Kodak was founded by George Eastman and Henry A. Strong on May 23, 1892. During most of the 20th century, Kodak held a dominant position in photographic film. The company's ubiquity was such that its "Kodak moment" tagline entered the common lexicon to describe a personal event that deserved to be recorded for posterity Kodak began to struggle financially in the late 1990s, as a result of the decline in sales of photographic film and its slowness in moving to digital photography, despite developing the first self-contained digital camera. As a part of a turnaround strategy, Kodak began to focus on digital photography and digital printing, and attempted to generate revenues through aggressive patent litigation.

In January 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Shortly thereafter Kodak announced that it would stop making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames and focus on the corporate digital imaging market. Digital cameras are still sold under the Kodak brand by JK Imaging Ltd under an agreement with Kodak. In August 2012, Kodak announced its intention to sell its photographic film, commercial scanners and kiosk operations, as a measure to emerge from bankruptcy, but not its motion picture film operations. In January 2013, the Court approved financing for Kodak to emerge from bankruptcy by mid 2013. Kodak sold many of its patents for approximately $525,000,000 to a group of companies (including Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, Adobe Systems, and HTC) under the names Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation. On September 3, 2013, the company emerged from bankruptcy having shed its large legacy liabilities and exited several businesses. Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging are now part of Kodak Alaris, a separate company owned by the UK-based Kodak Pension Plan.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Kodak announced in late July that year it would begin production of pharmaceutical materials.

Kodak Camera (1888)

Kodak began selling its original camera, created by George Eastman, in 1888 in the US for $25. It was a leather-covered box camera that came pre-loaded with 100-exposure roll film. When used up, the entire camera could be sent to the Kodak factory, after which it would be returned loaded with fresh film along with the negatives and mounted prints, for a cost of $10. It was advertised with the slogan "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest". Replacement film was sold for $2 for customers who had access to photographic processing. The ease of use and relatively low cost made photography widely accessible to the general public rather than only professional photographers, beginning the modern era of consumer photography.

Characteristics

The Kodak was a camera box built in the shape of a parallelepiped, with a fixed-focus lens on the front and no viewfinder; two V shape silhouettes at the top aided in aiming in the direction of the subject. At the top it had a rotating key to advance the film, a pull-string to set the shutter, and a button on the side to release it, exposing the celluloid film. Inside, it had a rotating bar (this bar was soon replaced by a simpler mechanism due to its manufacturing price) to operate the shutter: when the user pressed the button to take a photograph, an inner rope was tightened and the photographic exposure began. Once the photograph had been taken, the user had to rotate the upper key to change the selected frame within the celluloid tape.

A box camera is a simple type of camera, the most common form being a cardboard or plastic box with a lens in one end and film at the other. They were sold in large numbers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The lenses are often single element designs meniscus fixed focus lens, or in better quality box cameras a doublet lens with minimal (if any) possible adjustments to the aperture or shutter speeds. Because of the inability to adjust focus, the small lens aperture and the low sensitivity of the sensitive materials available, these cameras work best in brightly lit day-lit scenes when the subject is within the hyperfocal distance for the lens and of subjects that move little during the exposure. Eventually, box cameras with photographic flash, shutter and aperture adjustment were introduced, allowing indoor photos.

Purpose

The Kodak camera introduced in 1888 was the first box camera to become widely adopted by the public and its design became the archetype for box camera designs introduced by many different manufacturers. The use of flexible roll film meant that the cameras were light and portable and could be used without the encumbrance of tripods and the attendant difficulty of using glass photographic plates which were typical of professional cameras. Before the introduction of the Kodak, photographers were responsible for making their own arrangements for the development and printing of their pictures. The first Kodak came pre-loaded with film and the customer returned the camera to Kodak for processing and to be reloaded with film for the customer. In 1900, a Yale plate box camera cost US$2 (about $65.00 in 2021 dollars). and a Kodak rollfilm box sold for US$1 (about $33.00 in 2021 dollars)

Typical box cameras

Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format.

The film is nominally 8 mm wide, the same as older formatted 8 mm film, but the dimensions of the rectangular perforations along one edge are smaller, which allows for a greater exposed area. The Super 8 standard also allocates the border opposite the perforations for an oxide stripe upon which sound can be magnetically recorded.

Unlike Super 35 (which is generally compatible with standard 35 mm equipment), the film stock used for Super 8 is not compatible with standard 8 mm film cameras.

There are several varieties of the film system used for shooting, but the final film in each case has the same dimensions. The most popular system by far was the Kodak system.

