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Upcoming Film Price Wars - Kodak vs. Fuji...



 
 
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  #31  
Old September 26th 04, 06:48 PM
Ron Todd
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On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 06:44:06 -0500, Nick Zentena
wrote:

Ron Todd wrote:


Cost - Volume - Gross Profit functions are not that simple.
Sometimes, you can make a higher gross profit by lowering the price.


The problem is the fixed costs don't change any if they make 1 roll or
they make 1,000,000. Worse the equipment isn't likely able to handle small
production runs. They need volume not just for profit but to keep the
machines running.


Actually, fixed costs do change over large ranges in production
volume, as you can dump some of the costs as the enterprise contracts.
Many fixed costs are actually semi fixed costs over the wide range of
production volumes. I understand Kodak has liquidated some of its
fixed costs on continuing lines already, as film volume has declined.
I am pretty sure the fixed cost to produce one square foot of film is
much lower than the cost to produce 1 million square feet. You could
do 1 square foot in the basement, the 1 million would take some
administrative costs to run the operation.

I agree that Kodak's equipment is designed for higher production runs.
As I understand it: The TP and Kodachrome 25 production both ended
when they got down to one emulsion run a year, or less in the case of
TP. With the TP it seems the last production run was enough for three
years with the current demand.




(liquidators) come in. You get to the point where the money to be
recovered from liquidating the company (and firing all the employees)
becomes a very reasonable possibility.



If nobody is buying film then the equipment is worthless. The cleanup
costs likely are higher then the other assets. The only way somebody can
make money by breaking up the company is if the assets have some value.


Not necessarily. You never know what the assets are worth until you
sell them in the open market. People are notoriously bad at coming up
with pre-liquidation valuations. AIR, Rolls Royce was valued at
something like $0.10 per share before the liquidation. I believe it
returned something like $1.00 to $1.25 per share to equity holders.


  #32  
Old September 26th 04, 06:52 PM
Ron Todd
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On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 00:27:16 -0500, "jjs"
wrote:

"Stacey" wrote in message
...
Exactly. Given the profits to be made from -any- film sales, why would
film
disappear from the market as long as people are still using it?


Because it doesn't make _enough_ of a profit.


Well, .... With market CD rates at 4% would you be willing to put
your life savings in a bank at 0.5% so home buyers would get less
expensive mortgages?


  #33  
Old September 26th 04, 06:52 PM
Ron Todd
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On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 00:27:16 -0500, "jjs"
wrote:

"Stacey" wrote in message
...
Exactly. Given the profits to be made from -any- film sales, why would
film
disappear from the market as long as people are still using it?


Because it doesn't make _enough_ of a profit.


Well, .... With market CD rates at 4% would you be willing to put
your life savings in a bank at 0.5% so home buyers would get less
expensive mortgages?


  #34  
Old September 26th 04, 08:14 PM
jjs
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Default

"Ron Todd" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 06:44:06 -0500, Nick Zentena
wrote:

Ron Todd wrote:


Cost - Volume - Gross Profit functions are not that simple.
Sometimes, you can make a higher gross profit by lowering the price.


The problem is the fixed costs don't change any if they make 1 roll or
they make 1,000,000. Worse the equipment isn't likely able to handle small
production runs. They need volume not just for profit but to keep the
machines running.


Actually, fixed costs do change over large ranges in production
volume, as you can dump some of the costs as the enterprise contracts.
Many fixed costs are actually semi fixed costs over the wide range of
production volumes. [...]


My previous career was twenty years in MRPII database and analysis, which
neccessarily includes accounting structures, all coupled with an excellent
critical path prescedence modeling system; in otherwords deeply integrated,
and I can assure you that costing a product is very complex and certainly
variable. Nothing, but nothing is fixed. Each comment made to this issue so
far seems to be coming from those who speculate on incomplete knowledge in
the form typical of investors and middle management and corporate execs
involved largely in the show business of looking smart, acting stupid.

Let it go. What happens, happens and only business historians will care or
possibly understand. The rest is show business.




  #35  
Old September 26th 04, 08:14 PM
jjs
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Posts: n/a
Default

"Ron Todd" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 06:44:06 -0500, Nick Zentena
wrote:

Ron Todd wrote:


Cost - Volume - Gross Profit functions are not that simple.
Sometimes, you can make a higher gross profit by lowering the price.


The problem is the fixed costs don't change any if they make 1 roll or
they make 1,000,000. Worse the equipment isn't likely able to handle small
production runs. They need volume not just for profit but to keep the
machines running.


Actually, fixed costs do change over large ranges in production
volume, as you can dump some of the costs as the enterprise contracts.
Many fixed costs are actually semi fixed costs over the wide range of
production volumes. [...]


My previous career was twenty years in MRPII database and analysis, which
neccessarily includes accounting structures, all coupled with an excellent
critical path prescedence modeling system; in otherwords deeply integrated,
and I can assure you that costing a product is very complex and certainly
variable. Nothing, but nothing is fixed. Each comment made to this issue so
far seems to be coming from those who speculate on incomplete knowledge in
the form typical of investors and middle management and corporate execs
involved largely in the show business of looking smart, acting stupid.

Let it go. What happens, happens and only business historians will care or
possibly understand. The rest is show business.




  #36  
Old September 26th 04, 08:14 PM
jjs
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"Ron Todd" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 06:44:06 -0500, Nick Zentena
wrote:

Ron Todd wrote:


Cost - Volume - Gross Profit functions are not that simple.
Sometimes, you can make a higher gross profit by lowering the price.


