming over to try film gear all the time. Juxtapose that marvelous assortment of TLRs, RFs, SLRs, view cameras, pinholes, and other cool doo-dads against the lack of variety that is the current digital market, and realize that young people like to be different. So let us summon our most positive natures and help them... and not continue to whine in this manner.
"Different" is a marketing campaign.
While Apple was blasting that slogan everywhere they were also working very hard (through the fellow who is their new CEO) to drive their prices down because the single biggest problem was Apple's high prices.
Or, as one analyst said, "Anyone can think different, but fewer can afford it".
Even if you drive the capital cost of the cameras down, there is still operational costs and time (which is money) to purchase ad process film, and, increasingly, mail order.
Different...but affordable. The industry superstructure now is not about affordability. It's about salvage cameras mated to increasingly expensive film. The delta between the two is probably no greater than it ever was, but eventually all those old cameras will wear out with no replacements in sight, and in any case, there's not enough older gear (most older P&S AF's are not durable) to drive volume sales.
Threfore the delta between the cost of the camera and and the cost of the film will narrow on the rise. Not good ad it's already happening. Kodak's increasing prices. This is about recovering revenues lost to those cheap old cameras and riving that portion of the discretionary spending back to the film itself. They have no choice. They have to stem the revenue losses to survive.
keithwms
02-12-2012, 11:12 AM
"Different" is a marketing campaign.
It isn't mere marketing though. Difference is at every step of the way we work with analogue imagery. Moreover, prints produced in this way are becoming more rare, even as images sourced by other means and replicated all over cyberspace to the point of nauseating ubiquity... which implies something about their long term value.
The analogue difference is also obvious when you consider today's pro-sumer DSLR with all it's buttons and features... many of which are virtually identical among competitor's brands. I loon on my shelf and see a lot more gear variety... many different pieces finely tuned to particular purposes. We need to realize how important that is. No matter how accomplished you are as an artist, your tools still do affect your output; gear does affect creative thinking.
Roger Cole
02-12-2012, 11:30 AM
Agreed. I think it is VERY important to say this.
I have not on APUG, nor on any other forum I have visited, ever clicked "Ignore" on anyone. No matter what they said. About the topic, or about me. Not even once. Not ever.
To my way of thinking, to do so would be trying to surround myself with only people who will tell me exactly what I want to hear. And only what I want to hear. It's a very dangerous road to go down. I won't do that. And I'm thrilled to see that I'm not the only one.
And if someone chooses to Ignore me? Fine. But rest assured that I will still read every word you write. Even when - especially when - I disagree. Partly because of my respect for your right to speak differing points of view. But mostly because of my respect for myself.
Thanks,
Ken
Suit yourselves of course but I DO have people on ignore on virtually ever forum I'm on (the previously mentioned FADU is, so far, an exception - they do seem to be a very pleasant bunch) but not for disagreeing with me. I ignore people who are nasty about it, "nasty" being entirely up to my interpretation of course. Essentially, when they make disagreements personal they go away from my universe.
In fact I've stayed with Firefox 3.6 specifically because of the plugin FfVb which the developer stopped supporting and distributing when 4.x came out. It allows ignoring users on vBulletin forums far more effectively than the ignore function built into vBulletin, which still leaves a blank area where their post was with a link you can click to see it and leaves quotes intact. Ignore someone with FfVb and it removes their existence from your reading. No "not shown because xxx is on your ignore list" no link to click, even anything someone else quotes that has their name in the quote tag is GONE. It occasionally looks oddly like folks are talking to themselves but thoroughly avoids the "train wreck syndrome" of the little link - you can't help looking even though you know once you do you'll regret it, so you do, then you regret it!
So far I haven't ignored Aristophanes or CGW because they HAVEN'T been personal or nasty, just repeating the same arguments ad nauseam. But I admit I'm getting sorely tempted. It's nothing to do with surrounding myself only with people who agree. Others present those arguments without the incessant gloom and doom drumbeat, and I'm not even tempted to ignore them. But ultimately I go online and into online forums because I enjoy discussing topics of mutual interest with others. When people make that unpleasant rather than enjoyable, I reserve the right to remove them from my little hobby within a hobby. I'm not offended if someone does likewise to me.
Henning Serger
02-12-2012, 11:33 AM
Nice try, Henning. LSI's not exactly an engine of economic growth.
O.k., your opinion is that this 'low-fidelity' film shooter group of about two million people is not worth to be looked at. They are peanuts in your eyes.
