Kodak report is ugly

[Bob McCarthy]

By Tiernan Ray

Shares of Eastman Kodak (EK) are down 74 cents, or 16.4%, at $3.78 after reporting Q4 revenue below estimates and turned in earnings per share well below what analysts were expecting.

The stock had already fallen 13% yesterday after disclosing Monday evening that it lost an initial ruling in its patent dispute with Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM).

Kodak said Q4 revenue fell 25%, year over year, to $1.93 billion, missing analysts’ $2.11 billion estimate. EPS of 37 cents was 35 cents lower than expected.

While Kodak’s total digital products revenue of $1.49 billion were down 25%, the company said “core growth businesses” rose 23%. Sales were slowed by the timing of intellectual property license sales, it said, as well as pricing pressure in its “prepress solutions” business. The license timing issues also hit profits, the company said.

CEO Antonio Perez said he was pleased with the performance of the company’s digital growth business, and with the company’s positive cash generation during the year. Still, net cash from operations of $285 million was well down from $822 million a year earlier, which the company attributed to there having been a “significant” intellectual property deal in the 2009 Q4.

Kodak plans to offer a full-year outlook on February 3rd at its analyst day meeting in New York.

[dsphotog]

Think about the lost 8x10/5x7 TMX/TMY2 revenue.

[Henry Ambrose]

Look like their current business plan partly revolves around patent and IP enforcement. A bit sketchy unless you're absolutely sure of your standing - even then it seems a crap shoot.

[Pete Watkins]

For me it's not even feasable to pay the prices demanded for Kodak products. Foma is brilliant for mono and Fuji prices are below Kodaks on colour stuff. I used to love Tri-X but it aint that good pound for pound. They seem to have lost the plot completly.
Pete.

[Bruce Watson]

Ah, Bob: Our little ray of darkness. Thanks for sharing. Sigh...

[domaz]

Kodak needs to find a way to make big sensors (full frame at least) cheaper than the competition. If they can't do that it's hard to imagine a profitable niche for them.

On the positive side prices for used film equipment will probably crater if Kodak gets split up/goes bankrupt whatever...

[dsphotog]

Or, we could all chip in & buy out the analog division.

[Vlad Soare]

For me it's not even feasable to pay the prices demanded for Kodak products. Foma is brilliant for mono
Pete, Foma is great for its price, but I wouldn't quite call it brilliant. The Fomapan 100 is more like ASA 50 if you want decent shadow detail, and its reciprocity characteristics are among the worst of all modern films. Besides, it has a tendency of building up contrast very quickly. The Fomapan 400 hasn't been available in sheets until very recently, so I can't comment on that, but I used it once in 35mm and it seemed very grainy to me even for ASA 400.
They're very good films, I've used them a lot and liked them a lot, but Kodak films play in a totally different league.

[SamReeves]

I've been very pleased with Foma (aka Arista EDU). Price is great, image quality is great, and it's cheaaaap!!! :D

[Bruce Watson]

For me it's not even feasible to pay the prices demanded for Kodak products.

For me, it's not feasible to risk non-Kodak quality control. Kodak film is the best available, from both image capture and QA perspectives. It's the best bang for my hard won buck.

I find it a bargain even at these elevated prices. And especially when I consider the price of even a short photo trip. All it took to learn that lesson was an emulsion wrinkle in an otherwise excellent capture from a trip that can't be repeated.

[Noah A]

For color there are few other options. Just Fuji--and I like the Portra films better than the 160S.

I'm doing my part, just ordered 10 boxes of the new Portra 400 and I'll order 10-15 more as soon as I can find it in stock:D :D :D

[John Kasaian]

Perhaps if there is a motivated vangard in the management and employees are willing, there could be an employee buy out of the photographic materials division at Kodak?

If I were an employee I'd be worried about loosing my job, and if I were that gas-honky of a CEO Perez I'd no doubt like to purge the company of those photographic types as well.

