kodaks stock plunges 50% in the last month!!!

[lee caropolo]

Hmmm could red have something to do with this? Maybe i should invest in kodak since its so low and use the extra cash to bye a nice red zoom or maybe upgrade to the ff35. LOL. I can't wait for tomorrows announcement.

[Dan Hudgins]

I have been telling my brother to sell ALL our film equipment while it is still worth something.

I have been thinking Color Print stock will be the last to go, maybe made by Fuji, but on what date, 7 years, 12 years, does anyone think 35mm prints will be made 20 years from now?

[Gavin Greenwalt]

5 years before I think it'll die.

[Kyle Presley]

Film prints are expensive. There is no reason for any theater chain to invest in new 35mm projectors. 4K cinema will be the norm before you know it.

[Bob Gruen]

Not until they figure out who should pay for them...

Theaters say the distributors will save the money so they should subsidize it, while the distributors say it's theater equipment...

I checked about a year ago and there were only about 35 4K projectors in theaters. Anyone know how many there are now?

Bob

[Graeme Nattress]

In 2001 I was on record saying 10 years.

Graeme

[Felix K.]

Still a bit sad when an old trade dies...

[Graeme Nattress]

Well, it didn't happen with either vacuum tubes or vinyl records - they just became "niche". I fully suspect that the same will happen with both the acquisition and projection of film. Film still holds an emotional value to many, and it will be preserved by them.

Graeme

[David M]

So what point are you all making?

Kodak took a hammering over the last 12 months, just like a lot of other consumer companies. I can't find any news stories that suggest anybody thinks Kodak is going down for the third time anytime soon.

Film sales make up a tiny part of Kodak's income these days anyway. But as long as there is a demand for film prints, Kodak will be happy to supply the stock, it's not like the factory is costing them anything.

It's a bit like vinyl records when CDs first started to take off. Although the vinyl market was dying, record companies still put stuff out on LPs for a long time because the pressing equipment was already there, and there was still some demand, so why not exploit it.

A large amount of Kodak's income stream these days comes from Patent royalties, ironically a lot of it from digital imaging technologies.

[David M]

Well, it didn't happen with either vacuum tubes or vinyl records - they just became "niche". I fully suspect that the same will happen with both the acquisition and projection of film. Film still holds an emotional value to many, and it will be preserved by them.

Graeme

You can even have a DJ playing 78s on acoustic gramophones (http://www.dj78.co.uk/)to make your next function a real blast!

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED20%20Jun%202007%2009%3A11%3A50%3A270

[Mark L. Pederson]

Film sales make up a tiny part of Kodak's income these days anyway. But as long as there is a demand for film prints, Kodak will be happy to supply the stock, it's not like the factory is costing them anything.


It's not free to make motion picture film. Companies only loose money for so long. (Go buy a pack of Poloroid.)

IF Kodak can survive ... I think we all know that it will NOT be from revenue from motion picture film stock.

[Wesley Scoggins]

It's not like the factory is costing them anything.

It actually costs a lot, they have to pay rent on the space, taxes on operation, cost for raw materials (silver isn't cheap), specialists operating very expensive machines every step of the way, all that have to be paid, all of the non-specialists who have to be paid, all of the electricity that it'll take to run the machines.

It's expensive to produce high-quality 35mm stock.

[Joel Kaye]

It's not free to make motion picture film. Companies only loose money for so long. (Go buy a pack of Poloroid.)

IF Kodak can survive ... I think we all know that it will NOT be from revenue from motion picture film stock.

3/4 of their revenue is from the digital division. They have over a billion of cash on hand. They saw the end of film a long time ago. They'll survive beyond film but they might not be as big as they once were.

[Wesley Scoggins]

I have been telling my brother to sell ALL our film equipment while it is still worth something.

I have been thinking Color Print stock will be the last to go, maybe made by Fuji, but on what date, 7 years, 12 years, does anyone think 35mm prints will be made 20 years from now?

I think 20 years from now, there'll most likely be a few people still shooting on film for nostalgia's sake. Just like how there are still people shooting on 8mm, even though it's been technically obsolete for 20 years as well.

I think that film will be VERY expensive, and printed in small batches to only a niche market.

