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Kodak to Stop Making Black-and-White Paper
Thursday, June 16, 2005


ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Ending a century-old tradition, Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) will soon stop making black-and-white photographic paper, a niche product for fine-art photographers and hobbyists that is rapidly being supplanted by digital-imaging systems.

Kodak said Wednesday it will discontinue production of the paper, specially designed for black-and-white film, at the end of this year. But the world's biggest film manufacturer will continue to make black-and-white film and chemicals for processing.

"It's a shame to see it go," said Bill Schiffner, editor of Imaging Business magazine in Melville, N.Y. "Digital has done a lot of good things for the industry but it's done some bad things too. It's making a lot of these processes obsolete."

The paper is manufactured at a plant in Brazil. Kodak declined to specify how many employees would be affected by the production shutdown, which is part of a three-year overhaul to eliminate 12,000 to 15,000 jobs by 2007 and shrink the company's work force to around 50,000.

As the industry shifts rapidly from chemical-based to digital imaging, demand for black-and-white paper is declining about 25 percent annually, Kodak spokesman David Lanzillo said.

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Eastman Kodak CEO Carp to Step Down Kodak Results Well Below Expectations Digital Sales Boost Kodak Profit Kodak Slashing 6,000 Jobs Amid Earnings Slump Kodak Cuts Outlook, Sees Job Cuts John Eoff, owner of Photo-Lab Inc., said his 91-year-old shop in Schenectady, N.Y., still sells "a fair amount" of black-and-white paper to photography students and enthusiasts, while professional photographers have mostly gone to digital printing systems already.

"What we assumed was going to happen is the traditional black-and-white paper processing was going to remain more an art form than a commodity," Eoff said. Other companies, led by Ilford Imaging (search) of Britain, still make paper and there will be demand for it, he predicted.

In April, Kodak posted a first-quarter loss of $142 million, citing a steady slide in revenues from film and other chemical-based businesses and higher-than-expected costs to cover job cuts. This month, it replaced its chief executive, Dan Carp, with Antonio Perez, who a few years ago oversaw the rapid growth of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HPQ) digital imaging business.

Kodak grew into an icon on the strength of its traditional film, paper and photofinishing businesses. It is now betting its future in digital terrain — from cameras, inkjet paper and online photofinishing to photo kiosks and minilabs, X-ray systems and commercial printers.

Ilford, the largest maker of black-and-white photo paper, went into bankruptcy last year, emerging this year after a management-led buyout. Germany's AgfaPhoto GmbH (search) filed for bankruptcy last month.

Kodak's exit from the business "doesn't surprise me" because many portrait and wedding photographers "are switching over to digital," said Christopher Chute, an analyst with market research firm IDC in Framingham, Mass.

"If I'm printing digital photos on any kind of printer, whether it's inkjet or thermal transfer or dye sublimation, the kind of paper I use is color agnostic," he said. "I can print black and white with great gray gradients and use the same system to print regular color. There's much more versatility with today's print solutions."

"More photographers and consumers that shoot black-and-white are shooting digital, they're processing it on regular inkjet paper, and ... the quality is pretty good," Schiffner said.

(Fuente:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,159782,00.html)

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Sept. 19, 2007

Kodak Survey Shows that Professional Photographers Remain Ardent Users of Film

More Than Three-Quarters of Photographers Surveyed Will Continue to Use Film, Even as Some Embrace Digital Technology, “It’s An ‘And’ World Where Digital and Film Co-exist and Complement Each Other”

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sept. 19 -- A survey of more than 9,000 professional photographers in the U.S. shows that film continues to have an avidfollowing, with 75 percent of photographers saying they will continue to use film, even as some embrace digital imaging technology. The results of the U.S. survey, conducted by the Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE: EK), mirror the results of a similar survey the company recently conducted in Europe, where more than two-thirds of professional photographers surveyed plan to continue using film.

According to the U.S. survey results, more than two-thirds (68 percent) of professional photographers prefer the results of film to those of digital for certain applications including:

film’s superiority in capturing more information on medium and large format films (48 percent);
creating a traditional photographic look (48 percent);
capturing shadow and highlighting details (45 percent);
the wide exposure latitude of film (42 percent); and
archival storage (38 percent).
“I find film invaluable because the details and look of the photographs are crucial in re-telling the events playing out in front of me,” said Pep Bonet, international award winning photojournalist and a founding member of NOOR, a new photo agency committed to documenting social issues worldwide. “I do very little research or preparation prior to traveling to location. Instead, I arrive, I observe and ultimately, I trust that my camera and my film will capture the story at hand. The stories may be stunning, disturbing or inspiring. But above all, they are real. There’s nothing like film to capture those realities, particularly Tri-X black-and-white film.”

Many of the survey respondents share Bonet’s passion for black-and-white photography and film. Although professional photographers acknowledge that digital cameras offer certain benefits, they said that film better captures certain images, particularly black-and-white photos. The majority (90 percent) of photographers produce black-and-white images, with 47 percent saying black-and-white photography allows them to create a certain look and feel and differentiate themselves. More than half of them (57 percent) prefer using film to achieve this desired effect.

“First and foremost, photographers are artists, supported by the science of the tools that help them do their job,” said Mary Jane Hellyar, President, Film Products Group and Senior Vice President, Eastman Kodak Company. “This survey indicates that film remains an important tool on which professional photographers rely to effectively create their work, so providing choice is of utmost importance. It’s an ‘and’ world where digital and film co-exist and complement each other.”

