Kodak to end production of 35mm film cameras, will drop efforts with APS

[Dan C]

The long slide down for Kodak in the digital age continues.

The thing about Kodak is they've always been a SOFTWARE company, the hardware was simply marketed to support the software. Adobe and others have taken over where Kodak left off.

Kodak missed the visual boat at least 20 years ago and there's just no way they can catch it now, IMHO.:(

Dan C


Facing digital heat, Kodak scraps 35mm film cameras in North America and Western Europe

By BEN DOBBIN

BC-Kodak-Cameras,0392
Facing digital heat, Kodak scraps 35mm film cameras in North America and Western Europe
By BEN DOBBIN
AP Business Writer
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) -- Eastman Kodak Co. plans to stop selling reloadable 35mm film cameras in North America and Western Europe this year, testifying to the swift rise of digital photography's popularity.
The decision Tuesday also came as the firm decided to end its efforts with Advanced Photo System cameras, a much-ballyhooed format launched in 1996 to rekindle interest in consumer photography.
Though Kodak, the world's biggest photography company, expects to phase out 35mm reloadable cameras in North America and Western Europe, it plans to expand manufacturing in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, where the 35mm market is still growing at a double-digit clip.
Sales of 35mm cameras in the U.S. market, in which Kodak is a minor player, fell below 8 million last year, down more than 20 percent from 2002.
Filmless digital cameras, which record snapshots on computer chips, have begun outselling traditional film cameras for the first time in the United States.
Last year, 12.5 million digital cameras were sold versus 12.1 million film cameras, the Photo Marketing Association said. The association projects that 15.7 million digital cameras and 10.6 million film cameras will be sold this year.
As for APS cameras, Kodak said it will stop manufacturing the devices by the end of 2004, citing declining demand and poor financial returns. The company will continue to make and upgrade APS film and one-time-use cameras.
Codeveloped by Kodak, Canon, Fuji, Minolta and Nikon, APS cameras produce pictures in a variety of sizes on the same roll of 24mm film. They feature a drop-in cartridge to eliminate loading errors and a magnetic stripe on the film for ordering extra copies.
In February 1996, the photo giants heralded the system as the biggest breakthrough in consumer photography since 35mm technology emerged in 1926. It quickly fell far short of expectations.
Worldwide sales of APS cameras have been stuck at around 2.5 million units a year, with Kodak's Advantix models accounting for about half of those, said Kodak spokesman Charles Smith.

[poweragemk]

Guess I need to upgrade from a tiny APS unit to a tiny digital unit...

[aashton]

I read recently in one of the photo journals that 2003 saw for the first time more digital camera sales in the UK than film camera sales (by a small margin).

Another thing I have noticed is that in the last few months each of the reviews of digital backs has commented on how digital has surpassed film for quality not just convenience.

Andrew :cool:

[-=Rudy=-]

Heh...all the talk about digital improving, and I just got a new SLR system this past summer. :) (And like always, lusting after a medium format camera. ;) ) There's still something to be said for film. But I won't be buying another digital until the price drops quite a bit for the type of camera I want. Plus it needs to accept filters on the front of the lens...a big drawback IMHO.

[Steve Hoffman]

I didn't even know that Kodak MADE cameras.

This morning when I was still woozy I misread the title of this thread as:

Kodak to end production of 35mm film.

Phew.

[-=Rudy=-]

Originally posted by Dan C

Though Kodak, the world's biggest photography company, expects to phase out 35mm reloadable cameras in North America and Western Europe, it plans to expand manufacturing in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, where the 35mm market is still growing at a double-digit clip.

............

Codeveloped by Kodak, Canon, Fuji, Minolta and Nikon, APS cameras produce pictures in a variety of sizes on the same roll of 24mm film. ..... In February 1996, the photo giants heralded the system as the biggest breakthrough in consumer photography since 35mm technology emerged in 1926. It quickly fell far short of expectations.

I just re-read it--it looks like for North America they're ending production, but maintaining it for other countries.

Second comment, about APS: didn't they say the same thing about the disc cameras? :laugh:

[Tony Caldwell]

This reminds me of when CDs came out and everyone was hell bent to replace all of their LPs with "better sounding" CDs.

