from the Film-At-11-Maybe...-Or-Maybe-Not... dept.
It's easy to think that film cameras are gone forever. But Marketplace has a short story about how Kodak is apparently close to re-releasing the Ektachrome 100 film line. Tweet as covered in the story.
There's news that Kodak is about to bring back Ektachrome 100, a popular slide film for analog cameras, that's been gone for five years. Launched in the 1940s, Ektachrome was one of the first commercially available color films and became the "preferred choice of magazine and advertising shooters." (It was a favorite of National Geographic.)
As far as I can tell, the development has been hanging for quite some time as here is one among several stories back from January of 2017 stating it was coming back. I guess software isn't the only industry that suffers from vaporware potential. Marketplace's question could also be asked here: What pieces of discontinued technology do you wish would come back?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:04PM
Yeah, those of us who are still shooting film have been waiting for the release. It's been a year and half now since the initial announcement. At this point I have little to no faith that they're going to come through on this. Really all I want is a Super8 Ektachrome cartridge to run through the old movie camera....
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:07PM (4 children)
There a shop in Portland that sells it
Using my itoys camera brought my eye back. I'm going to buy a few rolls of slide film then do some industrial photography- machines, bridges industrial plants and the like
I'm going to buy a new slide projector. I e never been happy with the one I've got
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snow on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:26PM (2 children)
I always liked slide projectors. I liked the sound of changing pictures. I liked the circular slide holder thing on top. Back then showing off pictures was an event. You'd invite people over, make snacks, dim the lights and force them to look at your shitty pictures of your family trip to Milwaukee.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:36PM
Finally! A plausible explanation of your, um, orientation!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @02:05PM
Hey, when you've been to the Dells and rode the duck boats, you GOTTA show that off!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:56PM
Yeah and Fuji is slowly winding down it's entire film division, cancelling a couple stocks ever years. There is a lot of fear that they're going to shutdown Provia and Velvia production in the not-so-distant future, which would leave ZERO color reversal film stocks on the market.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:08PM (4 children)
The lightsabre!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:46PM
The 4.5" smartphone.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday June 08 2018, @07:13AM
Bakelite $Everything
Think about it - when was the last time you saw the plastic handle of a pan/pot being shattered, and when was the last time you saw the shell of a smartphone being shattered.
Now consider the average age of those things in the households you frequent
(Score: 4, Interesting) by shortscreen on Friday June 08 2018, @07:14AM
laptops with 4:3 screen
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday June 08 2018, @05:56PM
IBM A21m form factor with updated internals. It's hard to find quality keyboards in a laptop and I still find the touchpad, joystick, buttons to be useful. Also, the built-in light is a nice feature. Sure, there are keyboards with back-lit keys, but it's been quite some time since I've needed to look at my keyboard to type something. The built-in light was useful for looking at other things than just my keyboard.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:13PM (14 children)
I read the linked articles, but it's still unclear what is the market for this film. Professionals transmit digital images to their offices online, as time is everything. Teenagers send their digital photos via many chat programs. Who then among normal people is going to take a complicated way of positive film, and why?
It seems that they are going to make this product just because they can.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 07 2018, @11:20PM (2 children)
That is entirely a fair question and I suspect the answer is film enthusiasts, although that's probably not helpful.
They told me some enterprising bloke in Croatia (I think) had bough the polaroid equipment and set up back home to produce film. I am sure his costs would have been llow enough to make a profit, even with much lower volumes.
That might be the future for Kodak or Fujifilm.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday June 07 2018, @11:51PM (1 child)
I was considering that, but there are too few of them to support the production. The factory is profitable only when it ships miles of film per day - and tens of development machines, and plenty of chemicals for them.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday June 08 2018, @01:46AM
I'm sure you're right. Kodak or Fuji are going to have huge overheads.
The suggestion was that some enerprising person might buy the equipment and rights to the name and set up somewhere lower cost (like Croatia).
That might be profitable.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Thursday June 07 2018, @11:43PM (9 children)
Why film over digital? For much the same reasons that some people prefer vinyl albums [thirdmanrecords.com] over CDs and MP3s, and why there still a LOT of recording studios [facebook.com] offering analog and tape instead of direct to a computer.
Obviously there are qualitative differences between analog and digital, and some of that just comes down to personal tastes. No matter how you look at it, a photograph created on film does look different from one created on digital, just as an album recorded to 1/4" tape sounds different from one recorded into Pro-Tools.
More important though is the process. With film you really do need to stop, look, and plan your shots. With only a dozen or two exposures on a roll of film you can't just blast off fifty exposures in a couple minutes in the hope that one will be good. Endless digital snaps are free. Every film shot costs you money. And because you can't immediately look at your picture on the back of the camera, you have one more reason to shoot with great care and planning.
