Negative News That isn’t Pushing It

Every day in the 21st century when a new or re-engineered photographic film is announced is a good day. Today is one of those days with Kodak announcing the un-discontinuation of P3200 TMAX — the last great high-speed black and white film (put down your pitchforks, I’ve just never liked Ilford Delta 3200). 

I never really shot much 3200 back in the day, preferring instead to push TMAX 400 and others to 1600 on the few occasions I went out shooting in low light with fillum. In fact, I couldn’t find any of my TMAX 3200 shots to accompany this piece, as I discovered the two rolls I’ve shot, I haven’t scanned! 

Oh well. 

Regardless, a new/re-engineered film from a reliable commercial supplier (no one-off Kickstarter ‘we have to rebuild the entire coating plant and this could take anywhere between two months to two decades, but I’ll take your money now anyways’ crap) is good news. I’ll be the first to buy a few rolls, go out in the dark of the night and get snapping. 

Although the Kodak social media accounts have been teasing this release for a few days now (hint: all the numbers in the above image add up to 3200), the information available on the Kodak Alaris website at launch is delightfully amateurish, with a .docx FAQ (written by Thomas J Mooney, according to the document’s metadata, and created on 14 February — what a Valentine’s Day pressie!) and little other information.

Kodak P3200 TMAX (TMZ) will be available from March 2018 in 35mm. Hooray!