Kodak, Foma, Fuji, UEI, Freestyle, B&H, Adorama, Firstcall, Maco, Fotoimpex and some dozen other companies worldwide offer lots of products and services for this group.
At least they don't share your opinion. They know the numbers, they satisfy the demand.
Regards,
Henning
pentaxuser
02-12-2012, 11:41 AM
[QUOTE=Roger Cole;1301162]Suit yourselves of course but I DO have people on ignore on virtually ever forum I'm on (the previously mentioned FADU is, so far, an exception - they do seem to be a very pleasant bunch) but not for disagreeing with me.QUOTE]
That's my experience of FADU also, Roger. Once unpleasantness creeps into a site it is very difficult to restore the previous atmosphere, unfortunately
pentaxuser
O.k., your opinion is that this 'low-fidelity' film shooter group of about two million people is not worth to be looked at. They are peanuts in your eyes.
Kodak, Foma, Fuji, UEI, Freestyle, B&H, Adorama, Firstcall, Maco, Fotoimpex and some dozen other companies worldwide offer lots of products and services for this group.
At least they don't share your opinion. They know the numbers, they satisfy the demand.
Regards,
Henning
Not sure you grasp the impact of the professional shift to digital over the past decade. Their enormous consumption of film materials kept the quality pro labs afloat for the rest of us. Amateurs shooting plastic cameras and buying and developing a few rolls a year won't even come close to restoring the demand for film and related services. Pro labs die because their scale of operation is overkill for the trickle of business--chemistry costs alone aren't often even met by current volume. Somehow I don't see Dianas and Holgas riding to the rescue.
Henning Serger
02-12-2012, 11:53 AM
I am not seeing 91 million.
Why are you intentionally refering to the wrong post? Sorry, that is a very bad discussion culture. Please stop it.
The 91 million number has nothing to do with the market of low-fidelity film shooters (Holga, Superheadz, Lomo etc.).
I've clearly explained in my other post that the 91 millions is the number of film based cameras which was sold by the member companies of the CIPA in the period from 2000 to 2010.
As not all camera manufactuers are members of the CIPA (e.g. some European and all Chinese manufacturers) this number is even lower than the actually sold cameras.
You said that one problem for photo film manufacturing is a lack of film cameras.
I said it is definitely not, because there is indeed a huge excess of film based cameras out there.
Much much more cameras than film shooters.
The film manufacturers have to face severe challenges, no doubt about it at all, no one here is denying that. But a lack of film cameras is simply not existing.
It's more the other way round: At no time in photographic history it was so easy and affordable to get the best film based cameras. I know lots of young photographers who get into shooting film because of very affordable (even for pupils and students) excellent film cameras.
A DSLR was too expensive for them, instead they took one or two of the film camera legends and started to shoot film.
Regards,
Henning
Roger Cole
02-12-2012, 12:02 PM
[QUOTE=Roger Cole;1301162]Suit yourselves of course but I DO have people on ignore on virtually ever forum I'm on (the previously mentioned FADU is, so far, an exception - they do seem to be a very pleasant bunch) but not for disagreeing with me.QUOTE]
That's my experience of FADU also, Roger. Once unpleasantness creeps into a site it is very difficult to restore the previous atmosphere, unfortunately
pentaxuser
It works both ways too, which can also be fortunate. Pleasant behavior breeds pleasant behavior. I'm not prone to going off on people severly and unprovoked but I just last night went back to FADU to try to edit one of my posts. I hadn't been too bad or anything, just someone suggested that rotary processing was far inferior to normal inversion. That's not been my experience at all and I really love my Jobo, so I had first typed "nonsense!" followed by my comments, then edited before posting to "uh, I'm trying to be nice here..." and my comments. Then later I thought "no need to have even said that, just offer my experience with the Jobo.." so I tried to go back and change it.
There isn't enough civility in the world today. I'm not one of those American anglophiles who think everything is better in the old country (that would be Ireland for me, several generations ago, anyway) but it does seem civility is more valued or at least more common on your side of the pond.
I also did some experimenting here and found that something about APUG isn't recognized by FfVb so I can't use that even if I wanted to do so. I just get "No one to ignore." I also found that ignoring someone here does NOT leave their post visible as a "post has been hidden because xxx is on your ignore list" with a link to click. The posts are gone, but quoted material remains.