It could be a win-win situation! All that the new employee run company would need to do is produce an already developed product line at a moderate price. With the infrastructure already in place (and a relatively new coating facility) that shouldn't be too hard, should it?

[Frank Petronio]

In today's Democrat & Chronicle it quoted Perez as saying they would be aggressively shedding less profitable businesses in 2011, one of them being film. Considering that Kodak management is no longer native or tied into the photographic culture, I would not be surprised by bad news relating to photographers.

And I am usually the Kodak optimist.

[BetterSense]

Foma is cheaper than Kodak, but not once I figure in shooting 2 sheets to be sure I don't have one with a defect. And it's no where near as 'good' technically anyway.

[dsphotog]

I nominate Frank for the new CEO of the Kodak Analog Division! (KAD)

[DAlexxRochester]

I live in Rochester, hometown of Kodak (and was also the town where Speed Graphic was located), and let me tell you, kodak is a pale reflection of what it used to be. Back in 1980, we produced ALL of the film Kodak made, developed a lot of it, and made most of the 'cheapie' cameras here as well. At that time, Kodak employed 50,000 local people in 2 large industrial complexes, as well as 2 smaller complexes in town. At one time, Kodak Park was the world's largest single industrial complex.

Today, Kodak only employs 7,100 people locally, they have completely sold the 2 smaller complexes (including the old Hawkeye plant), sold the huge Elmgrove facility, spun-off several parts of the old Kodak Park into side ventures, and have torn down more than half of the remaining buildings. Even the car dealers and bars in the neighborhood have for the most part gone out of business.

Most Kodak film is now produced in Colorado, which for Kodak makes sense, since they still sell a good amount of film in Mexico (but for how long?). Kodak doesn't seem to make much of anything for the consumer in the US anymore-most of the local business is in larger-scale printing and movie-film process machinery.

A couple of years ago, they brought in this Spaniard to run the place, but aside from him being way too flashy for the local scene (he owns a Maybach, fercrissakes!), nothing has really helped us locally, and most Rochesterians expect Kodak corporate offices will probably fold up and leave town soon, like Xerox did back in the 70's.

FWIW, I've always preferred Fuji color films to Kodak, and Ilford B&W to kodak's Tri-X or T-Max films.

[Brian Ellis]

In today's Democrat & Chronicle it quoted Perez as saying they would be aggressively shedding less profitable businesses in 2011, one of them being film. Considering that Kodak management is no longer native or tied into the photographic culture, I would not be surprised by bad news relating to photographers.

And I am usually the Kodak optimist.

I haven't read the article and nothing relating to bad news would surprise me when it comes to film. But Kodak could shed the film business without ending the film business, e.g. by spinning it off into a wholly-owned subsidiary and then distributing the subsidiary's stock to the Kodak shareholders. That would keep the losses off of Kodak's financial statements (I assume, I'm not an accountant) while leaving the business itself intact.

I'm not suggesting that would make financial sense for anybody, just pointing out that when Perez says Kodak is going shed the film business that isn't necessarily bad news for film depending on how they go about shedding it. In fact it could be good news. Perez has seemed determined to get Kodak out of the film business from the day he took over as CEO so maybe a new company with management more dedicated to film would be good news in the long run.

[Roger Cole]

FWIW, I've always preferred Fuji color films to Kodak, and Ilford B&W to kodak's Tri-X or T-Max films.

I'm surprised I haven't seen Ilford mentioned more in this thread in regard to black and white. Ilford is a better comparison to Kodak black and white than Foma.

Unfortunately, as someone pointed out, there's really only Kodak and Fuji for color - at least right now.

[Vlad Soare]

Unfortunately, as someone pointed out, there's really only Kodak and Fuji for color - at least right now.
Rollei offer color negative and slide films. Some normal (the Digibase series), others specifically designed for special effects (the Redbird, Crossbird and Nightbird). But they're just starting out in this field, so a comparison to Fuji or Kodak may not be appropriate, at least for the time being.