I guess that it is possible that someday digital captures may rival images captured on film, but I doubt it.

Last week I saw a 16x20 print from a digital file captured by a Canon Digital Rebel. The closer you I looked at it, the more it reminded me of the sound of CDs vs. LPs.

The digital image appeared to be incredibly sharp and detailed (at first glance). The more you look at it, the more UNNATURAL and HARSH it appears. No subtle shades of color... No detail in the shadows...

The image was a large family. All of the subjects wore black and/or red clothing. I think there were six different "red objects" in the photograph. Everything from Uncle Joe's hat to Mom's red sweater to Grandpa's red tie. Everyone of the red objects looked EXACTLY THE SAME SHADE OF RED.

There were also no variation or shades of black in the clothing.

It is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE that all of the reds and blacks were exactly the same. Impossible.

Another thing that I have noticed...

All of the "latest" film processing and printing equipment doesn't even print your photographs by using a light source and your negatives. The negatives are scanned (horribly low resolution) and transferred to the paper using various LEDs/Fiber Optics/Fancy Words... The result? Prints that make you say "wow" but don't hold up to close examination. Just take a look at a 4x6 printed at Wal Mart with a magnifier and see if you don't see the digital artifacts. You will also notice that mom's blue dress is IMPOSSIBLY BLUE and ONE BIG BRIGHT BLOB OF BLUE. No real shades of blue even where the light hits it at different angles...

In fifteen years someone will dig out a 4x6 print and try to have it "blown up" to an 11x14 for mom's funeral. Sadly, mom's face will be horribly digitized and she will look like a bad special effect from "Tron".

Ok, I am going to go blow my brains out.

Have a great day.

[Steve Hoffman]

Good rant!

Tron. Love it!

[Tony Caldwell]

Thanks, Steve.

I have my moments.:cool:

I still remember my local music retailer refusing to even "special order" me an LP of Rush's "Hold Your Fire." I even offered to prepay for it. They even looked it up on their order sheet, but they said that they "weren't allowed" to order LPs anymore. I could choose CD or Cassette.

I am afraid that in a couple of years my choices will be DIGITAL or SINGLE USE FILM CAMERAS. Heck, the single use cameras will probably be digital, too.

I can just hear a salesperson tell me...

"Why do you need TMAX film when you can just take a digital image and transfer it to grayscale?? It will look the same, right?"

Ahh, Progress!

[Ere]

Originally posted by Tony Caldwell

In fifteen years someone will dig out a 4x6 print and try to have it "blown up" to an 11x14 for mom's funeral. Sadly, mom's face will be horribly digitized and she will look like a bad special effect from "Tron".


Not to mention that there is no preservation standard for digital files or prints, no matter how much hype the vendors spew. I have stable printable negatives from the $5 camera my Dad used at his first job as radio DJ in 1950; think a .jpg from any consumer grade digital camera today will be accessible in 2054?

[Dan C]

Originally posted by Tony Caldwell
Thanks, Steve.

I have my moments.:cool:

I still remember my local music retailer refusing to even "special order" me an LP of Rush's "Hold Your Fire." I even offered to prepay for it. They even looked it up on their order sheet, but they said that they "weren't allowed" to order LPs anymore. I could choose CD or Cassette.

I am afraid that in a couple of years my choices will be DIGITAL or SINGLE USE FILM CAMERAS. Heck, the single use cameras will probably be digital, too.

I can just hear a salesperson tell me...

"Why do you need TMAX film when you can just take a digital image and transfer it to grayscale?? It will look the same, right?"

Ahh, Progress!
You ranted, now it's my turn.

Anyone here actually work day in and day out with film and chemistry? If so and you miss it, then god bless you. You're a stronger person than I am.
I did it and it sucked. I don't miss the smells or the stains on my fingers and clothes. I don't miss dumping caustic chemicals into my water system every day. I don't miss putting my day's take into a wheezing processor on tight deadlines, waiting for the film (and hoping everything goes OK) as angry press men glare at me from across the room. I don't miss hauling *** from far away assignments to get back to the paper and process film.
Digital is cleaner and faster. Images can be edited, cropped and toned by the photographer and sent to anyplace from almost anywhere.

