TP120- followup

Neil Gould wrote, in rec.photo.equipment.medium-format:

The way *I* read their statement, it's a very small extrapolation from
those "manufacturing inconvenience" points to understand its poor
profitability. One only has to consider that almost *anything* else that
uses those resources more efficiently and that doesn't require
re-engineering of all the basic materials will exceed the profitabililty
of TP.

Neil

Oh man, I've definitely been reading this thread too long. I totally
forgot it was about Tech Pan until I read your final word "TP"!
I've been preoccupied with the fact that Kodak has just closed their
film lab in New Jersey, abandoning all Kodachrome processing in the
United States to a single remaining third party, Dwaynes Photo in Kansas.
Of course turnaround time has increased dramatically, and this will help
drive down sales, paving the way for a "justifiable" discontinuance
of the product itself.

This may be an efficient use of resources for Kodak. I call it shameful.

But oops, medium format Kodachrome was lost years ago, so:

OT! OT! Followups to rec.photo.film+labs, please.

-Tom

I believe it's the reflection of a defeatist "cash cow" mentality at Kodak.
They've bought into the digital hype and are convinced that film will
ultimately disappear, so now they'll just milk the cow until it dies. Where's
the money now? C41 obviously, but where will the money be tommorow? On niche
film products that appeal to artists and die-hard enthusiasts.

Tom Bombadil wrote:

Neil Gould wrote, in rec.photo.equipment.medium-format:

The way *I* read their statement, it's a very small extrapolation from
those "manufacturing inconvenience" points to understand its poor
profitability. One only has to consider that almost *anything* else that
uses those resources more efficiently and that doesn't require
re-engineering of all the basic materials will exceed the profitabililty
of TP.

Neil

Oh man, I've definitely been reading this thread too long. I totally
forgot it was about Tech Pan until I read your final word "TP"!
I've been preoccupied with the fact that Kodak has just closed their
film lab in New Jersey, abandoning all Kodachrome processing in the
United States to a single remaining third party, Dwaynes Photo in Kansas.
Of course turnaround time has increased dramatically, and this will help
drive down sales, paving the way for a "justifiable" discontinuance
of the product itself.

This may be an efficient use of resources for Kodak. I call it shameful.

But oops, medium format Kodachrome was lost years ago, so:

OT! OT! Followups to rec.photo.film+labs, please.

-Tom

In article , wrote:
I believe it's the reflection of a defeatist "cash cow" mentality at Kodak.
They've bought into the digital hype and are convinced that film will
ultimately disappear, so now they'll just milk the cow until it dies.

What else can they do? There really hasn't been any significant development
in monochromatic film technology since the 80s, T-grain and chromogenic
film, both spin offs of color film technology.

Despite what any of us want, digital is the technology of the future,
and it will replace film the way that video replaced home movies.

What they've done is to "streamline" their operations, moving monochrome
film production to the same plant as color and dropping the overly complex
kodachrome, which from a business point of view should have died with the
the development of the simple, enivromently friendly Ektachrome.

I'm not saying it should of, but to be honest if Kodak lived by my kodachrome
purchases in the last 10 years they would be out of business.


Where's
the money now? C41 obviously, but where will the money be tommorow? On niche
film products that appeal to artists and die-hard enthusiasts.

The money is on hybrid digital/analog processes, such as optical printing
of digital "pictures". Until someone can come up with a digital method that
is as cheap and good looking as a regular print.

Or until printer manufactures figgure out how to make a good looking,
long lasting inkjet where the true economics of the printing process are
in force. Or in plain English, you don't pay $25 for a cartridge with
$.50 worth of ink in it.

The end will be due to economics pure and simple. When will it cost $50 for
a roll of film? How many will you buy at that price.

When I first saw this thread, I thought that TP meant TRI-X Pan. Same thoughts
but not as quickly, But it will happen.


Maybe in the future, film will be sold by subscription. Someone will
contract Kodak to make a production run of for example, TP-120, only
after they have sold enough rolls in paid advance to cover the cost of
the run.

If you had to buy 10,000 rolls at $10 each, do you think you could get enough
paid in advance sales to do it? How much would you have to charge for each
roll to cover your administrative, packaging and shipping costs?

Maybe we could convince Kodak to place the formula for "abandonedware"
products in the public domain? Then we could get a small company to produce
a much smaller run for example, how about using Verichrome (not VP) in
that old box camera, or good old fashinoned Panatomic-X?

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, C.T.O. GW&T Ltd., Jerusalem Israel

IL Voice: 972-544-608-069 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838

On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 22:51:02 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:


....

Maybe we could convince Kodak to place the formula for "abandonedware"
products in the public domain? Then we could get a small company to produce
a much smaller run for example, how about using Verichrome (not VP) in
that old box camera, or good old fashinoned Panatomic-X?

.....

