francois_p._garnier

September 25, 2013

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2296502/new-kodak-company-to-continue-selling-film

August 26, 2013

FujiFilm will introduce a new Instax camera for their Instax Mini system this fall:

The camera will not only have a new design, but also significantly improved features:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135829

The Instax system is extremely successful, with growth rates of 20-25% p.a..

The Impossible Project has also reported similar growth rates (published in a European photo magazine called "Camera").

August 26, 2013

Too high rents have been the main problem. With 600,000$ rent p.a. it is extreme difficult to run a retail store profitable. In the newspaper report I have mentioned in my posting above it was clearly said that overall sales are stable and not the main problem.

The second problem they've had that their big online business is of course competing with their own stores. And lots of clients today are lazy and order online from the Lomography online store.

Therefore the stores in areas with much lower rents will stay, and the others have been closed.

And with the Embassy Store system costs for rents can be divided, therefore some new Embassy stores are planned for the future.

August 26, 2013

Look at the second link, "Digital Dilemma 2". It is current data. Nothing has changed. The extremely high costs of digital long term storage are system immanent.You cannot solve this problem. The computer industry make their living by introducing new systems and formats. That creates the long term storing problems, especially the extremely high costs of permanently transferring all the data to new mediums. As the data is growing exponentially, the costs are also growing exponentially over the decades. You cannot escape from this trap.

Only solution: A standard, not changing format like (PET) films, which has a lifespan of more than 500 years (proved by the RIT).

The digital photographer has to face the same problems. In the end and if you will use your pictures for several decades and give them to your children, shooting film is cheaper.

That meanwhile all digital shot Hollywood movies are archived on film because of better safety and much lower costs has been told me by several experts from the industry on a conference. That is the reason why Fuji has recently introduced their Eterna archival film stock (they also win an award for these films). Producing archival film is also an important part of Kodak's film production in Rochester.

Lot's of European governments are archiving their important documents and pictures on film.

August 26, 2013

In central Europe most cinemas have a parallel projection equipment line:

The beamers have been installed next to the 35mm projectors (and not replacing them). In all big and small cinemas I've been in the last 12 months the 35mm projectors were all there, and not build down. Therefore the cinemas have still the capability to project 35mm film.

By the way, archiving on film is much much more cost effective than archiving digitally (digital long term storage has prohibitive costs). Therefore all digital movies are archived on real film (made by Kodak and Fuji; Fuji has recently released the Eterna line for long term storage).

See here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/business/media/23steal.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all&

and here:

http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/digitaldilemma2/index.html

August 26, 2013

@ Patrick Mont:

They have lots of stores worldwide and plan to keep running them. Only those stores with too high rents have been closed. Here are the stores:

http://www.lomography.com/more/stores

In some of the stores also film developing is offered.

August 20, 2013

@Richard Eaton: Sorry for my bad English. I am not a native speaker.

Concerning the Aviphot Chrome film from Agfa-Gevaert: This yellow cast seems to be a problem of one charge sold bei Maco Photo Products and their Rollei CR 200 film (which is Aviphot Chrome 200).

You can get the film without this problem converted and sold by Wittner Cinetec (Wittner Chrome 200D):

http://www.wittner-kinotechnik.de/katalog/04_filmm/kleinbild.php

It is also available as Super8 film.

August 17, 2013

There has been an longer report about the current situation at lomography in an Austrian newspaper. This report also included an interview with one of the founders (M. Fiegl).

The facts are

- Lomography has grown too fast over the last years

- investment in some of the gallery stores have been too big

- rents for stores in some areas have been too high

- they are restructuring their store system

- about 20 Gallery Stores worldwide will stay

- the number of Lomography Embassy Stores (they are organised differently, in a kind of Franchise system) should slowly grow during the next years (some days ago a new Embassy Store in Buenos Aires opened)

- they intend to increase the number of retail partner stores

- their online business is stable

- they intend to increase their number of products (some weeks ago they introduced another new camera)

- currently they have running a very successful new kickstarter project for a new lens (funding goal 100,000 $; they already have a funding of 1,26 million $).

August 16, 2013

According to an authoritative source on the APUG forum (well, probably as authoritative as anything ever is on that group! :-) ), Agfa in Belgium are not producing further color aerial film when current stocks run out. Which presumably limits the future for the repacked versions produced by other suppliers.

</blockquote>

@ Richard Eaton: You should read right. The reliable sources on apug have written that the Aviphot Chrome 200 is not produced anymore (but there is still a huge stock frozen of this film in the film warehouse at Agfa).

Aerial colour negative film is in current production at Agfa, Belgium.

Maybe, when the stocks are depleted, Agfa will produce the Aviphot Chrome film again. But currently there is no need for it, because they have enough material / current stock to offer.

