Kodak ending B&W print paper

I know it's been reported all over the place today, but if it hasn't

reached the wedding photographers who are still printing "true" B&W,

Kodak is ending production of B&W print paper. Kodak says that they

will continue to produce B&W film and chemicals.

It's "all over the place", but I can't find it in their web page: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/papers/polycontrastIV/main.jhtml?id=0.1.16.14.30.48&lc=en

 

Do you have furhter info?

 

 

Ruben

that really doesnt make any sense.

Reported in BusinessWeek just a couple of hours ago. They will stop at the end of the year.

<p>Here are a few of those places it's all over:<br>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CYwf">the Film and Processing forum</a><br>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CZA1">the Leica forum</a><br>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CZ6S">the Photography News forum</a><br>

<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8AOA2OG0.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down">the AP article</a><br>

</p>

Lets be real. Department stores stopped carrying it 20 years ago. It became a specialty item, after once being the backbone of the hobby The good news is that papers have such slow speeds, that their shelf lives are quite long. Of course Ilford is still making papers too. Time to stock up.

Department stores (at least in my country) do carry Ilford papers and chemistry in surprisingly large quantities so maybe it is just a question of Kodak realizing that it is not a strong player in this field and gave in. It seems to have much symbolic value to people that Kodak makes every imaginable photographic product, but all my darkroom-savvy friends preferred Ilford papers.

Sad really.

I also used Ilford but Kodak has a place too (or it did in my DR).

 

Thing is, I recall a while back that Ilford wasn't so healthy either?

 

A fine print produced on fibre paper has a look I just cannot master in PS with digital.

Ilford still exists although we do not know how healthy they are as a company. I suppose production of these speciality products (that's what they are now) will have to be scaled to reflect current demand.

With Kodak out of the way that business will have to flow to somebody. This could help Ilford and the others.

A fine print produced on fibre paper has a look I just cannot master in PS with digital.

 

No duh.

It's funny, but in all the years I did my own darkroom work, I never once used Kodak

papers anyway. In the past 15 years or so I standardized using Zone V1 Brilliant double

weight fiber that was first endorsed by Fred Picker.

 

When Calumet bought them out they briefly suspended that paper and I freaked out.

Fortunately they restored it, and it was actually a bit better. Still available from Calumet for

anyone who hasn't given it a try.

 

Point being that boutique manufacturers will keep us supplied well into the future I think.

By BEN DOBBIN, AP Business Writer

 

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Ending a century-old tradition, Eastman Kodak Co. 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.

 

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 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 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 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.

Makes me think about the permenancy of film over digital, Ilford is still pretty rocky (I'm friendly with one of their techs), the neg might last but if you have to scan it to get a print...

 

It's a shame though, I've never seen digital B&W's that had the 'look' of a true B&W print.

So would we be correct to assume that this means AZO too?

All Kodak B&W Paper is gone even AZO. Ilford, Agfa and Zone IV would seem to be about

it. It's a shame. But I have to admit, I have been letting my lab convert color negs to B&W

for the past 5 years. Lets hope color neg film isn't next.