Well, as I understand it you can't exactly duplicated Tech Pan because
(1) the gelatin to make the emulsion is no longer manufactured, and
(2) the Estar (R) base is no longer manufactured. If you really
wanted to put together a business plan you could probably come up with
a microfilm emulsion cut & rolled for 120 that could be tweaked to be
a reasonable equivalent.

As far as VP, it would probably be about as easy to duplicate. Might
even be able to use the same emulsion laying equipment.

But lets be reasonable about this. No one on this list is going to
spend the time to put together the business plan and certainly no one
here is going to put up their own money for capital.

I never cease to be amazed how long Kodak has kept such unpopular
products in its line. As I understand Tech Pan, they had the last
emulsion run three years ago, disassembled the line, and they STILL
haven't sold out with the production from that run. I am convinced
their biggest problem is supporting their small nich clients. They
should be more like Fuji, no volume of sales, no product.

On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 22:51:02 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:


....

Maybe we could convince Kodak to place the formula for "abandonedware"
products in the public domain? Then we could get a small company to produce
a much smaller run for example, how about using Verichrome (not VP) in
that old box camera, or good old fashinoned Panatomic-X?

.....

Well, as I understand it you can't exactly duplicated Tech Pan because
(1) the gelatin to make the emulsion is no longer manufactured, and
(2) the Estar (R) base is no longer manufactured. If you really
wanted to put together a business plan you could probably come up with
a microfilm emulsion cut & rolled for 120 that could be tweaked to be
a reasonable equivalent.

As far as VP, it would probably be about as easy to duplicate. Might
even be able to use the same emulsion laying equipment.

But lets be reasonable about this. No one on this list is going to
spend the time to put together the business plan and certainly no one
here is going to put up their own money for capital.

I never cease to be amazed how long Kodak has kept such unpopular
products in its line. As I understand Tech Pan, they had the last
emulsion run three years ago, disassembled the line, and they STILL
haven't sold out with the production from that run. I am convinced
their biggest problem is supporting their small nich clients. They
should be more like Fuji, no volume of sales, no product.

On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 22:51:02 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:


....

Maybe we could convince Kodak to place the formula for "abandonedware"
products in the public domain? Then we could get a small company to produce
a much smaller run for example, how about using Verichrome (not VP) in
that old box camera, or good old fashinoned Panatomic-X?

.....

Well, as I understand it you can't exactly duplicated Tech Pan because
(1) the gelatin to make the emulsion is no longer manufactured, and
(2) the Estar (R) base is no longer manufactured. If you really
wanted to put together a business plan you could probably come up with
a microfilm emulsion cut & rolled for 120 that could be tweaked to be
a reasonable equivalent.

As far as VP, it would probably be about as easy to duplicate. Might
even be able to use the same emulsion laying equipment.

But lets be reasonable about this. No one on this list is going to
spend the time to put together the business plan and certainly no one
here is going to put up their own money for capital.

I never cease to be amazed how long Kodak has kept such unpopular
products in its line. As I understand Tech Pan, they had the last
emulsion run three years ago, disassembled the line, and they STILL
haven't sold out with the production from that run. I am convinced
their biggest problem is supporting their small nich clients. They
should be more like Fuji, no volume of sales, no product.

On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 22:51:02 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:

In article , wrote:
I believe it's the reflection of a defeatist "cash cow" mentality at Kodak.
They've bought into the digital hype and are convinced that film will
ultimately disappear, so now they'll just milk the cow until it dies.

What else can they do? There really hasn't been any significant development
in monochromatic film technology since the 80s, T-grain and chromogenic
film, both spin offs of color film technology.

Despite what any of us want, digital is the technology of the future,
and it will replace film the way that video replaced home movies.

What they've done is to "streamline" their operations, moving monochrome
film production to the same plant as color and dropping the overly complex
kodachrome, which from a business point of view should have died with the
the development of the simple, enivromently friendly Ektachrome.

I doubt there is much more they could do with monochrome, except maybe
introduce some different speed emulsions, I expect in about 10 years,
traditional MQ processes for B&W will probably die out, replaced by
Chromogenics. I have shot a lot of FP-4 and HP-5 over the years,
tried XP-2 and will try BW400CN, in that it's cheaper and easier to
get processed. Come to think of it, if you have a film scanner, you
can simply get a C-41 kit, process both your colour and Black & White
in the same soup, and not run multiple processes.

Kodachrome, has a lot of steps, and nothing else can be processed with
it, since any other colour reversal film, by any manufacturer, uses
E6. Will film die out, probably not, however there will be fewer
films, and fewer film manufacturers. I expect that 25 years from now,
there will be a half dozen film choices, a couple of B&W Chromogenics,
and couple of negative films, and a couple of reversal films, the
choice of speeds will be smaller, probably all will be 400ASA. A
company in China or India will do the manufacturing of 2m x 500m rolls
of film, and a few local distribution companies, will buy these rolls,
and cut and package the films.