Kodak strives to provide this choice through ongoing innovation in its film offering. This year alone, Kodak introduced five new versions of its KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA Films, which have received a strong response from the industry. The new PORTRA film family, comprising 160VC, 160NC, 400VC, 400NC and 800, helps professional photographers create stunning images with finer grain, spectacular skin tones, and improved scanning performance for greater enlargement capability.

In the past year, Kodak has received four industry awards for its PORTRA films, including the American Photo “Editor’s Choice” award, just released last month. Each year, American Photo creates its list of the industry’s best new products and this year, named PORTRA in its “Imaging Essentials” category. Other awards include:

Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) – Best Film in Europe 2007: The award, voted for by TIPA members, recognizes the fine grain, excellent resolving power and superb color precision offered to professional photographers by Kodak’s four color negative professional films: Portra160VC, 160NC, 400VC and 400NC.

Professional Photographer’s 2007 Hot One Award - Color Negative Films: The Professional Photographer Hot One Awards, chosen by a panel of 15 practicing professional photographers, honor the photography industry’s best new products for professional application.

Studio Photography - “2006 Readers’ Choice Awards”: Readers and web site visitors of Studio Photography gave PORTRA Film top honors in the 2006 Studio Photography “Readers’ Choice Awards.” In the first-ever survey, readers overwhelmingly voted for PORTRA as their favorite film.

About Eastman Kodak Company
Kodak is the world’s foremost imaging innovator. With sales of $10.7 billion in 2006, the company is committed to a digitally oriented growth strategy focused on helping people better use meaningful images and information in their life and work. Consumers use Kodak’s system of digital and traditional products and services to take, print and share their pictures anytime, anywhere; Businesses effectively communicate with customers worldwide using Kodak solutions for prepress, conventional and digital printing and document imaging; and Creative Professionals rely on Kodak technology to uniquely tell their story through moving or still images.

More information about Kodak (NYSE: EK) is available at www.kodak.com.

Kodak and PORTRA are trademarks of Eastman Kodak Company.
2007

(Fuente: http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=2709&pq-locale=en_US&gpcid=0900688a807b9764)

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viernes, 21 de septiembre de 2007


Un estudio de Kodak "revela" que el 75% de los profesionales seguirá usando película

Pese a su contundente apuesta por un futuro digital, Kodak ha encargado un estudio cuyos resultados son poco menos que peculiares. Según éstos, el 75% de los fotógrafos profesionales seguirá usando película química, aunque dispongan también de equipos digitales. Si bien se habla del mercado estadounidense, la firma asegura que en Europa se llega a similares conclusiones.

Redacción.- Convivencia entre la tecnología digital y los soportes químicos tradicionales. Ésta es la idea que defiende Kodak a raíz de los chocantes -aunque previsibles, dadas las circunstancias- resultados obtenidos en un estudio encargado por la marca y realizado entre 9.000 fotógrafos profesionales en Estados Unidos.
Según esta información, el 75% de los encuestados asegura que seguiría trabajando con película, pese a que muchos de ellos también han recurrido a la tecnología digital. Y es que el 68% dice preferir los resultados de la película frente a los digitales "para ciertas aplicaciones".

Estas conclusiones coinciden plenamente con un estudio similar realizado en Europa y que, según Kodak, arrojaba similares cifras. En este caso, más de dos terceras partes de los profesionales del viejo continente se mostraron dispuestos a seguir recurriendo a los haluros de plata.

Unos datos que contrastan con un informe publicado por InfoTrends a principios del pasado año. Frente al 75% de Kodak, en aquel estudio se matizaban muchos más los datos sobre el uso de la película entre los profesionales: sólo el 65% de ellos seguía recurriendo a ella "ocasionalmente".

Más contundentes eran las previsiones realizadas por InfoTrends, que pronosticaba que en el año 2010 el 90% de las fotografías realizadas por profesionales serían ya de origen digital.

Momento delicado

Si las conclusiones del estudio resultan curiosas, no sorprende menos el hecho de que Kodak se salga ahora de la clara vía digital trazada en los últimos tiempos por su máximo dirigente, Antonio Pérez, con esta suerte de alegato en favor de la fotografía tradicional.

Pese a la aparente rentabilidad que aún tiene este negocio para Kodak, no hay que olvidar que el informe se ha hecho público poco después de un hecho suficientemente esclarecedor y delicado: la voladura de las históricas factorías de la multinacional en Rochester.

Superioridad de la película

Más allá de la aparente predominancia de la película en el sector profesional, Kodak también concreta algunas de las preferencias de estos fotógrafos.

Así, se van desgranando las supuestas ventajas del soporte químico, como su mayor capacidad para capturar información al trabajar con formato medio o placas, así como para conseguir imágenes de aspecto "tradicional".

Otros motivos, como la latitud de la película, su capacidad para captar mayor información en luces y sombras o sus ventajas a la hora de crear archivo también aparecen en la lista.

No obstante, Kodak matiza la querencia de los encuestados por las imágenes en blanco y negro. Un detalle que bien podría explicar los resultados del estudio, teniendo en cuenta que este segmento sí mantiene a día de hoy un importante nicho de usuarios tradicionales.

Aunque el cese de la producción de algunas líneas de negocio de Kodak dificulta cada vez más encontrar cierto tipo de películas, alguno de los encuestados no duda en defender la imbatibilidad de la mítica Tri-X para la fotografía en blanco y negro


(Fuente: http://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/kodak-pelicula-estudio-fotografos-profesionales,1_3651)