Kodak has no plans to cease, go out of business, or file for bankruptcy
227 whicks 101 8/14/2025, 3:09:23 PM kodak.com ↗
Related from yesterday: Kodak says it might have to cease operations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44875270
Could also offer little software upgrades in the form of filter packs, plugins/add-ons, etc. I can use it to take normal photos, do 4k-8k video, stream direct from the camera, etc. Make it the most versatile camera known to man, all at an affordable price of like ~$299.
Call it the Kodak Moment to piggyback on the existing tagline and you've at the very least got a successful flash in the pan hipster product.
A digital camera is a no-brainer combined with a printing station where the phone just docks. They already have a version of this, but if they control hardware they could make it really solid—no compatibility issues, no headaches, just exactly what you want: an easy way to capture high-quality memories that don't get lost in the void of your camera roll.
If someone was shopping around for a Kodak product, saw that original article, they likely decided against Kodak. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable buying a product from a company close to bankruptcy - because if anything goes wrong, no warranty, replacement parts, etc..
If your living depends on the camera, you're probably not buying Kodak anyway, since in that case you're buying more into a system, which Kodak doesn't have.
If you're an amateur, it's likely that it will outlive its warranty anyway, so it doesn't make much of a difference. Also, since there's no "system", grabbing a different one isn't that expensive financially.
FWIW, discussions about Kodak's decline have been going on for years. This thread is from 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12111597
As a result, these conditions raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern as of the issuance date of the Company’s second quarter financials.
https://www.kodak.com/en/company/press-release/q2-2025-finan...
As Walter Bagehot said "Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone..."
When the story got attention yesterday I recognized that phrase as the standard boilerplate language securities lawyers warn public companies to include in filings anytime it looks possible that they might not be able to fully meet all their obligations on time. It's a CYA to prevent (or reduce the cost of) investor lawsuits if things go badly. It's not uncommon to see this phrase sometimes pop-up even in filings of companies who are pretty obviously going to be fine, so it doesn't mean much because it covers a huge range of conditions.
I'm sure it's already appeared in Kokak's filings in recent years. The only surprising thing is that some media outlet decided to headline it as click-bait and it worked well enough a lot of people not familiar with the phrase and its lack of significance saw it. Nice of Kodak to at least issue a press release but unfortunate the click-bait got that much attention. It must have been a slow news day.
Even a cursory glance at Kodak's financials shows enough revenue that creditors certainly aren't going to force the company into liquidation in the foreseeable future. Instead, the company will renegotiate and/or refinance the obligations - which is what usually happens in these situations. When there's significant revenue from ongoing operations, even if it's somewhat unprofitable, it's usually in everyone's interest to keep the company operating in the hope it can be turned around. In fact, scary sounding statements like that are sometimes intentionally issued by the company as part of the debt renegotiation process (although it doesn't appear that's the case here as things aren't that serious). Basically, the implied threat from the company to creditors is "renegotiate debt terms or you may get much less or nothing."
Oddly it didn't appear prior to the 2012 Chapter 11.
https://pcaobus.org/oversight/standards/auditing-standards/d...
https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/#/q=%2522these%2520conditio...
Why else would people be trying to hurt their stock other than to make an opportunity for someone to swoop in and make a killing?
Then they can close out their positions at a profit regardless of whether the underlying business is any good. In fact, it's kind of better to pick a poor business for this since it's less likely the stock will spike organically for some reason.
But this is a film/camera company so I guess I have no skin in this game anyway. Just giving a bit of scrutiny based on other experiences like this.
(I also worked for Kodak for a brief time supporting a "dark line" where they packaged photosensitive products. A kick in the ass, great fun, very disciplined, and writing code which ran machinery in a black box!)
Previously discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28024539
* Commercial printing and imaging. They are one of the main suppliers for equipment and consumables for large-scale offset printing used in books, magazines, and stuff.
* Advanced materials and chemicals. They even have an FDA-registered pharmaceutical manufacturing facility.
* Film and industrial film production.
* Brand licensing and partnerships.
I think that while film has a bit of a comeback due to its nostalgia factor, it's always going to be relegated to a handful of niche applications. Meanwhile, I don't see Kodak getting back into consumer photography, much as I love photography, since it's a low margin and increasingly niche business. Also, they sold off their medical imaging division in 2007.
I miss those Kodak CCDs.
The retro scene has never been larger and shows no signs of stopping. Bring back all the popular film and charge a premium for it so I can stop scouring eBay. Print a billion dollars by next week. Start printing vinyl records too, another billion. Pivot into the modern retro-futurism company. People are tired of "tech".
They paid for a modified version of Mosaic that could handle high resolution images. I want to say 4 megapixel before anyone else even had digital cameras. They were going to have you send in your images and then order a CDROM via a website with the ones you wanted to keep. Because storage was terrible at the time. I don’t remember if prints were an option, but I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.
But even with it being a small market, if they're valued correctly and they've got a monopoly on the market that sounds like a great and sustainable position to be in.