W







I'm not saying it should of, but to be honest if Kodak lived by my kodachrome
purchases in the last 10 years they would be out of business.


Where's
the money now? C41 obviously, but where will the money be tommorow? On niche
film products that appeal to artists and die-hard enthusiasts.

The money is on hybrid digital/analog processes, such as optical printing
of digital "pictures". Until someone can come up with a digital method that
is as cheap and good looking as a regular print.

Or until printer manufactures figgure out how to make a good looking,
long lasting inkjet where the true economics of the printing process are
in force. Or in plain English, you don't pay $25 for a cartridge with
$.50 worth of ink in it.

The end will be due to economics pure and simple. When will it cost $50 for
a roll of film? How many will you buy at that price.

When I first saw this thread, I thought that TP meant TRI-X Pan. Same thoughts
but not as quickly, But it will happen.


Maybe in the future, film will be sold by subscription. Someone will
contract Kodak to make a production run of for example, TP-120, only
after they have sold enough rolls in paid advance to cover the cost of
the run.

If you had to buy 10,000 rolls at $10 each, do you think you could get enough
paid in advance sales to do it? How much would you have to charge for each
roll to cover your administrative, packaging and shipping costs?

Maybe we could convince Kodak to place the formula for "abandonedware"
products in the public domain? Then we could get a small company to produce
a much smaller run for example, how about using Verichrome (not VP) in
that old box camera, or good old fashinoned Panatomic-X?

Geoff.

Geoffrey S. Mendelson writes:

Despite what any of us want, digital is the technology of the future,
and it will replace film the way that video replaced home movies.

Or it will remain, in the way that film has not been replaced by video
in motion pictures.

If you had to buy 10,000 rolls at $10 each, do you think you could get enough
paid in advance sales to do it?

Well, some people are willing to pay $8000 in advance to take pictures
with a chip.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

"Tom Bombadil" wrote in message
...
Neil Gould wrote, in rec.photo.equipment.medium-format:

The way *I* read their statement, it's a very small extrapolation from
those "manufacturing inconvenience" points to understand its poor
profitability. One only has to consider that almost *anything* else that
uses those resources more efficiently and that doesn't require
re-engineering of all the basic materials will exceed the profitabililty
of TP.

Neil

Oh man, I've definitely been reading this thread too long. I totally
forgot it was about Tech Pan until I read your final word "TP"!
I've been preoccupied with the fact that Kodak has just closed their
film lab in New Jersey, abandoning all Kodachrome processing in the
United States to a single remaining third party, Dwaynes Photo in Kansas.
Of course turnaround time has increased dramatically, and this will help
drive down sales, paving the way for a "justifiable" discontinuance
of the product itself.

Frankly, anyone who is concerned with turnaround times was no longer using
Kodachrome prior to Kodak's latest lab closure. The number of reasons to
continue using Kodachrome are becoming fewer and fewer as the E-6 stocks
improve. The biggest reason I can think of to use it is the better
reproduction of blacks than the E-6 films. The other reasons I can think of
a

Proven dark stability
High degree of sharpness
Thin film travels smoother through cameras

The E-6 films have:

finer grain
more saturated colors
fast processing available

If you want Kodachrome to continue being made, better keep buying it, no
matter what the turnaround times end up being.

Derek

"Tom Bombadil" wrote in message
...
Neil Gould wrote, in rec.photo.equipment.medium-format:

The way *I* read their statement, it's a very small extrapolation from
those "manufacturing inconvenience" points to understand its poor
profitability. One only has to consider that almost *anything* else that
uses those resources more efficiently and that doesn't require
re-engineering of all the basic materials will exceed the profitabililty
of TP.

Neil

Oh man, I've definitely been reading this thread too long. I totally
forgot it was about Tech Pan until I read your final word "TP"!
I've been preoccupied with the fact that Kodak has just closed their
film lab in New Jersey, abandoning all Kodachrome processing in the
United States to a single remaining third party, Dwaynes Photo in Kansas.
Of course turnaround time has increased dramatically, and this will help
drive down sales, paving the way for a "justifiable" discontinuance
of the product itself.

Frankly, anyone who is concerned with turnaround times was no longer using
Kodachrome prior to Kodak's latest lab closure. The number of reasons to
continue using Kodachrome are becoming fewer and fewer as the E-6 stocks
improve. The biggest reason I can think of to use it is the better
reproduction of blacks than the E-6 films. The other reasons I can think of
a

Proven dark stability
High degree of sharpness
Thin film travels smoother through cameras

The E-6 films have:

finer grain
more saturated colors
fast processing available

If you want Kodachrome to continue being made, better keep buying it, no
matter what the turnaround times end up being.

Derek