After a rough battle for nearly the past decade with declining marketshare, Eastman Kodak has today filed in the US for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Founded back in 1892, Kodak is one of those companies that really needs no introduction, it’s such a household name. Among many products and services, Kodak has been perhaps the most successful manufacturer of photographic films, with such popular lines as Ektar, Portra, T-max, and Kodachrome (which even got a song). Their films were so popular that to this day particularly sentimental moments are still called “Kodak moments.”
Also of particular note, both to our current field and to Kodak’s own filing, in 1975 Kodak’s research labs created the first digital camera, with a 100x100pixel sensor, and in the 1990′s Kodak produced the first commercially available digital camera bodies by retrofitting existing Nikon and Canon ones. The modern photographic landscape owes so much to work from Kodak that it’s hard to even comprehend. Even the Bayer filter, the common means of interweaving red, greed, and blue pixels on a sensor to create accurate colors, is due to Kodak.
Those interested can read the surprisingly hopeful press release after the jump, for further details on how this will affect Kodak’s operations.
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