If film doesn't become cheap then nothing else will matter and it will die

<p>I love film. Digital is cool but film is the more beautiful medium to work with. It makes photography - both still and motion - that much more wonderful. And I want it to remain a strong choice long into the future.</p>

<p>But for that to happen, it needs to be so cheap that people don't have to think about it. I'm thinking about less than half of what it costs now. You can list all the advantages that film has, both technical and aesthetic, but none of that is going to ensure success in the marketplace unless cost is kept under control.</p>

<p>Not long ago, Daniel Bayer started <a href="../film-and-processing-forum/00acNR">a thread</a> asking for ideas on how to get film back in the market as a strong contender. And it seems that thanks to his connections, some of our ideas will be heard by decision makers at Kodak. But none of that is going to be worth anything if potential customers get sticker shock when they see just how expensive film is in some markets.</p>

<p>The funny thing is that in film and TV, using film can actually be the superior option and the cheapest one as well (DIT carts, the movie equivalent of carrying a laptop with you, can cost over $1,000 per day). But the fact that you can buy outright a compact, 4K digital movie camera for as little as $10,000 (the RED Scarlet) speaks volumes.</p>

<p>I'd like to see more film productions use film as the budget option instead of those awful DSLRs. I want crews to say, "Wow, look at what magic can be created with this cheap, simple, coated piece of tape."</p>

<p>Perhaps the answer is to replace silver with something cheap. It should have happened long ago, and it's possibly too late. I'm aware of a substance called an aniline dye, which AFAIK is used in microfilm, but if it were practical then why is it not in use today?</p>

<p>I can see myself using film in the long run. But I can also see myself giving it up, albeit with much regret.</p>

<p>In 2009 I started to experiment with Digital using the Nikon L110 my first digital camera. Before that all I used was film. As a matter of fact in 2010 I was in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park during the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad's steam in the valley photographing a steam train traveling across one of then many bridges in the valley and another photographer with a 5D said you are shooting with film? I said sir, I love that 5D you have but as much as Digital has advanced film rules. He laughed and said you're right. That hasn't stop DSLR's from getting better and even though film is awesome, I got this feeling companies like Kodak really just don't care and want it all to be digital. I don't think we are ever going to be lucky enough to get back to where film was from lets say 2006 and back to the beginning. A shame really, I still shoot film all the time, and I also use my Canon 60D all the time too.</p>

<p>You would have thought companies such as Kodak that once ruled the world of Photography with Film would have thought about how to keep it going right along with digital. I guess they have been blind sided just like the majority of the world that digital is so much better than film. Really? I don't agree with that, and there are a bunch of photographers on Photo.net that still love film like I do, but there are a whole bunch more falling in love with digital at the same time. I'll miss film when it is totally gone, but I just have a good feeling it's going to go down with a long drawn out fight in the end.</p>

<p>Digital mimics film and not the other way around.</p>

<p>See, now for those of us in New Zealand and Australia, you lot in the US have such unbelievably cheap film now it makes my brain hurt seeing people complain about the price! We pay almost US$30 for a roll of 35mm Velvia, don't you tell me film is expensive in the USA!</p>

<p>Or another way to say it is... I wish I could buy film half as cheap as you can!</p>

<p>Actually, in the USA film is cheap considering the lesser use of it. We have several places in the USA to get it in 100' (30.48 Meters) and larger quantities. As cheap as $1.53 a roll in some cases. I am definitely not complaining about how much a roll of film costs in the USA.</p>

"But for that to happen, it needs to be so cheap that people don't have to think about it. I'm thinking about less than half of what it costs now. "

 

Brilliant. Film can only survive if it's so cheap that manufacturers lose money producing it.

 

"Perhaps the answer is to replace silver with something cheap. It should have happened long ago, and it's possibly too late."

 

Film manufacturers have done a lot to minimize the amount of silver needed in film. Believe it or not, the people who make film actually put a lot of effort into minimizing their costs. If there were a cheap replacement for silver, they'd be happy to use it.

<p>I think film could be free and it would make no difference. IMHO, what killed (is killing) film is poor processing. Too many c-41 ra-4 mini labs are run by people who do not care about the quality product they produce. People used to paying for mediocre prints are now able to get chrome like colors and contrast on their cellphone pics without waiting. They don't need the print, but if they want it Walgreens is just .29 cents away. Archival longevity is not an issue for them. What they get now is better for them than what they used to get with film.<br>

Personally, a well made print from properly exposed and developed Ektar or Portra is what I prefer, but getting the printing done reliably well is a constant challenge.</p>

<p>Karim, are you sure it is only the price per roll (plus development) that keeps people from using film more?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"...what killed (is killing) film is poor processing."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Poor processing followed the declining use of film, not the other way around. Up until the mid-2000s most minilabs I tried could still turn out good results, even though film use was declining. At the time minilabs hoped to make up the deficit by using those Fuji Frontiers for making prints from digital files.</p>