Kodac still has enough of a brand recognition that it could still be a leading option for digital video/photo equipment. They are pretty much the only option standing for film, which is somewhat scary in a few ways. It makes me apprehensive when technology becomes completely unavailable. What gets lost to humanity when this happens.
They seem to be doing pretty well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Chemical_Company
https://www.investopedia.com/a-flash-in-the-pan-the-strange-...
Unfortunately for Kodak, its foray into digital assets coincided with the onset of crypto winter—the cyclical slump in crypto markets that tends to follow periods of speculative frenzy. The price of bitcoin slid from a record high of more than $20,000 in late 2017 to less than $4,000 in December 2018.
In October 2018, KODAKOne launched a beta version of its licensing portal, which reportedly generated $1 million in licensing claims in its first two months.But the portal never exited beta mode, nor was KODAKCoin ever integrated with the platform.
I can’t get over how much better performing 35mm full frame mirrorless cameras are than the old film cameras. To get a shot like this
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/114401857009398302
with film I would have needed a medium format camera and tripod, today it is an easy handheld shot you can do spontaneously with a travel lens that goes from 28-200mm. I can go to a soccer or basketball game and shoot bursts, come back with 3000 photos and catch things like two guys tries to head the ball at the same time
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/113240678816336189
… and I can afford to do it!
There's an overlap between the mystique of analog technologies, the ritual and limitations of physical processes, and status. Status in affording the time to learn about this niche, the money for hardware and film, the space for development (sometimes), signalling a different mentality towards content (in theory). Plus, for me, the end-to-end analogue feels like a retort to this phase of digital disinformation/AI-everything.
Any Joe can buy an expensive mirrorless with a good travel lens, shoot 3000 photos at a game, and come away with some good ones. Monkey on a typewriter and all that.
My last 3 years of photography really started when I got a "free" inkjet printer and realized it would dry out if I didn't use it regularly and challenged myself to make a print every day and realized it couldn't just be anime girls from danbooru so that program was hungry for images and dragged me kicking and screaming into photography
https://www.behance.net/gallery/232344867/Life-is-Better-Wit...
and as much as people like to bitch about the ink mafia, the performance of digital inkjet printing for the price is off the chart, my materials cost for 13x19 prints is well under $2 a page.
I shoot more film today than digital. I like the process more. The shots cost real $, so I'm more thoughtful about what I capture. The cameras[1] are mechanical art and feel good to use. I look forward to the delayed satisfaction due to off-site processing. The results might not be "pixel perfect" but photography rarely is... I prefer the slightly less perfect aesthetic - the grain, the slight miss on color, etc.
But, I also shoot Polaroid, so I might just be a hipster who lacks self-awareness. ;)
1 - Olympus 35DC, Olympus 35RD, and Canon Demi EE-17 for film. Olympus E-M5 and Pen E-P5 for mirrorless. Polaroid Go for instant.
As a GenXer who lived through the transition, and worked a photo-processing job for a couple of years, I disagree. There were plenty of people taking meaningful—though perhaps not artistic—photos with point and shoot and even disposable cameras.
Regular people taking photos of birthdays, weddings, funerals, baptisms, vacations, retirements, etc. I processed and colour corrected tens of thousands of photos and the majority of them had people smiling, laughing, crying, etc, and were put in photobooks: some to never to be seen again, or perhaps looked when someone died when memories for a photo slideshow were desired.
Can I ask what camera you use?
> Got a lot of great photos this time because I put to use what I learned shooting basketball.
I suppose you mean "action photos"? Any (informal, quick and dirty) tips? Especially for photos to be taken with phones or cheap cameras? Or is it hopeless?
I grew up shooting 35mm film and my first digital cameras were a shock with their significant shutter lag. To some extent I can "learn" the lag for a given camera and compensate somewhat for things that move regularly. For irregular motion (like sports) shutter lag is maddening.
Re: hopeless - I supposed you could use multi-shot burst on laggy cameras and pull the trigger early.
With 6k and higher res video the line between video and photography is blurring and with RAW codecs you can just capture scenes in video and pic out what frames you like.
The best purchase I made for indoor sports photography was DxO photolab which has a denoiser that means photos shot at ISO 6400 look perfect and can even make decent shots at 50000+ ISO
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/114961647210448472
With basketball and a lot of sports there is the problem that if you follow the ball you get a lot of shots of people’s rear ends because that is how the geometry works so you have to fight that and look for the opportunities where things open up and you get a good ‘portrait’ and if you do that the action and story shots will happen. Headers in soccer are a special case, you realize people in sports are trained to do things a certain way so you know if the ball gets kicked high towards certain players they will try a header so you shoot a burst. For baseball you camp at a spot where you can see home plate and third base so you can show what is at stake, get the runner making a score, etc.