(Which is not to say that there aren't photographers shooting phenomenal work on digital, but you'll find that the best of them almost always started with film.)
Once you've shot a roll of film you're on to the truly magical part of the process: developing the negatives (or positive for slide film) then printing and developing the actual prints. There is something very powerful about spending an hour or three in a darkroom, watching prints appear out of nowhere, and working with the chemistry and the enlarger to create the perfect image. As much as I appreciate Photoshop (or GIMP in a pinch) my best photos always come from printing in a darkroom.
If you want to know why so many people still want to shoot on film (and why so many film formats have been reintroduced after Kodak or Ilford abandoned them (just as any number of tape formulations have been reintroduced [atrtape.com] after Ampex and 3M abandoned them)) Go dig out a stack of vintage National Geographic, [tumblr.com] or even better, a set of the old Time/Life Photography [amazon.com] books. Take a look, and tell me if anyone is matching that kind of work on their iPhone.
(Score: 3, Touché) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday June 07 2018, @11:52PM
That's a ridiculous comparison in this context and has nothing to do with film versus digital.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Friday June 08 2018, @12:52AM (4 children)
Film. Hollywood still burns through miles of the stuff everyday, though that is slowing changing as digital continues to improve. Serious landscape photography is still a realm of film, largely 4x6 or 810 view cameras. Though again, the new large sensors are going to be giving those film formats a run for their money in the next 5 years or so.
I shoot film because I simply enjoy the process more. I put away my my Minolta in 2008 when I bough a Nikon D40. The Nikon is on its last legs now after a not very hard life. I'm back to shooting film now with the 40 year old Mintola...still working perfectly. As it turns out, the new film stocks that Kodak has out, Porta 400 and Ektar 100 are jaw droppingly good. They can capture an incredible dynamic range with an insanely fine grain. I shoot, develop at home and do a 4000 dpi scan with a dedicated scanner. I couldnt be happier with the results. Best part is, I didnt end up dropping a couple grand on a POS that's going to fall apart on me in 10 years.
I do worry about the long term availability of film and chems, so in the mean time I'll keep burning through a roll or two every month and enjoying myself.
The other thing that brought me back to film was thinking about the long term legacy of the digital age. I'm pretty good about keeping multiple copies of all my images and stuff, but are Nikon Raw, jpg, tiff, still going to be viable file formats in 20, 30, 50 years? Having the negatives gives me a hedge against a personal digital apocalypse.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday June 08 2018, @07:30AM (3 children)
To look at, I'm prefering digital already, and have done for several years. Large format still trumps digital though, but it will go the same way as MF eventually.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday June 08 2018, @04:19PM
> but the graining noise is terrible - in my opinion.
True. Conversely, thick brush strokes with too much paint haven't exactly hurt the value of Van Gogh paintings, and I really wish recent hollywood offerings had less perfect visuals in exchange for more scenario (the insane cost of the perfect visuals driving the "take no risk, don't offend anyone" narratives).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mechanicjay on Friday June 08 2018, @04:25PM (1 child)
Grain noise is highly dependent on the film stock used. My basic take on film grain is as follows
Okay, that's enough self-promotion...
But, yeah it won't be too long until MF gives way to digital, the new stuff out just last year, I think finally has the resolution to do it. LF still has a few years left in it and that may be enough of a niche market where the R&D required to get a sensor that big just isn't worth it. So the market will either further consolidate and continue as a Niche, or it'll go the way of Polaroid Peel-a-part film, may she rest in peace.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday June 08 2018, @10:40PM
If one is trying to get a perfect image as a representation of something, say a flower image for a field guide, I think digital beats film hands down. An awful lot of photography though is people trying to create "art", whether they (or anyone else) calls it that or not. Images are edited to look like what people want them to look like. People like the look of film, and there is of course a long history of film photography that is still a base for what photographs "should" look like. There are a lot of software programs that have options to try to emulate the results of various films. I doubt that any of them match the result of the film they are trying to emulate. In the end, it comes down to what you like.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday June 08 2018, @03:51AM (1 child)
Sounds a lot like the reasons people give for hunting with a bit w or muzzle loader. They're more interested in the challenge than achieving the goal.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday June 08 2018, @03:52AM
*Bow. Phone typing.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday June 08 2018, @07:09AM
That might be related to the fact that anyone who has been on the scene for 15 years or more started out before digital was really up to snuff. I think DSLRs started getting good around '04.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday June 07 2018, @11:54PM
Hipsters gotta hipst.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:15PM (3 children)
phone booth
(Score: 3, Interesting) by black6host on Friday June 08 2018, @01:00AM
Hell yes! I made a lot of money, as a kid many years ago, sticking my finger in every change return slot I passed by. Even found one, one time, and this pay phone didn't have the old style of return that you pulled down but rather the door you pushed in, that apparently threw up as much change as it could. I had to finagle that swinging door inwards so I could start raking out the change. And what a haul it was. Many, many candy bars and soda. Ah, the old days...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Friday June 08 2018, @01:21AM (1 child)
I'd also vote for public/pay phones, although these days they would be more of an emergency service. Not everybody owns a cell phone, not everyone takes a cell phone with them, not everybody has charged or good batteries. It seems perfectly reasonable although they would not see loads of use. The only reason densely occupied areas don't already have something like this is because someone wants to sell moar cell phones.