Aristophanes
02-12-2012, 12:46 PM
O.k., your opinion is that this 'low-fidelity' film shooter group of about two million people is not worth to be looked at. They are peanuts in your eyes.
Kodak, Foma, Fuji, UEI, Freestyle, B&H, Adorama, Firstcall, Maco, Fotoimpex and some dozen other companies worldwide offer lots of products and services for this group.
At least they don't share your opinion. They know the numbers, they satisfy the demand.
They shoot too few rolls of film to make a difference.
The affordability of roll and cartridge film was based on tens of millions shooting hundreds of millions of rolls per year. Billions, actually.
If Lomo was making a difference labs would not be closing. Local processing is closing everywhere.
Aristophanes
02-12-2012, 01:07 PM
Why are you intentionally refering to the wrong post? Sorry, that is a very bad discussion culture. Please stop it.
The 91 million number has nothing to do with the market of low-fidelity film shooters (Holga, Superheadz, Lomo etc.).
I've clearly explained in my other post that the 91 millions is the number of film based cameras which was sold by the member companies of the CIPA in the period from 2000 to 2010.
As not all camera manufactuers are members of the CIPA (e.g. some European and all Chinese manufacturers) this number is even lower than the actually sold cameras.
You said that one problem for photo film manufacturing is a lack of film cameras.
I said it is definitely not, because there is indeed a huge excess of film based cameras out there.
Much much more cameras than film shooters.
The film manufacturers have to face severe challenges, no doubt about it at all, no one here is denying that. But a lack of film cameras is simply not existing.
It's more the other way round: At no time in photographic history it was so easy and affordable to get the best film based cameras. I know lots of young photographers who get into shooting film because of very affordable (even for pupils and students) excellent film cameras.
A DSLR was too expensive for them, instead they took one or two of the film camera legends and started to shoot film.
Regards,
Henning
The capital cost to buy into film has dropped, but the operational costs have risen substantially, and will continue to do so. The cost equivalence still favours digital because of computing ubiquity and utility vs. the dedicated processing structure of film. Kodak is raising prices to capture that lost demand.
The lack of film cameras is not affecting the consumer market...yet, although repair is a major issue as you now add a risk uncertainty to that capital cost that was not there before. Ever send a Yashica to Mark Hama? There goes your cost advantage right there.
Where the lack of a corresponding camera manufacturing input will kill film is on the investor/creditor dynamic. Money for future earnings relies on future customers for the product. If they do not see that and believe you are only servicing salvage customers, credit and investment will disappear, and very quickly. This is exactly what is happening to Kodak. Before you have consumption you need investment. Kodak is seeing disinvestment.
Rudeofus
02-12-2012, 02:05 PM
Not sure you grasp the impact of the professional shift to digital over the past decade. Their enormous consumption of film materials kept the quality pro labs afloat for the rest of us. Amateurs shooting plastic cameras and buying and developing a few rolls a year won't even come close to restoring the demand for film and related services. Pro labs die because their scale of operation is overkill for the trickle of business--chemistry costs alone aren't often even met by current volume. Somehow I don't see Dianas and Holgas riding to the rescue.
No analog camera type or new hipster scheme whatsoever will restore the analog film market to the levels of 1999, and nobody has claimed this here. Viability of film as a product doesn't require 1999's sales volumes. Pro labs die by the dozen because the tsunami of digital images created every day thins out to a tiny trickle of images which ever get printed, not because Holga owners don't shoot enough film. In the inglorious old days getting 36 prints from a roll drove the sales volume, not the roll of film or development. And most digital printing is done at cut throat (for the printer, not the consumer) prices which pro labs are not set up to compete with.
The capital cost to buy into film has dropped, but the operational costs have risen substantially, and will continue to do so. The cost equivalence still favours digital because of computing ubiquity and utility vs. the dedicated processing structure of film. Kodak is raising prices to capture that lost demand.
Given the ubiquity of cell phones with builtin cameras and the precipitous fall in price of used digital equipment I don't see too many folks who shoot analog because a digicam is too expensive. If I look at the small analog crowd in our local photo club, most have a digicam or DSLR but get more satisfaction out of film, same thing seems to be the case here on APUG. When you go to larger formats, though, analog does have a price advantage.
Where the lack of a corresponding camera manufacturing input will kill film is on the investor/creditor dynamic. Money for future earnings relies on future customers for the product. If they do not see that and believe you are only servicing salvage customers, credit and investment will disappear, and very quickly. This is exactly what is happening to Kodak. Before you have consumption you need investment. Kodak is seeing disinvestment.
