K40 selling figures?

Post by **MovieMaker** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 11:46 am

After the last post we agreed to wait for the new issue of the German mag "Schmalfilm" where they printed an article about Kodak Switzerland.

One of the heads of the developing dept. said that they develop 400 films / hour for 2 hours a day - the rest is prep and post work. That should mean:

400 carts / hour =
800 carts / day =
4000 carts / week =
16000 carts / month =
192000 carts / year

Average will be 150000 / year.

This is for K40 and Europe only of course. Now add b/w and neg carts (though far less) and it should be still decent business for Kodak.

I guess we can double the figures for the US ( if not more).

Interesting is also that they develop every half an hour some testfilm with the others to get quality control. And: The huge developing machine is 25 years old but in case something brakes they have enough spare parts from other unused machines... there were times in the 70's where 18 of these beasts were used in Germany alone!

Just wanted to inform you...

MovieMaker

Post by **MovieMaker** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 11:59 am

What I forgot and maybe is of some importance for you:

Once in a week they do a special run where they change the speed the film runs through the baths. Through this they can mostly save carts that have been underexposed. The sender has just to write that "the cart has probably be not correctly exposed".

This special service doesnÃ‚Â´t help for overexposed carts though they said.

MovieMaker

Post by **mattias** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:40 pm

you mean they do a free push processing run every week?

/matt

Post by **MovieMaker** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:56 pm

mattias wrote:you mean they do a free push processing run every week?

/matt

Seems so. No mentioning of extra costs. Just a short letter with the sentence I wrote above. IÃ‚Â´ve heard of it the first time myself and never used this service.

Maybe because I always perfectly expose my shots? :lol:

MovieMaker

Post by **Valtteri** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 8:51 pm

I've been wondering about the posibility to push proces K-40 films, but newer asked anyone. It seems that people just dont know about the thing with push processing.

It would be great to have it pushed 1 or 2 stops and get an ISO 80 or 160 "K-40"! So it would be actually very usefull even if you expose your films right...or actually wrong on purpose to be able to shoot in worse lightkonditions. The grain would propably be larger and the contrast be even harder...but I think that it could be OK anyway and wotrh finding out.

I'm not sure if it can be compared, but I have pushed 35mm slides 2 stops with good results and bw nwgative even 3-4 stops.

best regards,
Valtteri

Post by **mattias** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 8:39 am

the contrast usually drops when you push reversal. don't know about k40 though.

/matt

Post by **Scotness** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 12:52 pm

Good to hear the figures are so high - and this is without other private labs around the world factored in as well - or other stocks too - the next time someone says Super 8 is hardly used anymore and is in imminent danger of being cancelled ought to be directed here

Scot

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 5:45 pm

Production does not equal consumption. Kodak probably is selling at double of what it being processed.

I'm not sure the U.S. uses as much Super-8 as Europe either. Dwaynes Lab processes at a much slower amount than Switzerland does. The additional labs that do BW and Ektachrome do help the numbers however.

Frankly, I would assume that a million cartridges a year is a minumim goal that has been set, that's really not that much either.

Post by **monobath** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 7:36 am

Alex wrote:Production does not equal consumption. Kodak probably is selling at double of what it being processed.

Every other cartridge sold is never processed? What are people doing with the 50% sold but unprocessed film?

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 7:49 am

Who knows what happens to every cartridge of film that has ever been made. I bought a super-8 camera on ebay that came with a couple of unopened film carts still in the original box, the film was Kodachrome II from the 70's!

Most filmmakers keep an "inventory" of film, when a price increase is announced, they may buy two years worth of film before the price increase takes place. Someone's camera breaks and they have 10 carts sitting around. I know someone who stopped shooting over 10 years ago and they still have a dozen or so cartridges refrigerated from back then.

Plus, filmmakers may keep inventory of several different stocks and STILL buy new film because they are actually low in a particular stock they will be shooting more of.