The problem is the fixed costs don't change any if they make 1 roll or
they make 1,000,000. Worse the equipment isn't likely able to handle small
production runs. They need volume not just for profit but to keep the
machines running.


Actually, fixed costs do change over large ranges in production
volume, as you can dump some of the costs as the enterprise contracts.
Many fixed costs are actually semi fixed costs over the wide range of
production volumes. [...]


My previous career was twenty years in MRPII database and analysis, which
neccessarily includes accounting structures, all coupled with an excellent
critical path prescedence modeling system; in otherwords deeply integrated,
and I can assure you that costing a product is very complex and certainly
variable. Nothing, but nothing is fixed. Each comment made to this issue so
far seems to be coming from those who speculate on incomplete knowledge in
the form typical of investors and middle management and corporate execs
involved largely in the show business of looking smart, acting stupid.

Let it go. What happens, happens and only business historians will care or
possibly understand. The rest is show business.




  #37  
Old September 26th 04, 08:16 PM
jjs
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Posts: n/a
Default

"Ron Todd" wrote in message
...

Because it doesn't make _enough_ of a profit.


Well, .... With market CD rates at 4% would you be willing to put
your life savings in a bank at 0.5% so home buyers would get less
expensive mortgages?


You don't know what the **** you are talking about so you toss out some kind
of irrelevant, weak-ass innuendo. Give it a rest. Get a job.


  #38  
Old September 27th 04, 12:52 AM
Bob Monaghan
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the short answer is that film is made in meter+ widths on machinery which
is then cut down to required sizes, including sheet film and 120 or 35mm.

often, the same machinery is used to run a series of batches of different
film stocks which are then cut down and processed and sold over the next 6
to 18 months or more out of frozen film stocks.

so if a film emulsion is available at all, it can be made available in any
standard film size (up to 8x10" anyway) and on whatever format (including
620 as an alternate to 120) you want. It used to be that a distributor
could order (minim. order around $10,000, and pay in advance) for formats
like 5x7" even if such formats were not otherwise available on the
standard Kodak catalog listings. At wholesale, that is a lot of film.

Film for Classics showed there was a larger market than Kodak and others
admitted for classic film formats like 620 and 127 etc. Now we have a
number of such specialty formats available from major distributors (like
B&H, Efke..) and mfgers.

I would bet that a film-only mfger freed from corp. pro-digital politics
would probably provide more formats, rather than less, simply because once
the film emulsions are produced, the cutting and packaging equipment is
also already there and paid for, so it might as well be used.

Before then, we will have to endure the trimming of marginal (if still
profitable) formats and emulsions from major mfgers like Kodak while they
first milk and then kill off their film based cash "cow" ;-)

The final point is that the migration of film production to overseas
(China's Lucky Film plants for Kodak etc.) further supports the idea of
lower cost film products in the future, as underlying costs will be low.
It will be hard to prevent direct exports from China etc. if they (kodak,
Lucky film, etc.) try to over-price their film for the USA market (a side
effect of world pricing info and Ebay etc. on arbitraging such price
differences to near zero).

So again, I think film costs are going down, and likely to stay down over
the long term...

p-) grins bobm

--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************
  #39  
Old September 27th 04, 12:52 AM
Bob Monaghan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


the short answer is that film is made in meter+ widths on machinery which
is then cut down to required sizes, including sheet film and 120 or 35mm.

often, the same machinery is used to run a series of batches of different
film stocks which are then cut down and processed and sold over the next 6
to 18 months or more out of frozen film stocks.

so if a film emulsion is available at all, it can be made available in any
standard film size (up to 8x10" anyway) and on whatever format (including
620 as an alternate to 120) you want. It used to be that a distributor
could order (minim. order around $10,000, and pay in advance) for formats
like 5x7" even if such formats were not otherwise available on the
standard Kodak catalog listings. At wholesale, that is a lot of film.

Film for Classics showed there was a larger market than Kodak and others
admitted for classic film formats like 620 and 127 etc. Now we have a
number of such specialty formats available from major distributors (like
B&H, Efke..) and mfgers.

I would bet that a film-only mfger freed from corp. pro-digital politics
would probably provide more formats, rather than less, simply because once
the film emulsions are produced, the cutting and packaging equipment is
also already there and paid for, so it might as well be used.

Before then, we will have to endure the trimming of marginal (if still
profitable) formats and emulsions from major mfgers like Kodak while they
first milk and then kill off their film based cash "cow" ;-)

The final point is that the migration of film production to overseas
(China's Lucky Film plants for Kodak etc.) further supports the idea of
lower cost film products in the future, as underlying costs will be low.
It will be hard to prevent direct exports from China etc. if they (kodak,
Lucky film, etc.) try to over-price their film for the USA market (a side
effect of world pricing info and Ebay etc. on arbitraging such price
differences to near zero).

So again, I think film costs are going down, and likely to stay down over
the long term...

p-) grins bobm

--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************
  #40  
Old September 27th 04, 01:13 AM
jjs
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Posts: n/a
Default

"Bob Monaghan" wrote in message
...

the short answer is that film is made in meter+ widths on machinery which
is then cut down to required sizes, including sheet film and 120 or 35mm.


I'd like to see someone try to roll up a 20 exposure 35mm Efke 25 stock.
That stuff is stiff enough to patch a battleship.


 




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