E6 Still Hanging In There

[douglas_vitello]

Had a talk with the the local chain camera store manager (Dodd Camera

Cleveland,OH) and he said the good word is that E6 is still holding its own

with a steady volume every week and it looks like they will still be doing E6

for at least another five years at the current rate.If anything it has picked

up a little bit.Commercial clients, dedicated amateurs,and a mix of resistant

pros are keeping it alive for now.The bad news is they are replacing their in

store print film Fuji processing equipment with all inkjet in the near

future.Most B&W and some color work (papers & chemicals)are mostly coming from

local high schools and colleges.Maybe some of them will graduate to

transparency film?Seems odd that Kodak and Fuji are slowly reducing their

variety of transparency films when this is the one unique product that digital

can not replace (at least for now). If anything digital has taken out the in

store print volume.A true irony because digital cameras are about all they sell

anymore.

[._._z]

The number of E-6 processors has declined substantially, so I'm not surprised that many of the larger remaining labs are chugging along. They're usually surviving by taking in rolls from local 1-hour shops from an increasingly wider geographic radius.

 

C-41 has really taken over the market from E-6, though, and both segments continue to shrink.

[eric friedemann]

.[.Z is right. The store I work at is in DuPage County in the western suburbs of Chicago. A few years ago, there were 4-5 E-6 machines operating in DuPage County- two of them at pro labs.

 

 

After the last of these E-6 lines stopped operating, my store was able to obtain a Noritsu E-6 machine for free. The costs in getting the machine operating were replacing some parts and running another electrical line in our lab.

 

 

This E-6 machine has not been a major income source, but it generates enough business to make it worthwhile to fire it up three times a week:

 

 

1. We get a fair amount of business from ametuers who still like to shoot 35mm slides- some of these shooters prefer scanning slides to shooting digital.

 

 

2. Decent business comes from local colleges.

 

 

3. We process 120 E-6, so we get rolls from people who've taken advantage of relatively low prices on used medium format equipment.

 

 

4. Some business from other stores that prefer not to deal with Kodak's Minneapolis lab's underwhelming E-6 service.

 

 

But if we had to compete with other E-6 lines in the area, it probably wouldn't be profitable to process E-6.

[eric friedemann]

I'd also note that if we'd had to invest $10K or more to buy a used E-6 machine, we wouldn't be processing E-6. No one I know is betting that processing E-6 will be profitable in coming years.

[john_shriver]

Personally, I think the "writing on the wall" for E-6 is almost as ominous as for Kodachrome. Kodalux/Qualex "drop off" service is pretty much gone -- they want high annual volumes to have their courier stop by your store and pick up film and drop off slides. This has helped my local dip & dunk lab (Dorian), they are servicing all the stores that can't get Kodalux/Qualex E-6 service anymore, giving them just enough volume to keep their Q-Lab certified line in control. But, many other labs in the area have collapsed entirely, and Dorian had a major reduction in staff.

 

I expect that the return of Velvia 50 is the last E-6 "new product" announcement we'll see. The demise of EPN shows that the professional backbone of the market is just gone. There won't be a "two electron sensitization" version of Ektachrome.

[eric friedemann]

John, that's the crux of the problem. Although E-6 there have been a number of innovative E-6 films introduced since I was shooting E-6 in the early 80s, in the last half dozen years or so, more and more pros have switched to digital.

 

 

To run an E-6 line profitably, you either need the steady business of some pros shooting E-6 day-in and day-out or you need the less steady business of more numerous ametuers shooting a roll or two a month- or a dozen rolls a few times a year on vacation. As digital has improved, there's less of both types of business to go around.

[brian304]

To Eric:

I am the western Burbs too. Where is the shop? I really would rather drop my e6 off.

thanks

Brian

[eric friedemann]

Brian:

 

 

http://www.pjcamera.com/cgi-bin/store/cp-app.cgi

[WJT]

I'm not surprised that Dodd's E6 orders have increased, since Merrill David right around the corner has discontinued their processing operation. I was one of Merril's customers but had to switch over to Dodds. That is okay, but Dodds does not process any 4x5. Anyone have any suggestions for a local (Cleveland) E6 lab doing 4x5? Regards.

[sagephotoworld.com]

I have very much the feeling that the price of film processing is going to rocket soon.

 

As soon as most of the local labs have closed, processing will continue in the labs that have hung on and prices will rise as they will have no competition. The film user will be held hostage for a couple of years until they ditch film in favour of digital as a means of escape.

 

I can guarantee that film will be a distant memory within 10 years and within 15 people will be asking "what was film?"

[RaymondC]

I just bought a FM2N and I like film. Its something that you can have a old camera (cheap) and use modern film. You have film there which cost some money and it has value, you respect it and carefully take that photograph, whereas digital doesn't provide that for me, its like no worries - just retake it.

 

I am in NZ. For the least past 8 years I have only that pro film is bought from pro stores only. I'm not sure but I will ask some 1hr labs and see if they do slide film, I have asked a Kodak lab inside the supermarket and they say they don't do E6 or b/w and this was in 2004 or something. Having spoke to a lab they said that (all) film is big, they are able to do more work since other business do them less. But I sort of find it hard to believe because I think drug stores and 1hr labs around the city/suburbs still do them, afaik there has not been a drop out in lab shops, while a few has closed down they still have least 1 in each area and while may do digital more they still accept film work, they don't process the film themselves but as always they send them out to a contracted company.