August 16, 2013

Could be what's left of frozen master rolls of the old APX but could just as likely be the "new" APX which seems to be Agfa Aviphot aerial recon film. The "old" APX is gone for good.

</blockquote>

@ C Watson: That is wrong. The new, now offered APX film from Lupus Imaging has nothing to do with Agfa aerial film from Agfa in Belgium.

The new APX is simply re-labelled Kentmere 100 and 400 film. I've tested the new film and compared it with the Kentmeres, and they are identical. I know from two other reliable photographers, who have done also comparison tests, and they also get the same result: APX new = Kentmere.

August 16, 2013

I just picked up a few rolls of Agfa APX Black and white film from a camera show a few months ago. Expires 2015. Made in Germany if I am not mistaken.

</blockquote>

@ Eddy d: That is still original Agfa APX from the last production run in the German plant in Leverkusen. When they got in insolvency 2005 (AgfaPhoto Produktion GmbH) all raw materials in that factory had been coated. They were running in full shifts in their last months producing more film than ever. Therefore the remaining stock of APX films have been lasted so long, until this year.

August 14, 2013

What's passed off as Agfa now isn't the Agfa of old. Neither is the film.

</blockquote>

That's not true in this generalisation. Agfa in Mortsel, Belgium, is currently producing the same film portfolio which they have produced 10 years ago. Very little has changed there concerning their production of films for the industrial market.

The former Agfa consumer film, made in Leverkusen, is gone. That is right. See my post above.

And the films currently sold under the "AgfaPhoto" brand name are a completely different thing. It is just a brand name, and the products are currently not produced by Agfa, but by other factories.

Lupus Imaging has licensed the brand name "AgfaPhoto" from the "AgfaPhoto Holding", and sell films from different manufacturers (currently Fuji and Harman Technologies) under this label.

August 11, 2013

(West) Agfa? Thriving are they?

</blockquote>

Concerning Agfa: The West German Agfa had their big film plant in Leverkusen, their converting plant in Windhagen, and their chemical plant in Vaihingen (and a camera plant in Munich, closed in 1982). In the 60ies West German Agfa get together with Gevaert from Belgium, since then the name was Agfa-Gevaert.

In Leverkusen all the consumer films were made, and in Belgium (former Gevaert) all the industrial films like movie films, aerial films and microfilms.

In 2004/2005 there was a new separation: The consumer film division was sold to an investor (AgfaPhoto Holding, which is still alive and makes money from licensing the name "AgfaPhoto"). Some months later the sub-company "AgfaPhoto Produktion" which run the film and paper plant in Leverkusen, the converting plant in Windhagen and the chemical plant in Vaihingen get in insolvency, partly caused by severe management mistakes.

The Leverkusen and Windhagen plants were closed (Vaihingen is still in operation). Lots of the machinery from Windhagen were bought by Ilford.

Lots of the coating and emulsion making machinery from Leverkusen were bought by the new founded company InovisCoat (run by former Agfa Leverkusen engineers) and Adox.

InovisCoat then built a complete new modern factory in Monheim, Germany. In fact InovisCoat is the successor company of Agfa Leverkusen. All InovisCoat employees are former Agfa Leverkusen employees.

The industrial product part of Agfa in Mortsel, Belgium, has continued to produce industrial film types like movie film, aerial film, surveillance film, microfilm, sound film, PCB film.

Some of the current Rollei-Films from Maco Photo Products are films produced by Agfa in Belgium.

August 10, 2013

Kodak and Fuji and the demand:

1. Ilford has proved that a company can adjust (when it really will) to the current much lower demand levels. The old Ilford was a huge factory which needed similar quantities like bigger companies. The new Ilford = Harman Technologies is now able to coat extreme small production runs of about 1000m² only. They had invested a lot to be able to do this now.

2. Kodak and Fuji don't have the real will to do the same as Ilford. They are only interested in bigger volume mass market products. AFAIK films with at least one million pieces sold p.a..

If a film is sold "only" in a quantity of 500,000 or 600,000 units p.a., they just cancel it.

500,000 films of one film type may not be interesting for Kodak and Fuji, but such a volume is very interesting for the smaller companies like Ilford, Foma, Adox, InovisCoat, FilmoTec and Ferrania. Therefore these European manufacturers will be the future of film production (or Fuji and Kodak re-think their business model and invest in downscaling like Ilford has done).

August 9, 2013

@ John:

The InovisCoat factory is new. They are already producing the color film base for the IP films, and the MCC and MCP BW paper for Adox. There are some hints that they are also producing the new Lomo Purple film, which is produced in extremely small volumes (smaller volumes than all current BW products on the market).

