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Kodak Reminding People Why They Should Go Digital

from the higher-prices-for-all dept

Tue, Apr 18th 2006 12:49am — Mike Masnick

Kodak has been trying for a while to move into the digital photography world -- with some amount of success. However, their traditional analog film business is still important. It seems, though, that the company is being forced to give a little extra shove to those of you who still haven't moved to digital photography by raising the price of analog film. The company clearly tried to resist raising the price, but seems to be admitting that the rising price of the core components of film finally forced it to raise the price as it could no longer "absorb" all of the rising costs itself. It's interesting to note that the announcement about the rise in film prices doesn't even bother to mention how this might impact the rapid shift to digital photography.

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17 Comments

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throbi, 18 Apr 2006 @ 4:10am

I use Fujifilm :-)
As a film-fanatic I'm sad to hear this. Hope that Fuji will not do the same.
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dani, 18 Apr 2006 @ 5:42am

with rising costs and declining demand, I wouldn't be surprised to see other film manufacturers follow suit...I'm more concerned with: "the group’s increase affects digital and conventional offset printing plates"
commercial printing prices are already pretty expensive...I may have to invest in a higher quality printer if commercial prices get much higher!
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Doug, 18 Apr 2006 @ 7:33am

because analog is analog
It'll be interesting to see how this affects the budgets of motion pictures (which use the equivalent of a roll of film per second) and the popularity of HD 24p.
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cheryl, 18 Apr 2006 @ 7:48am

kodak already stopped making many darkroom supplie
this is no surprise.
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Wolff000, 18 Apr 2006 @ 7:54am

Too Bad
I love film and it looks so much better than digitl crap. Unless you can afford a very nice camera that is but I don't have 2k to drop on a new camera. I'm an amatateur photgrapher so this really hurts since I only use kodak. They already charge way too much for B&W film and it costs twice the color stuff to get processed. Too bad I can't make my own film.
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Apr 2006 @ 9:49am
  
  Re: Too Bad
  B/W aost more because less of the silver is recovered. In colcor processing none of the silve is left on the negative, slide, or print, so much of it can be reclaimed from the solutions. This is not true of b/w
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Apr 2006 @ 8:12am

Silver prices are rising, so their hands are tied. No magic for Fuji or others -- it is a commodity, after all.
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- admin, 18 Apr 2006 @ 9:57am
  
  Re:
  Silver was $6-7 last year, lower in 2004. Its now over $13. Ouch.
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Bob, 18 Apr 2006 @ 9:58am

Film
Well, silver prices would only affect black and white film. Slides and color prints have a totally different process. Wolffoo, there are better films than Kodak. I love Ilford for B/W. Digital SLRs are coming down in price as the manufacurers delve deeper into more pixels and better features and faster frame rates. Nikon has come out with the D50, Costco has a kit for about $600 includes a nice lens and other stuff, 6.1 MP and the same focusing and metering as found in the D100 or D1. Use the built in popup flash OR your killer Speedlight in the hot shoe. no need to spend $1000s for good digital. Granted, all my best color prints come from slide film. But soon there will really be no need for film, except for those who love the process of making art on film. I have my own dedicated B/W darkroom that I have not used in a couple years now. Maybe I'll sell all my gear for money for a new digital SLR... Hmmm.
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Jeroen Wijnands (profile), 18 Apr 2006 @ 10:05am

Not quite Bob!
PRices for digital SLRs do go down but Nikon has decided to change flash interfacing on their digital series. Meaning that your trusty old flashgun that worked very well with your old nikon now is reduced to being any old standard flash. They changed from ttl to iTTL and only offer $150+ flash guns that speak that.
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Anonymous Bum, 18 Apr 2006 @ 11:10am

Sell your Kodak Stock!
It is funny that the discussion is about Kodak's smaller market instead of their real big market (dental and medical imaging).

Kodak is desperately trying to save their company by buying up small practice management software and digital sensor companies because their customers(doctors and clinics) are buying digital products from other vendors instead of their film.

Kodak ignored the digital revolution the same way Xerox ignored personal computing. Buying crappy companies and putting the kodak name on it will not help em.
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Matt Mendick, 18 Apr 2006 @ 8:19pm

"some amount of success"? I don't think so
Kodak is not inching into the digital photography market with "some amount of success" - They're number 1 when it comes to digital camera sales. They are simply not making enough money off film in order to justify leaving the price where it is currently. I'm from Rochester, NY (where kodak is headquartered) and where they used to make all the film. They're knocking down vacant buildings on their property simply to save tax money - they can't hold themselves up anymore unless they raise the cost of film. On a second note, digital cameras may not be, in some cases, up to snuff when it comes to their quality vs. the quality of film prints. But, most of the (common comsumer) 5 MP cameras out there are good enough to make good prints, and are especially affordable for the quality they deliver. Bob's right - you can get an extremly good digital setup for not a lot of money, and if you don't want to travel down that road, simply eat the cost of higher priced film. All prices will go up on all goods eventually, especially if they're a fleeting item, like film.
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- Matt Mendick strangely enough, 2 Jun 2006 @ 4:36am
  
  Re: "some amount of success"? I don't think so
  My name is Matt Mendick too... that's pretty strange
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Rob S., 19 Apr 2006 @ 1:56am

I'm not moved
I fail to be concerned about rising film prices. I learnt photography on an old Kodak SLR that used to belong to my dad, and loved it at the time. But having using a digital camera for a few years, there is no way that I could ever go back. Even if film cameras produce pictures of higher quality, this will change in time as technology advances. Film's days are numbered.
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Mike G., 19 Apr 2006 @ 3:38am

man, I grow tired of the Kodak bashing
Everytime the subject of Kodak comes up, someone always claims that Kodak missed the digital boat. Kodak has been in the digital game from day one. A lot of the technology we use in digital today originated with Kodak! I just acquired boxes and boxes of old photography magazines from the 90's on up to a couple of years ago. In each of these, Kodak obviously had a large presence in the growing digital market. Someone, please tell me where Kodak ignored the digital revolution. Name a product in digital photography that Kodak hasn't taken a stab at or helped innovate.
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Joseph, 21 Apr 2006 @ 5:35pm

Kodak Problem?
Hi...I am a student. I am doing a business report about the affect of digital camera to Kodak's negative film ( Kodak's Profil)....Could you give me some information and your opinion about it please?
Thank
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Siddharth Fadnis, 2 Dec 2007 @ 10:29pm

Kodak SLR Analog
I have my dad's Kodak Analog SLR. Is there any way I can sell it?? IF anyone knows please do let me know. Thanks.
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