Slashdot Mirror
Kodak Ends Production of Acetate Base For Photographic Film
McGruber writes "According to a report by Rochester, NY CBS affiliate WROC Kodak has ended in-house production of the cellulose acetate base that is the primary component of photographic film. Popular Photography magazine adds that, for more than 100 years, Kodak has made the acetate in house in bulk, providing the structural basis for the company's film. Now, with Kodak in bankruptcy, the company is firing 60 workers and shutting down the acetate machinery. Citing the decline in interest in film photography as a primary cause, Kodak will no longer undertake the time intensive process of acetate production. Thankfully, the company has large stockpiles of the material, and once that runs out they will source it from elsewhere."
" Thankfully, the company has large stockpiles of the material, and once that runs out they will source it from elsewhere."
Thankfully, in 20 years we'll have rich trust-fund hipster-kids developing on film "before it was cool."
-- Ethanol-fueled
Film has a wonderful look, but the convenience of digital just means this has to happen.
...when the last commercial film runs out, we'll be coating glass plates with home-mixed emulsions!
But no film.
I hope everyone else is thankful that Kodak still has large stockpiles of a material that there is so little commercial interest in, they're stopping production. Why do we need bullshit remarks at the end of TFS? Just post the story and leave the editorials to the comments.
So, I guess that means we won't be able to buy Bothachrome film anymore?
(Don't bother searching the web for the term Bothachrome, it has been scrubbed from most search engines on the Internet. It was the topic of an old late night television comedy skit from the 1980's about a camera film that erased undesired black people's images out of the photos automatically... and was sarcastically named after apartheid South African prime minister P.W. Botha.
.. News at 11.
But no film.
Kodak moment.
Who else has money that Kodak will go under first before they exhaust their stockpile?
Granted, they're only in bankruptcy protection, but unless they can kill CCD/CMOS imaging with a new device of their invention, they've got little chance of coming out.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Interestingly, the former chemicals division of Eastman Kodak, spun off in the 1990s as the Eastman Chemical Company, is still one of the major producers of cellulose acetate. While its usage as a film base usage is declining, its usage for lots of things, ranging from cigarette filters to LCD screens, is increasing.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Kodak always was a "scaling" company, not just a niche market thing. WIth the emerging trend towards produce-your-own stuff with 3D printers, can small-scale production of acetates be far behind -- for the few who still want it?
:-)
So let me know when you can produce your own 3D molecules small-scale. I have a special order.
If Slashdot were just a bit less responsible, the (technically incorrect but misleading) headline on this would be "Kodak stops making film".
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Soon, news at 11 will be replaced by news anytime, if people get all their news online, as opposed to TV
Film is D !! E !! A !! D !! Dead !!
News at eleven !! Not on film !! On Iphone motherfuckers !! Iphone !! Instant !! Looks like crap !! But we dont no no better !! We gots outs Iphone motherfuckers !!
This sounds like a very touchy subject to you. Was your father strangled to death by a crazed Fotomat employee with a roll of film, perhaps?
I subcontracted in that building in the past. It's like 5 football fields side by side with lots of rollers and extruders. They were crazy about everything being clean, we had to wear tyvek suits and booties. The place smelled like a carpet show room from all of the plastics in use. One of the largest building in Kodak park will go un used and off of the tax bill for the town. I'm not surprised by any of this, one less thing for them to produce. There isn't a market for film since everyone is digital these days. With the exception of wedding photo's I cannot remember a time when I have even printed out pictures.
that we have 3D printing to take up the slack. Just press a button and magically a series of precisely chosen chemicals is laid down layer by layer in your living room.
Kodak's Portra is an excellent film.
Let me know when I can get a digital camera with the dynamic range of good film in my Pentax 67.
Ever notice on some of the old black and white films how they can capture shadow details in a very dark hallway, as well as the highlights in a full lit room?
Digital tech still can't match that.
I've done C41 in a bathroom in an average low-rent apartment,no problem. I've set up several tank-based gallon labs for E4 and E6. the only element that is really critical is the color developer, and after that the first developer. everything else can run just fine at room temp, rated temp of 85-105 Fahrenheit, or anything in between.
a temperature/pressure regulated water flow is a must in a larger scale operation. since you can't get one any more from Calumet, get a closeout bath/shower no-scald control. with a good thermometer in the bath, get it to temp and start processing.
on the gallon lines, I used a laundry washtub, PVC pipe for the reels, and an immersion heater on a stick to help pre-heat the bath. at that point, start the water, and go for it.
it is nowhere as hard as you say, unless you are machine processing, and then the temp control will be part of the machine. you can still push-process up to 3 F-stops by fiddling the processor speed.
Kodachrome was a whole 'nother critter, and that's why it's no longer around.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
in either event, if they went hog wild with silicone antistick compound, it dissolves the resin base of the tape mix, and all the intelligence comes off in clumps and gobs when you run it. archivists looking at most of the "high performance" tapes tend to bake 'em a couple hours at 140-160 degrees in an oven to cook out the silicone before they make the transfer playback to new media.
the slime will deteriorate the oxide layer long before an evenly-wound tape pack of either base decomposes under good storage.
old 3M 111 tape and its peers has turned out to be the archival medium. not the fancy stuff. look out for Kodak acetate audiotape, though, that stuff shatters at the first loop-and-snap like the old paper tape did.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
the last plant in Holland continued to make instant film until the last chemicals ran out. the employees then bought it and re-invested the process with new chemistry.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Doesn't matter much - Kodak's days in the film business seem numbered.
Is is true that Kodak has stopped making transparency film altogether?
They announced the discontinuation of Ektachrome in particular formats in early 2012, but never actually said "we're stopping making slide film". Yet some people seem to believe that this is effectively what's happened.
Go to their website, visit the "professional films" section (the "consumer" films bit only seems to contain a couple of print films) and click on "color reversal films". There's nothing there but the discontinuation notice.
Many people interpreted a press release from Kodak around a year ago as (effectively) signifiying they were discontinuing slide film (e.g. here). If this is the case, then Kodak managed to slip a *very* significant announcement through as just yet another downsizing of their film line.
So... has Kodak discontinued slide film, and if so, why didn't more people pick up on it?!
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Yeah, those new pink ecstasy tablets are wonderful, aren't they?
Acetate is not the only base for films. There are other base products. Kodak is ceasing the */production/* of acetate, not the use thereof. They will be using acetate from an external supply.
This is a big nothing.
Yeah, I really miss my OMs, however, as my eyes became less able to focus, I found that most of my film shots were out-of-focus JUST enough to make most of them not "keepers".
THAT is why I sold all my film photography equipment more than ten years ago, I simply went to digital with autofocus because I could not do it myself anymore.
Tried the adjustable eyepiece on the OM, but it just did not do the trick well enough with any consistency.
I do not take anywhere near the number of photos that I used to, but still catch half a dozen "keepers" every year which I think are worth having quality prints made of, or putting on a good electronic picture frame for display.
I thought he was talking about BSD...
A cosmonaut?
Really, comrade?
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
My midrange-consumer camera (Nikon D5100) makes color images at ISO6400 that are roughly comparable in quality to "consumer" (say Fuji drugstore-brand) color film at ISO200. It captures 5 stops, 2^5 times more, light for the same (or better) overall quality. If by "capture light" you mean dynamic range or tonality or something other than raw ISO sensitivity there's more to discuss.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley