...

Sorry, my bad, sucked me in again.

Lassi Hippeläinen wrote:

Maybe we have stumbled upon a reason why some 220 films are being discontinued.
If they required a different base, then it would be tougher to cut them for
other film sizes uses.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
<http://www.allgstudio.com> Updated!

Due to what?

Hi Bill,

Kodak has been losing $$ trying to buy marketshare and technology in
digital photo related markets - at one point, they were losing $100+ for
every digital camera they sold per some estimates. The large profits from
the film biz were used to support these losses in other divisions etc.
This is pretty well admitted and described in their annual 10-K and 10-Q
SEC filings etc.

This is also the reason Kodak stock has tanked (among other issues with
management, economy and so on). The big profits at Kodak were in the
processing and prints and film sales. But average film sales were only 4
rolls per USA household, not enough to support large losses in an
expanding digital market, and that drops to 1 roll per household in China
etc. As film sales dropped 17% last year in USA market, that also kills a
large fraction of their profits from related chemistry and print
processing on kodak papers.

Kodak isn't a big player in the one area of rapid growth in film sales,
which is one time use cameras (disposables) which is dominated by Agfa and
other niche players in the USA market anyway.

So we have a lot of existing capacity in film factories, with more coming
online in china and elsewhere, with a rapidly declining demand. Net result
is falling prices prediction - and confirmed by Kodak's marketing plan
announcements to try and maintain and even expand market share in the
declining film sales market by reducing prices etc.

regards bobm

the kodak press release was cited/quoted in the parent thread, describing
Kodak's rationale for moving production from USA ($1 disposable camera
cost) to China ($.15 disposable camera cost) for lower labor costs etc.
Should still be on kodak's investor press release site? or in above
thread?

re: your cite to Browning dye transfer (no URL):
I found this page by Browning on dye transfer:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hmpi/AltProcess/Articles/DyeTransfer/dye_trans.htm

quoting above URL:
Materials Cost:

The cost of materials is about $8 per sheet of 30x40" film, most of the
expense is in the silver, I buy the inert photographic gelatin from Kind
and Knox in minimum 25 LB lots costing $ 10 / LB, and the polyester film
cost about $ 0.50 / foot of the 50" wide rolls. The Silver Nitrate is from
First Reaction at $ 277.00 / Kg.
endquote:

however, it should be fairly obvious that a guy making sheet film at home,
buying a bottle of silver nitrate and some gelatin, all at retail, is not
making film at the same cost as Kodak making 100,000+ rolls/batch. ;-)

Still, he estimates $8 for a 30x40" sheet, which is 1,200 square inches.
If you figure 24mm = 1", and 50mm or 2" per shot (36mm wide + 4mm spacing
+ slop for film ends), that's 1*2*24=48 sq. inches per roll of 24 exposure
35mm film. That's 25 rolls of high silver content film for $8, or 32 cents
a roll 24 exp., and close enough to $.53 a roll for 36 exp. per your
posting estimate for hand-made high silver content dye transfer film?

Not bad for a single square meter or so "batch" run at retail, but
obviously kodak does it a lot cheaper in huge bulk runs of thousands of
rolls ;-)

For one thing, many current kodak print films and others use little or no
silver, the major cost factor in the above home-made high silver content
dye transfer film analysis. Take out the major cost represented by silver
(90% or more or 45 cents of 50 cents per roll is silver cost) and the film
is in the pennies per roll range even when made at home (e.g., 10% * 53
cents/36 exp is 5.3 cents per roll for film (no silver but dye coupled)...

When the price of silver went up (Hunt brothers attempt to corner market
etc.), the highest silver content kodak film of the time (High speed
ektachrome 36 exp.) roughly doubled the price of the film based on less
than $.25 increase in film silver costs (e.g., $4 increase in film cost
for $.25 increase in cost of base materials). That implies a 16X or 1,600%
markup in film costs (See http://medfmt.8k.com/third/economics.html Ron
Schwarz post). The other lower silver content film prices represented even
larger markups, since Kodak and others took the excuse to jack up prices -
but didn't lower them much if at all after the price of silver dropped
down, right? ;-)

In short, this example suggests that an $8 retail high silver content high
speed ektachrome film cost ~$8/16 (16x markup on mfgering costs) or 50
cents to make - and 45 cents of that mfgering cost was for the silver
content (per Ron's posting), which was why the film retail costs doubled
when silver costs per ounce doubled.

That leaves 5 cents for the film base, emulsions (w/o silver), coatings,
spool, box, and all packaging and distribution costs and so on. The lower
silver content films now being produced should be even more profitable, as
the high cost silver has been replaced by some much lower cost dye
couplers etc. So the assertion that today's low silver content (print)
film costs are in the pennies per roll range seem reasonable.

Other industry sources have been quoted as saying that distribution and
packaging cost more than mfgering the film too. Again, this puts a
reasonable limit of pennies per roll on the cost of film to produce.

And the latest press release cited in this thread for disposable camera
costs further supports this idea. If you can make a camera in China for
$.15 cents with a roll of film inside it, you can't be paying more than
pennies a roll for film.

re: econ 101 My basic econ 101/102 courses note on Supply/Demand that if
supply is high, and demand is low and falling, prices are likely to fall.

As I noted, this is a major cash cow, with a 1,600% markup in the worst
highest silver content film case (low silver content films should be much
higher, obviously, since the costs are low but the film still sells at the
same high prices ;-)

Film is a commodity item, produced in whatever bulk they can sell it, with
the added complexity that film ages, so they have to sell it or lose it.
The economies of scale are fully realized at the single factory batch run
level for any given emulsion (e.g., ~100k rolls equiv.), with the
factories scaled to produce multiple emulsions using the same cutting,
rolling, packaging and other machinery.

regards bobm