Tech Pan to be discontinued

FYI for Tech pan users. Kodak has announced the discontinuance of

Technical Pan Film. The suggested replacement is Delta 100. Oops! I

mean Tmax 100. The discontinuance schedule is as follows:

December 2004 - 120 format,TP120.

April 2005 - 35mm format, TP135-6 & TP442 150ft roll.

June 2005 - 4x5 & 8x10

 

Remaining inventory will be sold until depleted.

Aaaargh! Honey, make room in the freezer...<p>You serious, or a joke in poor taste?

What a pity. Do you have a link to the announcement?

While at the counter of my local camera store, buying some darkroom paper, the female clerk whom I've know for years showed me a fax she had just gotten from Kodak which clearly stated they are discontinuing both Tech Pan and Kodachrome slide film. I'd like to immerse the CEO of Kodak and Kodak's shareholders in a tub of boiling acetic acid or stain them with a heavy dose of Pyro from head to toes for screwing up the company so much. I've yet to read a very positive analysis/review of Kodak's digital camera releases, yet the CEO thinks sales of digital cameras will rescue Kodak. What a jerk!

I'll help you Terry... next thing you know, they'll say ROI on Tri-X was too low, so they're axing that too.

Boil up the CEO of Kodak if you must, but immersing all the shareholders in a tub of boiling acetic acid or staining them with a heavy dose of Pyro from head to toes seems a little excessive. Doing the acid thing just with those shareholders who are powerful enough to control Kodak's policy would surely be enough. Maybe I'm just jealous; technically that sort of thing is still illegal in the UK, though we have a home secretary who's working on it.

:O<br>

I'm raiding the store!

Kodak is lost and has no North. Thanks God Fuji and Ilford know their business and realise that they can make money from the existent film technology at marginal cost.

If there were money to be made on these films, wouldn't Kodak sell or license the films to someone else? Seems logical to me.

Makes sense to me. Their real market for tech pan is document duplication, if I'm not mistaken; this is going digital big-time.

 

For those of us who like to use weirder film combos it sucks, though. At least they still carry EDUPE, so I'm ok, but it makes me feel sorry for all the hi-res b&w guys.

I can't believe it. The fact that they're getting rid of Technical Pan is bad enough, but to kill off Kodachrome 64 and 200? That's the final straw. Some will say that Kodachrome had it coming, but I still think that it is an excellent film unlike any other. 70 Years in the bin... :(

 

Seems like they're killing off their distinctive films that make them stand out. Technical Pan had an RMS of 3 I think, the finest-grained film ever. True it was rather slow at ISO 25, but with good lighting, a flash, or a reasonably fast lens this wasn't difficult to get around. You almost needed a microscope to see it's grain.

 

Kodachrome has a lot of history to it, being one of the world's first color films. The fact that it lasted so long is a testament to it's greatness. I will miss it so.

 

Does anyone know where I can send flowers?

tech pan's demise shouldn't be a surprise really, if you look at some similar films that have bit the dust in the past year or two--Pro Copy, Commercial Film and SO-132. I'd rather have seen Kodak continue making Pro Copy anyday over tech pan to tell you the truth.

Here is an interesting site of someone sick of Kodak (because of discontinuance and non availability of some films in some formats:

 

www.willisboyce.com/sick.htm

I'm taking this with a grain of salt... Google News yields nothing about Kodak discontinuing Kodachrome. I'm sure they would have something on there if they did, particularly since you'll find journalists tossing around the word as a synonym for "conventional film".

With Tech Pan, I feel very sorry for the amateur astronomers who can't afford (or don't want) CCD sensors. Obviously, professional astronomy is all digital now, but the amateurs have a lot to contribute to the science. They do a lot with "hypered" Tech Pan.

 

Kodachrome: the writing was on the wall, and it was hard to miss. But I may buy a few rolls in the next few days. Maybe the 200, I like the colors of it. But I've shot a roll of E100G and appreciated it, and I suspect E100GX will address my few complaints. Certainly, it's futile to hoard Kodachrome, as Dwanye's can probably only keep their line running for a year at most. How long will Kodak keep making the chemicals, anyways?

I had a feeling that the end was near for Kodachrome, BUT TECH PAN!? AARGH! I'm going to stock up on the 150 feet bulk rolls!<p>Kodak is really pushing people to try Agfa or Fuji, then EFKE or anybody else who will still make film.

People here are acting as if Kodak were making an effort to hurt them. Please. Look at the products they're discontinuing: these are some pretty esoteric films. Does Fuji have anything like Kodachrome? Nope. Nothing in terms of color pallette OR difficulty/expense/precision in processing. At least you can use X-pan...oops, wrong again. That was discontinued a while ago for the very same reason TechPan is being dropped: poor sales.

 

I certainly feel sorry for those who are disappointed by these announcements (assuming they are genuine). I know what it's like to have a beloved product pulled. At the same time, have a little buisness sense, please: Kodak is not taking out some personal vendetta against you, they are "cutting the fat," in business terms. In fact, considering slow sales of these products in recent years (which is the reason Kodak stopped advertising Kodachrome, not the other way around), I'm surprised they held on to them this long.

I would have said that Kodak has a good record for maintaining a wide range of products for longer than any of the other film manufacturers.