[Ace]

18 months.

[Jon B.]

Tomorrow

[David M]

It actually costs a lot, they have to pay rent on the space, taxes on operation, cost for raw materials (silver isn't cheap), specialists operating very expensive machines every step of the way, all that have to be paid, all of the non-specialists who have to be paid, all of the electricity that it'll take to run the machines.

It's expensive to produce high-quality 35mm stock.

What I meant was, the infrastructure is already in place. It's not like they have to keep upgrading plant to keep up with rapidly evolving technology. The plant is there, it works, and they know how to run it. And they still turn out enormous amounts of print stock every year, more than they ever did in the past in fact.

When cinemas stop using film prints, THEN they'll close the factory down.
That time is a long way off, despite what you may have heard on your Blog-of-choice.

And by the way, the bulk of new cinema installations still use mostly film projectors. Shocking but true.

[Darren Orange]

For sure true on the mostly film projectors, a brand new gold class theaters opened up by me...one digital projector out of 8 theaters....high class... $22 bucks a ticket. Also a NEC crazy huge digital projector...NEC, really? They are using the Z screen for 3D from Real D also. Place serves food and drinks and has a huge lounge and bar area, its extremely nice, like being at a top end lounge in Chicago.

[Dylan Macleod, CSC]

As a capture medium film still rules. And I'm a RED owner.
I still come across a surprising number of "young" folks in the business that are interested in learning the film process.
I do agree it will become a novelty - mainly for cost reasons - and that digital - or other media will take its place.
But I think it will be longer than 2011 Graeme!

[lee caropolo]

So what point are you all making?

Kodak took a hammering over the last 12 months, just like a lot of other consumer companies. I can't find any news stories that suggest anybody thinks Kodak is going down for the third time anytime soon.

Film sales make up a tiny part of Kodak's income these days anyway. But as long as there is a demand for film prints, Kodak will be happy to supply the stock, it's not like the factory is costing them anything.

It's a bit like vinyl records when CDs first started to take off. Although the vinyl market was dying, record companies still put stuff out on LPs for a long time because the pressing equipment was already there, and there was still some demand, so why not exploit it.

A large amount of Kodak's income stream these days comes from Patent royalties, ironically a lot of it from digital imaging technologies.
Hey David im glad to hear that kodaks ahead of the game. How could they not be ready for the future? I wouldn't want to see them go out of buisness. Im seriously gonna buy some stock tomorrow.

[David Rasberry]

Film is still the only proven long term archival medium for photographic imagery. It may well play a role there long after it ceases to be a popular acquisition or presentation format.

[Michael McLaughlin]

funny how you beat me, I was just about to say the same thing and my computer crashed.

Opened up the thread again after restart and there ya go some body said what I was going to say.

I think the 3 strip archival process is the way to go. How many times have we tried to go back to old computer data stuff and found out we didn't have old equipment to read stuff etc.

Anybody remember Y2K, they were scrambling for old engineers etc.

With a nice preserved film it can outlast digital for now.

[Wesley Scoggins]

Film is still the only proven long term archival medium for photographic imagery. It may well play a role there long after it ceases to be a popular acquisition or presentation format.

I think that film will serve it's purpose as a archival medium longer than it serves a purpose as the primary acquisition medium.

Regardless, it's the only "proven" one, because nothing else has been around that long. I think in 20 years we'll have technically more reliable digital storage methods.

But film does have it's limitations. In 20 years when 200+K capture is typical, and we've got 16K+ projectors in most theaters, I am unsure of how logical maintaining 35mm archival copies will be, they'd definitely seem like they'd be the weak link in that chain.

Then, when digital inevitably surpasses film in dynamic range, you'll be losing a lot more information than just resolution when you create a 35mm archival format.

I think that digital will readily be surpassing 35mm in both resolution and dynamic range within the next decade, so I don't see it as still being a major archival format in 20 years, even though I imagine there will still be quite a few film warehouses keeping old prints.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

The archival argument is going to die long before film as a capture medium.

It's already a dubious advantage. In a few years it'll be ridiculous.

[KETCH ROSSi]

Actually Kodak has recently shifted a very large portion of their work force and Scientific funds to development of Digital Senosors, Phase ONe Medium Format been one of the company they id them for, I just sold my P30+ Phase One digital Back, 31MP made by Kodak, unfortunately for Kodak, now Phase ONe has decided to go DALSA for they new Generation of Sensors such as the P40+ and P65+ this last one of 60MP, also with Phase ONe's acquisition of Leaf, which are also made with Dalsa Sensors, Kodak has lost two of the biggest Medium Format players, not a small hit either.

This are times were many things are changing rather fast and no matter how big the company might have been or still is, chances are it is or could be just be bought out entirely and taken apart.

The way of progress, or in the name of, Kodak has been and continues to be a great company, just that times are changing..

[David M]

I In 20 years when 200+K capture is typical, and we've got 16K+ projectors in most theaters, ....

You know this how?
Also, I wonder what sort of lenses you think you're going to be using to using for "200K+" capture, considering that even very expensive current model cine lenses can't fully exploit the resolution that 35mm negative is capable of.

What are they actually going to do to the lenses to make them that good?

[Wesley Scoggins]

You know this how?
Also, I wonder what sort of lenses you think you're going to be using to using for "200K+" capture, considering that even very expensive current model cine lenses can't fully exploit the resolution that 35mm negative is capable of.

What are they actually going to do to the lenses to make them that good?

Well firstly, nothing I am saying is something that I think is totally set in stone, i'm simply looking at how quickly the technology is moving, what kind of research and technology I have seen and read about, then just thinking about all of that stretched out 20 years from now.

In 20 years, I doubt we'll be using things that look much like modern lenses at all. It'll most likely be something like lenticular arrays hybridized with LIDAR scanning for accurate depth maps, all utilizing internal cognizant processing for real time breakdown of all of the elements that you're capturing into 3D elements that can be altered and manipulated in camera.

But I am imagining molecular level precision lenses, most likely made out of material composites which don't exist yet, if there are lenses at all. Or something like adaptive fluid bases lenses, adjusted and controlled on a microscopic level.

Honestly, i have no idea, anything I come up with is just looking at current research, and would most likely be seen as shortsighted and uncreative compared to where the technology is going to be at for real the late 2020's, early 2030's.

[David Doko]

???

Their stock was around 3.00 a few months ago, it didn't crash, it just went up a lot for a while then came back down after a major investor diluted shareholder value. A lot of under $10 stocks yo yo like that too.
Also, their motion picture film sales are profitable, where did you get the idea that it was not? What do you think is helping to finance their digital research? If it was not profitable, their shareholders would demand that they get rid of it. If I was an investor, I would make that demand too.

Kodak has valuable technologies in both traditional and digital imaging. I'm sure if they would put themselves up for sale, there would be many interested buyers.

[Justin Kirchhoff]

Have any of you actually visited Rochester and seen the Kodak factory?? I was there over the summer, the place is a ghost town. Rundown POS....They won't be making anything there much longer.

[Kenn Michael]

In 20 years, I doubt we'll be using things that look much like modern lenses at all. It'll most likely be something like lenticular arrays hybridized with LIDAR scanning for accurate depth maps, all utilizing internal cognizant processing for real time breakdown of all of the elements that you're capturing into 3D elements that can be altered and manipulated in camera.

But I am imagining molecular level precision lenses, most likely made out of material composites which don't exist yet, if there are lenses at all. Or something like adaptive fluid bases lenses, adjusted and controlled on a microscopic level.

Absolutely awesome. This is the type of thinking that pushes the technology forward.

[Liam Hall]

I don't get all this Kodak bashing. Kodak invented and continue to develop many of the technologies that make digital cinema a reality. They also continue to develop and support some of the best film technologies around - technologies that have been wowing audiences for over a hundred years.

Kodak has suffered from corporate mismanagement and the vagaries of the stock market, but those are separate arguments to the, "how long will film survive" debate. Indeed, People have been saying, "film has five years", since I started in this business in 1985.

[Andy Taplin]

I don't get all this Kodak bashing. Kodak invented and continue to develop many of the technologies that make digital cinema a reality. They also continue to develop and support some of the best film technologies around - technologies that have been wowing audiences for over a hundred years.

Kodak has suffered from corporate mismanagement and the vagaries of the stock market, but those are separate arguments to the, "how long will film survive" debate. Indeed, People have been saying, "film has five years", since I started in this business in 1985.

I agree, Kodak makes the best sensors in the world used by amongst others Leica and NASA. Kodak timed the move to digital imaging perfectly they're no longer a big consumer brand but they're driving digital imaging technology at the top end of the market. You Americans should be proud that Kodak continue to be a great company. :patriot:

[David M]

Well firstly, nothing I am saying is something that I think is totally set in stone, i'm simply looking at how quickly the technology is moving, what kind of research and technology I have seen and read about, then just thinking about all of that stretched out 20 years from now.

In 20 years, I doubt we'll be using things that look much like modern lenses at all. It'll most likely be something like lenticular arrays hybridized with LIDAR scanning for accurate depth maps, all utilizing internal cognizant processing for real time breakdown of all of the elements that you're capturing into 3D elements that can be altered and manipulated in camera.



"i'm simply looking at how quickly the technology is moving"

You may need to tone down your optimism a notch.

20 years ago State-of-The-Art broadcast camcorders used 640 x 480 2/3" CCDs - 0.64K imaging

10 years ago, after a protracted technological shit-fight, State-of-The-Art broadcast camcorders appeared using 1920 x 1080 2/3" CCDs - 1.9K imaging

Currently, the highest resolution portable camera in regular use is the RED One, which (opinions vary) give something approaching the equivalent of 3K imaging.

Not exactly a mind-blowing increase in performance to show for 2 decades work. A 20-year-old SP Betacam camorder is still quite a useable device for low-end work, it's only real issue is that it doesn't do widescreen. 10 year old F900s are still in regular use.

So, how did you figure the next 20 years is going to give us "200K+"

[Liam Hall]

Currently, the highest resolution portable camera in regular use is the RED One, which (opinions vary) give something approaching the equivalent of 3K imaging.

Arri 535...

[Graeme Nattress]

Yup, not need to bash Kodak - they've done amazing stuff with both film and digital technology.

The prediction I made 8 yrs ago I reference for historical reasons. I'm not going to change my mind, especially as things are so inherently unpredictable you'd as soon make a guess worse rather than better.

Graeme

[Tim Hole]

I would love to shoot more on film...it has its disadvantages of course but I love shooting on film. Its a pain in the ass a lot of the time...but the cost of shooting my stuff on film is so prohibitive its not even worth considering. There are low cost ways of going about it like gets 'ends' and the odd lucky dip but you don't have the choice of stock then as much. Digital (esp. RED and raw) outweighs the negatives (no pun intended) of film far far far more than shooting on film.

Film will not die out for a long while. you will have to wait until the studios start refusing the budget cost of film shooting, and this generation of directors/DPs who won't shoot digital, or at least want the choice, to pass.

Companies, broadcasters, hire companies, studios, indies...all want technology to advance but no-one wants tech to advance too quickly and change too much. There has to be an upgrade path. Smart companies like RED make this path very easy, with modular compatibility.

[Sander de Regt]

The great advantage of filmprints still remains that to see what you've got you only have to hold it up to the light. Try that with a 16xdrive array.

[Graeme Nattress]

Absolutely, and that's why vinyl records, with the music as a visible groove will still be playable after the last CD player is long dead.

However.... The density of data is low compared to modern digital methods of storage, and that's a real tradeoff.

Graeme

[lee caropolo]

The stock was 6 and change a month ago when i first eyed it. Yes alot of stocks are volatile right now. I really did think this anouncment today might have something to do with it. Id certainly hold my project up until today to find out what's going on? Id rather shoot with a scarlet then my eclair acl. Im new to this game so please excuse my ignorance in these market matters. Thought it would be at least an interesting first post.

[Yousuf Abbasi]

I agree, Kodak makes the best sensors in the world used by amongst others Leica and NASA. Kodak timed the move to digital imaging perfectly they're no longer a big consumer brand but they're driving digital imaging technology at the top end of the market. You Americans should be proud that Kodak continue to be a great company. :patriot:

Based on Q3 Earnings report, seems Kodak's only profitable business is ink-jet printers.

[Stephen Gentle]

20 years ago State-of-The-Art broadcast camcorders used 640 x 480 2/3" CCDs - 0.64K imaging

10 years ago, after a protracted technological shit-fight, State-of-The-Art broadcast camcorders appeared using 1920 x 1080 2/3" CCDs - 1.9K imaging

Currently, the highest resolution portable camera in regular use is the RED One, which (opinions vary) give something approaching the equivalent of 3K imaging.

Why do you give a lowest estimate for RED ONE, but for the other cameras you assume that they capture a perfect 100% of the resolution of their target format? Even with 3 sensors, you don't capture 100% of the resolution that's there. The way I see it is that RED outputs an image that is 4K without any kind of upscaling or pixel shifting, so it's 4K camera.

Also, since 1K generally means 1024 pixels, 1080p would come out to be 1.875K and 640 pixels would be 0.625K.

[Andy Taplin]

Based on Q3 Earnings report, seems Kodak's only profitable business is ink-jet printers.

Maybe that's because they give NASA too good a deal on the sensors!

[Wesley Scoggins]

20 years ago State-of-The-Art broadcast camcorders used 640 x 480 2/3" CCDs - 0.64K imaging

10 years ago, after a protracted technological shit-fight, State-of-The-Art broadcast camcorders appeared using 1920 x 1080 2/3" CCDs - 1.9K imaging

Currently, the highest resolution portable camera in regular use is the RED One, which (opinions vary) give something approaching the equivalent of 3K imaging.

Not exactly a mind-blowing increase in performance to show for 2 decades work. A 20-year-old SP Betacam camorder is still quite a useable device for low-end work, it's only real issue is that it doesn't do widescreen. 10 year old F900s are still in regular use.

So, how did you figure the next 20 years is going to give us "200K+"

Well the thing is that you're forgetting to tack on prices for this equipment.

Not to mention sizes, weight, and ease of use. Not to mention the size and costs of editing equipment for those rigs.

We now live in an age with HD cameras that fit into the palm of your hand and cost only a few hundred dollars, and can be edited on a laptop costing under a $1000. (Where as 20 years ago, SD cameras were 10 pounds, fit on your shoulder, and could only be edited by specially trained people on machines the size of a refrigerator).

Where NOW HD cameras are so small and light that they can be mounted on guns and helmets, and have been utilized for professional film productions.

It's astounding to me that we live in an age where cameras that you can get for under a thousand dollars can currently fit in your pocket, and look better than a $50,000 professional camera from 20 years ago.

But I am more concerned with more recent developments, rather than slow "snowballing" that has been happening over the last 20 years. In just 5 years we've gone from a 4K rig for under $25,000 being a vaporware scam, to it being used on some of the biggest films of the year, and Red revealing plans for a 28K camera.

Comparing the developments over the last 20 years, while ignoring the explosion in development over the last 5 is deceptive, because it takes things for the "critical mass" to be reached in processor speeds and sensor technology for the pieces to all come together for Red. Development isn't linear, and is largely fed by market forces.

There is currently a market demand for consumer 4K cameras, that didn't exist 5 years ago, because there wasn't any. Red created a market that didn't even exist just a few years ago.

People are getting hungrier for better and better looking video in smaller and smaller devices. We're seeing HD video and 10MP stills being developed for implementation into cellphones.

Sensors get better and better with every generation of development, and CPU speeds continue to speed forward. At current rates of increase (rather than the rates of increase of the 80's and 90's), I think if anything it's an underestimate to suggest 200K resolutions being possible 20 years from now.

[Dan Hudgins]

The tide has turned, I cannot see why any low budget filmmaker would shoot color negative and have to deal with dust mitigation when new true RAW recording Digital Cinema cameras are going to be on the market in the next year or two.

It is not so much what little quality you loose from going from film scan to Bayer sensor data, what you gain in shooting ratio and lack of Dust mitigation make such a huge improvement in the end result that it is a day and night difference.

People with large budgets can pay for labs to do their dust mitigation for them, but that cost is over $100,000 extra that could be spent on sets and costumes to gain a multi fold return later.

It makes me very sad that all the equipment we collected over the last 35+ years is going to be "crab weights", but the reason we got it in the first place is that film has been on the way out for a long time and will continue to fade into the sunset faster and faster. We put for the most part all of our free money and then some into being able to produce films for projection, but in a few years there will be NO 35mm projectors to show them on, so what a waste of time it has all been. I am sad that my Brother would not see the wall coming we about to slam into, not that I have not been telling him this would happen for years. When RED site was first up I told him to sell all the cameras and put in a reservation, his responce was that "this digital thing is just a gimmick that will pass", he could just not let go of the idea that this time it was true and film was going to be gone, kaput!

[Stephen Williams]

We now live in an age with HD cameras that fit into the palm of your hand and cost only a few hundred dollars, and can be edited on a laptop costing under a $1000. (Where as 20 years ago, SD cameras were 10 pounds, fit on your shoulder, and could only be edited by specially trained people on machines the size of a refrigerator).

.

Hi,

I always liked the images from Ikegami cameras of that generation, The images took a big hit with CCD's.
I think you will find Betacam decks were in use 20 years ago, not that big.

Stephen

[David M]

Why do you give a lowest estimate for RED ONE, but for the other cameras you assume that they capture a perfect 100% of the resolution of their target format? Even with 3 sensors, you don't capture 100% of the resolution that's there. The way I see it is that RED outputs an image that is 4K without any kind of upscaling or pixel shifting, so it's 4K camera.



That queston has been answered so many times, I'm worried another post about it will cause the Internet to collapse into a black hole :beatdeadhorse5:

But both Messrs Jannard and Nattress have stated the useable resolution is 3.1K or thereabouts, but then Jim is always saying "they don't know what they're doing" so maybe you have a point.



Also, since 1K generally means 1024 pixels, 1080p would come out to be 1.875K and 640 pixels would be 0.625K.

OK so have it your way. 0.625K to 4K is a 6.4:1 improvement over 20 years. 4K to 200K (200K+!) would a 50:1 improvement over 20 years. Apart from a few percent less risk of major sphincter damage when pulling the modified figures out of one's ass, I am not sure what your point is.

I find this whole thread rather sad.

Jim and his crew have pulled off an amazing technological feat, which can stand on it's own without all this sycophantic embroidery from people who REALLY DO NOT know what they are babbling about.

Geoff Boyle is absolutely right. Slowly and sometimed painfully but surely the RED has gained Industry acceptance; this is not helped at all by clueless loose-cannon Fanboys taking pot-shots at everything that moves and can even vaguely be imagined as an "enemy of RED"

[Wesley Scoggins]

But both Messrs Jannard and Nattress have stated the useable resolution is 3.1K or thereabouts, but then Jim is always saying "they don't know what they're doing" so maybe you have a point.

Well I have read on the low end, 3.2K, and on the high end 3.6K, I don't recall seeing 3.1K quoted.


OK so have it your way. 0.625K to 4K is a 6.4:1 improvement over 20 years. 4K to 200K (200K+!) would a 50:1 improvement over 20 years. Apart from a few percent less risk of major sphincter damage when pulling the modified figures out of one's ass, I am not sure what your point is.

Well I am approaching this from the perspective of the law of accelerating returns, as we make new sensors, we learn how to make future sensors better, while at the same time faster processing capabilities and new technologies will constantly be adding to the capabilities of new camera systems.

Not to mention that you're just stopping at Red's current line-up, if you look at the Epic-617, and it being released by 2011, then the jump between .625 and 28K in 20 years is a significantly larger one.

As far as raw resolution is concerned though, the jump from 640*480, to 4520*2540, is closer to a 40 times jump, as Red's resolution is around 12 megapixels, and 640*480 is about 300,000 or .3 megapixels.

SD to 4K is more properly a 37x increase, while SD to 28K is going to be closer to a 850x increase. 28K to around 200K is only going to be a 76x increase. If we're to assume a similar 850x increase in the next 20 or so years like from SD to 28K (which will be available in the next few years according to Red), it'd be logical to conclude something closer to a 200,000K camera, rather than my "paltry" 200K.

Of course, I think that both estimates are wildly optimistic, because i'm wildly optimistic. I just don't know if i'm THAT wild yet.

Regardless, I have serious doubts that any camera system 20 years hench will be getting it's full resolution from JUST it's sensors, it'll be a more scalable thing, without a real "set" resolution.

[David M]

As far as raw resolution is concerned though, the jump from 640*480, to 4520*2540, is closer to a 40 times jump, as Red's resolution is around 12 megapixels, and 640*480 is about 300,000 or .3 megapixels.



You're making the common mistake of confusing resolution with pixel count.
Going from 1K to 2K gives you twice the resolution, but it also requires four times the pixel count since you need twice as many pixels horizontally and vertically. So to be able to resolve twice as many lines per millimeter, you need four times as many pixels on the sensor.

Hence to go from "4K" to "200K" you would actually need 50 x 50 = 2,500 times the pixel count or 2,500 x 12,000,000 = 30,000,000,000. There's no way you could do that with a 35mm or any other practical-sized sized sensor as the photocells would be much smaller than the wavelength of light.

On another thread some clown talked about "30+ stops of dynamic range". Unless you wanted to take movies of atomic bombs going off, I am not sure what would be the use of that either:biggrin:

[Wesley Scoggins]

Well there are ways to get higher resolution from a camera system than just what it's sensor is capable of.

You could do rapid scanning of a scene, basically if you did something like Gigapan, where you take a picture of a small segment, then combine them in a larger mosaic, you could make an image that is far higher than it's source sensor.

Have an array of 10 megapixel sensors, all with adjustable mirrors and lenses, that are constantly bouncing around and capturing useful data. Kind of your own video Gigapan array, only instead of one camera being slide around and adjusted by a machine, it's an array of sensors bouncing around on the front of your camera, constantly scanning the scene and creating video mosaics.

Then there are all sort of "super-resolution" processing techniques that can be utilized in the video, where it takes data from multiple frames to squeeze even more resolution out of the video than the unaltered video had.

And that is just stuff that we're thinking of NOW, utilizing technology that we currently have. Like I have said previous, I think 20 years from now, our cameras will be so "smart" as to be able to understand on a conscious level what is in front of them, and being able to understand what all of the elements are that it's capturing.

I love these kind of discussions, so don't take my wildly optimistic speculation as my belief that this is definitely what'll happen. It's more of my BELIEF in what'll happen.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=35223 - This was a pretty fun thread where some other Redusers jumped in one where they thought technology will be in 20-30 years, thought you might like to check it out.

[Dan Hudgins]

On another thread some clown talked about "30+ stops of dynamic range". Unless you wanted to take movies of atomic bombs going off,

Because of lens flare you cannot get 30+ stops linear.

I have processed film in special ways to get wide dynamic range, it helps give some detail at both ends but you need an S curve or the mid tones look to flat.

Your eye has not air spaces, it is just one air to optic surface, if you do the same in a camera you can get the same range as your eye.

As for Kodak and the future of film, just about everything needed is here to replace it.

If RED made a three chip camera you could get better color, and with the new sensors being 14bit that is close. If you make an 8 sensor camera you could match film in dynamic range and color quality. They won't do it because its not an issue any longer, people who pay for seats do not care about film quality any longer. If they did movies would be shot in 65/70mm, but a movie made on SD-DV will earn a bigger return, or so it seems...

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In the City the Castro is showing "Digital 3D" and is closed a few days a week sometimes now. Most of the other places that were showing old film prints are closed, so there are few screens to show an indy film on any longer, and the few places are about to go down as well.

I was at a lecture and Francis Ford Coppola was saying that he is having a hard time finding places to show HIS films and few people are going to see them. George Lucas who was on the Castro stage with him and other American Zoetrope founders, has said that we was not going to shoot film any longer. Coppola shoots HD now, not 35mm.

[donatello b]

BOTTOM line
1997 kodak stock = $90.00
2009 kodak stock now = $3.50

if you bought when it hit $2.01 in Mar 09 then you're doing pretty good today ... if you bought in the $10-90 range then one might think it's a POS.
perhaps the persons that are out $$ will find comfort in knowing film print stock will be in theaters for the next X years ...