How Can I Upgrade A Kodak Az521 Camera?

CEO Jeff Clarke at Kodak's booth, during the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show

The annual Consumer Electronics Testify in Las Vegas is a showcase for the newest cutting border products from the globe's superlative engineering science companies.

But for Eastman Kodak Co., this year's showcase was a nod to the past.

The company showed off a new Super 8 movie camera, announced it was bringing back Ektachrome movie, and even hinted at the possible revival of the dear Kodachrome brand.

It has been v years since the motion-picture show giant filed for defalcation, the inevitable result of a shift in consumer behavior. The proliferation of digital cameras and online photo sharing caused motion picture sales to plummet. In the bridge of a decade, the Kodak products that long held a dominant space on every retailer's shelves disappeared from the marketplace.

Why now? What's happened during the past five years to spark a resurgence of interest in analog technologies every bit the globe grows increasingly digital? Is it simply a nod to nostalgia, or is at that place a sustainable business here?

Super 8 and the Hollywood connection

Appearing on a company podcast called "The Kodakery," main marketing officer Steven Overman said the decision to bring back Ektachrome was an easy 1.

"We get asked all the time by filmmakers and photographers alike, 'Are you going to bring dorsum some of these iconic picture stocks like Kodachrome and Ektachrome?'" he said. "I volition say we are investigating Kodachrome, looking at what it would take to bring that back. Ektachrome is a lot easier and faster to bring back to market."

One of the challenges lies in the complication of Kodachrome. The manufacturing process is complicated, just making the flick itself is just ane piece of the puzzle. Reviving Kodachrome would require the re-cosmos of an entire ecosystem, including labs that could process the picture and produce prints or slides to deliver to the consumer.

Information technology's a daunting task, but that's what's happening with the Super 8.

When you buy a film cartridge for your new Super eight camera, you're paying for evolution, processing, scanning and uploading a digital version to the cloud. It's all included every bit part of the bundle.

The business organization model hearkens back to George Eastman's early advertizement slogan: "You printing the button, we do the balance."

Kodak representative Josh Robertson demonstrates Kodak's new Super 8 movie camera at CES 2017 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 6, 2017

Kodak introduced the concept of "habitation movies" when Super 8 cameras striking the market in 1965. A generation of amateur filmmakers followed, some of whom became Hollywood legends. Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese all got their commencement shooting 8mm motion-picture show as teenagers.

But fifty-fifty younger directors who grew up during the camcorder era say that the Super 8 film cameras were what helped propel them toward a career in filmmaking.

"The news that Kodak is enabling the side by side generation of filmmakers with access to an upgraded and enhanced version of the aforementioned analog engineering science that first made me fall in love with cinematic storytelling is unbelievably exciting," said Christopher Nolan, whose directing credits include Inceptionand The Night Knight.

Author and director J.J. Abrams also expressed his excitement at Kodak'due south proclamation.

"While any technology that allows for visual storytelling must exist embraced, nothing beats flick." Abrams said. "The fact that Kodak is building a brand new Super 8 camera is a dream come true."

Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke says the commitment to motion picture is about enabling young filmmakers to explore the craft and an affordable and accessible mode.

"There are Super 8 cameras you can purchase on eBay that still piece of work actually well, and enthusiasts do that," Clarke said. "But we want young filmmakers, picture schools, and people who want to exist a little dissimilar to be able to participate in film. Not everyone has a budget like Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino. The Super 8 camera becomes a gateway for people who care about film and desire to have a differentiated product around photography."

Don't accept my Kodachrome away

That same excitement has greeted news well-nigh the return of Ektachrome moving picture, and even the possibility of Kodachrome returning.

Willie Osterman, a photography professor at the Rochester Institute of Engineering and chair of the school's art photography program, says that while digital cameras makes information technology easier for an apprentice to take pictures, the unique qualities of moving-picture show are still appealing to professional photographers.

"In the art world, photographers prefer film because of what it'south able to produce. In that location'southward something about that quality of grain that helps aesthetically," he says. "It's subtle, just at a sure level you appreciate that."

File photo from 2008 of a roll of Kodachrome 64 film.

While in that location were once a hundred darkrooms for students at RIT to work in, now there are fewer than 30. Most have been converted to digital editing trophy, and freshmen are no longer required to have a course in processing blackness and white prints from pic.

Osterman says digital photography has prompted an amazing revolution. But for visual professionals it'south simply a different medium, not ane that replaces film. Each offers its own unique attributes, in the way that a painter might cull between working with acrylic or oils.