Some might point out technical issues with traditional style pay phones, but some more modern designs could address many of those issues.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday June 08 2018, @03:57AM
Also without pay phones it's impossible to make an anonymous phone call.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:27PM (7 children)
Proper no-nonsense beige computer cases. Without blue or rainbow colored LEDs. Made of steel. I mean wow it's like "any color you want as long as it is black". Ug. And I don't mean some flamboyant gaming case with a white fake door on the front.
The handful still floating around on various web stores look mostly like old stock and lack sufficient ventilation for newer motherboards. Would probably need replacement power supplies too. On eBay anything beige is automatically labeled "vintage".
What is so wrong with beige?!
(Score: 4, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:34PM (1 child)
Krylon has your back. Think of the black as primer.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:46PM
I've considered that, but painting never comes out right for me. Make messes, dust gets stuck in stuff and all.
Suppose I could take something to a professional, but if I'm going to bother doing something like that it might just work better to get one of the "vintage" beige ATX cases and have someone drill extra ventilation holes. I'm sure there are places that can do metal drilling like that, but never got around to searching.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:44PM (2 children)
No way. I've lost dozens of fingers to the unfinished sharp edges inside those things : P I prefer modern case features over old style any day. You'll have better luck buying a case and painting it. Also, a good case is 100$+ now. Anything under 50$ will probably be aluminum. Newegg has a filter to show you steel cases only. But i think it's worth mentioning that not all steel is equal. If it's too thin then it's just as junk as aluminum.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:53PM (1 child)
I know what you are talking about :) many early clone AT cases and early cheap ATX cases had sharp edges. But most of the later beige ATX cases, especially retail non-OEM cases, were perfectly fine. But that has zilch to do with color.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday June 08 2018, @07:40AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday June 08 2018, @06:04PM (1 child)
Beige is that ugly color your parents computers and monitors had. All old beige equipment I've seen looks like trash. The yellowing from age thing just killed the entire beige market. Out with the beige! In with the black! I'd also go with Tie-Dyed looking cases, before I would a beige one.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday June 08 2018, @06:43PM
Beige is not ugly. What color is your couch? Solid black? How about your kitchen table? Solid black? How about your potted plants? Solid black pots with blue LEDs?
The original darker "beige" is an earth tone that is generally pleasing to the eye. A lot of research went in to that when Apple released the original Macintosh. Somewhere along the line "beige" lightened up and became more of an ivory color but people still call it beige.
Yellowing is the result of crappy fire retardant mixed in with the plastic that yellows when exposed to too much heat or sunlight. If a beige computer turned yellow, it was because someone took shitty care of it. There is zilch reason why a white/beige case could not done better today.
Black plastic is CHEAP plastic that stinks of shitty manufacturing.
Not even iOmega blue? I vaguely recall one manufacturer (Sony?) briefly made cases that color.
And yet, every now and then pink cases turn up! Yeish.
(Score: 1) by knarf on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:43PM
Small scale wood (or "biomass" as they can also consume corn cobs, nut shells etc) gasifiers should make a come back. Small enough to fit on a motorbike, car and tractor. Big enough to be used as a replacement for wood-burning or pellet-burning central heating boilers. Feed the gas to a turbine which drives a generator, use the spill heat for what the boiler was originally intended for. Pellets are hard to gasify as they clog the hearth but with a bit of development that problem should be solvable. All this is already possible for those who like to tinker with these systems but it should just be possible for a normal consumer to buy an off-the-shelf kit or even a prepared installation. There are installations for industrial applications (e.g. the "Power Pallet", http://www.allpowerlabs.com/products/20kw-power-pallets) [allpowerlabs.com] but I'm looking for something smaller and more affordable - the PP costs $40.000.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @12:25AM (4 children)
I like the ability to manage my calendar, contacts, notes, etc, but I don't want it networked. I want it firewalled from my cellphone, not integrated.
