Kodak increases film prices

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/04/17/eastmankodak_increasingprices_film/

 

There is good news and bad news for film users in this anouncement.

Obviously none of us enjoy paying more for film. The stated reasons

for the increase are likely standard corporate BS. For a roll of film,

the cost of raw materials is a small part of the total. Silver counts

for a few cents. A much bigger factor in the manufacturing cost is the

burden (buildings, property tax, general overhead). Despite attempts

to reduce the "footprint" of manufacturing (quite visable to those of

us in Rochester), the volume of film has been going down faster than

the burden so burden is an increasing part of the cost.

 

The good news in this announcement is that it only makes sense if

volume starting to stabilize. Once only the devoted film users are

left, a price increase is feasible. I'm sure we haven't seen the last

product discontinuation notice, but maybe we've been through the worst

of them.

Maybe they need the extra money to pay for the digital side.

 

LOL

Wonder what the "burden" is in China? Maybe some losses on the digital side need to be balanced? Maybe it's all about "bumping up" everything now that there is an excuse (oil prices). Never mentioned is the digital price "creep". Anyone keep track of that? I'm not worried. Regards.

<i>The good news in this announcement is that it only makes sense if volume starting to stabilize. Once only the devoted film users are left, a price increase is feasible.</i></p>I take it interim price increases as demand falls aren't a possibility in your theory of economics.</p><i> I'm sure we haven't seen the last product discontinuation notice, but maybe we've been through the worst of them.</i></p>Yes well, only in the case Kodak bows out of film manufacture suddenly rather than gradually.

I too am not excited about having to pay more for film but you have to be realistic about the whole thing. Sales have plumetted and manufacturers can only reduce production capacity so much before there is no alternative but to raise prices. Film production isn't something where a company can make a few rolls here and there to satisfy a smaller demand. By its nature, film production must be done in a significant volume to maintain quality control and batch consistency. If this volume exceeds demand and rolls are expiring on the shelf than the company is losing money and in trouble. This is not unique to Kodak and if you think Ilford and Fuji won't be making price hikes in the coming years I think you are wrong. Unfortunately you'd be better off complaining to parents who are shooting their kid's baseball game with a digicam where they would have used film in years past, because thats the reason for all of this, not an evil coorperation. However, just like Kodak-bashing it isn't going to get you anywhere. It is what it is.

Wow,keep this site going.A breath of fresh air after reading the regular EOS site with all those folks trying to figure out how their new digital works or why it is broken already.

Silver prices are at a twenty five year high right now,same for oil,so a bump up in price doesn't surprize me.Still a lot cheaper than ink refills for all those printers out there,talk about a rip off.....

My local camera chain store said digital camera sales are peaking right now and quite a few photographers are shooting more film along with their digitals because they are finding out that if you only shoot a few rolls every month film printing is still a lot less work and probably less expensive.He said there is also a lot of technology burn out taking place with digital cameras in the hands of amateurs.A lot of folks just want to pop in a roll,shoot it, and let Kodak do the rest, like in the good old days.Especially true after their hard drive has failed on them and they forgot to back up all those darn digital files!!!

Terrence,

 

Interim price increases are always possible, but not likely while there is any significant competition between film and digital. Kodak made a lot more money on film. While digital users were capturing 2 or 3 times as many images as film users, they were only printing pictures about 1/10th as often. This meant much less profit for Kodak when a film user switched to digital (no film and fewer prints). With this kind of market, it doesn't make sense to raise prices. That would drive more of those film users into the digital camp. I haven't talked to my friends who still work at Kodak, but this looks to me like the competition is over and nearly everyone who was going to switch has already switched.

Ron:<i>this looks to me like the competition is over and nearly everyone who was going to switch has already switched</i>

 

Digital is changing much faster than film ever has, and that has affect on the market demand. As performance doubles, demand will go up again with market fluctuations. Certain world economic situations have affected film and camera sales out of step with some potential advancements several times decades ago. These cycles are happening faster with digital. There will come a price/performance/versatitiy change eventually to the point that only irrational people and collectors will want analog. That point in time hasn't come yet as there are currently situations where analog is better. For example, I have a lot of Minolta cameras and lenses, darkroom equipment and have bought film at surplus prices on ebay, presumably from people who have switched to digital. Given the amount of photos I take this makes economic sence to me in my situtation.