[Roger Cole]

Rollei offer color negative and slide films. Some normal (the Digibase series), others specifically designed for special effects (the Redbird, Crossbird and Nightbird). But they're just starting out in this field, so a comparison to Fuji or Kodak may not be appropriate, at least for the time being.

I was aware of the Digibase series but didn't mention them because they're rather specialized, very small, and (at Freestyle anyway) at least double the price. But it does show that at least one other company is capable of coating color emulsions. I don't know how much more complex this is, so I don't know if it's realistic to hope that some of the other makers of black and white film might expand to color if Kodak excited the field leaving a sizable chunk of demand (and Fuji would definitely need some competition in that case.)

[Brian C. Miller]

From 24/7 Wall St, America’s Worst Directors: Richard Braddock Of Eastman Kodak (http://247wallst.com/2011/01/26/americas-worst-directors-richard-braddock-of-eastman-kodak/)

Braddock was also around when current CEO Antonio M. Perez was hired in 2003 and elevated to the chief executive’s job in 2005.
...
Perez was well rewarded by his failure as Braddock and other directors paid him $12.6 million in total compensation in 2009 and more than $30 million between 2007 and 2009.

Braddock is Kodak’s longest serving director. As such, he bears great deal of responsibility for the company’s failures, not the least of which is the ongoing employment of Perez and his handsome compensation.

Democrat and Chronicle: Kodak may cut losing businesses (http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110127/BUSINESS/101270338/1001/business): "If Eastman Kodak Co. focused just on packaging printing, inkjet printing and print industry workflow software, it might be healthy and growing."

The consumer digital cameras are losing money, the desktop inkjet printers are losing money (but are expected to turn a profit this year), and they are planning to go after film with a wicked vengeance. Will there be Kodak film in 2012? Did the Mayans actually forecast the Kodak film apocalypse? It's the end of the world as we know it, and Ilford feels fine.

[Frank Petronio]

I like how the WSJ writer in the Kodak patent article refers to Kodak as being analogous to Miss Havisham. Had to Google that.

[D. Bryant]

I like how the WSJ writer in the Kodak patent article refers to Kodak as being analogous to Miss Havisham. Had to Google that.

FWIW, David Lean's 1946 version of Great Expectations is an excellent film with some great moody B&W cinematography. Definitely worth watching and now streaming on Netflix.

Don Bryant

[Carsten Wolff]

...all sounds like Agfa, 2004-2007...

RIP

[Noah A]

Rollei offer color negative and slide films. Some normal (the Digibase series), others specifically designed for special effects (the Redbird, Crossbird and Nightbird). But they're just starting out in this field, so a comparison to Fuji or Kodak may not be appropriate, at least for the time being.

The digibase film sounds interesting but it doesn't appear to come in sheets.

How is Fuji doing financially?

[jp]

The mention of reliable on IP for profits is more troubling than a very tiny loss in their film business. The tiny loss of 3million on 439million in sales for film isn't good or bad compared to their other divisions; sort of middleish and expected in a bad economy. I suspect they'd have to lose more money than that for longer in order for independent investors to get the price of that business division down enough to make it worthwhile to operate as a separate business.

How they run themself as a tech company is far more important. I know you all want them to be a traditional film company, but they can't be a knife in the gunfight known as the tech industry. Companies depending on IP litigation for survival have two options. They can tough it out for years creating huge risky loses for investors hoping to succeed like SCO tried to do suing everyone for using linux. They can hope their IP is useful to a complementary company, play hardball for a while, then merge with them like ATI and AMD, or create a partnership that might eventually lead to a merger like Intel and Nvidia have done. The first option will finish them off more than likely while investment people get paid big bucks to do dirty work. The second option will make them a strong and fresh tech company far far removed from business in film. While no potential suitor has a bigger name, the name and history doesn't mean it has to be someone bigger. The various bell company mergers since 1984 have shown that. AT&T has been bought up by a regional division of it's former self, and the whole convoluted cingular/att wireless thing is quite interesting too.

