Not exactly unexpected:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopStories

PC

Blame me. I last shot a roll of Kodachrome in 1998. I last shot film of any kind in 2001.

I don't think I'm alone.

I'd gladly use film if I could buy it and get it processed locally... as far as obtaining darkroom chemicals or even printing paper, good luck! My wife and I have six Pentax bodies and numerous lenses that we can't use any more. The cameras and darkroom equipment no longer even have any market value.

We have been forced to buy three new digital Pentax SLR's due to the film shortage.

I still don't like using digital for meaningful photos. I love working with film but no longer have the choice, unless I were willing to order everything in.

Very sad to see Kodak in such trouble.

Steve Hunter

I sold all of my darkroom equipment about 4 years ago and was happy to get something for it. I have several film SLR cameras I held on to and I'm thinking they are not going to have value, I might as well use them as paperweights.

Being the best film manufacturer is about as relevant today as being the best steam locomotive manufacturer was in 1960.

Guess I need to start stockpiling bulk 35mm B&W roll film, 4x5 sheet film, developer and fixer.

The brutal reality is that as long as it costs you 35 cents every time you snap the shutter (which is what I once calculated my cost was per slide, at the end--for film it was more), digital,which basically costs you nothing per shot, is going to win.

Film lasts longer? Guess you've never seen scratched negatives, faded color prints, sun-bleached or sunburned prints, or old Ektachrome or Anscochrome. Just like with digital, it's all in what you do with it. And at least there's the chance of EXIF data confirming the date and time of the photograph, which avoids the half-hour of argument over just whether that guy who captioned the slide mount remembered the data correctly, if he even bothered to caption the photo. ("Ummmm, how can it be June 1967 if there's heavy steam coming from the steam lines, no leaves on the trees, and there are Penn Central mating worms on the nose? And no, it's not the connection to the National Limited, because that train didn't start until Amtrak....")

After November 1963 in Dallas, investigators just happened to be lucky enough (and unlucky enough, in the case of conspiracy theorists) that Abraham Zapruder was standing there shooting an 8mm movie. I'm convinced, based on my experience photographing the Obama pre-inauguration "campaign" train, that if Obama were assassinated in public today, there would be 782 cell-phone videos, 684 digital video camera angles, 287 digital still camera shots, 32 media cameras shooting seven angles, seventeen "security"/surveillance camera videos, and one old railfan still shooting Beta.

Sure it was Kodak that brought us the perfect shade of blue "Kodachrome sky" that we all sought to have in the background of our locomotive roster shots...but of greater signifcance is the fact that kodak was/is a major supplier of polymers and various chemicals. It is a sign of the damage that is being done/has been done to our industrial infastructure.

I kept my Nikon F and assorted lenses because I hoped that someone would make a digital back for it.

Hope springs eternal....

Keep those Pentax SMC-A lenses, they work just fine on the digital SLRs and are much better glass than what you can get today. The 28mm f2 and 35mm f2 are gems.

PC

OT - By the way you might enjoy watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhuXLciWGpw

PC

The other side of this coin, of course--as with the piles of mining spoils, the fact that the sun rarely was seen in Pittsburgh during steel's heyday, the belching smokestacks of power plants and steam locomotives, etc.--is that photography left a nasrty chemical legacy.

When I was taking photography classes in the 1980s, we were handed a small booklet written by one of my professors that, fairly straightforwardly and without being too alarmist or activist, raised serious questions about long-term exposure to the chemistry in photo processing. His blunt message: "We don't know for sure what this stuff does to you long-term, and here's some evidence that it's really not good, so limit your exposure--use tongs, wear gloves, etc."

By modern standards, if the Hunt Brothers hadn't savaged photography with their manipulation of the silver market in the 1980s and digital photography hadn't become what it is now, film photography today, and Kodak in particular, would be the victim of a savage environmentalist campaign lobbying against the chemistry involved.

I have the same hope for my FM, FM2 and FE2....The latter 2 have built in sync contacts for a "data back" that would also work quite well for a digital back.

Jeff

Kodak split off their organic chemical division as Eastman Chemicals (NYSE symbol EMN) well over ten years ago.

If you don't mind working in completely manual mode (no autofocus or through the lens metering), the Nikon D-100 will accept Nikon AI lenses.

It's getting a bit primitive (only 6 megapixels). I don't know if later Nikon DSLR's will accept the old lenses.

I have used my AI lenses on a D200. You have shoot in manual mode or shutter priority mode. I would assume the same functionality with most of the Nikon DSLR's.

I shot professionally for years and worked in darkrooms/labs for 15, working my way through college as a lab tech. I lived with health impacts from the EP2 chemicals for a long time; it's been 20 years and I sometimes wonder if I will see impacts as I get older, as I was once told I had heavy medal poisoning of the liver.

I was exposed to digital imagery in 1987, with a sensor that was 256x128 pixels and almost immediately gave up on film, or at least waited for the technology to improve.

While I kept my beloved FM2's and AI lenses (the 180mm ED f/2.8 is the best piece of glass I've ever owned, and I build telescope optics), the newer DSLR's and more importantly the new lenses with the vibration reduction hardware just make for better shooting. While there likely a market for a digital back for the FM2, I doubt it is very large.

Bob