Is it "better"? Yes and no. Quality isn't exactly like film yet but it's getting surprisingly close. Contrast control in color is far superior than ANY color film. As far as editorial work goes most of you who look at Sports Illustrated, Car and Driver, Time, Newsweek, etc probably wouldn't notice that most of the photos are sourced digitally (depending on how the image was made, transmitted, processed, etc).
Do you think we can go back to a day when waiting a week or more for film to be smuggled out of war zones for publication?

I love what artists and journalists have done with film in the past and I love the look of those images. They were a product of their time, however, and there are countless people still making compelling images with digital equipment every day.

Please take another look at this thread. Would these images would somehow be more powerful if they were made on film?
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26741

Art is in the eye and in the soul, not the camera.
Dan C

[Drew]

The Canon Digital Rebel is a 6 megapixel SLR. I'd never try to make a 16x20 print from a 6 megapixel image (whether its a lossy compressed jpg or and noncompressed tif or raw). 11x14 max. I don't claim to know if digital will ever match film from a quality standpoint but (IMO) it has a ways to go to match the quality of a good 35mm 100 speed film.

[Ere]

Points taken, Dan. But if Robert Capa had been using a digital camera chances are his images wouldn't be here to enjoy today. Citing the number of major publications that have gone digital has no bearing on whether what appear today to be timeless images will last beyond the next big market push for a new format.

[Tony Caldwell]

Originally posted by Dan C

You ranted, now it's my turn.

Anyone here actually work day in and day out with film and chemistry? If so and you miss it, then god bless you. You're a stronger person than I am.
I did it and it sucked. I don't miss the smells or the stains on my fingers and clothes. I don't miss dumping caustic chemicals into my water system every day. I don't miss putting my day's take into a wheezing processor on tight deadlines, waiting for the film (and hoping everything goes OK) as angry press men glare at me from across the room. I don't miss hauling *** from far away assignments to get back to the paper and process film.
Digital is cleaner and faster. Images can be edited, cropped and toned by the photographer and sent to anyplace from almost anywhere.

Is it "better"? Yes and no. Quality isn't exactly like film yet but it's getting surprisingly close. Contrast control in color is far superior than ANY color film. As far as editorial work goes most of you who look at Sports Illustrated, Car and Driver, Time, Newsweek, etc probably wouldn't notice that most of the photos are sourced digitally (depending on how the image was made, transmitted, processed, etc).
Do you think we can go back to a day when waiting a week or more for film to be smuggled out of war zones for publication?

I love what artists and journalists have done with film in the past and I love the look of those images. They were a product of their time, however, and there are countless people still making compelling images with digital equipment every day.

Please take another look at this thread. Would these images would somehow be more powerful if they were made on film?
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26741

Art is in the eye and in the soul, not the camera.
Dan C

I understand that there are lots of things that can be done with digital imaging that was impossible with film. It is inevitable that film will disappear from the planet faster than you can say "WTF". Just like it is inevitable that humans will eventually destroy this planet.

The whole thing just reminds me of the digital audio nightmare...

Lousy sounding digital recordings
Lousy sounding CDs
All of a sudden LPs are "old fashioned" and not readily available anymore.

There is going to be a whole generation of Americans with no photographs to pass on or show to their grandchildren.

"Oh, Johnnie, I wish you could have met your Grandmother. It's too bad that she is dead and rotting underground, and the only photographs we took were printed out on my "PHOTO SMART" printer at home. They all vanished over time. First, they turned really red. You see, all the cyan ink faded faster than the other colors. Then the yellow went and they looked really purple. Then, the next thing you know... They were totally gone.

Too bad I burned the jpegs onto really cheap cdrs that I bought at the Wal Marts. They were made in Taiwan in a renovated Nike shoe factory. To be able to "roll back" the prices on cdrs, they used raw materials like aborted fetuses and dirt to make the dye for the Memorex discs. They were only readable for a couple of years, but even if they hadn't disintegrated, no modern computer would be able to read them (anyone remember floppy discs?). Yeah, Johnnie, your granny was a real peach. You will never know what she looked like, but I saved a ton of money by buying my digital camera down at the Wal Marts".