Given your analyses and statements companies like Ilford or Lomo can't exist and Impossible is impossible, yet they all thrive. I seriously doubt anyone here really knows and understands the "investor/creditor dynamic" when it comes to photographic film, I certainly don't but also suggest it may be very different from paper machines.
michaelbsc
02-12-2012, 02:26 PM
....Money for future earnings relies on future customers for the product. If they do not see that and believe you are only servicing salvage customers, credit and investment will disappear, and very quickly. This is exactly what is happening to Kodak. Before you have consumption you need investment. Kodak is seeing disinvestment.
I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to grasp. Kodak is *NOT* in a boutique market. They are/were a serious industrial player. We, as a hobby market, offer a substantial boutique market along the same lines that the other things hanging on the pegs at Michael's or AC Moore's offers.
But we're used to riding on the coat tails of a thriving industry that's now dying.
In a way we're like the millions of cars driving up and down I-95 every day for free. Who pays that bill? Why you did. The price for driving on I-95 is disguised in the selling price of shipping your major appliance and furniture over the highway, or the other do-hickey you bought at the widget store last weekend that got shipped by truck. And if trucking went under, you'd pay to drive.
Likewise, if our benefactor that really pays the true cost to keep film going vanishes (commercial users), then film prices go up. Will we pay $25/roll for Tri-X and double our usage? If so Kodak's revenue column will look good. But that's unlikely.
I don't like to hear anything Aristophanes is saying any more than the next guy. And I'm tired of it too. But that doesn't mean he's not speaking the truth. The banks really don't care what we think, and they don't care about film or Kodak. In fact banks don't care about any of the widgets that any of their customers make. They care about the financials. Why, because the bank's owners, the shareholders tell them to care about the financials. Who are the shareholders? In large part probably your retirement fund. Want to live broke in your old age so you can have film?
Is Aristophanes a prophet from god? No.
Will he be wrong about something in his predictions? Yes, depending on how specific he gets. But the overall trend is right.
What, exactly,will he be wrong about? I don't know; my crystal ball isn't any better than yours.
I live on a barrier island. It's like looking at the beach just before a hurricane blows in. I can predict that a lot of houses will get damaged. I can predict that the ones in the worst shape will "most likely" sustain the most damage and the ones in the best shape will probably fare the best. But you can't say for sure that a wave won't crash some floating projectile right through the best house on the beach missing the hovel next door. But there's going to be damage. Aristophanes is saying Kodak is the beach, and declining film sales is the hurricane. And this is a big storm. There's going to be damage.
I didn't start saving glass window panes 10 years ago because I thought film would last until I died, and my hair is already pretty gray. I've been pleasantly surprised, and I really hope that I can leave those window panes to someone else who will need them when I do finally die. (No, no. That freezer full of 8x10 is not a hoard. I am rescuing it from the hoarders. Sirius taught me how to do that.)
MB
michaelbsc
02-12-2012, 02:37 PM
Given your analyses and statements companies like Ilford or Lomo can't exist and Impossible is impossible, yet they all thrive. I seriously doubt anyone here really knows and understands the "investor/creditor dynamic" when it comes to photographic film, I certainly don't but also suggest it may be very different from paper machines.
Lomo/Impossible are very, very much a boutique market. Which is extremely different than Kodak. The Ilford you refer to pretty well straddles the line, and since the old Ilford (a point many folks seem to forget is that the "new" Ilford is really Harman Technology Ltd.) completely fell apart as very early casualty of exactly the same market forces we're talking about, the point is self-evident. No Ilford could not and did not survive. End of story. Thank you for proving the point.
Thankfully Simon and crew were able to rescue a jewel from the wreckage and we have Harman Technology Ltd which markets the brand Ilford.
ambaker
02-12-2012, 02:56 PM
It seems to me that there are actually two discussions intertwined here. The survival of film, and the survival of Kodak.
It may not be that either depends on the other. In truth I doubt that this is the case. I believe the question to be, can Kodak survive in film? I certainly hope so. I like Kodak film, and usually shoot Kodak film. Are there others that are "better"? I'll leave that to the "experts"... I prefer Kodak. Not based on personal testing, not based on patriotism, not based on anything but perhaps a comfortable association, and a lifetime of seeing those red and yellow boxes. Perhaps too many years of Kodak moments and advertising have made me incapable of unbiased judgement.
But then what I do feel that I do see clearly is just this. The single most important deciding factor will be, does the management feel that it is worth the expenditure and effort required to restructure to the point that they can meet their monetary targets? That will be the sole decider of the future. They will put their restructuring dollars where they feel they will get the best returns. It is, after all, their job to do so.
Hopefully continuation in the film business will be viable for them...
---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=36.790782,-90.481010
Ian Grant
02-12-2012, 02:59 PM
A point missed is there's a very boyant market for film cameras the glut of them is over and prices are rising whether on Ebay, camera stores, sales on forums or camera fairs etc.
The last few camera fairs I've been to there have been a lot of young people often students buying film cameras from 120 folders to higher end 35mm SLRs and MF equipment, and a surprisingly high prportion of girls. Photography was once mainly a male dominated profession and hobby but thats now changed completely.
We have people only half in the know saying filmsales are down while at least 3 manufacturers have stated that film sales are up in the past year. Perhaps some of that misconception is because in the case of Kodak cine film sales are down while still film sales are up.
Perhaps it's the Lomo movement that's spurring new converts to film then with their appetite wetted they want better quality.
We still have new film cameras being introduced so the doom & gloom merchants need to think a little harder about what's really going on. After all who'd have expected Ilford to sell out the first production run of their new pinhole camera in such a short time.
Ian
I think someone was wondering if Kodak sold disposable cameras, I went to the pharmacy today and saw a few types still avail (this pharmacy is new also), if I am imagining that someone was wondering this, sorry, this tread is way long and I couldn't find the person's query...
http://i541.photobucket.com/albums/gg361/47Frogs/photo-58.jpg
I think someone was wondering if Kodak sold disposable cameras, I went to the pharmacy today and saw a few types still avail (this pharmacy is new also), if I am imagining that someone was wondering this, sorry, this tread is way long and I couldn't find the person's query...
http://i541.photobucket.com/albums/gg361/47Frogs/photo-58.jpg
They're all over dollar stores in the Toronto area--right next to the Maxell cassettes and VHS tapes! Kodak flash one shots loaded with ISO800 for 2 bucks--bargain!
tomalophicon
02-12-2012, 03:24 PM
you guys are lucky. I can't find tapes to copy my CDs to so I can listen to them in my car, which only has a casette deck.
Steve Smith
02-12-2012, 03:27 PM
In a way we're like the millions of cars driving up and down I-95 every day for free. Who pays that bill? Why you did. The price for driving on I-95 is disguised in the selling price of shipping your major appliance and furniture over the highway, or the other do-hickey you bought at the widget store last weekend that got shipped by truck. And if trucking went under, you'd pay to drive.
Can you explain this to us non-Americans?
Steve.
No analog camera type or new hipster scheme whatsoever will restore the analog film market to the levels of 1999, and nobody has claimed this here. Viability of film as a product doesn't require 1999's sales volumes. Pro labs die by the dozen because the tsunami of digital images created every day thins out to a tiny trickle of images which ever get printed, not because Holga owners don't shoot enough film. In the inglorious old days getting 36 prints from a roll drove the sales volume, not the roll of film or development. And most digital printing is done at cut throat (for the printer, not the consumer) prices which pro labs are not set up to compete with.
Given the ubiquity of cell phones with builtin cameras and the precipitous fall in price of used digital equipment I don't see too many folks who shoot analog because a digicam is too expensive. If I look at the small analog crowd in our local photo club, most have a digicam or DSLR but get more satisfaction out of film, same thing seems to be the case here on APUG. When you go to larger formats, though, analog does have a price advantage.
Given your analyses and statements companies like Ilford or Lomo can't exist and Impossible is impossible, yet they all thrive. I seriously doubt anyone here really knows and understands the "investor/creditor dynamic" when it comes to photographic film, I certainly don't but also suggest it may be very different from paper machines.
Pro labs die because pros stopped shooting film years ago--it's simple. If you ever saw the sheer volume of film materials a busy lab handled a decade ago, you "get" why they're dying or dead. Quality printing survives--largely due to pro demand.
Any camera club I've been around dropped film en masse 8-10 years ago--most ended slide competitions 6-8 years ago. Frankly know no one who regularly or solely shoots film in these groups any longer.
Harmon will hang on. Impossible? Haven't heard raves from friends who've shot it. Lomo? C'mon.