Rochester, N.Y. (AP) -- Eastman Kodak Co. said Thursday it lost money for a fourth straight quarter and missed Wall Street expectations as the economic downturn weighed heavily on sales of digital cameras, film and commercial printers.

The photography-products maker in the third quarter recorded a loss of $111 million, or 41 cents a share, compared with a profit of $101 million, or 35 cents a share, last year.

Sales tumbled 26 percent to $1.78 billion from $2.41 billion, missing analysts' forecast of $1.89 billion.

Financial analyst George Conboy of Brighton Securities finds the 26% decline in sales especially troubling. He says that while he’s optimistic holiday sales in the fourth quarter will help the company, he is nervous that it won’t be enough.

“Everyone knows that film is slowly evaporating over time, but in their consumer digital business... sales were down 35%,” Conboy said. “Sales to the printing industry were down 18%. Those are pretty scary numbers.”  

“When I look at this release, I really think they should have released these numbers on Saturday. Perfect for Halloween. Very, very scary,” Conboy said.

The most-recent quarter included charges and gains of $48 million, or 18 cents a share, mainly related to restructuring, asset sales and taxes. Excluding these items, Kodak lost $63 million, or 23 cents a share. On that basis, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a loss of 19 cents per share.

Revenue from digital businesses plunged 26 percent to $1.21 billion and traditional film-based revenue fell 25 percent to $572 million.

For the full year, Kodak now expects its total revenue decline rate to be at the high end of a previously forecasted range of 12 percent to 18 percent. That is due in part to results so far this year and the company's increased focus on cash and earnings, it said.

Kodak has drastically cut costs as it undergoes a costly transition from film to digital-imaging products.

Switching the bulk of its business to electronic technologies cost Kodak $3.4 billion from 2004 through 2007, when it pared its global payroll from 64,000 to 26,900.

It is shedding 3,500 to 4,500 jobs this year as the recession erodes sales of digital cameras, film, commercial printers and other products and services. Its work force will shrink to around 20,000 from a 1988 peak of 145,300.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.