Kodak: "There is a very real resurgence for film"

Respect for film

I've been doing a bit of digital copying of film lately and the more I do I more I regain respect for the amount of information contained in a negative or slide.

I still think that for landscapes and images that are not required in a hurry film is a good choice.

Not surprised, good scanners help!

Not surprised! We started digitizing our past film archive with a scanner recently which produced such quality that we realised that we could start using film again. We have a digital back which effects the lenses on the Medium format so that we do not get as much coverage. Similar story with the Sinar 5 x 4, with same digital back which slides across.

We are planning to use film and scan as usual. We purchased an Olympus Om1 couple of weeks ago, favorite 35mm camera, so we are delighted that it will start getting use.

The Sinar 5 x 4 will also get some film use, not just for the fun either, it is great to use, all that fiddling around to get the best hot spot. So keep making film in should be used in combination with digital as another option in the tool box. It should not just be one or the other. All systems formats and mediums have their use. : D

Yes of course!

The comment about age is correct, people younger than me are excited about film but people older than me want nothing to do with it. I've launched a website to help document labs that still process film and i've had good interest. http://www.photomfa.com

Keep up the good work Kodak!

I really like your products :)

Minilab scanning quality is awful..

Anyone who did color negative film dev/print in minilabs (probably up until around y.2003 in my country), and a LOT of such people, know pretty well the quality that was possible to print at.. But these days young people who are not able to compare the optically printed image quality against the "newly scanned" print quality (and I refer solely to minilab printers, at least where I live-Europe) do not have a clue what a vast difference in quality this unfortunately is. It's reassuring that the film is alive and strong, but if its full potential was easily accessible to masses through classic process printing labs - it could do alot better imho.

Scanners

Now all we need are good film scanners that don't cost an arm and a leg. Flatbeds are ok, but it's pretty easy to hit their limit. Dedicated 35mm / 120 filmstrip scanners are either a bit rubbish or VERY expensive and Nikon recently stopped making their high end scanners. It's time for someone to step up and fill this void.

Ekta film

Kodak states they introduced Ekta film 2 years agol. I used Ekta 25 film in Australia more than 2o years ago, an excellemt film. Ekta 1000 was also available at the time

Seeing is believing

The news sounds promising, although I will miss the VC version. Lets hope 160VC sticks around for a while.

That said, I got the new Portra 400 loaded now and will shoot and review asap!

More Film Please!!

Keep film alive!!!!!!
Digital-only work-flows only mean fast production speeds. Right now, we don't need speed, we need quality. More quality please!! More film please!!!! MORE FILM!!!!

p.s. Nothing can match the slow-paced image control of a large format ground-glass.

Film--not just for technical arguments

Boy would I love it if Portra (ANY PORTRA) film was well-stocked over here in the States. I like to give the local shops my business before Internet mail-order, but the only commonly available color negative film is "UltraMax" 400. Nice and saturated, but I shoot color reversal if I want saturated colors without hypertension faces.

I don't mind improved products, but reliable supply would be nice.

And I'm tired of hearing film-versus-digital arguments. Why do so many people think they're mutually exclusive? They're two different mediums, they look different and they have different advantages. I hope this news signals an end to irrelevant arguments about what medium other people should use.

About the return of investmnent

Afer a period of thirty years I decided to go digital. It turned out to be a good choice, for average assignments. But when we talk about quality... And than I had to make a decision, a new medium format camera, wich one. After five years the old one is junkyard-bound, nobody wants to buy it. This implicated the 'investment' costs about €15.000 a year. In the old days you reached your break-even point in ten years. Costs: € 7.500 a year for the Sinar and the middle format. But, even grandfathers camera's were almost as good as new ones. And after those ten years the yearly coast is zero. Photographers did change from variable costs (just some film and laboratory) to fixed costs: when there's no work for the medium format it stil costs a lot of money. Not quite cost effective. So I decided, instead of throwing money in the big black hole of a new Mamiya ZD or Hasselblad, to take my old 4x5"and 6x7cm together with the Flextight out of the locker. 'Wiped off the dust and go!' Besides, the quality is enormous, much better than a 80 Mp thing (who the hell is using them all..?). I made a test, a scan of 196 ppi on 2.80 x 2.00 meter from 35 mm film. And believe it or not: gorgeous! And after that I learned that worldwide 70% of the professionals still work on film!!

Nowadays there is a new option: shooting on film, scanning and Photoshopping. Just one advice, don't buy a mickey-mouse scanner like al those Polaroid, Minolta, Nikon or other rubbish, but go for a Flextight. And believe me, just like the ol'day camera's: the scanner lasts forever. In my case the scans are recorded on a 'scanner dedicated' old computer, upgrading is not necessary, the thing doesn't have to rule the waves of the internet. The finishing is done on a modern machine.

And besides the unsurpassed quality or speaking of the dynamic range of negative film.... There's no noise anymore on 400 ISO. ;-)

There's evidence besides testimony

One very concrete evidence that film smells funny but is not dying is the popularity of software that attempts to emulate the look of film. (Digital just isn't the same because of CFA demosaicing and telecentricity, as most of you may know).

They might have been surprised by the demand for 120 slide film because of the lomography/toy camera movement, which I wouldn't doubt is a relevant driver for film demand. Slide films with weaker color casts when cross-processed are particularly prized, and the "best" xpro film according to popular lore (Agfa CT Precisa) is discontinued but highly sought after and commanding high markups on eBay.

