Posted on 01/13/2004 7:39:37 PM PST by HAL9000
Eastman Kodak said Tuesday it will stop selling traditional film cameras in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, another move by the photography company to cut lines with declining appeal in favor of fast-growing digital products.With sales of digital cameras poised to overtake film cameras for the first time this year, Kodak is redefining itself in an effort to keep pace. But the No. 1 maker of photographic film will continue to sell one-time use cameras in the West and expand its sales of these and other film-based cameras--and film--in emerging markets where demand is on the rise.
Shares of Kodak eked out narrow gains Tuesday after the announcement, and was one of the few blue chip stocks to close higher on the New York Stock Exchange.
The move comes amid Kodak's controversial plan to focus on high-growth digital products, such as medical imaging systems and production printing, and reduce dependence on its declining film business. Late in 2003, Kodak said it would stop making slide projectors, but still manufactures color slide films.
"Every one of these steps indicates more and more the strength of Kodak's conviction of moving toward digital," said analyst Shannon Cross of Cross Research. "However, the jury is out on whether (the digital strategy) will work."
Blaming declining demand, the Rochester, N.Y.-based company said it would by the end of this year quit making reloadable cameras that use 35-millimeter film, including those in the Advanced Photo System (APS) format.
In 1996, when it was unveiled, Advantix was hailed by Kodak as the "most important photographic announcement since Instamatic cartridge-loading cameras were introduced in 1963."
Kodak will still make film for existing Advantix and other cameras, and intends to introduce new high-performance 35mm and APS films next month.
Camera makers typically make little profit--or lose money--on hardware, but enjoy strong margins from sales of supplies such as film and paper, which must be replaced frequently.
Kodak said that it plans to continue making reloadable cameras that use 35mm film for emerging markets, such as China, India, Eastern Europe and Latin America and that it will introduce six new cameras in those markets this year.
"(We) estimate that there are 60 million Chinese consumers who have the purchasing power to participate in photography, but have not bought their first camera," Kodak spokesman Charles Smith said.
Under Kodak's new strategy, unveiled in September, it will shift its investments into digital markets with greater growth potential than the waning film market. But film still provides ample revenue for Kodak--more than 120 million rolls of film are sold each year industry-wide.
According to estimates by InfoTrends Research Group, global film camera shipments in 2004 will shrink to 36 million units from 48 million in 2003, while digital camera shipments will rise to 53 million from 41 million units.
Other companies that helped develop APS--Canon, Fuji Photo, Minolta and Nikon-- will continue to make APS cameras.
"The consumer who has APS likes it a lot, but the growth potential is probably tapped out from Kodak's standpoint,'' said Gary Pageau, spokesman of the Photo Marketing Association, an industry organization.
What is American about an Orwellian bureaucracy?
I bought my Canon 2 megapixel camera three years ago and still love it. I've taken over 10,000 pictures with it and I shudder to think what that would have cost me in 35mm format. I've already made plans to buy a Canon 5 megapixel replacement next month, at a cost less than what I paid for the old one. They have more features for the cost than other makes. But I also still use my Minolta 35mm, when I need high quality pics.
Some things to remember about digital photos - Save them in raw uncompressed format. Compression loses quality, and you can always use software to compress copies from the originals. Also, store multiple copies on DVDR or CDR disks as well as on your computer. I've heard lots of stories of crashed hard drives and lost pictures. And not all DVD and CD media are equal quality - some can lose your data, so do at least two copies on different types. Stay away from those stick-on round printed labels - the chemicals in the adhesive can leach down into the DVD or CD media and lose data (okay on copies, not okay on your only original). Have fun!
I've been pretty happy with the Minolta DiMAGE 7i .
The lens has a focal length equivalent range from 28mm to 200mm (with the digital croppping you get the 400mm effect.) Settings are Aperture preferred , Shutter-speed preferred , full Manual control and full Program mode. It has average weighted and spot metering.
It is a power hog but that problem is solved by getting a Digipower DPS9000 rechargeable battery pack.
It certainly could be done but I doubt there is a significant market for one. It would be a hard sell to all but a few percent of the picture taking population. Even if you could make it half the size of a toaster people would still go for the memory stick that is half the size of a book of matches. There are several design issues (as mentioned in a post above) regarding chemicals, disposal, maintenance that might be required..etc. While the resolution and contrast may still be better from film images it's still a hard sell.
Look at the advances in digital photography in the past 10 years - I remember buying one of the first consumer digital cameras for PC's in '93 - no memory sticks yet, if I recall correctly. It had a serial port connection to download the black and white images from onboard memory and the resolution was poor. Kodak has been making high resolution CCD cameras for a long time for the industrial market. They had developed megapixel CCD's long ago but they cost a small fortune. It will be interesting to see if Kodak can make the transition to being primarily an electronics manufacturer from primarily a film and chemical company.
Yes it is. Kodak is headquartered in Rochester, New York USA.
They hire based on race.
Are you aware that the race-based hiring problem is far worse in Japan than the United States?
Except that digital images will be correctly exposed, even by rank amateurs.
My daughter just got married, and we covered the wedding with film and digital. I'm still waiting for the film, but in the meantime we have about two thousand digital images, three hundred of which are running on a screen saver slide show.
The first thing you need to take attractive digital images is to get a camera like some of the Nikons, that go to ISO 800. Then permanently disable the flash. A fuzzy available light picture is a thousand times more attractive than a straight-on flash picture.
I took a number of posed shots with my Nikon TTL bounce flash and a 2 megapixel Nikon camera. Of course the don't have the resolution of Kodachrome, but I was lucky to have a low white ceiling and a solid black background. I will hold them up to any comparable shots by professionals in their visual interest. They look absolutely sharp on the computer screen, which is where they live.
Resolution is not the end of photography. The ability to work quickly, get things in focus and correctly exposed, are paramount in family photography. That and taking lots of images to get a number of good ones. With digital you can cover an event with a thousand images and get fifty really good ones.
Correction: it's 1.3 megapixels (but still looks great)...it's 6.5X zoom.
I've seen stunning stapshots taken with a 1 megapixel Nikon 900. That's enough resolution to fill a computer screen with no enlargement or visible pixels. All the resolution in the world won't help you if the content sucks. With digital you can afford to take a lot of "wasted" shots. For anyone who is motivated to learn, the learning curve is faster, because you take more pictures and see them sooner.
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