"There is a color palette that Kodachrome and Ektachrome accept," he said. "Kodachrome is richer in warm colors. Ektachrome is cooler, with more than blues. Depending on where and what I was photographing, I would choose a motion picture because of the color palette it produced."

During his podcast advent, Kodak's chief marketing officer said that the Super viii and Ektachrome revivals were driven by consumer need, and that the company heard a clamoring for more of these products.

"Ektachrome is not the terminal thing we are going to bring back," Overman said. "We are going to continue to place those products that the globe is hungry for and we're going to do everything nosotros tin can to proceed delivering them."

Hands-on experience

The average consumer got rid of their Instamatic or inexpensive 35 mm camera as the digital age dawned. Whether they replaced information technology with a digital camera or only used their smartphone to capture pictures, they didn't heed leaving the analog process backside.

Simply for many, the passion for traditional photography remained — the method of capturing images on film, processing that film, and producing prints on photographic paper. For them, the prospect of these Kodak products returning is tantalizing.

"At that place is a culture of people that are trembling with excitement," says Marking Osterman, process historian at the George Eastman Museum. "I remember it's great."

He leads workshops in photographic processing for the museum, including many methods that take fallen out of utilise. He says at that place'south been a huge resurgence in involvement in these techniques for fine arts photography.

"Last year we had 23 workshops on old photographic processes similar tintypes, glass negatives, daguerreotypes, and 35 mm motion pic motion picture." says Mark Osterman, who is not related to Willie Osterman.

Equally soon equally those workshops are announced, the registration lists are filled to capacity. People travel from all over the country and even from Europe merely to participate.

What information technology shows, Mark Osterman says, is a desire for a hands-on experience, to actually make something with one's ain hands. In the digital world, the lensman is discrete from the process of making pictures. The push of a push creates an image file. The push of another push button sends that epitome into the cloud for others to meet. There'due south a level of detachment, a lack of deliberateness in the digital workflow.

It's very unlike from the resurgence of vinyl records for listening to music, he says. While those record albums provide a more tactile procedure for listening to music, re-creating the process is not as challenging. You could build a tape printing in your garage and figure out how to capture sound onto discs.

Color film, on the other hand, is incredibly complex, not the sort of thing a person could learn to manufacture or process on his or her ain.

"Chromogenic color film is the most technologically avant-garde product ever sold to the consumer. It'southward more than difficult to make than an automobile or a computer," Mark Osterman says. "If Kodak were to determine not to make any colour film and discarded those manufacturing machines, the world would never see color film again."

The brain trust of people who know the chemistry of color photography are in their twilight years, he says.

Marking Osterman believes this is mayhap what'south most important near Kodak'south announcement, that it hints at a long-term programme non simply for Kodak merely for preserving the future of film.

"They are doing what they demand to do to keep it possible to produce a technically challenging product," he says.

Future of picture show business

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Prove, Clarke said the return of the Super 8 photographic camera should send a articulate message about Kodak'due south intention to make a strong render to the world of consumer products.

"Information technology's a symbol of what Kodak cares about and our delivery to film," Clarke said at the show. "Even though the business now is focused on press and other advanced technologies, flick is all the same core to our company. It's about 10 percentage of our revenue, and its profitable."

Then, is the return to film a nod to nostalgia or is there a sustainable business here?

"The answer to both questions is yes," says George Conboy, chairman of Brighton Securities.

He says there's conspicuously a consumer demand for photographic motion picture, just equally there is a market for greeting cards in a globe of email.

"The return of Ektachrome and the idea of Super 8 volition appeal to people in what I'd phone call the fine art space and to those with a hipster sensibility," Conboy says.

Kodak was selling a couple of billion rolls of picture each year at its peak, and it won't demand to achieve anywhere near those volumes for this renewed effort to be successful. We're not going to see the return of picture show as a mass marketplace consumer product.

"The concern is not huge but neither is Kodak anymore. If they can make a profit, more than power to them," Conboy says.

Information technology's not likely that Kodak Park is going to rumble dorsum to life, or that the resurgence of film volition lead to hundreds of new jobs returning to Kodak. Only Kodak has an advantage in terms of both the institutional noesis and the infrastructure. Quondam competitors similar FujiFilm and Agfa aren't capable of getting back into the flick business.

Conboy says the moves bear witness an encouraging shift in Kodak's strategy.

"Management is attempting to exist nimble, to seek out revenue and profits in whatsoever venue they can," he says.

Equally an avid photographer, Conboy would honey to see Kodachrome return. But as a business organization annotator, he's skeptical.

"At that place were never more than a few labs in the country that could process that picture," he says. "My prediction is there won't be enough volume to make that work."

SLAHMAN@Gannett.com

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