No problem.

[-=Rudy=-]

Unless computers are going to disappear in the next several years, I doubt any file format will be obsolete.

For kicks, I got a 35mm film/slide scanner this past summer. Dad had taken a lot of slides and photos over the years, and from what I've seen, some of those film formulations from the 50's and 60's aren't all that stable. I found some Ektachrome slides that were in horrible condition--pretty much color shifted all to rust tones, and some of the bright areas had washed themselves out. I was able to scan some of them and rescue what I could, balancing the color to something a little more recognizable.

As cheap as recordable media and hard drives are today, there's no reason not to store important digital photos in more than one place. I have at least two copies of every digital photo I've ever taken. Granted my 2.1 megapixels isn't the best, but since I do web development and also show some of my pictures online, 1280x960 is more resolution than I need for web use. (It gives me plenty of leeway to crop out the garbage if I need to.)

I still enjoy shooting with film in my Maxxum though. The camera's more responsive, and I have more control over aperture and shutter speed, not to mention being able to use my polarizer and other filters, as well as a longer zoom. Until the price of a much higher megapixel SLR camera drops down to where I can afford it, I'm sitting out upgrading my current digital. I'd still like to get into medium format too, but I'm still working on my photography skills.

[Ere]

Repeat: there is no preservation standard for any digital file format, let alone image formats. Unless Bill Gates's Corbis Archive has one and they're not sharing. The best one could do know is, as Rudy noted, insist on redundant storage of files and, for the most treasured images, have them printed on using Giclee or other notionally archival methods - or have the file blown out to film and store according to widely accepted preservation standards.

[Dan C]

Originally posted by Tony Caldwell


I understand that there are lots of things that can be done with digital imaging that was impossible with film. It is inevitable that film will disappear from the planet faster than you can say "WTF". Just like it is inevitable that humans will eventually destroy this planet.

The whole thing just reminds me of the digital audio nightmare...

Lousy sounding digital recordings
Lousy sounding CDs
All of a sudden LPs are "old fashioned" and not readily available anymore.

There is going to be a whole generation of Americans with no photographs to pass on or show to their grandchildren.

"Oh, Johnnie, I wish you could have met your Grandmother. It's too bad that she is dead and rotting underground, and the only photographs we took were printed out on my "PHOTO SMART" printer at home. They all vanished over time. First, they turned really red. You see, all the cyan ink faded faster than the other colors. Then the yellow went and they looked really purple. Then, the next thing you know... They were totally gone.

Too bad I burned the jpegs onto really cheap cdrs that I bought at the Wal Marts. They were made in Taiwan in a renovated Nike shoe factory. To be able to "roll back" the prices on cdrs, they used raw materials like aborted fetuses and dirt to make the dye for the Memorex discs. They were only readable for a couple of years, but even if they hadn't disintegrated, no modern computer would be able to read them (anyone remember floppy discs?). Yeah, Johnnie, your granny was a real peach. You will never know what she looked like, but I saved a ton of money by buying my digital camera down at the Wal Marts".

No problem.

Are you really comparing the rise of digital photography to humans eventually destroying the planet? Do you have any idea how environmentally unfriendly film chemistry is?

Film isn't going anywhere, but it also won't be driving the imaging market.

Anyway, there is much discussion and progress being made in the archiving of digital images. Digital photography has become common only over the past several years. How many years past before concern over fading color negative materials started to surface? 20, 30 years maybe? That's a long time, and in that time countless images and movie films were nearly or entirely lost. Precious wedding and school photos quietly faded away on walls and in boxes before anyone noticed, and often by then it's too late to do anything about it (Oh, except nasty old digital technology can be used to restore life to faded images but digital sucks, right?).

No technology is perfect! Digital certainly ain't perfect either but the learning curve is pretty damn impressive. CD media CAN be backed up and copied, printer ink is out pacing traditional color photo paper in areas of stability.

