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Kodak shares down 27%
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    Eastman Kodak shares lost a quarter of their value after the lossmaking digital imaging company revealed it was tapping $160m of a $400m credit facility.
    Kodak, based in Rochester, New York, gave no detail of the reasons for the cash call in a regulatory filing late on Friday, other than to say it would be used for “general corporate purposes”.
    But the market marked its shares down 27 per cent, or 64 cents, at $1.74 at the close of trade in New York. The shares have fallen about 70 per cent so far this year.
    Kodak arranged the credit facility in April at 1.5 percentage points in interest above the base rate and has until 2013 to pay back any advances.
    On a conference call to discuss second-quarter earnings in July, the company said that it had $957m in cash on June 30 and expected to end the year with $1.6bn-$1.7bn in cash.
    It has been restructuring its business and has said it is exploring the sale of about 1,100 digital imaging patents – the company invented the digital camera in 1975.

    Via: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5702f4b2-e875-11e0-8f05-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Z9BjzDn0

    Competition is now tough and it is very hard to live on tight margins in compact market.
    Also interesting that all this Facebook, Youtube and Flicker integration do not help much :-)
  • 25 Replies sorted by
  • EOSHDEOSHD
    The result of zero innovation!
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    >The result of zero innovation!

    Sounds strange. Kodak works in compacts (and mostly cheap) niche and it is quite popular in it in many countries.
    About innovation, I know Kodak cameras that had been ahead of major manufacturers in specific features.
  • Brian202020Brian202020
    Kodak has a patent that I believe that could make them a ton of money. It's a focal reducer that can mount between a lens and camera body that would turn, for example, a 50mm f1.4 lens into a 25mm f1 lens. It's like the reverse of a doubler. The problem was that it also shrinks your CoC so back in the 35mm days there would always be vignetting. Now that a lot of still lenses are designed for full frame and m43 cameras are a 2x crop to full frame it is now a viable solution and you'd get no vignetting. Also the flange distances between older still lenses and mirrorless camera bodies means there is now room for such a device. It's the same technology that Olympus put in some of there 4/3's lenses. Olympus didn't infringe on the patent because it's not a separate device, it's part of the lens. I'll see if I can dig up more info on this and get back to you with links.
  • Brian202020Brian202020
    Ok I can't seem to find an patent info just tons of forums talking about it. Google Focal reducers and you'll see all kinds of stuff regarding kodak, telescopes, and forums of people wishing they existed for SLR's. I would pay a lot of money for such a device. I think Kodak is missing out on a big opportunity here.
  • PsycoPsyco
    @Brian202020

    You are not the only one...

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/577/using-focal-reducers-with-gh12-and-old-lenses

    ;-)
  • stoneystoney
    Good bye Kodak
  • RobertoRoberto

    Eastman Kodak is splitting into two - as was announced prior to bankruptcy. While everyone thinks of Kodak in terms of consumer cameras, things are different in the movies where, irrespective of what amateurs say, film is still the benchmark by which digital is measured. It's hard to imagine filmmakers abandoning the Vision 3 series if they can help it. http://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/kodak-innovative-restructuring/

  • chrimsbroomechrimsbroome

    Kodak was the best restoration company back in the day they supplied Film studios with all sorts of stuff.

    Their printers now though are just crap and I don't know why they bother trying to make printers of cheap inks when really the whole thing produces cheap results.

  • RobertoRoberto

    Before we have a wake about Kodak and all that, I'm seriously concerned about moving picture media. I love my films (movies). Fuji film is often used as a print medium because most stocks have better blacks, at the cost of some dynamic range. DPs on American Cinematographer always speak apologetically about having to use [RED] instead of film for acquisition, "the producers made it clear we were under cost constraints... in the end I appreciated the extra work flow and the extra time with the actors," "I did my best to keep the highlights cool enough for digital," etc. It's too horrible to contemplate but could it really be that the industry might decide to swallow the pill and go digital?

  • rockroadpixrockroadpix

    Sometimes, I really miss changing a mag...

  • RobertoRoberto

    Technology does sometimes go backwards & get worse for a while; like the audiocassette which replaced reel tapes - for convenience, not quality. It was years before domestic cassettes were better than the reel-to-reels they replaced. (As for studios, they never did). As I said, it would be a bitter pill for Hollywood to have to go all digital right now, but the technology might get a kick-along and probably advance better.

  • disneytoydisneytoy

    I hear that the company that manufactures blank Vinyl for records is having trouble, too:-)

  • nomadnomad

    See "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and tell me it doesn't look as good as film!

    But I'll miss film too, it's connected with a large part of my life.

  • otcxotcx

    In fact, Kodak invented the digital camera.