[Nijo]

I wish Kodak would spin off the film division. Film is not a growth business but that does not mean it cant be profitable.

[Frank Petronio]

They make a lot off IP because they were one of the few companies who spent a lot on R&D. They practically invented not just digital cameras but pretty much the entire workflow from capture to commercial printing.

The pity is our courts not supporting them against thieves. Isn't it odd that Sony, Nikon, Canon, etc. pay them royalties but for the same IP RIM and Apple feel that they don't have to?

[savantcreative]

By Tiernan Ray

Shares of Eastman Kodak (EK) are down 74 cents, or 16.4%, at $3.78 after reporting Q4 revenue below estimates and turned in earnings per share well below what analysts were expecting.

The stock had already fallen 13% yesterday after disclosing Monday evening that it lost an initial ruling in its patent dispute with Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM).

Kodak said Q4 revenue fell 25%, year over year, to $1.93 billion, missing analysts’ $2.11 billion estimate. EPS of 37 cents was 35 cents lower than expected.

While Kodak’s total digital products revenue of $1.49 billion were down 25%, the company said “core growth businesses” rose 23%. Sales were slowed by the timing of intellectual property license sales, it said, as well as pricing pressure in its “prepress solutions” business. The license timing issues also hit profits, the company said.

CEO Antonio Perez said he was pleased with the performance of the company’s digital growth business, and with the company’s positive cash generation during the year. Still, net cash from operations of $285 million was well down from $822 million a year earlier, which the company attributed to there having been a “significant” intellectual property deal in the 2009 Q4.

Kodak plans to offer a full-year outlook on February 3rd at its analyst day meeting in New York.

Kodak has never gotten it right since the beginning of digital. I am surprised they are even still around.

[Jim Noel]

Pete, Foma is great for its price, but I wouldn't quite call it brilliant. The Fomapan 100 is more like ASA 50 if you want decent shadow detail, and its reciprocity characteristics are among the worst of all modern films. Besides, it has a tendency of building up contrast very quickly. The Fomapan 400 hasn't been available in sheets until very recently, so I can't comment on that, but I used it once in 35mm and it seemed very grainy to me even for ASA 400.
They're very good films, I've used them a lot and liked them a lot, but Kodak films play in a totally different league.

All 100 speed films build up contrast more quickly than their 400 speed counterparts. It is a matter of physics and chemistry.

[BetterSense]

That's an interesting statement. I can't figure out for the life of my why someone would think that, though.

[engl]

They make a lot off IP because they were one of the few companies who spent a lot on R&D. They practically invented not just digital cameras but pretty much the entire workflow from capture to commercial printing.

The pity is our courts not supporting them against thieves. Isn't it odd that Sony, Nikon, Canon, etc. pay them royalties but for the same IP RIM and Apple feel that they don't have to?

Why would RIM and Apple pay royalty for patents not upheld by court? The others probably paid because its less fuzz that way.

Apple are taking Kodak to court for having wrongfully patented the technology in question in the first place, after a (fizzled?) co-operation back in 1990. I think that one starts in two days, so too early to say if there is any merit to Apple's claims.

As for "practically inventing digital cameras", they certainly were a part of it, but so were Fairchild with the first image CCD, Sony with CCD mass production (for video cameras), Sony with the Mavica in 1981, Canon with the RC-701 in 1986, Fuji with the DS-1P in 1988, Dycam with the Model 1 in 1990 and Nikon in 1999 with the D1 that people could actually afford, carry and use professionally.

[Pawlowski6132]

Think about the lost 8x10/5x7 TMX/TMY2 revenue.

This prolly higher YoY because of all the pull-forward revenue they got due the announcement.

[John Kasaian]

Kodak obviously isn't interested in the film market for formats larger than 4x5.
Kodak has bowed out of B&W printing paper.

