Finding Film for Vintage Cameras: Let the Hoarding Begin

[john_robison3]

<p>"Currently in my loaders......" Thanks Mike, I'm trying to convince the missus I NEED more than two bulk loaders. Now I can show her this thread and say, 'See, other photographers have MANY bulk loaders, and I only have two. So I'm not crazy after all.'</p>

[BrianS1664879711]

Why go to Walmart for deer urine when you can make it yourself:

 

 

http://www.deer-library.com/artman/publish/article_82.shtml

[joseph_c._ohlsen]

<p>Shoot, now you got me worried there is going to be a deer urine shortage. Any advice on how to store that so the stockpiling can begin? </p>

[marc_rochkind]

The way I see it, we're going to have 135 (35mm) and 120 for a very long time, and APS for maybe not quite as long. I predict that APS will go first. Then 120 will disappear from all but retailers that sell to pros. 35mm will be with us the longest.

 

35mm will be harder and harder to get in 10 years, and in 20 years it will be all but gone.

 

As a few here observed, what matters is how much of the stuff is being bought. When that number drops below some threshold, manufacturers (not being charities or museums) drop the format. One has only to look at the age of photographers who shoot film. As the bigger part of the curve creeps upward to 60, 70, 80 and beyond, one can see what's going to happen.

 

Yes, one hears stories about young people who are going back to film. Probably hundreds, if not thousands, of these converts switch every year. But, alas, it isn't millions, let alone tens of millions.

 

Right now, I have cameras that take 127 (nearly, but not quite, gone), 620 (long gone, but one can improvise with 120), Polaroid Type 44 (one box left, but it expired in 1963), and 116 (long, long gone).

 

I agree with the OP that the clock is ticking, and I agree with everyone else who said that what Walmart carries is no indication of anything. When B&H stops carrying a film, we should start worrying.

 

(Actually, what I really want is not film for these cameras, but a film-sized digital sensor that I can slip onto the film guides, even it there are wires sticking out to connect to the external electronics. Not sure I'll ever see anything like that.)

 

--Marc

[marc_batters]

<p>The OP's original statement; "Finding film for vintage cameras"</p>

<p>I don't consider any film "vintage" (or at least the format), when new cameras using that same format are still being manufactured new today, ie 35mm, 120/220, and sheet film.</p>

<p>I believe 35mm will live for many decades to come because there are just way to many cameras out there still being used, and also because of 35mm origins; the movie industry. The emulsions available for 220 may only last a few more years, but 120 and sheet film will last another 20 years, easy. Availability, or choice of emulsions will narrow, leaving us with only the most popular emulsions remaining.</p>

<p>As has been said many times; if you don't use it, you'll lose it. So go out and shoot. I don't own a Holga, but I love the people that do, because they are shooting MF, and that helps to keep the usage of MF alive. I am in my 50's now, and I have no worries that film will out-live me.</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Here I have never been to a Walmart yet that still does not carry 35mm color print film. I suspect that it is still there; but harder to find. At several Walmarts I have seen where they dropped all Kodak films; ie the Yellow box stuff; but have the racks now all Fuji. There can be a day where the merchandising racks were being redone and the films were gone while the "redoing" of the layout. I was in a Walmart in Hutchinson Minn and Ames Iowa earlier this year and both had Film. </p>

[jim_eckberg]

<p>Look, brothers and sisters, we all love film-based photography. It is our preference, our passion. As much as we'd like it all to go on forever, nothing does. Nothing. My dad loved his vacuum tube radio and his Dictaphone. His dad rode a horse to work. Change is hard, change is good.</p>

<p>You and I are discussing whether or not film will continue to be available by using computers to post comments on an internet forum and not by tapping away on ribbon typewriters to send letters via mail to a magazine editor. When you show us recent photos taken with your vintage film camera, you convert the negs/prints to a digital format in order to share them. And in ten years, the digital imaging technology we use today will be replaced by something even newer and better.</p>

