What if: Kodak and Fuji abandon film

[John Kasaian]

Will someone else step up to the plate to produce conventional color film? Sheet film? Will you buy enough of it to make it profitable for them to do so?

I don't like answering a question with a question, but if I understand the original question correctly, you already have the answer.

Who?

The Chinese as Eric Rose pointed out. The eastern european manufacturers could also be players---they certainly have produced some wonderful B&W films and have my support. How about Tua? They are well known for producing private label 35mm color film, so why not sheet film if someone made them an attractive enough offer? I could picture an outfit like Freestyle doing just that.

I'll stick with B&W.

Cheer up---paranoia is corrosive!

[Brian C. Miller]

Thing is, though, Kodak has made a decision to discontinue it entire B&W paper division. That's rather significant. I don't think that color film will be discontinued because of something radically better, I think that it will be discontinued due to lack of demand. The real question is, what does Kodak consider to be a lack of demand?

I have this theory that the average consumer and corporate user need something that is good enough, and that's it. Once the minimum is met, they move on. Thus digital, even lousy digital, gains ground on film and displaces it. Thus a medium with superior resolution gets displaced by a medium with inferior resolution, based solely on convenience.

There are now "disposable" digital movie cameras. "Disposable" film cameras can be easily replaced by "disposable" digital cameras. Therefore, if the consumer side of the color film market dries up, that's going to crimp Kodak and Fuji big time. The professional digital side has lots of adherents. How fast that market sector is dropping, I don't know.

So when there isn't enough profit, the big manufacturers will drop color. Glazer's, Seattle's big store, has moved its film business into a small building. Optechs, Seattle's other big store, has dumped film entirely and is now all digital and is doing well.

Film demand is falling. The time to look at alternatives is now. So far I know of only two valid alternatives for color, and they both have drawbacks. One is grainy and a bit slow, and the other can be fine-grained and is definitely really really slow.

Stocking a freezer full of film isn't a long-term solution. A truly long-term solution is for Kodak and Fuji to get off their butts and market film. "Gee, mommy, the flood wiped out all our pictures!" "Don't worry, dear, the negatives are safe and we'll make more pictures." They haven't been marketing film, they've been marketing pictures. They've been doing it so much that people don't even know the value of a negative.

[paulr]

"I don't think that color film will be discontinued because of something radically better, I think that it will be discontinued due to lack of demand. The real question is, what does Kodak consider to be a lack of demand?"

But why would demand go away before there's something that professional photographers like better (taking quality, convenience, and price into consideration, and keeping in mind that any pro who uses large format color film must care a lot about quality). The collapse of a consumer film market doesn't tell us anything about the market for large format color film. We need to look at what commercial photogs are buying and asking for ... they're the ones who buy the most of it.

Currently the only viable substitute for LF color film costs as much as an expensive car, and is only useful for some types of photography. That situation is going to have to change fundamentally before the demand for film dries up.

It will happen, at least to some degree, but it's not going to happen overnight. And when it does happen, it's going to mean there are more alternatives for us to choose from than we have now.

[Eric Leppanen]

Currently the only viable substitute for LF color film costs as much as an expensive car, and is only useful for some types of photography. That situation is going to have to change fundamentally before the demand for film dries up.

The counter-argument to this is that the LF market -- amateur and professional -- is far too small to influence Fuji and Kodak. If 35mm and 120/220 color film demand drops beyond commercial viability, then Fuji and Kodak will exit the color film market and let LF be damned. If you want high resolution or camera movements, use an MF digital back on a 6x9 view camera, stitching multiple images together if necessary.

My take is that Fuji (maybe not Kodak) will continue to make color film at a reduced rate for years. The motion picture industry still has a strong attachment to film (quoth Mr. Spielberg: "I am a Luddite!"), so film manufacture will continue for the foreseeable future. Producing still capture film is a lucrative incremental market with high profit margins and little or no R&D expenditures. Why not milk it as long as it lasts?

[Janko Belaj]

I just don't believe that any (major) type of emulsion will disappear from market. And by type I mean general types (b&w pan, color neg, color dia, maybe even b&w ortho) not brand names we today know or use. Demand and profit dictates market and both are dropping. But as long as there will be demand, I believe that someone will find way to produce film for us. Maybe we won't have so many types to choose, maybe you will have to order and wait for your batch (as I'm right now ordering and waiting for efke film), but I think about future of film same as I see present of LF equipment. Demand dropped, prices are higher, but not just old models, even new models arrive on the market.

