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From: sasaki@harvard.ARPA (Marty Sasaki)
Newsgroups: net.rec.photo
Subject: Re: Free Markets and Product Quality
Message-ID: <399@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 6-Oct-85 15:31:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: harvard.399
Posted: Sun Oct  6 15:31:14 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Oct-85 07:31:52 EDT
References: <298@tekig4.UUCP>
Reply-To: sasaki@harvard.UUCP (Marty sasaki)
Distribution: net
Organization: Harvard Science Center
Lines: 38

What's the point Brian? Has Kodak quality decreased? What is the
tie-in to free trade and all of that?

Each product is slightly different. Fuji film used to be quite
different in color rendition than Big Yellow (although I've noticed
that color rendition is getting closer and closer Kodak's). Agfa is
also different. If you really care about the rendition, then you will
use different film for different effects. Kodak, in my mind, has never
been completely the best. They are certainly the best in certain
aspects, but not in everything.

The free market does have an effect. If Kodak loses a big share of the
sales, then they will do something about it. Look at the situation in
black and white paper. Kodak was slowly losing interest in quality
black and white paper. For a while, you couldn't get a decent paper
from Kodak. A lot of photographers changed and started using papers
from *other* countries. (I switched to Ilford.) But now Kodak has two
very good black and white papers, Elite and Polyfiber.

Is this happening with film? I haven't noticed any changes. If
anything, I find the opposite. The VR films are good, and Vericolor
III is superior to Vericolor II. There are the Professional
Kodachromes that guarentee consistent color rendition.

Is it happening with processing? Kodak labs have been known to go
through periods of debugging when new equipment, or a new process
arrives. I remember when Kodachrome 25 came out I heard
recommendations that you send your film to New Jersey rather than
Rochester since the New Jersey plant had more experience processing
the new film.

Is there a problem?
-- 
----------------
  Marty Sasaki				net:   sasaki@harvard.{arpa,uucp}
  Havard University Science Center	phone: 617-495-1270
  One Oxford Street
  Cambridge, MA 02138