The first 8x10 film I ever shot was the then new TMY and it was incredible good stuff, but I've learned how to get the most out of a few other emulsions and while I miss the TMY days----I don't.
Not really.
It isn't the name on the rebate that matters, it's the negative and the print.

For a few years now, Kodak's sinking or swimming has had no effect on my personal efforts, but I really hate to see good people loose jobs and what was once an exemplaryamerican enterprise go belly up as it appears to have a suicide wish for that end.

[rdenney]

I was reviewing a bit of the history of digital photography last night. Kodak has known this would happen for a very long time. Sasson worked for them, and invented the first digital camera for them in 1975 or so. It was toaster-sized and sported a 10,000-pixel sensor. He was asked to make a prediction as to when digital photography would become viable in the market and he estimated 15-20 years--mid-1990's. That was about the time Kodak was taking Nikon and Canon film cameras and modifying them for digital capture. They brought out the first affordable consumer digicams, too. They have had a long-term play in the digital photography arena since (literally) its inception.

The mistake they made was not figuring out how their film production unit could survive this market shift. They apparently have not considered the scalability of their production infrastructure. Many film manufacturers make less film than Kodak and do so profitably, but Kodak loses hundreds of millions of dollars doing it. That tells me that the fixed costs of their infrastructure are designed for a production model much larger than the current market. They may not be capable of scaling it down and keeping it a going concern.

One thing is for sure: Those who own stock in Kodak don't care about the needs of a few cranky large-format photographers. It's hard to imagine why they should. Kodak needs a plan for taking film production underground with a much smaller footprint. Without that, and anybody buying their production capability would face the same issues.

Rick "big machines cost a lot to keep running" Denney

[John NYC]

...
That tells me that the fixed costs of their infrastructure are designed for a production model much larger than the current market. They may not be capable of scaling it down and keeping it a going concern.
...
Rick "big machines cost a lot to keep running" Denney

My suspicions are in line with yours.

Scaling down seems to be what they are trying to do with ditching various lines, while introducing new lines (Ektar) that tie in better with their other movie film business (this is what I read about Ektar anyway). I just hope they are successful.

If they emerge with a strong, long lasting model to sell the new Portra 400 and Ektar 100 (and please E100G)... I would be completely happy, and I would use another vendor for B&W.

Ditching B&W completely might be what they are doing. Why should they try to compete in B&W when others are going to be able to produce a decent product and much cheaper? There is really only Fuji as competition in color, and there is no one on the horizon to try to enter that market that has shown themselves.

I also think selling their then slimmed down film unit is a real possibility.

[Noah A]

...

If they emerge with a strong, long lasting model to sell the new Portra 400 and Ektar 100 (and please E100G)... I would be completely happy, and I would use another vendor for B&W....

I agree. While of course I wouldn't be against future film improvements, I'd be perfectly happy to shoot Portra 400 for a very, very long time. I'm sure the equipment used to make film is somewhat expensive to use and there are maintenance costs, but if the R&D costs are out of the way I would think Kodak (or someone) can make a profit selling a streamlined portfolio of films.

I'd be surprised if they keep making both the 160NC and 160VC. I hate to speculate, but I figure they'd replace those films with a single Portra 160, though perhaps they'll cut even further and just offer Ektar 100 and Portra 400.

[Drew Wiley]

160VC, 160NC, and Ektar each have very different personality. The portrait market
needs one thing, landscape and commercial photographers potentially something else.
I wouldn't want to use Ektar for typical portraiture, for example. Yet none of these films is a viable replacement for the pallette of tranny films. Maybe someday a neg film
will be. But I don't see how the towel can be thrown in completely. Ongoing improvement in both negative and chrome film suggest that the end is not as near as
some people imply, unless Kodak as a whole bellies up. With film, they just have to keep the momentum going, and don't require staggering amounts of R&D anymore.

