First Kodachrome; Now Plus-X

[steveyork]

Kodak is discontinuing Plus-X in 35mm. Such an iconic film. I believe it dates from the 1930's.

[SolaresLarrave]

Dear Kodak geniuses,

Krappen sie nicht, bitte!!! What's next?

[chris00nj]

Boo. I wonder what will be around in 5 years.

[charjohncarter]

Originally Posted by SolaresLarrave

Dear Kodak geniuses,

Krappen sie nicht, bitte!!! What's next?

Not an iconic film but really a great inexpensive film of recent vintage: Elitechrome also gone. I will miss that as much as the others:







I will miss them all, old ones and the new ones too.

[tic]

Originally Posted by chris00nj

Boo. I wonder what will be around in 5 years.

Ektar, new portra, tmax 100+400 and if we are lucky tri-x.

[HHPhoto]

1. It's very old news (almost a year).

2. Mea culpa. I have stopped using Plus-X some time ago.
Because I've found a much better option:

I've replaced Plus-X 120 by Agfa Copex Rapid, developed in Spur Modular UR New, in 35mm.
I get better detail rendition and smoother tonality with the Agfa / Spur combination. And my costs per shot are almost 50% lower with the 35mm Agfa film.
And I can use the advantages of my sophisticated 35mm system, but get medium format quality.

My situation is better now compared to former Plus-X times.

Cheers, Jan

[Roger Hicks]

Very few companies discontinue profitable products out of pure spite. It is not hard to deduce from this that Kodak weren't selling enough Plus-X (or Kodachrome, or Elite Chrome 100) to make a profit.

Cheers,

R.

[sevo]

Originally Posted by chris00nj

Boo. I wonder what will be around in 5 years.

Not that much. Each maker will concentrate on his most popular and unique films - the odd ones are destined to vanish, and they'll have to fight out which one is to survive in the shrinking mainstream.

Indeed most odd films haven't had a leg to stand on in the photographic market since many years or even decades, and were only surviving on secondary use spin-offs (e.g. Panatomic-X used as a negative material by Polaroid) or on government/military contracts guaranteeing its availability for the lifetime of some system they were part of. With digital breaking through about a decade ago, many of these contracts are expiring now and will not be renewed.

[rxmd]

Originally Posted by HHPhoto

2. Mea culpa. I have stopped using Plus-X some time ago.
Because I've found a much better option:

I've replaced Plus-X 120 by Agfa Copex Rapid, developed in Spur Modular UR New, in 35mm.
I get better detail rendition and smoother tonality with the Agfa / Spur combination. And my costs per shot are almost 50% lower with the 35mm Agfa film.
And I can use the advantages of my sophisticated 35mm system, but get medium format quality.

My situation is better now compared to former Plus-X times.

You probably should mention that as opposed to Plus-X' nominal ISO 125, you are lucky if you get ISO 50 out of your microfilm/developer combination. Microfilms are also usually a fair bit less tolerant against underexposure, and the development process is more capricious and requires more care. So there is a tradeoff.

[bigeye]

30 years ago, we shot Plus-X because Tri-X's grain was unavoidable. Tri-X today is as good as that old Plus-X; it simply crowded out Plus-X for most of us.

Others may, but I don't have a need for Plus-X today. Kodachrome, on the other hand had a 'look'...

.

[jsrockit]

Originally Posted by Roger Hicks

Very few companies discontinue profitable products out of pure spite. It is not hard to deduce from this that Kodak weren't selling enough Plus-X (or Kodachrome, or Elite Chrome 100) to make a profit.

Cheers,

R.

Exactly... Kodak cannot afford to be nostalgic anymore.

[steveyork]

Originally Posted by HHPhoto

1. It's very old news (almost a year).

2. Mea culpa. I have stopped using Plus-X some time ago.
Because I've found a much better option:

I've replaced Plus-X 120 by Agfa Copex Rapid, developed in Spur Modular UR New, in 35mm.
I get better detail rendition and smoother tonality with the Agfa / Spur combination. And my costs per shot are almost 50% lower with the 35mm Agfa film.
And I can use the advantages of my sophisticated 35mm system, but get medium format quality.

My situation is better now compared to former Plus-X times.

Cheers, Jan

Plus-X 120 was discontinued last year. Now it's the 35mm film. Just announced.

[HHPhoto]

Originally Posted by rxmd

You probably should mention that as opposed to Plus-X' nominal ISO 125, you are lucky if you get ISO 50 out of your microfilm/developer combination. Microfilms are also usually a fair bit less tolerant against underexposure, and the development process is more capricious and requires more care. So there is a tradeoff.

Dear Philipp,

I've clearly said that I have replaced Plus-X in 120 format
by ISO 40 Agfa Copex Rapid 35mm with Spur Modular UR New.

With medium format I have to stop down about 1,5 stops to get the same depth of field compared to 35mm.
Just simple optic rules.
There is a reason why we medium format photographers often have to use films with higher speed to compensate this disadvantage.

With ISO 40 in 35mm you get the same shutter speed and same depth of field compared to ISO 125 in medium format under the same light conditions.

Therefore I have no tradeoff at all. The replacement works excellent.
And the development with Spur Modular UR New is very easy, not capricious at all. It's as easy as with other developers.
By the way, fixing is even much easier as with T-Max films: Much shorter time and no problems at all with stain.

Cheers, Jan

[cgiff]

Originally Posted by tic

Ektar, new portra, tmax 100+400 and if we are lucky tri-x.

Oh come on, Tri-X is not going anywhere. Photography 101 classes alone will keep Tri-X alive, let alone the people that actually shoot it outside of learning to to use fixer. 20 years? Maybe. 5 years? No way.

[andredossantos]

I'm a film lover and I've made it a point to shoot as much film as possible from now until the point where it's gone or too expensive.

Plus X was a very nice film but I think it's pretty clear that the choices we have as film shooters is going to be constrained to a very smaller set of emulsions. Yes, it sucks to see your favorite being discontinued but if this is what needs to happen to give us even one more year of film shooting then Im for it.

Additionally, I don't think B&W film will disappear for a vey long time still. I think there will be a big enough market for it to keep at least one company in business. As a primarily color shooter, the fact that E6 and C41 will likely be gone depresses me but I guess my point is that if Plus X is gone we can take solace in the fact that our mechanical M's will probably have some type of B&W film to run going forward. FP4+ is nice stuff.

[digitalintrigue]

All this angst is making me anxious.

[Paddy C]

Originally Posted by jsrockit

Exactly... Kodak cannot afford to be nostalgic anymore.

It appears Kodak cannot afford anything anymore.