On the other hand, I believe that at approximately same time when big firms might stop production of films, there will be useful digital alternative to current color processes. Problems today are high price, high heating and still slow processing. That will change. It is slow process, but we (and our ancestors) have already seen and felt such changes. Even discovery of photography was shock - some people accepted photography as a new tool, some have seen it as a devil's job. I'm not afraid of digital. For my Job that will be nice. And good. For my pleasure? B&W negative.

[Jonathan Brewer]

Brian.................the Chinese already make color film, but I have no idea if they manufacture color in 120 or LF, I mentioned the alternative processes because they were here first, straight B & W came later,......................now as to what do you do if color film disappears, I have no idea, I won't be losing sleep over this proposition any time soon, as I don't believe that will happen in my lifetime.

Truth be told, there are enough diehards here and elsewhere, and examples of the great work of the alternative processes/traditional proecesses/analog processes/old school on the internet that all chances of this stuff going away ended with the emergence of their exposure on the internet.

If color for LF dries up, I deal with it by using B&W w/my LF, and color in my MF cameras, if it dries up in 120, and in 35mm, I'll be making a swith spurred by an artistic sensibility to pursue my vision in monochrome, switching up when I feel like it with colored pencils,..............................Mortensen and the tone-abrasion process here I come!!!

This kind of proposition is kind of like your wife/girlfriend coming to you and telling you she doesn't really like a certain position, the next thing out of your mouth will likely be 'well...............let's try something else', 'cuz of course it's the end result that counts,............................I want to make pictures, even if I can't make them in color, I still want to make them.

[paulr]

of course, in the near future, it's not our wife or girlfriend ... it's the executives at Kodak and Fuji, we are their bitches, and they like the current position just fine: them on top.

Thank you Mr. Fuji, may I have another? Ow! Thank you Mr. Fuji, may I have another ...

(Dramatization. Apologies in advance for any graphic nightmares.)

[Brian C. Miller]

"I just don't believe that any (major) type of emulsion will disappear from market."

How many photographers here actually foresaw Kodak dropping its B&W paper business this year?

Kodak didn't just drop an emulsion or two, they dropped paper! Does anybody have any idea how much paper Kodak sold last year? How much they sold in comparison to Ilford? They already had moved their paper production down to Brazil, so I don't think labor costs were an issue.

How many photographic materials manufacturers have been reorganizing or going out of business? Forte, Agfa, Ilford, all have had financial problems. B&W material manufacturers are limping along. All of it is being curtailed. Does anyone really think that Kodak will keep rolling out color film for just one director? Perhaps Spielberg will be buying Ilford along with the rest of us.

[Janko Belaj]

Brian, that is what I'm telling... I'l put some numbers in. my numbers, just for illustration, not even some guess... let say that Kodak was producing 50% of material on market. 5000 of something (really doesn't matter for this illustration). And the rest 48%. 2% are those who boil their own emulsions (o.k., maybe 0.2%...). And they sold only 50% of their material. So 2500 of something was unsold. People needed just 2500. Now Kodak produces 0. And people are still making prints. Someone somewhere will make and sell those 2500. That won't be Kodak's finest receipt, but do you REALY care? I don't. For me, photography is pleasure and business.
As for business, customers really (or most of them) don't care what you use. They WANT picture. For print, usually. In may case. They want vivid color, shallow dof but really sharp. 4x5? 8x10? digital one-shot or scanback? if you are able to take a picture of ski champion with Sinar, that don't care for your troubles in the field. If you are able to produce giant print from some "pocket-more-like" digital stuff, and that looks as they want, they won't ask and want care. That might sound cruel, but is true.
As for pleasure, if I can't find some material on the market, I'll try more of the rest till I find something I like. I have learned what and how to use to change basic film/paper definitions. I had to - as a kid I had no money for paper, with 2 friends I have started one formal club just to ask Fotokemika for some charity. And we have got what then seamed like a fortune... but mostly grades on the edge. low and high contrast emulsions. You just have to learn what chemistry to boil to get from gived paper what you wanted when you made the basic shot... For my pleasure, (am I lucky?) I'm not interested in colour what gives me potentially more freedom in choosing and creating my own workflow. just my 2 cents... ;-)

[Terence Spross]

Eric Rose - your comment gave me a bit of a nightmare: Wall-Martchrome. In my dream I turned over the box and it said Wall-Martchrome Pro. I woke up.

Actually the Chinese have plants making color film now: The Lekai (known internationally as The Lucky Film Co,Ltd. has made 100,200, and 400 speed color film for a long time. And while their website shows only 35mm film in color, they also make B&W sheet film and if the demand where there due to Kodak pulling internationally out early I could see them making the transition and coating the wider base stock with color emultion.