
Why Kodak Died and Fujifilm Thrived: A Tale of Two Film Companies - bleair
http://petapixel.com/2018/10/19/why-kodak-died-and-fujifilm-thrived-a-tale-of-two-film-companies/
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jrockway
I think Kodak merely picked the wrong pivot. They thought they were a
photography company, but they were actually a chemical company. There is
plenty of demand for chemicals these days, and if they had stuck with that,
they'd be doing fine. (I think these days they brand themselves as an
"imaging" company, and they sell products like document capture systems. But
that really makes them a software company, and I doubt they're doing great
there. Document capture will probably be taken over by phones; Google is
already playing with that and I'm guessing they have better software
development teams than Kodak.)

Fuji was in a similar place, of course, but they were already making high-end
cameras and they were selling well. I use a GW690ii from 1985 regularly and it
has one of the best lenses I've ever used. They did not forget how to
manufacture those over the intervening 30 years, and there is plenty of market
for lenses. (Though I would still worry. Tiny cell phone cameras are becoming
better and better every year, and that's really a function of the sensors,
which they buy from Sony.)

Ironically, Fuji did kind of screw over the film photography community
recently. They stopped making 4x5 Velvia 50. They stopped making Acros 100.
Now everyone is using Kodak or Ilford film. But it's because they could afford
to, getting someone to buy a new digital camera every couple years is way more
profitable than making chemicals for a super niche industry. Kodak still
doesn't understand that, but they do get some of my money as a result ;)

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kemiller
Speaking as someone who had a second-row seat to Kodak's failure to meet the
future, it was absolutely a case of stuck-in-the-past. The brass in Rochester
just couldn't, wouldn't believe that the light at the end of the tunnel was a
train, and they hobbled their own entries into that market at every turn.

~~~
abruzzi
I read somewhere, and sorry I don’t remember the source, that Kodak knew the
digital future was coming, but they didn’t believe the speed with which it
arrived. Kodak was one of the first companies with digital cameras.

~~~
kemiller
They were addicted to fat film profits and couldn’t read an exponential curve.

~~~
throwaway2048
Kodak was larger than the entire digital camera industry currently is, by
almost 3x, $31 billion[1] in 1993 dollars which is 31 billion in 54 billion in
2018 dollars[2].

The entire digital camera industry was worth about 18 billion in 2017[3]

Even if they captured 100% of the market (which would have been basically
completely impossible), it would have been a massive disaster for them as a
company, and to the hundreds of thousands of people they employed in photo
processing.

[1] [https://www.photosecrets.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-
kodak](https://www.photosecrets.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-kodak)

[2] [http://www.in2013dollars.com/1993-dollars-
in-2018?amount=310...](http://www.in2013dollars.com/1993-dollars-
in-2018?amount=31000000000)

[3]
[https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/4514578/digital-c...](https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/4514578/digital-
camera-market-global-industry-trends)

~~~
jl6
Does that 18 billion include the smartphone industry? I think phones are the
real successor of the mass-market element of Kodak’s business.

~~~
vkou
Pivoting from making film and cameras to making cellphones would have been
like McDonalds pivoting into becoming a laptop manufacturer.

Yes, cellphones contain a camera, but the similarities end there.

~~~
simias
You're talking from an industrial perspective and the parent is talking from a
user perspective. You're both right.

Smartphones replaced compact cameras for a huge portion of casual
photographers but as you point out it's not like camera makers could easily
pivot into making smartphones (some of them probably could have if they had
anticipated the trend enough, but by the time the iphone came out it was
probably already too late to catch up).

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mymythisisthis
Fujifilm got billions of dollars in secret money from the Japanese government,
and hide billions more on the books. This is Japanese culture, they would not
let such an important company die. On the other hand, sure Kodak died, but the
Americans now have Apple and Google - while Japan doesn't.

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megy
Isn't that like the air carriers in the US?

~~~
mymythisisthis
Yes...and Samsung...the 2008 bailout of many American car companies...Trump
using 'national security' in the trade war with Canada...Germany and
VW...(nobody plays fair).

Read about the Olympus scandal for how another film company hung around.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_scandal)

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otterpro
In the early 90's, when we were all using film cameras, everyone I knew, at
least those who were pro or serious amateur/prosumers, used the legendary
Fujifilm's Fujichrome Velvia 50 film. It became an instant hit because of its
sharpness (fine grain) and color saturation that made us say "wow". It's hard
to imagine what that's like, but think of it as having higher megapixels and
better dynamics and great color. We used it especially for portrait/fashion
and wildlife/nature. When it came out, a lot of us stopped using the classic
Kodachrome/Ektachrome.

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ghaff
That's one view. I honestly never understood the attraction of Velvia 50. I
know it was beloved of people who were better photographers than I.But I'd use
Kodachrome 25 (which had a similar effective film speed) any day.The greens
and blues of Velvia always seemed fake.

In any case, both of those were niche films for pros and a few prosumers.

~~~
melloclello
Velvia makes people look far too red in the face.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
You should use Provia for portraits, not Velvia. Velvia, as you note, has a
strong magenta cast.

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rbanffy
Well... When film was not a retro thing, I always preferred to use Fuji film
over Kodak - the results were just better, with Fuji capturing the lighting
the way I intended it to. It's not only that Fuji picked the pivot to digital
and Kodak didn't, but it felt they were always committed to solve my problem
rather than to milk me for money. Kodak was too comfortable.

~~~
Steve44
I'm the same for colour, I used Velvia for slides and the Fuji 400 for prints.
I preferred the way Fujiy looked.

B+W was either Kodak or Ilford from what I remember though.

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schwinn
> Retrospectively, Mr. Shih, the former VP of Kodak thinks that the company
> “could have tried to compete on capabilities rather than on the markets it
> was in” like Fujifilm did but “this would have meant walking away from a
> great consumer franchise. That’s not the logic that managers learn at
> business schools, and it would have been a hard pill for Kodak leaders to
> swallow.”

It's a classic case study best told in the book, "Who moved my cheese?"
Walking away from the consumer business would have been an abrupt about-face
and forced a massive shift within the sales and marketing teams... they very
people responsible for maintaining the Kodak brand.

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emmelaich
My first digital camera was a Fuji.

It was reviewed to have better colour than pretty much any other digital
camera at the time.

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nicolas_t
A problem that's alluded to in the article is that Kodak didn't focus on the
high end of digital cameras nor in the sensors and components. So even as an
imaging company they didn't understand that focusing on the low margin mass
market they would be doomed eventually when cheaper mass market product would
come out.

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kevin_thibedeau
Kodak did have high end sensors. They just never developed them for mass
market applications. Much of the satellite imagery on Google maps is via Kodak
hardware.

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ghaff
Good in-depth and balanced piece. (Although it does gloss over a little some
of the struggled Fujifilm had during the transition from film.)

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person_of_color
Anyone have an inside scoop on where to buy cheap recently expired film
online?

~~~
asow92
Why buy expired when you can buy it fresh? Kodak just reintroduced Ektachrome
after discontinuing it in 2013!

~~~
Markoff
for artistic effect i guess

