I am a little surprised that there has not been a discussion yet on this board about the
bankruptcy of Kodak. Is it because that, with the death of Kodachrome, slide shooters just don't care anymore? I know that a lot of fellow slide shooters were already transitioning to E6 films like Provia or Ektachrome long before the end of Kodachrome, mostly in anticipation of its long rumoured demise. All of the newer E6 films are more like each other than like Kodachrome, so if Ektachrome goes away, no big whoop right? My digital Fuji FinePix S5100 came with a settting to imitate over-saturated films like Velvia, so this is kind of the new standard in color rendition.
I wonder if things would have been different for Kodak if they had not withdrawn from manufacturing cameras. Face it,this country has never really learned to make high quality cameras like the Germans, and later the Japanese. Kodak's film SLR was pretty much of a joke, and never attained the quality of even lower end Japanese 35mm camera from Pentax and Minolta. Even the East German Exackta was a better camera. Once a generation of returning GIs got a hold of Nikons and Leicas, that became the standard for cameras, and not the Brownie. Kodak went the opposite direction and developed the 127 Instamatic film size, and later the disastrous disc camera. The US Navy was using Topcon SuperDs in the 6os and Hasselblads went to the moon, even if the backs were loaded with Kodachrome.
What I would like to see is a hybrid digital/film camera, one that would record the digital image onto an emulsion surface on demand, thus creating a "negative." So, one could blast away all day on Cajon in digital, but then press a button, and record your shooting on film once the light gets good.
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