  • nomadnomad

    True, Mr. Bryce E. Bayer was working for Kodak and killed his employer in the long run…

  • rockroadpixrockroadpix

    @ disneytoy - Wrong, that is far from the truth, as vinyl has made a major comeback and sales have been rising steadily for some time now.

    http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111021/LIFE/110210301/-1/NEWSMAP

  • disneytoydisneytoy

    I loved film. Tri-X, Kodachrome 64. But the truth is (stills anyway), how could you ever go back to 36 exposures. $.10-.20 per exposure for the film alone. NO control over the handling at the lab. And amazing fragility of your negatives. Dust, dirt, scratches.

    We have essentially zero cost for our digital film. Instant comps. Zero cost for post production. Amazing control of images and ability to make perfect back-ups.

    Film is dead...

    And regarding vinyl. I'm sure some place still sells records, but I haven't seen an LP in any store I've gone to in years. In fact every "Record" store I use to frequent doesn't even exist any more.

  • RobertoRoberto

    @nomad

    see "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and tell me it doesn't look as good as film!

    The best people to ask that question are the people who made the decisions.

    In 1970, plastic-covered chip-board with a wood finish fooled us into thinking it was wood. Now it looks like plastic-covered chip-board. Aesthetics are complex. As a film maker who shoots movies in both film and digital, I see a lot of RED shooters trying so hard to make their digital footage look like film, but ending up making it look worse. (Yeah, it looks like film...)

    A pity, because there is a hyper-real look we can get with digital which we are ignoring because it's not film-like. What needs to change is our suspension of disbelief, currently locked to a film aesthetic. These latest market forces may just provoke the very change that had to come.

    Film isn't dead. It might be a "dead-man-walking" medium, but it's still alive, beautiful and costly.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Kodak will shut all camera business

    Eastman Kodak Co, the inventor of the digital camera, plans to get out of that business in the first half of the year as the bankrupt company looks to cut costs.

    The decision to stop selling digital cameras along with pocket video cameras and digital picture frames marks the end of an era for Kodak, which also invented the handheld camera.

    Via: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/09/kodak-idUSL2E8D94FS20120209

    I saw many idiotic comments on it. One of the most significant things is Kodak almost completely outsourced all camera things for last years. Other firms stood behind them, so nothing will change much in reality. Most probably one of the leading partners will just buy brand to use in this niche.

  • BuellerBueller

    Wrong topic I know, but Best Buy sells vinyl. No really.

  • RobertoRoberto

    I've seen a few newer films coming out shot on Fuji (a safe move, considering doubts about Kodak)

    On Tuesday I watched a Blu-Ray of We Need to Talk About Kevin 35 mm (Panavision, Fuji Eterna Vivid 500T 8547) - and was astonished by what I perceive to be a digital aesthetic, but shot on film. It took on digital acquisition and beat it at its own game!

    see 1.5 min trailer : click to play

    Then, immediately after, (it was $1 a video night; gotta return 3 features tomorrow!), I inserted the Blu-Ray of Contagion and the immediately noticed the decline in image quality. (My perception was not helped by a few cost-saving quick-flick techniques giving rise to continuity errors, fluffed lines and Jude Law's weird version of an Aussie accent). -So, my disbelief stayed un-suspended and I watched this very believable story in an detatched way, as I might watch the news.

    There's a kind-of-comparable trailer for Contagion here: image

    I'm not really trying to compare two quite different films here - just sharing my $1 night experience of seeing one followed by the other :-)

    So,the future of Kodak may indeed be under a cloud but I'd say the silver halide medium has a few tricks up its sleeve yet.

    BTW, For me, digital acquisition as used in Contagion still works in the same way as The Social Network because it stays so close to reality that parts could could even be a dramatisation sequence within a documentary. With a credible plot like this, our minds make a smooth transition from documentary to narrative mode.

    @nomad Thanks for alerting me to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" which I hadn't seen.

    It doesn't just look as good as film - it's one of those instances where digital does it better than film. When the video finally made it to my small town I was absolutely swept away by the story - and will have to rent it once more and this time try to concentrate on its technical side.

  • RobertoRoberto

    So here we are trying to get a film look using DSLRs, and there's a crowd of film cinematographers getting influenced by the newer digital look!

  • RobertoRoberto

    -Except they're giving the Khaki colourisation a pass.

  • goannagoanna

    Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Eastman Kodak Co. (EKDKQ) clashed in federal bankruptcy court over the ownership of patents Kodak is planning to sell as part of its restructuring.

    Kodak said Apple wants to disrupt the planned auction by claiming ownership of 10 patents and asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper in Manhattan to reject the personal computer maker’s claims.

    ..

    A ruling for Kodak would bolster the Rochester, New York- based company as it seeks to reinvent itself and raise money after filing for bankruptcy earlier this year. Kodak is planning an auction next month for about 1,100 patents.

    Apple waited too long to assert ownership claims, which arise out of joint work by the companies in the 1990s, according to Kodak, which cited the statute of limitations.

    From Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-25/apple-fmc-google-oscar-drivecam-intellectual-property-1-.html

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @goanna

    Yep. This guys had been petent trolls for a while.

    Charged camera companies for "image preview" feature :-)

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