The week of February 9, 2012

No more Cameras from Kodak...so what

Today, Kodak essentially stated that their "dedicated capture devices business" was no longer a "valuable business line" and thus Kodak cameras will cease to exist within the next six months. That leaves the latest batch of Kodak Easyshare cameras, the Z5120, M750, M565, M215, C135 and Playfull Zi12 to fight it out to be the last new Kodak built camera sitting on the shelf.

But does it really matter? Probably less than you might think. Consider that Kodak was built on the business model of putting affordable cameras into the public's hands so they'd buy Kodak film, take photos, have them processed with Kodak chemicals and then printed on Kodak paper. That business started to die years ago when Kodak started to build digital cameras and ditch film.

It was a beautiful business model, one that would land Eastman Kodak among the elite Dow Jones Industrial 30 stocks in 1930. It's said that the stock market is a predictor of things to come and the removal of Eastman Kodak from the Dow Jones Industrial average in 2004 might have served as a signal of what lay ahead for the company.

Astute Kodak watchers could see the changes. We wrote Here about what we saw at the Photo Marketing Association's annual trade show in 2010 and how little photography seemed to matter to the company. 

While the end of Kodak produced cameras has come, don't be surprised to see the Kodak brand on cameras of some sort in the future when licenses are sold to other companies to produce them. We've seen this with Polaroid and Agfa after the original companies went through the bankruptcy process. 

Last year Kodak acknowledged in a press release that they were "ranked among the Top 20 ‘most reputable’ American companies by the Reputation Institute, an independent consulting company". A brand like that will go on for years in some form or another. We're just not sure how George Eastman might feel about seeing Kodak toasters or electric blankets, but it could happen.

It's actually hard to believe that Kodak still makes film in the United States. Everyone remembers when they announced the death of Kodachrome, but classc film like Tri-X, Plus-X, Ektachrome, Tmax and the rest of their "professional" line of products still live on. They're the real legacy of George Eastman who founded Kodak in the 1880's.

The day that really will mean something, is the day Kodak announces that they've ceased to produce what the company has really been all about, film and sensitzed photographic paper. 

I often take things for granted like most of us do and I assume that I understand the world around me especially photography a lot more than I should. Recently, I was once again reminded that certain things haven't really changed as much as I had thought on a visit to Anchorage, Alaska.

I first started to hear about the new world of digital photography in the mid to late 90's. The first batch of digital cameras left a lot to be desired and weren't seen as much of a threat to traditional film based photography at that point.

Now ten years later, digital photography has come into its own as the main way of making photos. In the last few months Kodak announced that Kodachrome was no longer going to be manufactured. A few years earlier they had discontinued black and white paper. I figured by now silver halide(old fashioned) photography was pretty much dead.

Travel Tip- Take along a plug strip and adapters

With all of the electronics we seem to be carrying these days we find our selves with a bunch of recharges and other plug-ins that often need to be used every day on our trips. Just as often we find hotel rooms with a minimum of electrical outlets to plug everything into. I've learned by experience that bringing along a basic plug strip makes things a lot easier. Just set it up and plug everything that needs to charged or powered up for the next day.

It certainly makes sense for domestic trips, but it's actually a must when you're traveling abroad. Most countries call for adapters to simply be able to plug our US devices in. If you remember to buy them at home in advance they might be as light as $5 each, but if you forget to bring them along don't be surprised that the gift shop in your hotel might like to sell them to you for $20 a piece if you're not lucky enough to sweet talk the front desk into loaning you one for your stay.

When you bring along a plug strip all you'll probably need is just a single adapter for the power strip instead of a handful for all the things you need to plug in.

Wondering what to bring along? A good resource is Electrical Outlet.Org . As for the plug strip, you probably don't need anything too fancy or too heavy. I got my nice green one on the close-out shelf after Christmas one year.

Dave Dornlas