Kodak Ektachrome GX Great film not so great marketing!

Please take one look at the shot used by Kodak in in its main page

for Ektachrome GX.

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/films/e100g/e100

GFilm.jhtml?id=0.1.18.14.7.20.3&lc=en

Would you know from this muddy, murky and phony shot which seems to

have been taken on long expired film that this film actually has the

cleanest reds this side of Kodachrome 25? Do the Kodak marketers

know what the heck is it they are trying to sell? Today's slide

films from Fuji lack precisely what GX has, clean reds and greens so

one would think that Kodak would attempt to show its wares to best

advantage. Kodak has gone through so many reorganizations that it

seems that in the process, the janitors took over marketing. At

least the lab people seem to know what they are doing.

They suck. They're idiots, imbeciles and every equally evocative adjective that

we can think about.

 

Truth is most users of Kodak pro products have found their ways blindly,

which is about how most people step into photography. They all found their

favourite films and matched them with their own shooting and developping

recipes, which is great.

 

However, anyone who wants to do it methodically and explore the Kodak Pro

line by gathering some information which may help in comparing films, hurts

himself to a bunch of stupid-ass semi-amateur marketing crap which is

perfectly suitable for a boutique selling smelly candles or something.

For a good laugh, compare the descriptions of the benefits between Portra

400BW, 400TX and TMY.

I don't use kodak very much but I cannot understand the absolute negativism about this company. Julio, mail your remarks to Kodak themselves, that's the way to be constructive. If you don't like their products, get another brand. Just my 2 cent

A search on their site turns up a few product management and other marketing positions. Sounds like they could use your help.

If most serious shooters are like me (and I assume most slide shooters are), they first try out a new film when it comes out, and continue using it if they find it good enough for their purposes. One is supposed to draw one's own conclusions here.

 

I'm not sure marketing plays a big part in developing a film's popularity -- definitely not over the web by way of graphics, because probably 9 out of 10 viewers' monitors are incorrectly calibrated. It is difficult to portray a film's characteristics by way of web graphics anyway.

 

I agree Kodak could have mode more technical information available such as reciprocity charateristics, storage life, filters to use with varying color temperature etc. but some of them can be found out by running some tests.

 

I agree the GX is a great film and I sometimes prefer it over Velvia 100F. If Kodak is doing a bad job at marketing a great film I wouldn't be bothered too much. What would be more of concern to me, however, is if they were to discontinue this film when it becomes very popular and highly regarded.

 

My 2c.

Kodak does a great job marketing, they develope a film product that everyone likes and promptly discontinue it or change its name.

or change Tri-X without telling anyone, and have them find out after thier negs have dried...

Arnab, the data you asked for is present on the Kodak web site. Check out the technical publications for the different films; the site below deals with E100G and GX. Under the exposure information you will find details on reciprocity, filter recommendations, etc.

 

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e4024/e4024.jhtml?id=0.1.18.14.7.20.3.24&lc=en

 

Julio, thanks for your comments about E100GX. As a former member of the Kodak R&D team that made the film, it's always rewarding to hear when one of our products meets our customer's needs. I think the marketing shot in question was intended to convey the additional warmth of the GX color balance. Sounds like this particular image didn't work for you. Since you conducted your own testing in spite of this, you obviously recognize the difficulty in evaluating a film with only a few rolls, much less a few images. You can imagine the difficulty in picking a single image as representative of a film product when trying to market it. Anyway, I'm glad to hear about your positive results with GX, and appreciate your communicating those with your colleagues here at photo.net. Good shooting.

The majority of pictures that film companies use to advertise just plain suck anyway. I don't think you can please everyone.

Kodak has historically been a victim of Voodo cost cutting. Their executive staff would kill off products and divisions with lower profit percentages to make it seem like they were improving over-all margins. In the short term, on paper, this technique seems like it works. The result being greater profit margin by simultaneously reducing market share - only American CFO's are so brilliant.

 

Look at Kodak Portra UC. Kodak had the technology for this film on the shelf for 10 years, yet stuck us with dismal product after product.

uhmm. Julio ... not every photo needs to be perfectly balanced. and I really do not see where "muddy" comes from, maybe you need to adjust your monitor? As far as phoney, I seriously doubt that image was meant to be taken literally.

 

I hate Velvia, and it sure would suck if everything looked like it came from the Planet Punchy. I don't really understand the hyper-contrast craze in color photography.

"I hate Velvia, and it sure would suck if everything looked like it came from the Planet Punchy. " -- Shawn Kearney

 

You sure don't do nature photography in very early, dewy mornings -- do you? Velvia 50 is a life-saver there.

 

Thomas Dannhauser, thank you for posting that link. Just what I needed.

I also think this film is very good. In Finland you need a pretty warm film to get clean whites in snow, and E100GX is excellent in this respect. This is the first film that beats Kodachrome 64 in the rendition of snow.

 

I hope they continue to make it for a long time.

Marc Leest: you didn't get the point. We absolutely love their products. It's just

sad that such great films come painted over with such poor-ass marketing.

>>>> I hate Velvia, and it sure would suck if everything looked like it came

from the Planet Punchy.

 

Velvia is japanese for "no portraits". Didn't you know that? :)

>>>>>> and E100GX is excellent in this respect.

 

Yeah, but nobody knows that :-) Except those who tried it. People rave about

Velvia just because they've seen it, and a lot of them didn't even use it. Fuji

succeded in making Velvia something that doesn't need marketing. Kodak

would certainly benefit for a more useful marketing on E100GX & co. What the

heck are they waiting for? The only thing they can came up with it is that it's

got super fine grain, well DOH.

 

At Kodak, they work in a very simple way: they use a marketing directed to

consumer-level drugstore films for professesional products, with the vague

meaningless adjectives that make it impossible to compare films.

I am sick and tired of looking at the many landscape photo books made with Velvia. It's like people were afraid of using anything else, not that the film actually looks that good.

 

I don't think E100GX is successful for every scene (sometimes it gives a brownish look) but it fills important holes left by other films. I use currently also the Elite 100, E100VS and Astia 100F films, and basically think that things for the slide film photographers have never been better!!

 

Thank you Kodak!

here's a quick sample from the recent results I have gotten with the GX.

 

Warning: *Do not* use a warming filter with this film!<div></div>

Thomas: Pleasure to hear from you. Kodak has its unsung heroes among its technical people so it is a real pleasure to hear from someone that has a share in the accomplishment of having developed this great new film. Yes, selecting a shot to show the world what a new film must be a complex process which requires reason, vision and perseverance but it is an important one. Unfortunately, with that shot the Kodak marketers reduced the whole objective to showing warmth in a posed studio portrait, forgetting that this film was never indended to be a portrait film and that the film's potential lay in other areas. The world is a marvelous place of great beauty and a treasure trove for anyone wishing to display the potential of new films. It would have been much better for Kodak to work with some one like Paul Schilliger of Switzerland give him a few rolls of the stuff and let him get lost in the mountains then come back to show what these films can do. Indeed Kodak has made its share of missteps technically -in colour films, due I believe to an over reliance on old glories and in the drugstore approach to marketing that another respondent referred to. Yet Kodak remains a great company as these films show and as its excellent technical literature reminds us. I wish you Thomas and the Kodak technical team much success and patience with the marketing juniors that seem to be in charge at Kodak.