No more film R&D, we're going digital: Kodak

It would. Ditto settings for e.g. color saturation. If the cameras don't
get them, software will.

 

When I started doing spectroscopy in 1950, Kodak provided the most-used
forms and plates for spectroscopy, and also for astronomy. Both fields have
gone substantially to electronic photodetcors, including imaging arrays.
Kodak stopped making those emulsions several years ago. Kodak always said
they made these special emulsions as a service only, and did not make money
on them. The announcement indicates that they don't see the film business
as profitable much longer.

The next question is how much longer it will be profitable for them to make
print papers.

I'd guess there were cries of alarm when IBM stopped making typewriters.

 

|
| I'd guess there were cries of alarm when IBM stopped making typewriters.
|
Nope, IBM was the leading computer company at the time.

Why is that Kodak was a leading digicam company 10 years ago, and risks
disappearing today?

 

????????????????????????????????????

You seen their range? Hardly disappearing and trust me, no problem selling
them either.

 

Few are aware of Kodak's long term leadership in digital photography. They
have developed and produced some of the top electronic imaging parts, and
they are very well known in the military, intelligence, scientific
instrument, and astronomy fields for them. Now that the competition has
heated up in the consumer area, they see a way a leveraging their R&D into
big money.

The announcement only mentions a suspension of efforts in consumer films.
What about professional products? Certainly our choices from Kodak have
been declining recently, but will they keep supporting and improving
professional photo products? If they do, any improvements will trickle down
into the consumer products, which remain excellent.

BTW, Kodak has been a leader in devloping digital methods for x-ray, too.

 

What has that to do with the fact that "Kodak was
already dead when it introduced "Instamatic""? You
seem to be a few bucks short in the cognition department

 

Kodak made a couple of fold down bellows cameras in the
late 40's, copies of Ansco 30's models but with
inferior lenses. Essentially they have only been a
film and paper producer and a chemical packager.

The problem was it represented a desperate gasp by a
firm built on solid dead wood. A late century revival
of the 620 box camera, while its core business was on a
slippery slope that got steeper day by day.

 

SUCCESSFULLY!

 

That's not a fact, it's your assertion, and I challenged it. Successfully,
as it seems, because you've yet to support it with anything other than
repetition.

DS

 

With their management — guaranteed to make all the
wrong decisions.

 

Excellent analogy!!!

 

But Kodak's engineers are oriented to film and paper
and they seem to be unconscious when it comes to
hardware. Also with dwindling cash flow, R&D funds
will dry up quickly.

 

One of the big profit centers at Kodak is xray films.
With hospitals going 100% digital that will wither and
eventually die. I have been discussing the economics
of digital xrays with a pal who operates a successful
radiology practice. On another year or so the price of
DX equipment will become more affordable and with the
elimination of darkroom space and huge film file
storage costs, private labs will convert.

 

And with a few more minutes and "Photoshop" crop the
errors and do a professional retouch job on Grandma's wrinkles.

Touché on that

 

Few quality pros would touch Kodachrome. To get colour
fidelity they shot eastman colour negative like 5254
and 5246, later the improved version of Kodacolor, then
printed the slides on eastman color movie print film.
When I was active in NY there were a half dozen labs
that did nothing else. If you got Kchrome in a new
emulsion batch, fresh shipped from the factory in the
winter time, and stored it in the freezer, and got
consistent test shots over several random rolls,
processed every roll in fresh chemicals, you had a good
chance for good results. But if the colour quality was
paramount as for magazine spreads and art books etc,
negative film allowed for colour adjustments.

 

Stern you are a few eggs short of a dozen. What I said
about instamatic simply provided a time line but you
went into a great defense of a piece of junk. What you
wrote was/is irrelevant to my post. I only responded,
which you might note i rarely respond to your posts,
because I am trying to increase the traffic stats in us.talk.headline-news.

In the 65 years since I first learned about darkroom
procedures and photo emulsions, depth of field, how to
focus an 8x10 view camera, make wet plates (glass) for
the same, etc........ I have had little to do with
Kodak consumer products...... as little as I could
........ usually I got better quality from Ilford or
Fuji, and of course the Eastman commercial line was a
different ball of wax.

Therefore I could care less about the instamatic film
sales ploy -- it was just another of Kodak's efforts to
increase verichrome and later kodacolor film sales like
the brownie pinhole box camera.

Please learn to read what is on the screen not what is
rattling around in your cranium.

 

What an amusing little yahoo boy you are.
Mark_

 

An interesting point. But just what *is* the realistic archival life
of CDRs?

Early in the piece they seemed to be claiming "100s of years". Then
we had Kodak Gold CDRs with turned to silver and then back to "silver
plus gold" for "six times the [unspecified] life", or something like
that.

Finally, a week ago, the local ABC morning computer guru said that
"new Dutch research has shown that the life of CDRs may be a little as
two years". Now that's a bit sad, if true.

Let's be optimistic and assume they're out by a factor of ten and
allow a fudge of 2X, and we get about 40 years. Still not real
brilliant when you consider you can still make good prints from
B&W negatives 100 years old, and Kodachrome slides can do better than
40 years anyway.


Cheers, Phred.

 

All wisdom and knowledge will surely die with you, Pulver.

Could you? Then you obviously care to some degree.

Don't s'pose you meant that you *couldn't* care less, now, did you?

DS

 

LOL.

Would you like to buy some Kodak stock?

Oh, that changes it, eh? <G>