I would expect Kodak to price film as a commoditiy partially based on the silver used. They have raised prices before when silver rose but lowered it at other times due to competition. Film as a cost of the averages persons hourly wage puts film a lot cheaper now than in, say, the seventies. And its better also.

I'll switch toi digital when it makes economic sense to me.

(yes, I have one digital camera I bought at a garage sale, as I could use it as a webcam which I needed anyway and at the same price. I can use the 1MP camera for e-bay photos too.)

Probably the next digital camera won;t be until I use my bulk film rolls up.

Price increases passed onto consumers is not "standard corporate BS." It is a fact of business life. Most responsible companies postpone the increases as long as they can. I rarely hear of anyone whining about the declining costs of digital photography. Mostly I am really crabby about the skyrocketing costs of fuel & health care, the record profits of petroleum companies and pharmaceutical makers, and the fact my takehome pay shrinks monthly! At least I can choose to buy film or do photography, but it's difficult to postpone getting to the job, eating or staying alive long enough to worry about the price of film! :-(

This is actually a good thing - it's not like a 100% increase, which it might be if volumes were getting really low.

 

I am bored with the monotonity and consistent plasticity of digital capture and am happy to pay for a bit of spice in my life - which is what film seems to give to my photos. Variety.

 

I don't think this will be the last of the price increases. That's ok.

What I don't understand is why silver is going up in price - you'd think that with film use declining, the prices would go down since it's less important now. What else is made with silver that is going up in volumes?

It's not a matter of demand for silver going up so much as it is the value of the dollar going down.

"If a product is price sensitive - any rise in price at the margin will see in a fall in demand at the margin, pretty simple economics really - but perhaps beyond the understanding of some."

 

I think it depends on the price increase. If Kodak only raises prices very slightly and stays in the ballpark of Ilford and Fuji prices, demand may be unaffected and these small increases multiplied over the millions of rolls sold can be significantly beneficial to a film producing company that is deathly ill in the digital age. Consequently, I don't think lowering the price of film would cause a resurgence in film sales via simple laws of economics. Agfa and Ilford priced their film very low in the past and it didn't do much to help their issues. Agfa went kaput and Ilford nearly so. Also, as film becomes a niche market for which its dedicated users don't consider digital a viable alternative, the laws of economics aren't always strictly adhered to.

Before the film materials for our process cameras got dropped, there were regular greater than normal inflation price increases for film. K&E croaked, GAF croaked, Dupont croaked, Kodak croaked, even Fuji croaked from the process camera film field. When a market contacts and the number of players drops, prices have to rise when the film spigot gets turned off. This happened a DECADE ago. Today with 35mm film there is still alot of volume with disposables and basic 400 and 800 iso print films. The specialty stuff that has way less volume will make a cool nice ride, UP

"Mostly I am really crabby about the skyrocketing costs of fuel & health care, the record profits of petroleum companies"

 

I'm crabby about a government that restricts oil exploration, production, and refinery construction, then levies taxes on gasoline so high that they take in more profit than the petroleum companies which manufacture the gasoline, then has the audacity to put oil company executives on the stand to grill them about their "record profits".

 

I'm all for reducing record oil company profits. Right after we reduce the unethical and obscene Federal and state gasoline tax profits.

 

Oh yes, we were talking about film. A 3-17% price increase doesn't sound that bad. Just be happy they're not cutting any more emulsions. And be happy the Feds and states haven't found a way to jump the price 30% or more with "film taxes".

It's obviously hard to predict how price-elastic the demand for film is, but I'm thinking that the remaining film business is not terribly price-elastic. The huge volume in film was for users who did not have high quality standards, and for whom digital was able to meet their standards at a lower cost.

