In a message dated 11/20/01 8:12:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > "Mafud, > > Do you think, perhaps, that it's KODAK's game you are playing? I say this > in half-jest, half-seriousness."
Any professional, in any field, will be known for many attributes, one of them is consistency. Another is repeatability. Can you (anyone) reproduce the same level of excellence consistently? KODAK is still in consumer film only because FUJI came along. They have stayed because of ego. **No one ~today~, especially people to young to have lived in a world without FUJI, ever wonder how FUJI, a rank upstart in the business, shouldered their way to if not the top, to parity. Surely not with shoddy products. How then, did FUJI become so well known so quickly? The same way Japanese products, especially automobiles, took over so many markets. Not with shoddy products but with government subsidies. FUJI, like other Japanese firms, made its decision to enter the US market as a Niche film. FUJI has succeeded in almost every attempt. The operative word for nearly all Japanese penetration of world markets being niche. Once a year, when the entire KODAK imaging catalog is released, I am thunderstruck by the depth and breadth of KODAK's photographic film offerings. From tiny consumer APS to giant ~sheets~ of special order film. KODAK offers ~every~ imaginable film product while upstart FUJI has just begun to penetrate medium and large format film. My point? KODAK, giant that it is, sometimes slips ~behind~ the curve. As I remarked before, KODAK doesn't need to be in consumer film to make it, bolstered by it vast array of films that address every known use for film and film products. > "Do you think that KODAK knows they are the largest, greatest brand > recognition, most heavily advertised film mfr. in the world?" For consumer film, yes. > "Do you think that KODAK would release a "shoddy KODAK product" knowingly, > or on accident?" Maybe both. > "Do you think it's because they view customer loyalty more as an asset, or > something to be taken advantage of?" The cynicism that permeates the US today adds mightily to our difficulties at communications. Really, your question, worded as so many questions are today, makes the correspondent judge and jury in that your question is meanly, intentionally rhetorical: either way I answer, I seem like I 1. Agree that KODAK has mindless followers or 2. that KODAK is a mindless corporate machine that does and intends to, dupe the world. Cynicism playing its dastardly part again. Ugly question. Ask me what I think of KODAK, flat out, without the rhetorical mine field you laid out. > "I'm not arguing whether KODAK produces ANY good products. I'm just saying > we shouldn't believe it just because KODAK says it." Don't like the way KODAK does business? Don't use their products. And what does KODAK say about their products you ~SHOULD NOT~ believe? > POP Photography just because they say it and because > KODAK advertises in it." There's that cynicism again. I read Readers Digest faithfully. That Reader's Digest represents "America the beautiful" conservative Christian style, does not turn me off. Month after month, RD produces article and features (increase your word power!!!!!) being one of my favorites. I don't believe or hold to 98% of what RD publishes. I have a choice: read it or not. Same with KODAK, use it or not. I mentioned consistency and the ability to consistently reproduce your works. KODAK, over the years, has provided my the means to be that kind of professional, consistently turning out quality products. I stay out of "consumer" film talk in that I don't use consumer film. Occasionally, film talk here turns to "professional" emulsions. I strongly comment on the products that, like the lady says at the dance: "I gotta dance with the one that brung me" (to the party) and that is KODAK. FOR MY PURPOSES, shooting people of color requires emulsions which faithfully reproduce the underlying skin tones of my clients, the vast majority of whom are people of (all) color. In two words: FUJI sucks at that job. Repeat: FUJI sucks at that. there is no professional photographer who bemoans the passing of the EKTAPRESS emulsions. As you will soon see in my EKTAPRESS GALLERY, EKTAPRESS utterly nailed people of color. FUJI lead the charge into "saturated" emulsions and KODAK stupidly followed. I know you know this already, but here goes anyway: I personally don't know of any (ANY) FUJI emulsion which can faithfully reproduce the skin tones of people of color. FUJI, and now KODAK emulsions, are all formulated to give even bone white complexions a "glow," if not an outright "tan." FUJI's film offerings have surrendered color fidelity in (consumer) film for color "saturation." THAT SUCKS. KODAK, with their PORTRA and SUPRA offering, tried to fit those films in the niche where EKTAPRESS once lead but failed in that all of them "saturate" photos to one degree or another. **What gives white skin a glow, uglys up skin with pigments. Consistency and constancy, watchwords and benchmarks of the professional: KODAK provided those means for me, from 1956 when I first "dipped and dunked" a B&W negative to today. Besides, over the years, KODAK has offered a broad enough profrssional and consumer film pallette that I don't have to go "shopping around " for emulsions, like so many on so many lists feel they must do. (Right now, I shoot SUPRA emulsions for the few remaining repeat clients I kept, PORTRA for me). Mafud [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