[Bob McCarthy]

A thought that comes to mind is, color is where digital is best. the volume in commercial photography is substantially color using 35mm and medium format digital. Amateur film shooting in color is now replaced by cell phones and point and shoot.

Fine art is the last bastion of film, black and white more so,

Movie film is the only volume item left,

Film volume is permanently reduced, so shut down the surplus capacity, take the write off and move forward with a competive cost structure to the markets that remain, just like vinyl did when digital took over audio.

Bob

[Mark NY]

--mid-1990's. That was about the time Kodak was taking Nikon and Canon film cameras and modifying them for digital capture. They brought out the first affordable consumer digicams, too. They have had a long-term play in the digital photography arena since (literally) its inception.


Don't forget that during this time frame they were also sinking millions into the Absurd Photo System (APS). The internal politics behind that debacle would make an interesting read.

[rdenney]

Don't forget that during this time frame they were also sinking millions into the Absurd Photo System (APS). The internal politics behind that debacle would make an interesting read.

I'm certainly not saying that Kodak didn't behave foolishly on many occasions. But they certainly weren't the only ones to go down the APS path.

But I'm not sure just selling off their surplus capacity is the answer--they have designed and constructed machines, I'm sure, that only make sense in a high-volume operation. Converting to a low-volume operation might require writing off much of their current capital infrastructure and starting over, and that might be a hard sell to their stockholders. I'm just guessing based on general business knowledge, however.

Rick "hoping for the best but..." Denney

[Jim Jones]

Don't forget that during this time frame they were also sinking millions into the Absurd Photo System (APS). The internal politics behind that debacle would make an interesting read.

Yes, indeed. Another example is 620 film. The Medalist and many point-and-shoot cameras were no more compact for using such an inappropriate film spool.

Kodak has a longtime and expensive habit of disregarding the patents of more inventive companies. Good corporate lawyers made this practical. Then they tried it on Edwin Land. Goliath usually wins, which makes David's victories all the sweeter.

[Frank Petronio]

I don't think they are doing any new film R&D myself. They may have a few new things left in the vault though.

[Bob McCarthy]

I'm certainly not saying that Kodak didn't behave foolishly on many occasions. But they certainly weren't the only ones to go down the APS path.

But I'm not sure just selling off their surplus capacity is the answer--they have designed and constructed machines, I'm sure, that only make sense in a high-volume operation. Converting to a low-volume operation might require writing off much of their current capital infrastructure and starting over, and that might be a hard sell to their stockholders. I'm just guessing based on general business knowledge, however.

Rick "hoping for the best but..." Denney

Rick, I can't imagine there is a buyer for anything film based unless its given away for a song. And I can't imagine a company like Kodak is sole sourced, certainly not to the specific production equipment.

If they had a buyer, would should exit the business. That is usually the best solution for the customer if the buyer is a team of technical skills and management that has long experience. They get a piece of the pie, new financing is put in place that will make the enterprise profitable within the new market reality.

What wont work, is to avoid the problem, avoid recognizing the problem, worry about and avoiding a write down that will cause a hit to the quarter, and price up the product line to attempt to cover overhead with diminishing volume.

There you just accelerate the transfer of your clients becoming others.

I feel for the folks at Kodak, they have many talented people, and they are fighting for their corporate life in a time of major technology shift. Most dont make it as far as they have. Sounds like Apple pre Jobs 2.

It can be fixed, just take bold action and pick what they're good at. R&D doesnt count (ie Bell labs) btw.

bob

[rdenney]

Rick, I can't imagine there is a buyer for anything film based unless its given away for a song. And I can't imagine a company like Kodak is sole sourced, certainly not to the specific production equipment.

I agree with your first sentence, but for a specific reason. And as to your second sentence, on the contrary, I would not be surprised if Kodak built its own production equipment from scratch. When you are (or were) the biggest producer in the world, the equipment used by others often can't handle the production capacity cost effectively, even if there is a source for it (I bet Fuji built their own, too, unless they bought it from Kodak, which they might have).

