What will happen to film Leicas

[Guest malland]

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That would be a strategic decision and taking a considerable risk to secure a very small part of the company’s turnover. Remember Leica closed/sold off the glass laboratory, despite that being a cornerstone of lens development and construction.

Below are some excerpts from a recent interview with the chairman of Fujifilm in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in which he states the his company's film sales are about 1 percent of total turnover. Please forgive my imperfect translation, as my German is rusty, but you can read the whole interview through Google Translate, which does a reasonable job with German.

...Our roots are in the production of film; they will remain so. But we have redefined this business. In these times of mass digital photography, classic photo film has indeed almost disappeared from the market. Just look at what happened to our former competitors [Kodak, Agfa]…

 

..Today perhaps 1 percent of our sales come from traditional photographic film..

 

..Our core competence lies in research, development and technology. We come from the film business, and we are a film company…

 

…The common element is the fine chemicals industry. We have, thanks to the film business in our database some 200,000 chemical compounds. So we have been working for 75 years with collagen. This protein is used not only as gelatin in photographic films, but also plays an important role as connective tissue in the human skin. We also have experience with antioxidants, which not only prevent the fading of photos, but can also counteract the look of aging skin [explaining why Fujifilm has gone into cosmetics].

 

...What we have learned in the production of film, we can now also use for antioxidants…

 

—Mitch/Manila

Pak Nam Pran

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[Stealth3kpl]

That would be a strategic decision and taking a considerable risk to secure a very small part of the company’s turnover. Remember Leica closed/sold off the glass laboratory, despite that being a cornerstone of lens development and construction.

 

I suppose I was thinking more of Plustek or Silverfast. I don't know what else they have in their melting pots apart from scanners and film scanning software.

Pete

[jneilt]

My thoughts are basically:

 

1) If there is profit in it, someone will produce it. Kodak could not make a profit in bottled water in a desert. Some company, some where, will produce film and sell it to 'us' film users at a gain.

 

2) More people will continue to buy film over the next century than will even consider purchasing a monochrome only digital camera.

 

If the film consumer demands 99cent rolls and 99 cent processing, well...say good-bye.

 

I have an M9, and an MP. I am going to the pool today. I will be shooting neopan.

[AlanG]

If I were CEO of Leica, Plustek or Silverfast I'd be enquiring about buying the rights to Kodak's film production, even in conjunction with other companies to spread the cost. I wouldn't be happy for my company's future to be dependant on another's.

Pete

 

I can't see why Leica does not make a simple attachment for the M9 that allows users to copy their negs and slides with it at 1:1. Perhaps the market is too small. In any case even if scanners disappear, you can always copy film with a DSLR.

 

Regarding keeping film cameras in production... the only factor is what is the break even point? We don't know what the minimum sale quantities are for them to justify production. However I can't see why they'd stop making film cameras as long as they are profitable. But should sales fall below that number, what would you like Leica to do? Subsidize the sales of film cameras by charging more for lenses and other cameras?

 

Putting tradition and sentimentality aside, I wonder how many people actually buy a film M for $5000 when perfectly usable used bodies are available for so much less. Leica could just keep raising the price to compensate for declining sales and the issue will either stabilize or go away.

[AlanG]

My thoughts are basically:

 

1) If there is profit in it, someone will produce it. Kodak could not make a profit in bottled water in a desert. Some company, some where, will produce film and sell it to 'us' film users at a gain.

 

I think you are wrong here about Kodak's profitability. Kodak was vertically integrated from chemicals, plastics for film bases, research, to manufacturing, sales, distribution and support. For a long time it had a virtual monopoly in the film business until Fuji put pressure on them forcing them to become better and more competitive. They were very profitable up until digital photography started taking over. If others were more efficient where were they? What Kodak was not good at was changing from what they were good at.

 

Kodak's operations are for making huge batches of film. This gave efficiency of scale that made it hard for others to compete with. But now it has made it virtually impossible to down size manufacturing and this is why nobody wants to buy Kodak's film business.

 

You might be right that smaller companies may now be able to partially fill the void that Kodak is leaving. But I doubt that will include E6 or C41 film and I don't know how much potential profit can be shown in any business plan for future manufacturing and sales of film.

[philipus]

The recent interview of Dr. Kaufmann left me wondering. What will happen to all those film Leicas around the world, when film - in 5 yrs more or less according to him - will not be around any more? How many film Leicas are out there anyway? Hundred of thousands I would guess, probably most of them in perfect order. I suspect that if the narrative about film being already an obsolete technology takes foot, more and more labs will abandon film processing, resulting in an even shorter lifespan for emulsions. There is a lot to worry.

 

As a matter of principle I never worry. But go ahead if it feels better.

 

About 740000 film Ms have been made so far and there are about the same number of Barnacks. But, no, they're not in perfect order. I would guess that the number of still used and operational Barnacks is lower than that of film Ms. Perhaps 30% of the Barnacks and 50% of the Ms are up and running. Probably less.

