

At Kodak, Clinging to a Future Beyond Film - gdilla
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/business/at-kodak-clinging-to-a-future-beyond-film.html?_r=1

======
ScottBurson
_Kodak’s researchers invented digital photography and put the technology in
professional cameras in the 1990s. There were plans to move to digital
consumer cameras, but the cash Kodak made on traditional photography made it
complacent._

Wow, talk about fumbling the future. I guess they didn't read Clayton
Christensen.

Disrupt yourself, or someone else will save you the trouble.

~~~
porsupah
But, they _did_ try:

[http://www.steves-digicams.com/camera-reviews/kodak/](http://www.steves-
digicams.com/camera-reviews/kodak/)

My understanding is, however, that they simply weren't all that noteworthy.

Also, bear in mind the degree of pivot required - it's not merely a shift in
strategy, but a fundamental transformation, from developing films, into
developing entire electronic devices, with all the entirely new skills
required in industrial design, UI, and so forth.

It can, of course, be done - Fujifilm has managed to continue in the digital
photography sector, although they were rather more broadly based to begin
with. Similarly, Nikon and Canon were already acquainted with what was
necessary in a DSLR, and were able to transition to the digital world with
aplomb.

To provide some context, consider this rec.photo thread from 1990, on the
future of photography:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.photo/ZnqcQVzAln...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.photo/ZnqcQVzAln0)

~~~
Tuna-Fish
>> To provide some context, consider this rec.photo thread from 1990, on the
future of photography:

> Right now, 1 Megabyte of memory costs about $45 retail. This will not drop
> by an order of magnitude in the next decade without a breakthrough, or an
> economical Gallium-Arsenide process to replace Silicon.

Hmm.

~~~
paul
That rec.photos thread is great. I love reading old predictions. For some
reason many of them got hung up on the idea that there would be crazy
compression schemes that eliminate all the creative parts of photos.

> O.K. Chemical films can presently store more information than any reasonable
> digital image-getter can. However, digital _may_ be possible if one has a
> wristwatch-sized supercomputer doing various shades of image/abberation
> recognition capable of replacing the actual information with some sort of
> 'tokenized' equivalent of the original image. Fine. Such data compression/
> reduction techniques may alow you to have your little computer-camera.

> But wat if you _want_ those abberations, or if you _want_ that blur for that
> action shot, or if you _want_ that sun/iris flare for a neato scenic shot,
> or if you _want_ to use some weird lighting effects? Then you are s.o.l. By
> having the camera identify/correct (tokenize) and remove all of the possible
> artifacts of using a real-world camera (which is the only way that such a
> camera is possible), you will also eliminate almost all of your creative
> power.

~~~
lfam
Sounds like some complaints about digital audio compression schemes.

------
markbnj
I visited the Kodak works in Rochester during the company's heyday in the late
1960's. It was an amazing place, literally a city dedicated to making the
things people used to take pictures. The words with which this excellent short
film by the NYT opens could serve as a pointed warning of the dangers of
thinking things will always be as they are.

------
jey

      “I’m mining the history of this company for its 
      underlying technologies,” said Jeff Clarke, 53, who 
      became Kodak’s chief executive last year. Mr. Clarke has 
      no delusions that Kodak could bring those technologies to 
      market on its own;
    

Why are they so down on Kodak as a brand? There's still a ton of people who
have very fond associations with the Kodak brand, since the film camera would
only come out only at those special meaningful moments like birthdays,
weddings, vacations, etc. (No, people didn't just routinely snap pictures of
their lunch back then.)

Anyway, where can I get a Kodachrome Instagram filter?

~~~
glesica
My family took a ton of pictures on Kodak film when I was a kid so I certainly
fall into the demographic of people who have fond memories of the brand.
However, I would hesitate to buy a Kodak product now because I would assume
that it was just a piece of junk with Kodak branding. Until just now I didn't
even realize Kodak still did anything besides license patents.

~~~
SpaceInvader
Well, that is not true. I'm shooting film my whole life (my father was a
photographer and we had several cameras at home). I use digital for about 95%
of my pictures, but I have more analog than digital cameras, all of them are
in perfect shape and I use them regularly. My favourite BW film is Kodak Tri-X
[0], which is still being produced. I'm also using Kodak Ektar, Portra and
still have few rolls of Kodak E100, although that one is not in production
anymore.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Tri-X](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Tri-X)

~~~
glesica
I wasn't talking about Kodak film, I was talking about any arbitrary Kodak
branded product. When companies die they often sell the brand, which then gets
slapped on lots of random, usually low quality, products unassociated with the
original company. This is why I would have been, until I found out that Kodak
still exists as a real company, been extremely hesitant to buy something with
"Kodak" on the box.

------
mbrownnyc
This reminds me of how awesome NY Times is... I remember watching The Iron
Triangle audio slideshow and thinking how great it was:
[http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2004/02/28/nyregion/20...](http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2004/02/28/nyregion/20040228_JUNK_AUDIOSS.html)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=audio+slideshow+site%3Anytim...](https://www.google.com/search?q=audio+slideshow+site%3Anytimes.com&gws_rd=ssl)

------
Animats
Amusingly, Kodak is being paid by some major studios to continue to make 35MM
cine film. [1] They're doing it to keep their older directors happy. Fuji quit
that business in 2013.

Film distribution is almost all digital already. Making, shipping, and
handling film prints was always a pain, and that's over.

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/kodak-movie-film-at-deaths-
door-...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/kodak-movie-film-at-deaths-door-gets-a-
reprieve-1406674752)

------
jff
I'd rather they just made a new Kodachrome line, but easier to process than
the original... film is still pretty popular in the amateur crowd, and if they
released a color film that was as easy to process as b&w and looked like
Kodachrome, I'd be all over that.

~~~
js2
Then it wouldn't be Kodachrome. Kodachrome is fundamentally a different type
of film from regular color negative and slide film, much less b&w film. It has
no dye, rather the dye is added during processing.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-14_process](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-14_process)

An easier-to-process color slide film exists... it's E-6. Some of the later
Fuju slide films got very good using this process.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-6_process](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-6_process)

E-6 is easy enough to do at home, and good enough that it is largely
responsible for Kodachrome's decline. You're kidding yourself if you think
there would be any market for something between the two.

~~~
jff
E-6 is easier than K-14 but it's still a lot pickier than B&W. I want a color
film that's as easy to process as B&W in a Rodinal stand dev.

~~~
js2
Color is inherently more complex than B&W, so I think you're asking for a
unicorn. There's a 3-bath version of E-6 (with all the compromises that
entails)... I'm not sure how much simpler color film development can get,
short of Polaroid.

------
logicallee
I was like, cling, cling, what's the pun, are they making some kind of
celophane now, something about clingy....film...

> At Kodak, Clinging to a Future Beyond Film

Then I was like. WAIT a minute. This awkward title isn't drawing attention to
"cling". It's just a painful nytimes headline word order. Seriously, this is
just painful.

~~~
freehunter
Why even use the word "cling"? Clinging would be if they stayed true to film.
Leaving film for digital isn't clinging, it's adapting. Clinging is what they
did in the 90s when digital started to rise and they ignored it.

You don't cling to the future. You cling to the past.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
They're clinging to a relic of the past: a Kodak that thought it could adapt.
They're clinging to the hope they had that they can adapt. They're not
adapting.

