I just spent over an hour talking with the sales people at Kodak for both the chemical and color negative film dividions. Both people said that sales have dropped considerable from the predigital period, but sales have recently leveled off for both divisions and are still very profitable and on solid ground. They also noted that color negative sheet film has shown an notable increase in sales particularly with 8x10. I asked them if they thought color negative film would still be available in 5 to 6 years and they said, "easily and much more".
The film sales person said there will be no sudden production hault for color film like the B&W paper. What you will see is a consolidation of the number of color films made available before color film is finally terminated. He believed that will occur many years from now, if it occurs at all.
When I told them about the concerns on this bulletin board they both laughed. They said there is lots of humors going on out there, but the fact is color film is here to stay for a long time.
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