Is Kodak Chemistry Going Away?

[Salmo22]

A fellow LF photographer dropped by Tempe Camera today (Arizona) to purchase some fixer. He was told by one of their senior management folks that Kodak is getting out of the chemistry business. He said their suppliers tell them that Kodak will continue to produce film, but is getting out of the chemistry business. Is this old news? Another Kodak rumor? I don't use Kodak chemistry, so it wouldn't impact me.

[Oren Grad]

Eastman Kodak isn't in the chemistry business. Sino Promise owns the Kodak-branded chemistry business, has had a range of issues maintaining supply. The failure of Tetenal in Europe has also thrown a wrench into the supply chain for B&W chemistry products from a range of suppliers.

Afraid I don't have time to try to write a complete explanation of what is a very messy situation. If you have the patience, you can get some insight by wading through this thread at Photrio:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/thread...supply.198778/

[Michael R]

They are different companies. Eastman Kodak in Rochester makes the film. Alaris does most or all of the distribution of still films. The chemistry business is currently owned by a Chinese company called Sino Promise and it has been a shit show, like a lot of things over the past few years.

I don't know what the current state of Sino Promise or the Kodak chemistry catalog is. It would suck if it disappeared, but on the other hand as much as I love Kodak film I can do without the B&W chemistry. I'd miss XTOL but I could easily go back to D-76 or use D-23. D-76 gives almost identical results with general purpose films anyway. I just mix it myself or buy 1 liter Ilford ID-11 since I don't like the Kodak package size. Same for Dektol - the developer I have always used but stopped buying it when they discontinued the small packages. Neutral print developers are mostly interchangeable at this point.

A fellow LF photographer dropped by Tempe Camera today (Arizona) to purchase some fixer. He was told by one of their senior management folks that Kodak is getting out of the chemistry business. He said their suppliers tell them that Kodak will continue to produce film, but is getting out of the chemistry business. Is this old news? Another Kodak rumor? I don't use Kodak chemistry, so it wouldn't impact me, but I know several local photographers that have been using Kodak chemicals for decades. I hope Tempe Camera is just misinformed.

[Drew Wiley]

Pretty much all the popular traditional Kodak darkroom-related products are popping up from numerous alternative sources anyway, or have had direct generic substitutes for quite awhile already.

[Greg]

I stopped using Kodak brand chemicals years ago and never looked back. Between Freestyle and B&H, I can easily get whatever I need in only a few days. State surplus stores sometimes offer great bargains on unopened bottles Kodak Chemistry. A while back bought a dozen or so bottles of Kodak Sodium Sulfite and they are working out fine. Enough to last me for the next five years. Also bought a box of several dozens of packets of XTOL... bad purchase. Two of the first packets that I mixed up and used turned out to be bad. I just threw the rest away.

[Drew Wiley]

Eastman Kodak once had an enormous industrial chemical and dye division; I don't know what remnants of that they have retained for internal production or subcontracting to others. Going forward, don't forget Photog Formulary; these have numerous substitutes for sale.

[Oren Grad]

Eastman Kodak once had an enormous industrial chemical and dye division

Eastman Chemical was spun off from Eastman Kodak in 1994. It's still around, doing fine in a wide range of non-photographic markets. But photo chemicals now come from elsewhere.

https://www.eastman.com/en

[Michael R]

This is true. For B&W XTOL (and HC-110 obviously) are the only tricky ones but Adox/Fotoimpex seems to have done a good job on their XTOL clone. The sundries are quite easily replaceable and actually some (their B&W fixers) were superseded long ago, though I still use Kodak's stop bath, Photoflo and selenium toner. Mostly habit and nostalgia.

The color chemicals are another matter when it comes to replacements.

Pretty much all the popular traditional Kodak darkroom-related products are popping up from numerous alternative sources anyway, or have had direct generic substitutes for quite awhile already.

[paulbarden]

I will no longer buy Kodak chemistry. In recent years, after Sino Promise took over chemistry manufacture, I've bought bad batches of Xtol, D-76 and Dektol, and so I have abandoned Kodak chemistry entirely. Now, I buy the raw ingredients (hooray for Artcraft Chemicals!) and make my own chemistry. Mytol is a great Ascorbate developer substitute for Xtol and easily made at home.

Mytol

Water ..................................... 750 ml
Sodium sulfite (anhydrous) ....... 60 g
Sodium metaborate 4H2O ........ 4 g
Sodium ascorbate ................... 12 g
Phenidone .............................. 0.15 g
Sodium metabisulfite ............... 3 g
Water to 1 L

Note: this recipe for Mytol isn't going to be something you can store for long. Best to make it fresh and use it within 48 hours.

[Michael R]

The complication with home-mixing of ascorbate developers is that aside from Ryuji Suzuki's formulation attempt, the lack of a strong iron/copper chelating agent makes the developer very vulnerable to fast-paced oxidation which the user will not know about beforehand. The most easily obtainable chelating agents such as EDTA or Calgon won't help.

Since XTOL is only a tiny net improvement over D-76, D-76 is a more reliable option for the home mixer.