Kodak Financial Woes Deepen: Film Future?

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Originally Posted by John Kasaian

Did I miss something? Did Fuji cease making color sheet film?

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No, but they don't make color negative film in sheets.

Rick "who would love to find plain-old Reala in 4x5 sheets" Denney

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Originally Posted by Roger Cole

Oh, thanks for the list - I still have and sometimes use a fountain pen. I have electronic gadgets with vacuum tubes and will buy more when I get back into ham radio some day. Love that vintage gear that lights up in the dark. I'm typing this while using a CRT monitor and have a CRT TV (with no cable or satellite.)

And I like using code on the radio, too.

Roger "the closest thing to a Luddite a network engineer could be" Cole

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Roger:

You forgot to mention that most (seriously) high power RF is still produced with vacuum tubes. Not likely they will ever be replaced in that application.

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The latest technology helps you look cool and think so too ... everything hi-tech and
electronic is therefore preferable ... like the punk who pulled out his gun and recently held up a convenience store across town one night and decided to get away running through the dark on foot ... wearing piezo shoes which sparkle with every step!

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Originally Posted by Marko

No, I meant steam machine, horse buggies, fountain pen, typewriter, telegraph, newspapers, vacuum tube, CRTs, film and such... :rolleyes:

Yes, I still keep my Mont Blancs and Rotrings around but we are not using them for this exchange, are we? Did I mention snail mail too?

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And I wish they'd rip out those damn cable cars from San Francisco. They're noisy, slow, and unsafe. And those dusty hiking trails - they should all be paved so a Segway can go over them. ;)

...Mike

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Originally Posted by rdenney

No, but they don't make color negative film in sheets...

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Assuming you want 4x5:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...4x5_Quick.html

https://www.badgergraphic.com/store/..._detail&p=3477

http://www.japanexposures.com/shop/p...roducts_id=198

http://www.japanexposures.com/shop/p...roducts_id=154

http://www.japanexposures.com/shop/p...roducts_id=196

Although Dirk may have a little trouble at the moment filling your order for any of the last three. :(


Reala was never available in sheets.

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Originally Posted by Sal Santamaura

Although Dirk may have a little trouble at the moment filling your order for any of the last three. :(

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Dirk is fine. But there may be a slight delay filling your order right now.

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Originally Posted by rguinter

Roger:

You forgot to mention that most (seriously) high power RF is still produced with vacuum tubes. Not likely they will ever be replaced in that application.

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Vacuum-tube technology is being replaced by solid-state devices more and more. Most TV and FM stations are moving or have moved to solid-state transmitters as a matter of life-cycle cost. The tubes are just too expensive, and for a 24/7 commercial-service transmitter must be replaced too often. Also, they don't show a lot of redundancy, which is a big deal in commercial service. And in "other" applications, solid-state RF transmission is becoming the norm. Redundancy is even more important and capital cost less so in many of those applications.

What has made solid-state transmitters more expensive is the need to gang devices in parallel to keep the power on each one down, while tubes can be made as big as necessary. The price increases linearly with power output for solid-state, but at a slower rate for vacuum-tube technology. But even in the 30-KW transmitter-power range of most FM and TV stations, the total life-cycle costs favor solid-state approaches.

Most amateur amplifiers still use vacuum tubes, but there are serious inroads at the high end from solid-state transmitter amplifiers. Hams have not exactly kept up with their self-image of being cutting-edge technologists, however. I'm sure there were people who said the basic 100-watt barefoot transmitter would never go solid-state, but now you can't buy anything else.

Rick "-.- .-. ----. -.." Denney

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Originally Posted by Sal Santamaura

Assuming you want 4x5:

...several listings for new old stock no longer in production, or still available in Japan only...

Reala was never available in sheets.

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Sad that Reala was never made in sheets. I have really enjoyed it in roll-film over the years.

I have never liked 160S, which was all that Fuji ever put in the Quickload form factor that I ever saw available in the U.S., at least. I could never get any saturation out of that stuff, though I'm sure it's fine for the commercial/fashion work is was made for. Maybe others can do more with it for landscape work. Of course, anything in Quickloads is old stock waiting to be bought up--they have stopped producing everything in that form factor as I understand it.

And buying from Japan directly? I'm not sure that undermines my point; certainly not in meaning even if in fact.

Rick "hoping this is the biggest problem Dirk has to think about at the moment" Denney

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Originally Posted by Jim Jones

The Amish around here still do well with horse buggies and farm equipment.

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If only they didn't consider photography the same evil, latest hi-tech technology as the sparkling shoes and the segway, it sounds as if they could have a great following on this board!

;)

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Originally Posted by Jim Jones

When young, we were taught to use a pen so our writing could be visually as well as grammatically eloquent. Neither is common now.
Radio telegraphy is sometimes the only means of communications even now in emergencies, even though competent operators are becoming rare. I still use vacuum tube test equipment, and have radios going back to the 1920s. There was an eloquence and economy of design to some early gear that is sadly lacking in equipment that can be marginally improved by adding a few thousand more transistors.

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Well, they taught us common sense too back then, and you need only look at some posts here to see how little of it has remained. It's easy to wax poetic about "Roaring Twenties" until one remembers what it was like to not have penicillin for example or how many people died of TB in those "good old days" and other such periods... And let's not even mention dental care.

Yes, I'm sure those times were awesome and that if I had my kids then, those two or three out of five that would've survived the age of 2 would've enjoyed unrestricted childhood much more than the kids today do. But ungrateful that I am, I'm really happy to be living in the now, which enabled me to raise *all* my kids to successful adulthood and which gives me better than good chance of living long enough to see my grandkids grow up. If that means having to suffer the nuisance of frequent technology breakthroughs, so be it... :D

And just so we keep this on topic, those same "Roaring Twenties" were the beginning of the Age of Kodak - "you press the button, we do the rest". It (Kodak) survived and outlasted most of those other great technologies of its time, but now the time has come when there is nothing left to do after pressing the button. Largely thanks to technology they helped develop but then failed to transition to in time to save themselves.

I haven't looked at the Kodak 2010 10-K yet. In the recent past, Kodak was making money on film and losing money on digital. That may change as movie studios cut over to digital. But I'd still expect that a smaller profitable film business is still possible for Kodak. Film is mature and very little R&D is required. But they will need to scale their facilities to match the market demand.