People who neglect their images will lose them. My parents, for example, threw away tons of negatives and prints while keeping only the ones they liked at the time and leaving us with very little to look back on. Shame! Same thing goes with digital. Those who care will take the effort to preserve their family snapshots. And I don't see the CD disappearing any time soon or catching anyone by surprise. They're everywhere, and even the most obscure media can be read by someone someplace.

Dan C

[Randy W]

Those who know me from the Music Forum, know that I am a vinyl nut and prefer the best analog over best digital music format almost every time. So it may come as a suprise to you that as someone who makes their living from photography, I am excited about digital in the visual format and agree with Dan in the majority. The latest top of the line 35mm SLRs from Canon and Nikon (over 11 megapixel images) do rival 100 ASA slide film in resolution and color tonal scale. What's more, as a consumer (with Photoshop tools) you have much more control over the way your image look digitally than you ever did with analog. Of course, you need to calibrate your monitor first. Dye transfer prints look better than what is currently available digitally, but finding someone to do that is next to impossible (and extremely expensive). For storage, I do not make prints - I back up everything on 3 hard drives and also on safe deposit box CDs. I'm a Leica rangefinder fan and find them the most gratifying cameras to use from a tactile perspective. However, there is nothing like being able to see a histogram and review images as you shoot - you can work towards a creative image in a much more efficient manner digitally as compared to film.

Just so you know I can appreciate a good rant Tony, T-Max hasn't been the same since the 1980's, Wal Mart prints suck, Canon's Rebel is not considered reference quality, and humans will most likely destroy this planet one way or another....

[Michael St. Clair]

Last week I saw a 16x20 print from a digital file captured by a Canon Digital Rebel. The closer you I looked at it, the more it reminded me of the sound of CDs vs. LPs.

The digital image appeared to be incredibly sharp and detailed (at first glance). The more you look at it, the more UNNATURAL and HARSH it appears. No subtle shades of color... No detail in the shadows...


Kind of like a poorly recorded, poorly mastered digital recording.

Yet look how Steve can make a redbook CD sound. Do they all sound 'unnatural' and 'harsh'?

Your example of a crappy print from a 6 megapixel DSLR doesn't mean much until we know how it was 'recorded' (how did the photographer take the picture...what lens was used, and at what aperture and speed...what ISO setting...did they know how to use the tools like histogram, combined with their own experience, to make a proper exposure...did they use 'RAW' mode to capture all of the original image in 14 bits instead of eight, with no lossy compression and all possible metadata) and how it was 'mastered' (what digital darkroom workflow was used...what adjustments were made in Photoshop to optimize the contrast, color, sharpness, noise...how was the image scaled and then compressed before printing) and then duplicated (how was the print made, on what equipment, with what technician, was the machine properly maintained, were the chemicals fresh).

One crappy print is no more of a reflection on the potential of digital photography than a crappy CD is of digital audio.

Another thing to keep in mind with digital photography is that a lot of hobbyists who cannot afford a proper darkroom, especially for color, can afford a decent 'digital darkroom'.

[-=Rudy=-]

Sort of a follow-up: Target used to have a whole section of film at our local store. Nowadays, it gets two tiny sections on a half-shelf, and it's just your run of the mill consumer grade film, and a portion is still APS film as well. Thankfully we still have good camera shops to buy just about any film imaginable. But with the big retailers cutting back on film and film-based cameras, the writing's pretty much on the wall. It almost makes me wonder when the big stores will start getting out of on-site instant photo developing.

[Wufnpoof]

[...] Just like it is inevitable that humans will eventually destroy this planet. [...]
Most of all, I remember the Sun.

[-=Rudy=-]

A relevant opinion article regarding storage on digital media:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1612643,00.asp


The Dead-Media Bogeyman
By John C. Dvorak
July 13, 2004

Most of today's long-term computer users have experienced dead media in the form of the 5.25-inch floppy disk. If you have an old disk to read, you probably no longer have a computer equipped to read it; the 5.25-inch drives are becoming collectible. But if you have one, you should know that a lot of plastic and rubber parts fail. Tape backup is worse. I have a number of backups on nonstandard tape that are useless, their data essentially lost forever.

