Kodak Cameras

The Kodak story began with George Eastman who grew up in Rochester New York. He founded Kodak in 1880. There are a few different types of Kodak cameras including: The box camera, folding camera and the 8mm motion picture camera. 

Box Camera was the first camera that was introduced by Kodak. It is made out of cardboard so it is very light weight and imitation leather. It's a 100 roll film and could take up to 8 snapshot. Because of it's small size, it made it very popular; also with it's cheap prize of only 1$. Due to popularity, 250,000 of these models were sold so the company decided to continue selling them but more models were improved over the years. 

Brownie Box Camera 

The folding camera was the second camera that could take up to 120 roll film. It was launched in the year 1902 and its materials are similar to the box camera, cardboard and leather. It has two small reflecting view finders for vertical or horizontal shots. Since it was an improved camera from the first one, the price increased to 2$. However they stopped making folding brownie cameras in 1926

Brownie Folding camera

The 8mm motion picture was made from aluminum instead of cardboard. Its price increased to 3$. They used to be found also in colors which their price was at 4$. Several different motion picture cameras were launched in the late 1950's. It doesn't use batteries or electricity, but just by simply winding the spring loaded motor to make it work.

8mm motion picture Brownie camera

The vast majority of Brownie cameras that Kodak made were the low cost box cameras. However a limited number of folding cameras were introduced during the years 1904 to 1926. Although the folding cameras had a limited number produced, they had a few more options than the box cameras such as changing aperture and the shutter speed. They have 1 reflective view finder and they came in larger sizes as shown in the previous image that can print postcard sized. The larger sized folding cameras were a bit more expensive: up to 10$ - 15$.

Eastman Kodak stopped at making Brownie cameras in the late 1960's. Although, the Kodak cameras changed the human experience by enabling people worldwide to capture and enjoy images of their own lives. Neil Armstrong also used the Kodak camera in 1969 by taking pictures of the first moon landing. Nearly every movie that has won Best Picture Oscar was shot by Kodak Camera. In 2004 Kodak stopped selling re-loadable film cameras.

In 2012, the Kodak company failed for bankruptcy after 130 years in business. 

Why?

 "Because what they are doing now they are saying that they want to survive by selling or licensing their patterns" says Barry Fox, a contributing editor for Consumer Electronics Daily, "which protect some of those very clever inventions they come up with but patterns expire, patterns only last the most 20 years, so you can not run a business from revenue which is coming from a resource which is quickly expiring. I visited them in America many years ago, and even then you just knew these people are doomed because they will not see that the future is digital". (saying found on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNdAYqlKfqY)

47,000 employees out of more than 60,000 where laid off from the Kodak company. The Kodak cameras and film failed to keep pace with the move to digital images. They were in a competition with Fuji. 

References:
- Kodak, 2010, 'Super 8mm film History' [ONLINE] Available at: http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Products/Production/Spotlight_on_Super_8/Super_8mm_History/index.htm [Accessed at 25 January 2014]
- The Franklin Institute, 2014, 'The Kodak Brownie' [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.fi.edu/learn/sci-tech/kodak-brownie/kodak-brownie.php?cts=photography-recreation [Accessed at 25 January 2014]
- Historic Camera, 2002, 'No. 2 Folding Brownie by Eastman Kodak' [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium/pm.cgi?action=display&login=no2foldbrownie [Accessed at 25 January 2014]