we've gone digital —
but first, there was
| One of the main disadvantages (not a bore—a hellish pain in the lower back regions) of living in Europe and being a photographer was that it was very hard to get original Kodak, made in Rochester, material. It was the best stuff around, pure and simple. At the time, Kodak had factories in Rochester, London, (I guess:) Toronto and Paris. The grapevine had it that London was supposed to be as good as Rochester, but for trouble with the water supply. The one in Canada I hardly know. But the Paris one... oh, la la! One reason for its existence probably was to supply the at the time still very extensive French colonies like Morocco, Algeria and Vietnam. Small wonder they revolted. What Kodak, however, of course did was try to move their stuff around on the world market so as to make a maximum profit. This is easy to understand when you know that the profit margin on a roll of film was only 60%; a mere pittance. When the French Franc was low (this tended to be chronic) they made a lot more money by selling the cheap Paris stuff for expensive Yankee Dollars. Which is one of the reasons why you could only get French Kodacolor in Holland, an intense cause of grief to me. As the Kodak guys knew very well they were selling a really inferior product, for those in the know they made it possible to lay their hands on Rochester material regardless. |
You could always tell where your film came from by looking at the markings on it.
This one came from Rochester, USA.
It's the dot behind the S that gives the ugly story away.
Were it from London, it would say "SAº FETY"; from Toronto, "SAFºETY"
and from Paris, the bottom of the barrel, "SAFEºTY FILM".
Naturally, they have been bar coding this and much more info long since.
"SAFETY" means the film will not explode in your hands;
that was some improvement!
Hardly anybody ever mentions this, but
the best thing about digital photography is the final defeat of
the photographer's worst enemy
"DUST"
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