Kodak Financial Woes Deepen: Film Future?

[Brian C. Miller]

If any single technology remained in use for too long, it would only mean that we are stagnating instead of evolving.

You mean like glass? How about paper? Pencils? Pens? Writing? Clubs and knives? The wheel? Cloth? Agriculture?

-- Brian "who is living on a planet so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea" Miller

[Marko]

You mean like glass? How about paper? Pencils? Pens? Writing? Clubs and knives? The wheel? Cloth? Agriculture?

-- Brian "who is living on a planet so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea" Miller

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

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?

[Roger Cole]

It will be just one of the many. That's not depressing, that's the price of progress.

#$%^ progress.

[Roger Cole]

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

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?

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

[Marko]

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

You are entirely welcome.

The Mont Blancs I mentioned above are my cherished fountain pens I rarely get to use any more, if at all. The Rotrings are rapidographs - remember those? They used to be state of the art instruments for technical drawing and drafting.

I used to use all of those gadgets and contraptions you mention and more at some point in my life, but being a relatively early adopter, I sold most of those away to the nostalgic types when I needed the funds for the next new and exciting thing to come out. I say "relatively" because I typically wait for the ver. 1.1 but rarely until 2.0.

Did the same thing with my old 35mm and MF film gear, but I find being a Ludditte awfully boring and being early adopter gets tiring after a while, so lately, I've been reversing direction and getting involved with MF and LF again. Only this time I am having fun in trying to combine old stuff with new methods.

The next thing might as well be the reverse - new stuff using old methods, digital capture via alt. processes and such... But that will have to wait for retirement.

It's not about progress or technology per se, it's all about mind and how open (or closed) it is...

[Roger Cole]

Well for me it's (several of these things, really) a hobby and about how much I enjoy it - and I am nostalgic (somewhat) and have never been an early adopter really. But there you go. I do shoot digital for snapshots and posting on facebook and so on. But I shoot film for a hobby because I enjoy it, and partly because it IS sort of old - the appeal thirty years ago was that it was sort of primitive in the modern world. I think now it's even more appealing.

[Marko]

Well, on that much we agree - it is a hobby and I do thoroughly enjoy it. Have been enjoying it since the 1970's and still do, with a couple of long breaks.

But I don't enjoy it because it is modern (digital) or old-fashioned (film), I enjoy it because I think mostly in visual terms and I like to express what I see in the same way. For me, it is both about the moment and about the form, technology simply doesn't matter, as long as I get to take the shot and make the picture. Just like writing is not about the pen or the keyboard, nor even the words themselves, it is about the thoughts written down.

I will definitely not be happy when the film does go away, but it will not be the end of the world either. What one technology takes away, the other one brings back and then some. It is a positive zero, so to speak...

[John Kasaian]

It seems like there's a decent supply of black & white film manufacturers but as far as color goes, for large format, it's just Kodak. I have nothing against digital but nobody is every going to fabricate an 8x10 digital back. The optical space and depth of field you get using a 300mm lens as your "normal" lens is like nothing else. Black and white is great but I remember my first color contact print from my 8x10. It was like mainlining heroin. I've never felt anything like it. It's depressing to think that color film will become a "lost" technology. Joel Sternfeld and Alec Soth aren't enough to keep Kodak afloat. We photographers are merely scavengers picking at bits around the mighty Military/Industrial/Entertainment complex.

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

[Kimberly Anderson]

Give me a Trinitron CRT or give me death! Seriously! I have 5 of them.

[Jim Jones]

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

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?

It's great that there are a few steam engines in use. Anyone who has felt Union Pacific's 3985 roar by appreciates that. The Amish around here still do well with horse buggies and farm equipment. 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. Amateur radio operators could sometimes, may still just for fun, communicate around the world with a two tube transmitter and three tube receiver without relying on landlines, microwave towers, and satellites. I still rely on the USPS for much. As for film, my last photo was digital for convenience. Then came an unsuccessful struggle to match the quality of film. A DSLR that cost more than a really capable film camera would have been satisfactory, but not economical.