A goofy example: In the 70's GM built a motorhome in-house (still the only in-house motorhome by a major auto manufacturer, and now a classic). The front and rear end caps on the GMC Motor Home are made from sheet mold compound, the same stuff GM uses for the Corvette. It's fiberglass that is press-molded into shape using heat and pressure, not laid up the way low-production fiberglass items are usually done. The molds are vastly large and heavy iron castings (think 12-foot cube) that were machined, polished, and chrome-plated. It takes a big chunk of factory and massive machinery to move these molds around on an assembly line.

After GM ceased production, years went by, and eventually they sold the molds to a guy named Wheat, who was a maker of travel trailers. He was going to revive the GMC Motor Home. They were moved via train--they were too big and heavy to truck. But there was nothing he could do with them--he didn't have the infrastructure to make use of them, and they were not properly designed for laid-up fiberglass appropriate for low production. They ended up being bought and sold a couple of times; I even remember seeing them on ebay half a dozen years ago with a (laughable) asking price of half a million bucks.

This was a case where tooling that was custom-built for high production in large factory was bought by a company hoping to use them for low production numbers. But it couldn't work--the machines were not designed to be cost-effective at low production levels and the guy could not even put the money together to fund the application of those tools. The buyer would have been better off designing his own molds more suitable for a process he could undertake.

I don't know, but I bet the coating and packaging machines used by Kodak were specifically designed to be efficient at high production levels. They may not be efficient at all at low production levels, which means that not only would Kodak lose money using them, but nobody would want to buy them.

Rick "betting Kodak has employed LOTS of tool-and-die makers over the decades" Denney

[Bob McCarthy]

Rick, to clarify.

I worked for J&J in my early years. I get companies employing equipment engineers and building their own equipment.

What I meant and poorly expressed, was I doubted that Kodak had one factory with one machine producing all the film (film was from a sole source) and there were likely multiple locations with multiple pieces of identical (or near anyway) lines producing product.

Put the old ones in mothballs (like they do aircraft in Tucson).

However, its likely that is already the case. Have they financially adjusted the books and overhead allocation is actually my question?

They likely they have a big company OH structure over a minor part of the business.

Bob "occasionally obtuse" Mccarthy

[rdenney]

What I meant and poorly expressed, was I doubted that Kodak had one factory with one machine producing all the film (film was from a sole source) and there were likely multiple locations with multiple pieces of identical (or near anyway) lines producing product.

Got it. I don't know, but would not be surprised if Kodak wasn't already down to one line for each of their remaining products. I'm sure there are people here who do know.

Rick "thinking companies like Efke started with small-production lines" Denney

[chris_4622]

Rick,

A while back I listened to Ron Mowrey on Inside Analog Photo podcast talk about Kodak production lines. I think he mentioned the line starts out at 500 ft per minute and runs at around 1000 ft. per minute. Coating a mile of film in 5 minutes or so.

[John NYC]

Rick,

A while back I listened to Ron Mowrey on Inside Analog Photo podcast talk about Kodak production lines. I think he mentioned the line starts out at 500 ft per minute and runs at around 1000 ft. per minute. Coating a mile of film in 5 minutes or so.

Yes, in the book "Making Kodak Film" by Robert L. Shanebrook, he states it goes "perhaps" as fast as 1,000 feet per minute. And that they coat in master rolls of one and two mile lengths.

For anyone interested in Kodak's machinery and just how complex it is, I highly recommend picking up this interesting book.

[C.T. Greene]

I had better get that box of E100G,now while I can?

[John NYC]

I had better get that box of E100G,now while I can?

There have, of course, been no moves by Kodak so far to discontinue E100G, and perhaps they won't for many years, but here was their response when I wrote them, which probably what they would have to say given the state of the film industry:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showpost.php?p=628812&postcount=66