<p>The reason film use declined is because most people who take pictures are photographers, not "film users". Same reason glass plates declined - because most people who took pictures were photographers, not "glass plate users". For people who are more interested in results than materials, today's digital is the 100-shot preloaded Kodak of the 1890s.</p>

<p>Film won't die, it'll just become an increasingly expensive boutique item for specialists, dilettantes and hipsters. Eventually hazmat restrictions will discourage all but the most devoted fans. But it will persevere if only because there will always be a few people who love the process and materials as much as the end results.</p>

<p>Lex Jenkins: Summed it up and said it very well.</p>

<p>I see it the same way as Lex in terms of history and sequencing of events.</p>

<p>Most of the "let's save film" efforts, unfortunately, amount to not much more than trying to save a terminal cancer patient by giving them a multi-vitamin.</p>

<p>The way I see it, both Kodak and Fuji are headed the opposite way, pricewise. If you'll notice, Reala, Superia 100, and Kodak 100 Gold in 35mm have been discontinued. Why? They were cheap, but gave remarkably good results. None of them made enough money. So Kodak axed theirs shortly after Fuji got rid of theirs, leaving Ektar 100 as the only available ASA 100 color print film still in production. At $5+ a roll, it's twice as expensive as Kodak's 100 Gold. And if you want less saturated color there are the ASA 160 films from both - and none of them are cheap.</p>

<p>I'm stocked up, so all I need are the chemicals, but really, the future on price looks bleak.</p>

<p>I agree with Mike Dixon. Cheaper film will hasten its departure not prolong it. Cheaper film might mean that you'd like to buy more, but that isn't the same as saying that there would be more for you to buy. If you want to preserve film, and the existence/quality of the processing industry, use more at prices at which the industry (maker. retailer, processor) can earn a satisfactory profit. </p>

<p>Reducing prices to sell more would only work if the actual factory gate cost was only a small fraction of how much Kodak/Fuji etc sell it for. Given short run premiums and the cost of stockholding and out of date product if you produce in efficient quantities, that isn't remotely likely, and all you'd be doing is feeding the hawks in the film manufacturer businesses with ammunition to campaign harder for earlier discontinuation.</p>

<p>Anyway its too late- the vast majority of people have digital cameras and have long been used to "film and processing" costs of zero. Its going to take a lot to persuade them in volume to start volunteering for all those costs again, not to mention handing over control of your pics to a processor that quite often doesn't give a ****. And then you've got to scan them so the total cost goes up even more. </p>

<p>I live in the capital city of India. A 135-36 roll of C-41 film can be had for $2 or less. The catch is that there are now far fewer labs which handle film than there were even five years ago. They would process your film and give you prints in a couple of hours: but they get so few rolls now that they do batches only every second or third day. Finally, the more experienced workers have moved to the digital world, so quality has gone down. I have for some while been thinking of digital alternatives to my film kit (I already have a couple of digital SLRs and want something closer to a range-finder Leica).</p>

<p>Film, and the cameras to shoot it, have become a completely different product than they were 20 years ago. Physically they are the same. But psychologically they have transformed into something completely different.</p>

<p>For most of the planet, film has become a buggy whip or an 8-track tape. Most folks have moved on, and often for good reason. When your needs are simple, new technology offers real advantages. When my friends pull their cell phone out in a concert and take a snapshot of the singer on stage, and then upload it to Facebook, there is NO WAY they will ever choose film again. It does not give them what they want.</p>

<p>I love film, and I love classic cameras. I believe in film as an artistic medium. I enjoy the results when I shoot film, and I enjoy the process (which is different depending on whether I shoot 4x5 or 120 or 35mm.) This is a separate thing. It's a kind of experience that has always existed within photography. But it is the ONLY experience that remains viable for film photography. Film will survive as a fine art medium. We who choose to use film will pay fine art prices for film. Do painters complain about the cost of acylics or oil paint?</p>

Patrick, I tend to believe the average snapshooter would prefer 400 speed film anyway so there goes your market for 100

speed film regardless of how good or bad it is, what is left are advanced amateurs who like Ektar for what it is.