But all these products don't cost a fortune, not at all the 50$ roll price level you mentioned.

This factory has a very lean production, very flexible, able to coat film and paper on the same machine, and much much less fixed costs compared to Kodak and Fuji.

August 9, 2013

Perhaps most often in Eastern Europe where older equipment survives and labor costs are low enough to produce economically for niche markets?

</blockquote>

No, not at all, it is just the opposite: Nearly all of the European film manufacturers have their factories in Western Europe:

Harman Technologies / IlfordPhoto: England

Agfa-Gevaert: Belgium

Impossible Project: Netherlands (factory), Austria (headquarter)

InovisCoat: Germany

FilmoTec: Germany

Adox: Germany

Ferrania: Italy

Only Foma (Czech Republic) and Slavich and Tasma (both Russia) are Eastern European companies.

And all of the Western European companies are working with the most modern machinery. Harman / IlfordPhoto, Agfa-Gevaert, InovisCoat (they have built a complete new factory in 2009!) and Adox have all recently invested in new, modern machinery.

@ Mr. Watson: This "BW will stay, color film will go" is complete wrong. Fact is, that in all major markets 90-95% of the films sold are colour films. BW is a tiny niche in the film market.

Most photographers, no matter whether they are film or digital shooters, want their pictures in colour. Therefore colour film will stay.

August 8, 2013

The new formed company Film Ferrania is working on new production of E-6 colour reversal film and C-41 colour negative film:

http://www.japancamerahunter.com/2013/08/film-news-ferrania-is-back-exclusive-interview/

http://www.filmferrania.it/

https://www.facebook.com/filmferrania

The future of film production lies in Europe:

Ilford, Foma, Adox, InovisCoat and FilmoTec for BW materials, and Film Ferrania, Agfa-Gevaert, InovisCoat and Impossible Project for colour films.

No one needs Kodak.

April 22, 2013

The tip with D. Nardi is from a friend of mine based in Toronto. He has used Nardi's E6 service and has been very satiesfied. Excellent quality and reasonable prices.

April 22, 2013

Hi,

positive news for color reversal film shooters in Atlanta, Georgia and in Toronto:

Two new E6 lab services offered.

Atlanta:

www.dunwoodyphoto.com They will start E6 soon.

Toronto:

http://www.e6it.ca/

The service is run by photographer David Nardi:

http://www.davidnardi.com/

April 22, 2013

I shot a roll of Superia 1600 recently and the results were excellent (developed at home using a Jobo). I didn't try it in low light though so not sure how it would perform in that situation. I have heard it gives a very red image in low light.

</blockquote>

Jamie, I've never experienced a dominant red cast in low light shooting with Superia 1600. The color rendition of this film is very good, also in tungsten / fluorescent light scenes. That is mainly due to the implemented 4th layer technology, which is doing an excellent job in such lighting conditions.

I've got a roll of 400x.

</blockquote>

Wayne, very good choice. Provia 400X is outstanding @400 and excellent with one stop push @ 800. And still very good at 1,5 stop push and two stop push 1250 / 1600.

April 19, 2013

Superia X-Tra 800 is definitely a bit sharper and higher resolving than Portra 800. That is not only my experience, it has also been the test results of some optic test labs in Europe.

Wayne, if you need 1250 speed than you could also use Fuji Superia 1600. This film is still in production. If you cannot get it at B&H etc, then order it from overseas, for example from ag-photographic, silverprint, macodirect or fotoimpex.

Another good option: Fuji Provia 400X with push. 400X is excellent at Push 1 @ 800, and still very good at Push 2 @ 1600.

April 18, 2013

There is another problem with these figures in terms of context beyond what has already been discussed. Citing a stabilization of sales or increased percentage of sales is too isolated. There has to be a reference point.

</blockquote>

Those with this argument often use the year 1999 / 2000 as a reference point. That was the sales record in films history with about 3 billion photo films sold worldwide.

They then further say today it is at best 10% of that, therefore film is doomed.

That's wrong.

For a film shooter only one thing is important: Whether he can buy film now and in the future or not. Therefore historic data or reference points are irrelevant for him. Relevant is only, whether some film companies are able to produce film on the current and future demand level.

For example the CEO of Impossible Project has explained in an interview that they don't need the former high volume production anymore. Now they only need a minimum of one million filmpacks p.a. to be profitable. That is tiny compared to some years ago, but now it is sufficient. And that's what matters.

Same is valid for Ilford, Foma, and Fuji: They have downscaled and can now operate with significantly lower volume. And new companies like Adox and InovisCoat have started right from the beginning with small volume production.

