Kodak Financial Woes Deepen: Film Future?

[Drew Wiley]

Barry - that is something symptomatic of why so many publicly-traded companies are
failing nowadays. They can't just reach equilibrium and make profit like a sensible
private company does (like the corporation I work for). They have to fluff their fur and
look bigger and bigger to attract stock market attention, even if it is potentially counterproductive. Get their feet into way too many things at once. Run on a bluff
and hope it pans out before bankruptcy pans out. There is money to be made on film,
but color film in particular does need the support of heavy R&D backing. If either Kodak
or Fuji buckle, their role will be hard to replace.

[Brian C. Miller]

Frankly the statement in the Japanexposures website is stupid not to mention wrong. It's easy to make technically poor photographs with a digital camera. They still have to be focused properly, they still have to be used at an appropriate shutter speed, depth of field remains a concern, dynamic range remains a concern, noise is a concern, I could go on and on but believe me, there are plenty of things that can wrong from a technical standpoint with a digital camera. If you doubt me just go to any beginner's-type forum in which the participants use digital cameras and look at the images.

What you see with the beginners is that they have switched off the targeting computer, and they aren't using the Force. (link, link) Plus, that UI design looks like there should be a piece of cheese there, too! (link) "Reactor exhaust port ... no, a piece of cheese ... Reactor exhaust port ... a rat? ..."

If there is enough computational assistance when making a photograph, then of course, from a technical standpoint, the photograph can't be screwed up. The camera will of course focus on something, and it will make an exposure.

But back to hypothesizing about a film future where we're all wiped out by a gargantuan asteroid carrying people eating bacteria and nanobots from an alien civilization ...

Until, and only when American consumers moan enough about their lost jobs, loss of decent wages, working at two, three or more crap jobs, will they realize what the heck they did by buying foreign goods with fuzzy quality...

I recently went to the hardware store, and took a look at Vice Grips pliers. These used to be made in the USA, but now they are being made in China. Was that my fault? I don't think so. I don't think that any consumer of Vice Grips pliers made the decision that the product should be manufactured in China. I had been looking forward to puchasing a product made in the USA. But somebody else made that decision, not me, and certaintly not the workers at the Vice Grips plant. Is the Chinese quality below the American quality? No, but I'd still rather buy the US-made product. But I can't do that.

There are a ton of "buggy whip manufacturer" historical business analogies that confirm what Engl said about most people not wanting film anymore. Look at the American pocketwatch manufacturers from the 1870-1930 period. Waltham, Elgin, etc. made extremely precise timekeepers. A standard Waltham took 8-12 months to produce, and they made thousands. Everyone carried one. Something changed, and they all went out of business.

You mean, like, World War I? Yes, that shook things up quite a bit. The soldiers found the practicality of a timepiece worn on the wrist instead of inside a pocket. The Anglo-Boer War was also influential. Various materials improved the combat durability of the mechanism, and Rolex advanced precision timekeeping. Now pocketwatches have essentially returned, in the guise of the iPhone. There are many people who no longer wear watches because they carry a cell phone. And the iPhone now has a 5Mp camera which records HD video, and the iPad can give a large format experience.

Yes, digital technology continues to change how we communicate. Of course film is a hassle, because its information has to become digitized. Consider for a moment if I first wrote out my missive in longhand, using quill and paper. Then I'd have to flop it on the scanner, correct errors in the text recognition software, and finally upload it. Much easier to type it in to begin with, eh?

I recently had to "sign" some documents with a fake digital signature. (Docusign.net) I could pick from a list of different handwriting styles, but I couldn't upload my own real signature. That's similar to the difference of writing something longhand with quill and paper, vs word processor and printing out the document with a HP Quill-O-Matic.

So what's in Kodak's future? I have no idea. Perhaps they will wind up owning the entire color film market because Japan will sink into the sea. Or maybe Japan will be stomped flat by Godzilla, Kodak will be dead from corporate raiders, and Ilford will be gone because Chernobyl flared up and Iceland erupted so it'll be burried under radioactive ash.

[Sal Santamaura]

...Of course film is a hassle, because its information has to become digitized...

Why does it have to be digitized? None of my negatives (or prints for that matter) have ever been scanned and I can think of no reason why they ever will.

[rdenney]

Why does it have to be digitized? None of my negatives (or prints for that matter) have ever been scanned and I can think of no reason why they ever will.

You don't have to digitize it. But the vast majority of people do: Their purpose is to display their work via the Internet, or on their personal photo viewing device (iPhone).

Technology does not determine what people want to do, it enables it. People have always wanted to be able to show their friends their photos. Even before iPhones, you could buy wallets with a plastic insert to hold photos, so that people could show other people pictures of their families or their sailboats or their pickup truck or their last vacation. How many carry a wallet with photos in it now?