Instead of networking, add a USB port. Make backups and restores easy. Support deltas. Make everything flat files with ASCII, I can encrypt and decrypt my own backups, thank you.
Provide easy-to-use utilities to manage Palm Pilot database contents through operating system clients. Turn the Palm Pilot into a private data repository with encrypted contents and NO NETWORKING INTERFACES.
Add a camera if you must.
~childo
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Friday June 08 2018, @01:33AM
I'd also suggest a replaceable non-proprietary battery.
Having a seperate PDA/Phone also has the advantage that one does not look like a freaking fool talking in to something large enough that that it really could be called a tablet.
But if you turn off communications, then how do they track everything you do? :P
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @02:17AM
Tried a Palm Pilot, didn't really like it (various reasons). Before that I had a Casio organizer with a big 64K memory for addresses & calendar--it flipped open and had a chiclet keyboard with some key travel--that was OK to type on.
Instead I went back to a small sized 2-year paper calendar, just enough room to put in 2 or 3 appointments per day (rarely have more than that). I use a sharp pencil and a white Magic Rub eraser for changes. At the end of the second year, I transfer over a few birthdays and other recurring events and then file with my taxes. No problem looking up what I was doing in 1983...
Like this, https://www.ebay.com/p/1-2018-2019-Beach-2-Two-Year-Planner-Monthly-Pocket-Calendar-Datebook/5006055978?iid=332590263801 [ebay.com]
Sometimes they are a buck at Walgreens. And sometimes 1-year versions can be found as giveaways.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @03:17PM
Sounds like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_NanoNote [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday June 08 2018, @04:45PM
You might want to consider the Purism phone. It's focused on security and privacy. Likely to be out sometime next year.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Shimitar on Friday June 08 2018, @06:22AM
After a couple of events in my life i went back to shot B/W rolls on my "old old" fully mechanical SLR.
(basically, my DSLR was not mine anymore, and after a move i found again the old bag with my old analogue camera bodies, 1+1 = why not?)
Well, it blew my mind. After 10+ years of digital, shooting rolls literally blew my mind. It's a totally different perspective and world. I found out that while analog color is quite dead, B/W instead is well alive and kicking. I found a very specialized lab in my city which develops B/W by hand with great results AND a very reasonable price. They also print (in many old-fashioned ways) but i prefer to scan my negatives and go digital from there on.
The feeling you have from mastering your own camera (a manual one!), it cannot be described. The photo is in your head before the shot, not in the LCD immediately after ready to be deleted and tried again. Shooting analog is like being more mature, more adult. You have to do proper decisions, well considered, before hand and choose where to take your chances carefully. It's like taking care of somebody. Then you wait for the roll to be developed... and work hard on the results to really get what you can make of it. And the results will blow your mind. The entire process from what you pictured in your mind to what you can show your friends and family is TRULY a creative process, much much more than a digital process. It's like the opposite of the current quick paced and all-consuming lifestyle. Also, it teaches me the pointless in digital perfection... Creative and beautiful is not picture-perfect, quite the opposite.
Yes, it was fun also for my kids, who at first wanted to see the photo immediately and took some time to make them understand. But they did, and now the older is even interested in taking a picture herself now and then.
I am not a Luddite, i merge the two. Shoot films, develop analog, scan and perfect digitally. Trying to get the best of the two worlds, because it does not need to be two separate worlds. And beside, i do not want to be entangled in the process and chemicals and dark room required for analog prints. Which i STILL would need to scan afterward, because after all, living offline is pointless today. (and i would not have enough space in my house to store 'em all on paper).
But there is a huge comeback of analog photography. And Lomography too (not me, tough). I choose not to develop myself as far as i can find a good lab to do it for me, since they can do a better job. But who knows... one day maybe.
I urge any enthusiast photographer out there to try analog B/W at least once. You can find some "old" Yashica FX-3 for little money, and some lenses too... I got my second body years ago for something like 50€ and an amazing 50mm f/1.8 for at little as 30€. Totally manual. And still works, while i have two original Nikon lenses one with broken auto-focus and one with broken VR which are too expensive to have them fixed.
What i miss the most from DSLR world? The 1.5x lenses factor. I tend to like zooms, i enjoied that little extra zoom, and comparatively cheap tele-zooms. Now i am back with my good old 135mm and keep changing lenses on the go. But happy that i don't care anymore for any dust on the sensor :)
Ok, got carried away...
Welcome back Kodak slides! I never shoot slides, but i was interested in trying them, and found that the few left on the market had HUGE prices... Like 10x what they used to be. Maybe this move from Kodak will take prices down?
Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.