Kodak

[Rain Dance]

I hope portra 400, ektar and tri-x stays for quite a long time. Or some other film company buys the patent?/license? To it and continues to make it.

[Brian C. Miller]

If we're nervous about Kodak, I bet the film industry is collectively chewing their nails down! Somewhere on APUG Photoengineer posted some data about how motion picture film usage compares to the consumer market. The amount of film used by consumers is dwarfed by the amount used by the motion picture industry.

Kodak makes a lot of digital sensors for various companies. Pentax was purchased by Hoya. I wonder if Kodak will be purchased by one of the Japanese companies, or if it will be parted out like an old Chevy Nova.

[David Luttmann]

Well, lets hope Ilford stays around for my B&W.

[Frank Petronio]

I've never been clear whether an independent business that took over only the Kodak film-manufacturing operation would make a decent profit? Or whether the scale of the operation precludes profitability at current-day and slowly shrinking volumes? The film making part of Kodak's business uses large machines inside large buildings - those are expensive to maintain. Also I don't know how their supply chain and distribution works, whether they need to make ingredients, etc.?

Hopefully a team of employees can salvage the film operation.

[Bob Salomon]

If we're nervous about Kodak, I bet the film industry is collectively chewing their nails down! Somewhere on APUG Photoengineer posted some data about how motion picture film usage compares to the consumer market. The amount of film used by consumers is dwarfed by the amount used by the motion picture industry.

Kodak makes a lot of digital sensors for various companies. Pentax was purchased by Hoya. I wonder if Kodak will be purchased by one of the Japanese companies, or if it will be parted out like an old Chevy Nova.

Pentax was also sold by Hoya recently.

[Brian C. Miller]

Bob, who has Pentax now?

[David Luttmann]

Bob, who has Pentax now?

Ricoh

[Drew Wiley]

Many of the mfg of things I have distributed in the past several decades who followed
the "me too" model (what I call the lemming theory) have either tanked, or have sold their brand out to someone who has since run on smoke and mirrors stock-market pranks, and has run a slash and burn unsustainable marketing model, usually involving
"outsoucing" to compete at the bottom end of the food chain, where the profit margins are very very small (the CEO's always get obsceney rich,regardless). On the other hand, companies that actual hire experienced people who can think and market to a distinct niche, even if it's high-priced, are actually thriving even under this tough economy. Which reminds me - end of coffee break - gotta deal with some pretty big incoming piles of expensive German equip which seems to sell faster than I can even order it. The first thing a lot of mfg corps should do if they want to survive in this
economy is lay off their CEO with his big grin first, then every MBA who is too young
to know how to ties his shoes yet.

[Noah A]

Does Fuji still make color negative films? The Fuji USA website only shows a few kinds of 35mm negative film, but what I guess is the international site shows pro films, including 160NS, 160C, etc., and the PDF datasheets still show that these films come in sheets.

This news is not really surprising, but it's a bit scary.

[Frank Petronio]

There still would be enough of a demand for c41 color neg film that somebody would make it. Whether it's Portra 400 depends on how Kodak handles things.