How much would you want to pay for a roll of film?

<p>Hi!<br />The planned sell of Kodak Film makes me wonder: How much would you be wanting to pay for a roll of film, before you decide to stop using it?<br>

I have a Mamiya C330, Mamiya 7, Mamiya RB, Hasselblad Xpan, Fuji GX617. I use various black and white films, Fuji Velvia and Kodak Ektar.<br />Manufacturers will have to make a profit to keep on making film. Since film use declines, it's logical it gets more expensive.<br />I guess everyone has his breaking point. I wouldn't mind paying $ 15 for a roll, I'll just get more selective, but $30? or $100? There is no price on art. So far, my biggest cost goes into printing.<br />Dirk.</p><div></div>

<p>I guess I just don't know. I suppose it would in part depend on who is selling it. Right now I am fine with paying current prices from Kodak. I have no idea what will become of Kodak film so we just have to wait and see.</p>

<p>It would be interested to find out how much the hipster Holga users would pay. Film could be kept going for a lot longer of the Instagram kids could be initiated into shooting real films through rubbish cameras rather than through an iPhone app.</p>

<p>It would be nice if it were cheap enough so that we didn't have to think about it. But just as importantly, film should be sold as a package. When the film is exposed, you put it in a little box and send it away for processing and scanning. You can access your scans on-line while waiting for the negs to come back. Would $10 a roll be okay for all that? I don't even know if that is a break-even point.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ecn-2.com/">Such a service exists</a>. But I'm not paying $30 per roll, even if Kodak 5219 > Portra 400. The scans there are only 6Mpx anyway.</p>

<p>How much are you willing to pay for a Camera?</p>

<p>$12.99 for a roll of 120. That is how much a roll of Efke Infrared costs that I have been wanting to try for a long time. I wouldn't want to ever pay more than that.</p>

 

 

<blockquote>

<p>How much are you willing to pay for a Camera?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Around $100.00</p>

<p> </p>

 

 

<p>Well, many slide films in roll format are well above $10 a roll, I still shoot them, although much more sparingly than color neg. EIR, before it was discontinued, was about $30-35 a roll; when I was younger, I couldn't justify the cost before it was gone. I don't think we will see $20 a roll general b&w, it is so easy to make (relative to color), and there are enough companies to keep the price down. As for paper, heck, I've coated black and white paper myself, it really isn't that difficult, I'm sure someone could set up decent coating in their garage with sufficent financial backing. As for color, I think I might see the end of either E-6 or C-41 in my lifetime, although probably not for decades. E-6 has the difficulty with printing (now that Ilfochrome is gone), but C-41 requires coating both film and paper, so I don't know which would be harder to sustain. I think color paper will stay around, it is still pretty popular for digital output. IMHO, there is too little market for two different color lines to be sustainable in the very long run.</p>

An 100% increase above the current broad price range (different films of existing brands) would make me feel uncomfortable.

<p>$10 for a roll of 36 exposure 35mm film.</p>

$10 per 120 roll? Hmmm...4 6x17 shots per

roll @ $2.50 per shot would made me think

trice unless It's a paying gig. OTOH a

publication ready preprocessing of a 21

mpixel digital file coats $40 on average (an

hour or so of qualified help.)

The truth is, I'm more worried these days about the processing costs and the convenience of processing rather than the

cost of the film initially. Plus I've been spooked so many times by my favorite films going under that I have a pretty good

cold stock of Tech Pan, HIE, and Velvia and I'm not actually BUYING much film these days (and I'm shooting digital of

course). I would never have done that in the old days, I would have had only the film I needed for the short term future.

 

 

I guess I'd be willing to buy a good slide film for $10-$15 a roll. And a good infrared black and white (like HIE) for about

the same.

