Kodak was so poorly managed in the 1980s and 1990s. They used the archaic territory method of product distribution to protect their sales reps and distribution chain. Cases of sheet film purchased in Detroit first had to be shipped to Chicago, then to Detroit -- drop shipments from Rochester were prohibited. In the mid 90's they required camera stores to purchase a minimum of 5 DCS460 cameras if the store wanted to sell any. Each camera sold on the street for $28,000 so most local stores could only watch as catalog studios who needed one body would buy from B&H or Calumet.
In Detroit during the 1980's there were color separation houses that would scan only Kodak films (no Fuji, no Agfa) in a show of solidarity, and with complete disregard for what the client or the market was doing. It was a weird time.
Photographing surfers around SoCal in the early 80's the film du jour was Kodachrome 64. When I and a few others began using Fuji 50D the photo editors at Surfer mag thought we were using a specialized filter because the colors were so different. The benefit of shooting Fuji 50D with E-6 processing and getting its wonderful colors meant we never looked back. Kodak's marketing would go on to say they had "realistic color", and eventually Fuji came out with Astia, which I thought was a wonderful film when people were the main subject matter.