Dead-media issues are not confined to digital computers. For example, most of the vintage 1960s quad-head video gear for recording TV no longer works. The few big Ampex monsters that are left are being used to transfer old tapes onto a different format while they still can. There probably will not be enough time to move everything over, and plenty of quad tapes will remain in storage and become useless.

This brings us to the issue of digital photography and all the pictures we are taking. Will they end up on dead media and be lost forever? Probably not—and perhaps the opposite will happen. As anyone who has adopted digital photography knows, you end up with too many backup copies of your images. With digital imaging, we take more pictures and have more perfect copies than ever. During the film era you had one lone negative, and it was often scratched.

More images were lost because of scratched or lost negatives—which could never be perfectly backed up—than you lose today as a result of format changes. If the negatives or pictures got wet, they were ruined. The really old stuff, from the turn of the previous century, has faded for good, and there are no digital negatives to save it. Computers can sometimes pump the colors of old negatives to get close to what they once were, but old color negatives are fading faster than we can fix them.

That said, there has to be some concern over the long-term reliability of digital storage, with the recent overblown fears about disc rot—a perceived problem that harks back to the late 1970s and some bad pressings of laserdiscs. In fact, we are witnessing a consolidation process resulting in more and more backups. And because we tend to use music industry–type (CD and DVD) consumer standards, we will probably have playability for a hundred years or longer. There is not as much dead media in the music industry; just consider that with the right equipment you can still play a 78-rpm record from 1904!

People back up their photos mostly onto CDs and DVDs, and they do it redundantly, moving forward from technology to technology. You back up on CD-ROM, then you move the CD-ROMs to DVD-ROMs, and then on to whatever format is next, leaving behind more and more backups. If one system fails, you've got multiple redundancy; nobody ever throws these discs out, because they take up very little space.

Still, it's easy to get tricked into a dead end that becomes a dead medium such as RCA's SelectaVision videodisc system, which used a vinyl recording–like technique to encode video. The number of odd VCR formats that came and went is astonishing, especially with pro gear. And let's not forget the 8-track tape player. But the CD/DVD formats look stable on into the future, with so much gear that it is highly unlikely they will become dead media before the year 2200. And if they do die, you can be certain that all the data will be moved forward onto something better.

The last vestiges of photo-loss fear come from the silver-halide mavens, who talk about the 150-year lifespan of their prints, and how digital is somehow more delicate. This is nonsense. First of all, for the past 30 years of film photography, most people have shot color, which has dubious longevity. And the lifetime of a digital file, if you maintain it on fresh media and move it onto new media as improvements are made, is essentially infinite. How can you do this with a silver-halide print without scanning and digitizing it?

That said, I do think that many of our memories locked in photos will be lost to time, but not as a result of deterioration. It will be because of the sheer enormity of the photo load on humankind. Cameras on phones. Moblogs. Picture storage sites. Sixty million new digital cameras sold this year alone. Endless images taken by everyone. Duplicates, and duplicates of duplicates! The number of digital images will be in the trillions in no time. That is how they will be lost.

[RetroSmith]

Nice Post.

I also agree that the notion of "Its digital, it will be lost " is utter nonsense. Make 2 backup copies. That will ensure that you always have at least one good version...and then you can make backup copies from THAT and always be safe.


I do some work with Scopitone Films.....they were short Music videos made in the 1960s to show on Video Jukeboxes in bars, airports, Holiday inns, etc.
They were made by a variety of different production houses.

I can tell you that almost ALL the films shot on Eastman Color Stock have turned RED. Almost unusable. The Eastman formula was never tested for longevity, and the chemicals they used in the film react badly to time.

[b&w]

Nice Post.

I also agree that the notion of "Its digital, it will be lost " is utter nonsense. Make 2 backup copies. That will ensure that you always have at least one good version...and then you can make backup copies from THAT and always be safe.


.

How will merely the fact you "make 2 backup copies", "ensure that you always have at least one good version"?

[RetroSmith]

Why? because if you make 2 backup copies, along with your original, thats three digital copies. What are the odds of ALL THREE going bad? Especially if you use Good media.

Amost ZERO.