<p>Kodak is only selling the junk Consumer films like Gold and the photo kiosks, not their Professional Films division.<br />Film will be around for quite awhile and is affected more by the price of silver.</p>

<p>Dave, Kodak does not make HIE film anymore. You'd have to find it through private sellers, such as ebay. I never liked kodaks generic film anyway. Fuji's every day consumer film is better. It always had punchy colors. One of the photo stores I go to, sometimes has kodak films I never have seen before. Such as kodacolor 200 or the pro image 100.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Kodak is only selling the junk Consumer films like Gold and the photo kiosks, not their Professional Films division. Film will be around for quite awhile and is affected more by the price of silver.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Now that is a great piece of information. I did not know that and in fact I feel much better about it all. </p>

<p>I will keep buying film and chems as long as they are available, since it is my chosen photographic method. Ask me again in 5 and 10 years, you might get a different answer. My film fridge is well stocked, B&W chems are in good supply, with color chems lagging a bit, but with Freestyle picking up an additional source of E-6, I don't think things are too bad yet. Kodak killing 5L E-6 kits really sent me for a loop, but the Tetenal kits are quite good, so once again I'm stocking up!</p>

<p>Kodak Gold is not junk. It is a beautiful color film at an affordable price. You all will beg for film that good in the near future.</p>

<p>Do you think if we lost Kodak Gold that Portra and Ektar would still be around?</p>

<p>Consumer film has always subsidized 'professional' film.</p>

<p>The joke is that 'professionals' don't even use film anymore.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Kodak is only selling the junk Consumer films like Gold and the photo kiosks, not their Professional Films division. Film will be around for quite awhile and is affected more by the price of silver</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Unfortunately, that is not true. With the restructuring of the divisions that they made right around the time of bankruptcy, all still films are lumped into the consumer products division. Motion picture, X-Ray, and aerial films are still in the professional division. The split is much like Agfa's was, although hopefully it will have a different result. </p>

I suppose I would pay $20-$30 a roll and up to $250 per box of 50 sheets of 4x5, reason being is two fold.

 

1. Unlike what Bill thinks, the joke is on him, I am a pro using film and I can write that amount off my taxes.

 

2. Because of the massive investment I have made in film and chemistry in the past few years, my 20 year average per unit

cost is going to still be less than half the amounts I gave above, even as I replenish stock.

 

This is talking in terms of black and white though, the medium with by far the best outlook for long term use.

<p>I expect there will be continued upward pressure on the price of film, but keep in mind that the Chinese are competing in the film manufacturing game now too, and they are making sure their film is readily available on the US market at competitive prices. </p>

<p>Granted I am not a professional and don't appreciate all of the finer points of film that many of you do. I freely admit that. I use only 35mm film, and I buy almost all of it on Ebay. I buy at least 10 rolls a time. I rarely pay more than $3 a roll tops for film that is not expired or is only recently expired. You can buy cheaper than that on Ebay if you're willing to risk using film that is at least a few years expired. I have played that game and lost a couple of times, so I stick with buying stuff that's newer.</p>

<p>I can also drive a few miles to my local Walmart and buy a 4-pack of Fuji 200ISO for $6.84. That's $1.71 a roll, not including tax.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The joke is that 'professionals' don't even use film anymore.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> Well some still use film. </p>

<p>A newly owned Kodak film division will have to compete with other manufacturers such as Ilford and Fujifilm just as it does now. If it tries to raise the price too much it will quickly put itself out of business.</p>

<p>Steve, in my opinion and experience, TMAX 400, Ektar and Portra do not really have that much competition...<br /> <br /> And TMAX 100 in 4x5 at $1.73 a sheet has a much more sturdy base, finer grain than does Ilford Delta 100 which is about $1.05 a sheet, I prefer it over Delta for many things. Fuji Acros 100 in 4x5 is a great film but even more than 4x5 TMX at $1.75 a sheet and only comes in space gobbling 20 sheet boxes.<br /> Ektar and Portra need no explaining, they are very much worth twice the money we are charged and are pretty much the best in their class.</p>

<p>Keep it coming guys, I am sure you can find something else to complain about....</p>

<p>Well ... film costs may seem cheap in the USA. We in New Zealand pay $30US for one roll of slide film (35mm). And processing is around $20US, mounting may be $8US. I don't know how much I am prepared to pay, as now I export it to the USA after importing fresh film from the USA. I may drastically reduce the amount of film I shoot. I might pay $30US per roll of film - not incl processing.</p>

<p>I may then just shoot 2 or 3 rolls of film per decent holiday away from home per year. If I were to go overseas 2x per year maybe 4 or 6 rolls for the year and shoot everything else on digital incl when I am away so taking a film and a digital camera to keep the costs down.</p>

<p>There's no way I'd send my film overseas (though I had to while shooting Super-8 in the '90s). The great thing about TV and movie productions in the USA, particularly in Hollywood, is that the labs and infrastructure around movie film processing are all still there and function as they have for decades. I wish it was the same for still film.</p>