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/114849463914827733
I started out with a Sony alpha 7ii which was deeply discounted, when it broke and I wanted to stay in the game I got a 7iv and sent out the 7ii out for repair, now I have a monster backpack and often go out with two cameras
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/114866409940645564
But since the lid blew off in Gaza we have a clear bag policy at my Uni so I take just one camera to games. For indoor sports my weapon of choice is this lens
https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/lenses/all-e-mount/p/se...
but my favorite lens for walking about and outdoor events where I can get close is
https://tamron-americas.com/product/28-200mm-f-2-8-5-6-di-ii...
which I use for things like
https://www.yogile.com/trackapalooza-2025#12s
because the optical quality is great for a lens so versatile.
If you're undisciplined and only delete the obviously bad ones, and end up with 1800 photos that you think you'll look through at some point, well then you have a pile of junk you're never going to look at again.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/232159469/Skunk-Cabbage-Run-...
mainly camped at the finish line. I went to a double-header basketball game of men and women Aug 31 and finally got around to developing it last week and got maybe 400 images that I processed with DxO, that is part of a program of building up a stock of images so I can always be posting them to social media. All of those are "good enough" but yeah the best 40 or best 4 of those are better. If I was selling pictures to the local paper I'd be selling 1 to 3 per game. My secret weapon for going through huge numbers of photos is an XBOX controller and
https://keysticks.net/
so I can push a couch up near the computer and sit back and grade photos quickly. I hear some pros shoot 10,000 images at soccer games. I regularly spend more time processing images from an event than I spend at the event.
I suffer from this when taking photographs of my daughter. I suppose every parent does. And the end result IS that I end up with a pile of photos I'll never look at again.
"I should delete 99% of these photos I took from her birthday. But she looks so cute in this one! Oh, and this one! Which is a minor variation of the other one. But I could never delete it."
I'm much more inclined to delete redundant photos of nature, landscapes, etc, but then again -- since they are static -- I also tend to take fewer of those to begin with!
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44876283
AIUI, the money they are taking out is 'surplus'. All current obligations will be handed off to either an insurance company / annuity or lump sum. Future retirement funds will probably be in personal 401(k)s.
They don’t predict the future, but they are a very serious indicator that should not be ignored
Incidentally pharmaceutical manufacturing and some of the other industries they're in are still very good industries to be in. So they could still pull through.
But the company remains in a precarious position.
http://valustox.com/KODK
It does reek of market manipulation.
Edit: the short volume on 2025-08-12 was ten times that of 2025-08-11: https://fintel.io/ssv/us/kodk
So that happened the same day the news articles went public, when the SEC filing was published already on the 11th.
Someone might be looking to buy the company.
If a business shuts down, the assets on its book have to be written down to what you could get in a quick sale, their liquidation value, minus the costs of closing shop. And of course, once you’re closed, there’s no more income.
The standard assumption for bookkeeping is that the business will keep operating. This is the "going concern" assumption, and it lets you value the assets as part of the ongoing business. Switching from "going concern" to liquidation accounting drops the book value, maybe a lot.
If there's debt coming due in the near future that the business can't repay, the survival of the business is in question. An accountant would then have to issue a "going concern" warning. That is, however, not a prediction of doom.
Here's Kodak's Q10 form, with the "going concern" note on page 8: https://investor.kodak.com/static-files/17a780a0-cd47-4128-8...
Looks like they have some debt coming due, but expect to get a cash boost from terminating their pension plan (after meeting all their obligations). So the company plans to continue their business, and is confident that they will.
But that is technically predicated on certain conditions (being able to roll over some debt, getting that cash as anticipated) that's not entirely under Kodak's control, and so there is that going concern warning: we think it'll be fine, but we still have to tell you.
Apparently that was misunderstood as a prediction of bankruptcy or intention to close shop.
Kodak says it might have to cease operations
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44875270
And btw, what's the new remjet-less film? I'm not up to date lately...
https://mimundoensuper-8.blogspot.com/2025/06/kodak-removes-...
> As of the date of issuance of these financial statements, Kodak has debt coming due within twelve months and does not have committed financing or available liquidity to meet such debt obligations if they were to become due in accordance with their current terms. These conditions raise substantial doubt about Kodak’s ability to continue as a going concern.
I'm not sure using more modern language would have cleared up any confusion here. "These conditions raise substantial doubt about Kodak’s ability to continue operations" is no less scary.
The "confusion" (according to Kodak) arises from the fact that the accountants did not consider (or considered and then discounted) the fact that Kodak apparently intends to put in place financing to help it repay or roll over its debts before they fall due. I'm not an accountant but I'm sure there are many rules around what they can and cannot consider before including such a statement.
Clearly, reporting that Kodak is about to go bankrupt simply based on that statement is jumping the gun. But I'm not sure there is anything particularly wrong with the statement itself. It seems to me like a credit crunch or even a spike in interest rates could derail Kodak's refinancing plans and what would happen then?
Well, from the statement itself, such financing would need to be committed, which likely they haven't done. This might be strategic, if it allows them to wind down their pension obligations and harvest the surplus investments.
It's not "really easy". This is a technical term used the world over to convey a very specific meaning. Bankruptcy laws define and use the term. Contracts define and use the term, etc, etc.
Jargon arises out of need and is carried on because it becomes embedded in the scaffolding of a discipline. It's not about feeling special as part of the in group or something like that.