April 18, 2013

Fuji Superia 800 is an excellent film. Better resolution and sharpness compared to Portra 800, but with a bit more grain. Well balanced, natural color rendition.

Exposure at ISO 800/30° is absolutely o.k., from my experience there is no need to overexpose it.

As with CN films in general, a little bit overexposing does not hurt, either.

If you need ISO 1600, you don't need to push. I would just use a balanced fill-in flash to get this one more stop of light. The modern fill-in flash systems work excellent, you will not see in the picture that flash has been used, but you have enough light for proper shadow detail.

March 20, 2013

Breathtaking. No recession in the Eurozone? No unemployment in Spain, Italy,Eire, France, UK, Germany, Greece?

</blockquote>

Well no overall, general recession in the Eurozone and in Europe. Only in some weak countries. No real recession in the the last two years in UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Suisse, Austria, Czech, Slowakia. Some of these countries even had quite strong growth like Norway, Germany and Poland.

Don't believe the lies lot's of North American politicians and media tell you...;-).

What matters is per capita income anywhere. Compare China or other developing countries you cite to Canada and the US, OK?

</blockquote>

Important is that in China a huge middle class of already 500 million people exist, which have money to buy photo products, I've been there several times. I've seen what is happening there, you have not. There are e.g. huge shopping malls only for photography products, digital and analog!

That does not exist in North America.

Toronto is the 5th largest city in N. America. I'm guessing the film situation here--for better or worse--isn't wildly different than in other large N. American cities.

</blockquote>

I've been in New York, Boston, Seattle, Portland, L.A., Denver. No problems at all there to get films and development.

Film matters to Ilford. Fuji? Not so much.

</blockquote>

Fuji has to manage the boom in their instax films, therefore the new, additional plant in South Korea. They had a complete booth at Photokina for Instax, lot's of people there, mostly very young photographers. In Asia the demand is even much higher than in Europe.

https://de-de.facebook.com/FujifilmInstaxIndonesia

They also introduced new RA-4 paper products at Photokina last year; reintroduced Neopan 400 because of increasing demand

Serger's Photokina report was largely data-free and relied on marketing chatter from booth reps--nothing more.

</blockquote>

Your bashing is completely unfair (and stupid). You haven't read what he had written. He reported which (new) analogue products has been presented, and the assessment of the manufacturers. He had clearly said that, and he had said at the end of his report that of course the market faces severe problems in many segments. No one is denying that. That was just a report about a visit on the Photokina fair, not more, not less. Not a market research.

Your link is still dead.

</blockquote>

Still working fine here. It is a market research article about the global film market, expecting 310 million films to be sold in 2013. And reporting that RA-4 is keeping much more stable than market researchers had expected some years ago. Much bigger market (considering m² volume) than the film market, because a huge amount of digital prints is made on RA-4 via Lambda printers (e.g. very popular in Europe; huge mass volume labs are doing that; e.g. CeWe and Fuji Eurocolor).

March 18, 2013

Your comment on the absence of recession outside N. America is astounding.

</blockquote>

Mr Watson, I highly recommend for you looking at the data of the worldwide economic organisations like the OECD or World Bank to look for GNP growth rates of different countries during the last two years. Then you will find that China e.g. have growth rates in the 7-9% range, most other Asian countries were in the 3-6% range, most South American countries have been in the 2-5% range. Northern European Countries like Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Poland still have been in the 1-2% range. And the the growing economies in Africa have been in the 3-6% range.

China alone has a population of about 1,3 billion people, India 1,2 billion, Indonesia 230 million, Brazil 190 million. There plays the music nowadays. Not in countries like your country Canada. With its population of (relatively tiny) 30 million people it simply does not a play a role in demand for photographic products (film and digital) considering a worldwide scale.

All you add in this discussion is:

- permanently telling your anecdotes about film situation in your home town Toronto and the GTA (interestingly my friends there tell me it is not as bad as you describe it);

I am currently living in a town with less than 400,000 inhabitants. 4 professional labs here developing film in my town, my preferred lab see increasing numbers of films coming in recently.

Do I draw conclusions from that to the worldwide situation? No, of course not. And you should not do it from the situation in GTA.

- saying that companies like Ilford Photo, Impossible Project and Fuji (here with Instax) are lying when they report stable or increasing business. By the way, all of them have introduced new products. They would not do that if there would be no market for it. These people are not as stupid as you think. They know their business.

Please tell me the dead link you posted isn't Henning Serger's 2012 Photokina "report."

</blockquote>

No, it is not Mr Seeger's report (which was very accurate by the way; I know for sure because I have been at last years Photokina as well), and the link I've posted has a different topic and is working fine here on my computer:

http://www.showdailys.com/E-publisher/Photokina2012_day2/

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