Launched in 1965 by Eastman Kodak at the 1964–65 Worlds Fair, Super 8 film comes in plastic light-proof cartridges containing coaxial supply and take-up spools loaded with 50 feet (15 m) of film, with 72 frames per foot, for a total of approximately 3,600 frames per film cartridge. This is enough film for 2.5 minutes at the professional motion picture standard of 24 frames per second, and for 3 minutes and 20 seconds of continuous filming at 18 frames per second (upgraded from standard 8 mm 16 frame/s) for amateur use. In 1973 the system was upgraded with a larger cartridge, which includes film with magnetic sound. In 1975 an even larger 200-foot (61 m) cartridge became available, which could be used in specifically designed cameras. The sound and the 200-foot cartridge system are no longer available, but the 50-foot silent cartridge system is still manufactured. Historically, Super 8 film was a reversal stock for home projection used primarily for the creation of home movies. It became an extremely popular consumer product in the late 1960s through the 1970s, but was largely replaced in the 1980s by the use of video tape. During the mid-to-late 1980s Super 8 began to re-emerge as an alternative method for movie production, beginning with its use in MTV music videos in 1981. In 1993 the company's Super8 Sound, now called Pro8mm, pioneered the use of the color negative in Super 8 by custom perforating and loading a variety of 35 mm film stocks into the Super 8 film cartridge. This included emulsions from Kodak, Fuji and Ilford. Today Super 8 color negative film is the main color stock used. There are also Super 8 reversal films available, including 100D Kodak Ektachrome and 200D Agfa color, as well as black-and-white (B&W) from Foma, ADOX and ORWO and Kodak.

The Super 8 plastic cartridge is probably the fastest loading film system ever developed, as it can be loaded into the Super 8 camera in less than two seconds without the need to directly thread or touch the film. In addition, coded notches cut into the Super 8 film cartridge exterior allow the camera to recognize the film speed automatically. Not all cameras can read all the notches correctly, however, and there is some debate about which notches actually deliver the best results.^[ Canon keeps an exhaustive list of their Super 8 cameras with detailed specifications on what film speeds can be used with their cameras. Usually, testing one cartridge of film can help handle any uncertainty a filmmaker may have about how well their Super 8 camera reads different film stocks. Color stocks were originally available only in tungsten (3400 K) Type A, and almost all Super 8 cameras come with a switchable daylight filter built in, allowing for both indoor and outdoor shooting.

The original Super 8 film release was a silent system only, but in 1973 a sound on film version was released. The film with sound had a magnetic soundtrack and came in larger cartridges than the original cartridge in order to accommodate the sound recording head in the film path. Sound film requires a longer film path (for smoothing the film movement before it reaches the recording head) and a second aperture for the recording head. Sound cameras are compatible with silent cartridges, but not conversely. Sound film is typically filmed at a speed of 18 or 24 frames per second. Kodak discontinued the production of Super 8 sound film in 1997, citing environmental regulations as the reason. The adhesive used to bond the magnetic track to the film is environmentally hazardous.

In 2005 Kodak announced the discontinuation of their most popular stock Kodachrome due to the decline of facilities equipped with K-14 process. Kodachrome was "replaced" by a new ISO 64 Ektachrome, which uses the simpler E-6 process. The last roll of Kodachrome was processed on January 18, 2011, (although announced last date of processing was December 30, 2010) in Parsons, Kansas, by the sole remaining lab capable of processing it. In December 2012, Kodak discontinued color reversal stock in all formats, including 35 mm and Super 8. However, in Spring of 2019, Kodak introduced Ektachrome 100D in super 8 and 16 mm formats, citing surges in demand. Today there is still a variety of Super 8 film stocks. Kodak sells one Super 8 color reversal stock, Ektachrome 100D, and three Super 8 color negative stocks cut from their Vision 3 film series, ISO 50, ISO 200 and ISO 500, which can be used in very low light. Kodak reformulated the emulsions for the B&W reversal stocks and made Tri-X (ISO 200). Film cut to Super 8 from other manufactured raw stock such as Fuji, Orwo, Adox, Agfa and Foma are also available. Pro8mm offers 7 color negative stocks made from Kodak and Fuji film. Color Reversal film for Super 8 is still available from several Super 8 specialty companies. Wittner Kinotechnik offers Super 8 made from a batch of Agfa Aviphot 200D, which is perforated and slit for Super 8, 8 mm and 16 mm formats. This film is loaded into Super 8 and Single cartridges by several of the specialty companies. Other stocks, such as the new Fuji reversal film, and existing supplies of Kodak 35 mm 100D are often made available in Super 8 by these specialty companies.

The growing popularity and availability of non-linear editing systems has allowed film-makers and any user of film to shoot Super 8 film but edit in digital. This avoids much of the tedium of handling film and the damage to the film, which can occur when editing the actual film. Super 8 films may be transferred (scanned) to digital through a variety of processes, and then imported into computer-based editing and correction systems for post production. Today's systems can even scan Super 8 to 4K digital in a variety of formats.