Time to buy a few 4x5 boxes for the freezer.

<blockquote><i>I'm taking this with a grain of salt... Google News yields nothing about Kodak discontinuing Kodachrome. I'm sure they would have something on there if they did, particularly since you'll find journalists tossing around the word as a synonym for "conventional film".</i></blockquote>

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The world does not revolve around Google.

<p>

Get back with us when you find something via Google regarding Kodak ceasing all K14 processing in the USA this month.

<p>

For that matter, get back with us when you find a Kodak press release explaining that they are closing down many of their labs, including Fair Lawn, the sole Kodak K14 lab in the Western Hemisphere (as well as 50% of all <i>Kodachrome</i> labs in the western hemisphere), and, 50% of all Kodak labs in the universe!)

<p>

The fact that this news does not show up on Google does not mean that it's not for real. Kodak seems to historically play a lot of stuff very close to the vest. This report may very well be true. A quick glance at the posting histories of the two people who've "spilled" in this thread (David Ditzel and Terry M) does not reveal anything "trollish" in their character.

<p>

We will most likely find out the lowdown within a few days. And come to think of it, Friday notifications of unhappy items seem to be fairly common. Stuff that you want to put out under the radar, you... put out under the radar. That means only notifying the minimum number of people who need to know, and it's often done late on a friday to keep it out of the news cycle.

<p>

If it's not true, that's good news. But I'm not holding my breath.

You would look for Kodak to do something because it makes good business sense??? They abandoned that philosophy back in the 60's and 70's when instead of building on their successful products, they abandoned R&D on them and went in a totally new direction.

 

Tell me, is Ektachrome as successful as Fuji's offerings yet????

 

Kodachrome is distinctive and if improved over the years could have helped Kodak far more than spending the last several years trying to emulate Fujifilm. Alas, the die is cast, but please don't refer to the demise of Kodachrome as "good business sense". It is simply the end of a long line of very poor business decisions.

I can't find any mention of Kodachrome and Technical Pan being discontinued on ANY search engine or in ANY Kodak press release.

 

Not that it isn't true, but being a long time employee of a major news organization, it's well known that bad news is best dissemenated on a day when it'll draw the least attention and minimal bad press. Late on a Friday is a good time for a "cover up!" Also, being the 49th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, would also tend to mask things around here, since the bomb was made just down the road in Oak Ridge! That's always big news on August 6th!

 

In any case, I've tipped the Kodak beat reporter at the Rochester newspaper that he may have a story on the death of the Kodak flagship film product! I guess we'll have to wait and see what appears in print early next week or maybe we could call the Rochester grocery stores and see if they have had a run on "Kodak Cash Cow Bar-B-Que Sauce?"

 

Robert Johnson

Like Chris said, there's nothing else quite like Kodachrome out there today. Kodak should do some R&D and come up with an E-6 process film that matches it's color palatte and other distinctive features. Maybe call it Ektachrome-K or something. I'm sure that were it not for the K-14 processing, Kodachrome would be with us for a while yet. But as it is, many people who have tried it like it, but just can't afford to wait to get it processed. In the end, it seems that its unique requirements are what doomed it.

 

It was one of my two favorite films, including Velvia. Velvia certainly isn't an all-purpose film though. As we all are well aware, it has terrible skin tones. Kodachrome, while less saturated, provided an excellent compromise. I loved its skin tones. I could come in from the garden and shoot my sister's birthday no sweat. Some of my best shots ever were taken on it.

 

While many may suggest other films like Sensia and Provia to me to fill this void, I believe that nothing else can quite fill the gap left by Kodachrome.

 

I realize that Eastman Kodak is not out to get us devout Kodachrome users, but I am still angry at them because they let this happen and didn't do anything about it. First in the 80's they let Velvia come along and wipe Kodachrome 25 from the map, now they've just sat back and let one of their icons desintegrate. Maybe some R&D could have saved it. I would have gladly welcomed Kodachrome-III into my array of films.

 

Still, though, seventy years is a damn fine run, a record for production that I can't see any film outstripping. The photographic community now begins to mourn the loss of a film that for decades defined color photography, and for a select few still did. It is the end of an era, one that many will lock back on fondly, I'm sure (I will anyway).

 

And so as the curtain begins to lower on this act in photographic history, there are those who will criticize and those who will grieve, but the one thing that we can all agree on, I'm sure, is that this is the close of one of the greatest chapters of our art. But then again, who knows, it may be the biginning of a glorious new one.

So if Kodachrome is dead, does this mean Super 8 as well? I occassionally use this stuff for fun reasons and to kill off its finest grained Super 8 film would really piss in my Cornflakes.

I spoke with Gary in Kodak's professional film division yesterday morning and he confirmed that Tech Pan will be phased out in 2005. I informed him how pissed off I am because I love that film and cannot find anything like it for sensational photo duplication on my copy stand, reproduction of line art works, and general shooting/grain-free prints. Meanwhile, one camera store near me has approximately 30 rolls of it on its shelf, another has approximately 40, and B&H and Adorama probably have some as well. So I must go to one of those close to me and buy a quantity, but I won't be able to approach the counter and store staff with a smile on my face!