 

What does Hr Dr Kaufmann know about when film will disappear? Absolutely nothing.

[philipus]

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Living in a big city helps of course to find a proper lab (Paris works well in this respect

 

...

 

I am still recovering from the shock of the bill. I knew Fuji had raised the prices, but the retailer even more so: 17 (seventeen) euros for the 36 exp. roll of P400X....

 

Um Alexander, you should use this:

 

Films Diapo Couleurs Format 135

[philipus]

(...)Personally I think that Dr. Kaufmann’s prediction is overly optimistic insofar as I expect all the major vendors to withdraw from the film business even earlier than he predicted. While film will probably continue to be available for the forseeable future – at higher prices, with less options to choose from, and with some hunting around –, for all practical purposes film is dead already in that it doesn’t play a major role in photography anymore.

 

Well you're entitled to your opinion.

 

Personally, I disagree with your definition of "dead".

[mjh]

If there is profit in it, someone will produce it. Kodak could not make a profit in bottled water in a desert. Some company, some where, will produce film and sell it to 'us' film users at a gain.

Actually Kodak’s film business was and is profitable; profitability isn’t the issue. However Kodak’s (and everybody else’s) film business was and is in steady decline; each year they’ve sold less film and made a smaller profit than in the previous year. The profit from the film business isn’t sufficient to sustain the company anymore. Only a much smaller vendor could survive in this market.

[gyoung]

Volumes of colour film sales must still be much higher than they were in the 60s, when we had really only kodachrome in 35mm.

 

It only needs production methods to match sales, even of that means higher prices per roll.

Even on those days small companies like Perutz or Adox, could market in low volumes, you do not need vast quantities to make film viable, like anything else higher volumes make lower prices but are not vital

Kodak's problems were management and marketing not volume, kodachrome processing got slow and dirty in Europe, so I and I expect others stopped using it. If they had introduced an E6 service with envelopes they might have kept a lot of the market. In the end they had only 100iso G film, no 400iso to match, if I have to buy Fuji to get 400 I might as well get 100 from them.

 

Gerry

[earleygallery]

Actually Kodak’s film business was and is profitable; profitability isn’t the issue. However Kodak’s (and everybody else’s) film business was and is in steady decline; each year they’ve sold less film and made a smaller profit than in the previous year. The profit from the film business isn’t sufficient to sustain the company anymore. Only a much smaller vendor could survive in this market.

 

Michael,

 

Do you have any real facts to hand? Actual worldwide sales of film over the last 10 years say? Profits from film for the major producers?

 

The trouble is that we are all basing our opinions on what we think is the case, yes me too, as was Dr Kaufmann - his remark was based on nothing but his own opinion that somehow his new digicam would help kill off film altogether, but he still makes and sells film bodies.

 

Clearly there are still a significant number of users of film around the world. The cost and logistics of choosing film over digital are for each of us to decide. Those who prefer the results from film will continue to use it pretty much regardless.

[giordano]

Volumes of colour film sales must still be much higher than they were in the 60s, when we had really only kodachrome in 35mm.

 

I don't know who your "we" were, but in addition to Kodachrome and Ektachrome my "we" had colour reversal films from Ilford, Agfa, Ferrania, and Perutz.

[AlanG]

Volumes of colour film sales must still be much higher than they were in the 60s, when we had really only kodachrome in 35mm.

 

...Kodak's problems were management and marketing not volume, kodachrome processing got slow and dirty in Europe, so I and I expect others stopped using it. If they had introduced an E6 service with envelopes they might have kept a lot of the market. In the end they had only 100iso G film, no 400iso to match, if I have to buy Fuji to get 400 I might as well get 100 from them.

 

Gerry

 

I don't know about England but Kodak ran E6 labs in the US and sold processing mailers for it. They were not allowed to bundle processing with film in the US after an anti-trust trial. But I thought they bundled processing elsewhere. For pros, besides the availability of quick E6 processing, some of the emulsions were better suited than Kodachrome for various color reproduction requirements. E.g one type of Ektachrome was good at reproducing dyed fabrics more realistically. And a lot of transparency film was used in MF and LF sizes.

 

There were some choices of slide film in the 60s. There certainly was Ektachrome X, Ektachrome type B for tungsten, and Ektachrome High Speed which were E4 process and the larger format films that were E3 process. Agfa had its own color slide film that used its own process... CT18. I seem to recall 3M had its own color slide film too (I don't know what process it used.) Ansco sold slide film too but this might have been from Agfa. There might have been some other brands.

 

The Agfa slides and larger transparencies I shot in the 60s and 70s looked good but faded pretty quickly.

[gyoung]

I can remember when Perutz joined agfa and kodachrome, about '61, and I used it for a while as it was faster than kodachrome and nicer than agfa. Ilford was later in the 60s and came from research by ICI, a big chemical company I worked for early 60s, we had a few boxes of 5x4 icicolour (!) for test. It wasn't near as good as the others.