 

The same snapshooters who like 400 speed film would be the same sort of people who nowadays buy cameras with the

most megapixels but the biggest they print is 6x4 or post online small sized

<p>I'm going to also disagree with this notion, film is not going to get cheaper, it and related items like paper and chemistry are going to continue to go up. And it is also not going to "die" because of this. You have to look at Ilford, they have their model down, they increase price on an expected scale and their sales and profits are steady...they are committed to both film and the film user and they communicate very effectively about all of this. All of these materials could double in price and I will still use it. I know not everyone is in this position, but just because many will not be able to afford film, it does not mean it will die, it will just continue to be where it is at now, niche.<br /> <br /> Kodak just signed a contract with several motion picture studios to supply them with motion stock through 2015. They have a realistic expectation of how the transfer of the motion picture industry's use of film to digital will go. After that, it is anyone's guess. This is one of the reasons I shoot color film at a ratio of around 1+300 compared to black and white, material viability and the fact that I now own not less than 20 years worth of everything I need to shoot and print black and white photographs....it cost me about 30K to do that over the past 5 years, I can not imagine what it might cost 10 years from now.<br /> <br /> So you can either spend your time speculating or time shooting, personally I think the former is a total waste of time. In terms of the thread I started in marketing film, all of that is being overshadowed by Ekfe nixing their paper line, Hydroquinone more than quadrupling in price and Kodak's holding off on finalizing the purchase of their patent portfolio. So film is still very much at war with the new disposable freeconomy, buy it, use it, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst....that is all we can do at this point and it is not going to get cheaper...</p>

<p>"A 135-36 roll of C-41 film can be had for $2 or less." In the US we can still get cheap Kodak C-41 too. The only problem is that with he cancellation of the affordable Kodak Gold line (I'm assuming that it has all been cancelled since it no longer exists on the US Kodak web site), they appear to be dumping Kodak ColorPlus 200 on the market... it's ablout 2 dollars but it is much lower quality than Gold or any other modern Kodak film.</p>

<p>I think some of it is time-dependent too. Not to sound TOO morose but most of the film guys are oldtimers (I just turned 50 myself) and as they drop off, I don't see a huge upswell in digital photographers clamoring to replace them as film users. In 100 years what will the landscape be? Will neural implants make photography obsolete? Maybe then, the oldtimers will be the digital photographers who think using a CAMERA is cool and artsy, instead of visually locking something into memory.</p>

<p>Shoot film until it goes away, if it does, and if not, shoot film 'til you die. Either way you shoot film as long as possible. That ain't bad.</p>

<p>I knew someone who worked at Kodak on silver alternatives during the Hunt brothers run on the silver market. The best they had was aluminum emulsions, at speeds approaching ASA 2. Which is a lot faster than aniline dye processes.</p>

<p>Silver is it. Do you have any idea how cheap film is, compared to when I learned? In 1979, at the worst of the Hunt days, silver hit $22/ounce. That's $70/ounce, adjusted to 2012. People say the metals market is crazy right now, but silver is only $29/oz. And modern films use less silver.</p>

<p>Cost is not the issue. 99.9% of people are smart enough to realize that time really is money, and even if you got film and processing free, it would be killed by the turnaround time on film, and the need to send it out, drop it off, or have a small chemistry lab in your home. You'll finish film off for sure if you emphasize cost. You want to get people interested, emphasize some real differences. I'd start with...</p>

<ul>

<li>The resolution, dynamic range, and tonality of fine-grain B&W</li>

<li>The versatility of the 4x5 view camera. Biggest problem in view camera land is that the internet presence of the major makers is essentially nonexistent, especially at the entry level.</li>

</ul>

<p>I'm sure there's other justifications to build on.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Shoot film until it goes away, if it does, and if not, shoot film 'til you die. Either way you shoot film as long as possible. That ain't bad.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>After the recent Fuji announcement that Velvia 100F was getting nixed, and Velvia 50 in large format, I thought, forget it, I'm going to quit film entirely. I used little 100F and no large format, but I was tired of worrying about my staple 35mm Velvia 50 getting canceled any day. Then I got over 25 rolls of gorgeous Velvia slides back from a recent trip and thought, forget it, I'll switch to digital when I have to, and I'll learn to like it, but why not use what I like as long as I can?<br>

I also agree that here in the US we don't have much to complain about. I'm not sure that a roll of E-6 and mail-order processing have gone up much more than inflation since I started in 1990. Has anybody worked out that particular statistic?</p>

<p>Film seems pretty cheap to me. I can shoot and process a roll for $3.00. </p>

<p>Here is a film photography podcast just about film. <a href="http://filmphotographyproject.com/">http://filmphotographyproject.com/</a></p>

<p>I always suggested on someone making a hybrid camera that shoots film and digital to keep everyone happy.</p>

<p>We wouldn't be talking about this if digital capture could produced the same quality, rich, tonal look of film.</p>

 

 

<blockquote>

<p>We wouldn't be talking about this if digital capture could produce the same quality, rich, tonal look of film.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Please, this isn't a "digital vs. film" thread. That battle is all over but the shouting.</p>

<p>Lex, Daniel and Joseph have said it best. Film will never go completely away, but it's going to be a niche product. How to best market that? I wish I knew.</p>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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<p>Really!</p>