 

Half my film purchases go into making slides for clients who shoot their own images digitally, and I'll pay whatever it costs to get film to fill their orders as long as I can still make money on it.

 

The other half of my film is for my own purposes, and I'll pay what it costs to get that film until there is a digital option that gives me the same experience at a similar cost. But for this the standards are extraordinarily high - I'm used to pro Nikon bodies (F3 and F4) with a good set of reasonably fast primes, so wimpy cameras like the F70 aren't tempting me at all. And I'm shooting Astia and Provia, so it's going to take some really fine sensors to meet my quality standards.

 

Price changes in negative film won't change my buying patterns. I don't use any and my wife shoots what she shoots based on the shows she goes to and I'd damned well better make sure there are enough rolls of film in the freezer when she packs for a trip!

 

I suspect that most of the current film business is bound by similar issues. The casual stuff already went, what's still done in film is mostly by dedicated users that buy quite a bit. The tens of thousands of folk who used to put the end of one Christmas and the start of the next one on a single 24-exosure roll aren't buying any film anymore, the hundreds of folk who shoot more than two or three rolls a week still are.

 

There is always some price elasticity in any market. We've just been through a period in which a huge part of the photo market was unusually sensitive, but most of what's left probably isn't any more sensitive to price changes than it was in 1970.

 

So Kodak adjusts their price sheet, which doesn't affect me except that it will allow Fuji to bump a few of their prices up, which I'll pay.

 

Van

G. Armour Van Horn

 

I'm curious about the slides that you make for clients with digital files. Are these slides for presentation or archive? I'm convinced that Ektachrome dupe film would be an ideal media for archiving digital images. I'm also convinced that it would be difficult to start from scratch and make a business out of this idea.

The example of "addiction" is a valid one but not unique to film consumers. I seriously doubt that price hikes across the board in the digital SLR market would cause the demand for these products to drop because these users are just as "addicted." Most would gladly pay 20% or more for whatever Canon or Nikon is selling them.

Daniel, oil prices in the US are ridiculously low. Most other developed countries consider the associated pollution worthy of taxing much more.

Meant gas prices, not oil.

This is a film and processing forum. Let's keep political views out of it.

Image if folks didnt want a film loading or conversion plant in their backyard, due to environmental reasons, and there was this huge bottleneck that added to production costs. This is the black gold texas tea problem. <BR><BR>With the film that has a lower turnover in stores, alot of places mark it up more. This is required to cover the expenses of greater spoilage, higher inventory costs, greater taxes. In some places a firm most pay local taxes on inventory, say 2 to 3 percent each year, even if the item never sells.<BR><BR>Today since almost everybody wants ultra fast film, the shelf life is lower. <BR><BR>The common iso 800 color print films will be around probably the longest.

Kodak - the company everyone loves to hate. I didn't notice everyone donning their conspiracy theory aluminum foil beanies when Fuji quietly raised their prices 3-4 months ago.

 

The price of silver has gone up because India is buying a lot more silver recently. If you are aware of the commodities market at all, you'd also have noticed gold is at $605 and ounce - up nearly $275 from a year ago. Really, it's not all some huge corporate plot.

For many decades Kodak was the biggest user of silver; and for as long they rely on the futures (options) markets to lock in and hedge.

 

 

[same for the (non-bankrupt) airlines and jet fuel: Last spring when oil was >$54/bbl, Southwest was locked in at a $24/bbl average.]

 

 

Oh, and by the way, one guy above was bitchin' pissin' & moanin' about pharmaceutical prices. But, guess which manufacturer we all know makes pharmaceuticals?

 

 

You guessed it: Kodak! ;)

I am puzzled at the very existence of iso 800 print film - the quality seems quite bad, especially for the consumer film. I didn't know these were popular, when I look at photo stores or CVS most of the film seems to be iso 400 or lower. I do think iso 400 color print film is very good and deserves to be popular. I don't know of anyone who uses iso 800 print film so saying that almost everyone uses it is very, very strange.