And kodachrome was far and away the best for colours (imho) and sharpness (measurable)

 

Gerry

[adan]

Volumes of colour film sales must still be much higher than they were in the 60s, when we had really only kodachrome in 35mm.

 

Do you really think so? U.S. film sales in 2011 were 2% of the peak in 1999-2000 (20M rolls vs 1B), so by your reasoning color film sales in the 60's (the era of the big picture magazines, and the lionization of photographers in Blow-Up and La Dolce Vita) were also 1/50th what they were at the peak.

 

20,000% over ~35 years is a growth rate that would make Apple's nose bleed, let alone a well-established industry entering its mature phase. I'd guess** annual color film sales (in rolls, not dollars) between 1965 and 1970 were at least 10% of what they were at the peak (or 5 times larger than they are today).

 

And that doesn't even count movie film - not just Hollywood, but all those amateurs running color film through their 8mms. Which helped cover the manufacturing costs.

 

BTW - Perutz was absorbed by Agfa in 1964, so it's questionable how viable they were, as a stand-alone small-volume company, even then.

 

I'm not sure who the "we" is that "only" had 35mm Kodachrome in the 1960's - but it wasn't most photographers, at least in terms of exposures made. Pros were exposing a hell of a lot of Ektachrome E3/E4 (120 in Hassies for Vogue, etc., 4x5 for product/food/architectural photography) and 120 C41 (wedding and portrait studios - Hassies, Mamiyas, Bronicas, et al.).

 

There were fewer emulsion types than now - but a lot of each type being sold and shot.

 

*Yes, I wish we didn't have to guess. I'd love to see firm film sales figures in rolls, from 1920 until today. We'd have a better idea of what "viable" volume really is.

[mjh]

Do you have any real facts to hand? Actual worldwide sales of film over the last 10 years say? Profits from film for the major producers?

The numbers for Kodak had been quoted here just recently, see http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/customer-forum/240710-ap-interview-dr-kaufmann-8.html#post2087239. Kodak lost 22% of net sales in 2010 and again 12% in 2011. Earnings were down by 51% in 2010 and again by 63% in 2011. I’d say the prospect is bleak.

 

I don’t have the number for Fujifilm ready but from their press conferences I remember the sales figures were steadily declining as well. These days they often don’t even mention film sales anymore.

[gyoung]

All this was working from memory of course, 'We' was referring to 35mm, i.e. us leica enthusiasts. Ektachrome came along soon at 32asa but was not a patch on KII at 25, but all we could get for 120 and larger. IMHO no C22 neg film was much good below 5x4 except for small prints or press work, and very little of that was in colour.

C41 was quite a bit later I think? And even then quite poor in 35mm compared to transparency.

I can remember shops buying films by 25 or 50 rolls for consumer use, and selling at most 2 or 3 per customer, now we buy 10s at a time

It would be nice to know actual film sales for that period, and the current sales figures given are lower than I had thought.

It's quite possible of course that Agfa absorbed Oerutz simply to remove a smaller competitor with a better product

 

Gerry

[earleygallery]

The numbers for Kodak had been quoted here just recently, see http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/customer-forum/240710-ap-interview-dr-kaufmann-8.html#post2087239. Kodak lost 22% of net sales in 2010 and again 12% in 2011. Earnings were down by 51% in 2010 and again by 63% in 2011. I’d say the prospect is bleak.

 

I don’t have the number for Fujifilm ready but from their press conferences I remember the sales figures were steadily declining as well. These days they often don’t even mention film sales anymore.

 

Michael, those figures will include many other products as well as film. I think they also include inks and papers for example - which is my point. We don't have the real figures for film only.

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[AlanG]

My cousin owned a camera store on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House in Washington DC. They sold a huge amount of all kinds of color film and Kodak processing for slides and prints back in the 60s. Kodak said they had one of the largest daily processing volumes of any store. This is due to a lot of business from World Bank, IMF, White House employees that were nearby as well as huge volume of film sales to tourists.

 

The Kodak lab would pick up several large bags of film for processing from the store every day. Kodak had a lab about 25 miles away in Rockville, MD and slide film (Kodachrome and Ektachrome) was turned around in 1 day. Prints took a few days. And there were other labs who picked up for b/w, custom, or unusual films (Minox.) So something happened to make all of this go away.

[giordano]

Volumes of colour film sales must still be much higher than they were in the 60s, when we had really only kodachrome in 35mm.

The Kodak lab would pick up several large bags of film for processing from the store every day. Kodak had a lab about 25 miles away in Rockville, MD and slide film (Kodachrome and Ektachrome) was turned around in 1 day. Prints took a few days. And there were other labs who picked up for b/w, custom, or unusual films (Minox.) So something happened to make all of this go away.

 

'Nuff said.