The iPhone merely enabled what many have always wanted to do. They wanted to do it before the smart phone made it possible. They wanted to do it even before Dick Tracy provided them a fictional visualization of it. Had they not wanted to do it, Dick Tracy would not have been the good guy, and his use of the gadgetry would not have attracted a popular audience.

If you oppose technology, then you must oppose the things that people want to do. Technology that does not enable what people want to do dies a quick death in the market, unless it is forced on us by law (an example of that might be a requirement that tax returns be submitted via the Internet). And forcing the use of technology by law is pretty much in the same category as forcing anything else by law--the lawmakers should be required to show a compelling reason for the requirement.

On the subject of corporations: Corporate leaders are required to represent the best interests of the stockholders. And the documentation requirements for this are stronger than ever for publicly held corporations, with the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley after the Enron bust. CEOs can now be held personally liable and so they will be unwilling to approve any money-losing plan, even as part of a money-making strategy, without documented board approval of the plan. Even CEOs of private corporations are subject to legal action by stockholders (of course, their exposure is inversely proportional to the percentage of stock they control). The American people have demanded these protections, partly as a response to highly public fiascoes like Enron. Few who represent the welfare of small private investors would argue against these requirements much.

Along with that, mutual fund managers have to show the ability to better the return of the broader market reliably (which very few do), and so they only want to make big investments in companies that show very strong growth. This is also demanded by small investors, who don't want to face short-term risk in their investments. The company where I worked was told they needed an annual growth in revenue of 25% to become widely bought by such institutional and fund-manager investors. We were in a mature market, and such growth was hopelessly unreasonable. We should never have gone public.

Increasingly independent boards often lack industry (vis a vis "management") expertise and demand less risk and more profit on a quarterly basis for stockholders. The quarterly focus has caused more problem for American corporations than anything. Corporations seek stock-value appreciation rather than paying dividends, though, because the former is a capital gain and the latter is income and is taxed at a higher rate. If the tax laws were balanced between income-production and capital gain, companies would be more profit-driven and less growth-driven, and it would again be possible for public corporations to focus on mature products that are profitable, even in a declining market.

Rick "corporations and markets are not evil, just stupid, while the alternatives are usually both evil and stupid" Denney

[Sevo]

On the subject of corporations: Corporate leaders are required to represent the best interests of the stockholders.

In fact they are not, there merely is a fashion to do so, and some corresponding legislation has been lobbied for by banks and fonds. But the notion that corporate leaders should put the interest of their creditors before that of the staff or customers is far from natural and inevitable.

[Ron McElroy]

Consider for a moment if I first wrote out my missive in longhand, using quill and paper. Then I'd have to flop it on the scanner, correct errors in the text recognition software, and finally upload it. Much easier to type it in to begin with, eh?

A friend of mine's father used a the more modern dip pen to write some very long books. I'm sure who ever had to set the proof type wished he had at least used a typewriter.

[Sal Santamaura]

...Of course film is a hassle, because its information has to become digitized...

Why does it have to be digitized? None of my negatives (or prints for that matter) have ever been scanned and I can think of no reason why they ever will.

You don't have to digitize it. But the vast majority of people do: Their purpose is to display their work via the Internet, or on their personal photo viewing device...

"Can" and "want" are fine concepts, but I was merely reacting to Brian's contention that film has to become digitized by pointing out that it doesn't have to be.

...How many carry a wallet with photos in it now?...

I can't answer your question, but we can start the count at 1 -- me.

[Drew Wiley]

Everyone carries a photo in the wallet, or at least they're supposed to - it's called ID.

[rdenney]

In fact they are not, there merely is a fashion to do so, and some corresponding legislation has been lobbied for by banks and fonds. But the notion that corporate leaders should put the interest of their creditors before that of the staff or customers is far from natural and inevitable.

You are right, but I wasn't specific enough. The board of directors is required to represent the interests of the stock holders. The CEO is required to represent the interests of the business, which which is affected by the staff, product, customers, and board. Of course, the CEO serves at the board's pleasure.

Rick "corporate officer in a former life" Denney

[Brian C. Miller]

Why does it have to be digitized? None of my negatives (or prints for that matter) have ever been scanned and I can think of no reason why they ever will.

If the information is to be shared through a digital medium, it must be digitized. Any sort of digitization counts: scanning, photographing with a digital camera, or whatever else results in a recognizable digital representation. This includes ASCII art.

Since the current popular medium of sharing information is digital, then of course people will use the most convenient tool to share within that medium. Witness the rise of texting, and the resultant devolvement of the written language.