I get a feeling that film photography had a lot of development -- sp. camera-wise -- to match a certain ideal of photographic aesthetics which is now quickly achievable on digital (matrix metering auto-focus, super high ISOs with next to no grain), and thus got lost when digital outbeat us on such counts. But I own a bunch of "prettify your digital images" software and nothing compares to well-scanned xpro or, for the right purposes, the Fuji Pro160S/C lines.

There's also the received wisdom that Kodak lost its way when Fuji came up with Velvia (now Velvia 50) one of the most beautiful films in existence -- whether crossed or not. Kodachrome just couldn't match the Velvia sunsets, and soon couldn't match the Astia portraits. I'm glad they're coming around again.

Thank you, Thank you!

I was sent some 125 year old family 5 x 7 photos to repair. I initially paid $15 for a 550 meg TIFscan, then opted for the Epson V750 Pro so I could do it all on my own.

In a group shot of 13 people I can actually see the fabric on the buttons! Seeing this detail is amazing!

Now, after reading all the praises here for film, I feel justified in staying with my 40 year old 120 camera.

I am actually afraid to go digital. There can be 23 switches and 35 memory mode functions. There is no viewfinder. And worst of all, I can not write off this as a business expense and buy a new one every 3-4 years.

Thanks to everyone for providing the confidence I need to stay with film.

Kindest regards!

maybe it is time for a break....

Things are bad big time in digital. I have had to return a machine canon claims has the hishest image quality of any DSLR- the Canon 5D MkII.

Because the image quality is so poor.

First it gives results with a low dynamic range and much, much, more noise than an older machine from 2004 (the 1Ds MkII).

DPP cannot get rid of this noise, nor can Lightroom, no.

And like the D300 before it, all attempts to remove noise results in the removal- of course, of all the fine detail you paid all that money to record in the first place.

And digital is computer-dependant. It is OS dependent and software dependent.

If Lightroom changes the way noise reduction is done it makes a substantial difference to what images processed through it look like.

Agreed developers are a lot more fractious, and a lot less controllable, but they have at least no digital noise reduction to do.

Where digital should score with reduction of fringing and removal of distortion, it fails as many machines leave all these there- the Canon 5DII certainly does, and reliance on software even if affordable (for video? - it costs a fortune plus a new High-end Mac to cope with the corrections which are not anyway too cool) forces you to keep and maintain obsolete hardware to get back the picture you first thought of- and to print it (no drivers for XP, or 7 being written for old pro machines halves their resolution, for example)

What film gives you is a stable known result that can only be ruined by processing.

I gave up Kodachrome when several b atches returned with grain like golfballs all the way through everything. Kodak refunded but I lost 5 weeks work- a lot, thanks.

Digital doesnt do that. You at least have an infinitely clonable result that as I type is probably being ripped automatically by someone off this oft-hacked machine!, but at least it exists somewhere in the continuum endless circling the circuits of the www like everyone else's.

Film will be good again when it is a mature product, because up until now no accurate grainless colour emulsions have ever been made.

They simply do not exist. The user has no choice but to buy into a "look", and that is dreadful.

The user should be able to have an accurate base from which to create their own look, yet this does not yet exist at all.

It does not exist anywhere at all in digital either. Sigma possibly will one day do it, but nobody else does.

Just maybe we could give the whole thing a break until somewhere someone turns up who can actually provide accuracy- wysiwyg is still mythical.

Keeping Analogue is Economical

As an amateur;
I think that one of the major reasons of surviving film, is the short time interval for a serious DSLR to be outdated (to be sold for less than a half if you wish to save the half !) just after 2 years, typically. If you keep analogue, it is a bit strange but you save more, at the end you can afford an Epson V700-750 with no hassle...
The other issue is the immunity of film exposure against all "digi-hi-tech" developments and against all unreliability of memory drives, they simply resist without help, without any software / hardware update.

Film Forever

If only Kodak would bring back Kodachrome 64!!!
If they make it today I would buy 500 rolls....
Kodak are you listening?? ;-)

One year later

Love reading this thread again a year since. Read another about the same time by Tommy Sowell about the "death" of E-6 process. Funny that I just got in a new batch of E-6 chemicals, and my slide film shooting continues. Also funny that there are people evangelizing digital in a story about film. You'll never catch me advocating film in a story about digital unless I was paid to do that. Not sure what I would hope to accomplish either. It's not like I haven't shot digital for over a decade, or digital shooters haven't shot film in the past.

New Portra is still hard to find here in the States. I joke that Kodak could save money by printing the product announcement and cancellation notice on the same sheet of paper--seriously though, a lot of people are confused about the status of Portra. It's a shame, because I shot some old 400 NC recently and it was just the most gorgeous high speed print film I have ever set eyes on. I understand that the new Portra 400 is good, but not as settled or as grainless as 400 NC. Kodak are shooting themselves in the foot with the timing of their notices. I had to convince my local shop that the entire Portra line was not cancelled. Kodak needs to get the word out. Portra: "I'm not dead yet!"

I see that some would like Kodachrome to make a comeback. It can still be bought, however I have yet to see a hobby remjet machine. ;)

readyloads

Kodak would demonstrate it's commitment to film by the reintroduction of products for those of us who invested in Readyload holders.