[LargeFormat] Kodak to Stop Making Film-Based Cameras!

[LNPhoto]

On Thursday, January 15, 2004, at 08:31  AM, Dave Mueller wrote:

> Vince Dobson wrote:
>
> >Name a film or paper and I will name you another brand that is better.
>
> Tech Pan
> High Speed Infrared
>
> :-)
>
>

What I want was the old Kodak LOW speed IR.  There is an image of a set 
of books between book ends with a couple of clothing irons next to it. 
There is no grain, I'm sure it was at least a 4x5 shot.  The 
tonality/gradation/granularity would let me believe it was Super XX or 
Verichrome.  It was only after I read the caption and discovered that 
the image was made in complete darkness using only the IR waves from 
the heat of the irons to make the exposure that made the image 
memorable.  I'm not sure when it was taken, at the most in the 50s, put 
could be the 40s.   Fast forward 35 years.  I worked in the 
Conservation and found some great, nearly grainless negs in the files.  
The Conservator told me that while the new HS IR could get the job 
done, it didn't have the same quality as the old stuff.

I've talked with Kodak engineers and while they have a natural bias, it 
was their belief that they could compete with Fuji, but the marketing 
dept was holding them back.  This was why (as they explained) Lumiere, 
Kodak's answer to Velvia, came out both late and poor. "We had it 
tweaked to where it should be, and they changed it and tied us up for 
18 months"

Les