<p>Who would continue to spend $10-15 each time they wanted to shoot a couple dozen pictures and then have to drop that film off to have it processed, when you can buy a single, cheap SD card and rattle-off 300+ photos, see the results right away and then use the same card over and over?</p>

<p><strong>Well, most of us on this forum, for one. </strong></p>

<p>But although you and I can come up with many good reasons and strategies to justify the use of film in our lives, hundreds of millions of our fellow beings can not. Forget for a moment about the places where you can and can not buy film now. Forget Wal-Mart. As we all pass through the anger and denial phases of grieving about the demise of film, you must agree that film will probably not be made in anywhere near the production amounts nor the variety of types that were available only a few years ago.</p>

<p>That's my challenge. I want to keep buying film but find fewer places to do so. Without question, there is plenty of cheap film still around here and there. Stores are shedding inventories as demand falls. How many times have you passed by film in a store's close-out bin in the last few months? You know in your heart that local shops will not be ordering large new supplies of color negative film, no one wants enough of it to make it profitable. As new film stocks become more scarce (as they are now), the price where it is still available will probably rise, and the variety will suffer. That will include niche retailers like Freestyle and B&H. I'd like to be ahead of the curve and secure some examples of film that will surely not survive much longer (each of us has our own different idea of what might comprise that list).</p>

<p>I'm there with ya'll. Shooting photos with an "experienced" manual film camera is a satisfying, engaging activity for me. Always has been. I want to continue to do so before it becomes absurdly expensive or downright inconvenient to do. With what I see going on with local film supplies, I sense the trend toward that eventuality arriving much sooner than later. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm betting I'm right.</p>

 

[john_hudnall]

<p>Sorry, I'm a little late to this party.</p>

<p>I'd just like to chime in that in all reality when manufacturers stop making a particular consumable, someone or some organization normally finds the gumption to either continue that line or develop a replacement.<br>

(Assuming folks are still using whatever equipment which needs said consumable.)</p>

<p>1. Kodak stops production of AZO paper; Michael and Paula develop Lodima Fine Art Paper.<br>

2. Polaroid implodes; the Impossible Project (nice name!) purchases the factory and attempts to start anew.<br>

3. Adox dies (a long time ago); Efke brings the formula back, and now it's Adox again.<br>

4. Various developers and whatnot get new formulations; various other companies bring about these old formulas in new guises.</p>

<p>I could think of a few more but I think this list is most relevant to the discussion. While it might get more difficult to procure our materials of the black arts, I think it is prudent to believe in 2010 that none of us will see the end of film photography in our lifetimes. There are millions upon millions of 35mm cameras out there, many of them still operational. There are at least a million or two 120 cameras out there still functioning. There are die-hard large format users out there still plugging away with those breath-takingly gorgeous negatives. As long as we continue to shoot film, someone somewhere will either want to sell us something...or one (or many) of us will take the challenge and make our own damn film.</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Look at manual drafting.</p>

<p>It has a following but it tends to be an older crowd; that are often not computer savy.</p>

<p>The price of raw vellum has doubled in the last 3 years. Some of the new stuff does not erase as well. Thus I have to find pockets of the old stuff and buy up a lifetimes supply for clients usage. </p>

<p>If you like #74 PINK electric eraser strips; they were discontinued 2 years ago. Two months ago one place had 50 boxes; I bought 18 for my customers. The stuff rots with time and gets hard. Old customers do not like the white vinyl electric eraser strips; they do not work as well.</p>

<p>If you want to have a repro shop make an eraseable vellum to alter a house plan; it is not made any more. The new stuff barely erases. Thus a major redo requires white out and a vellum; since the materials are all gone.</p>

<p>Manual drafting will be around a long time; its hardcore users are many times at retirement ages today. The stuff they used their entire carriers like dumb Vellum and Pink electric eraser strips were around before WW2; before they were born; but today one has a flakey supply and discontinued pink eraser strips. </p>

<p>A new person to film or manual drafting faces a declining supply of "stuff" that many of us took for granted for decades; it is far easier to go digital with CAD or a digital camera for a newcomer</p>

[don_essedi]

<p>It would be irresponsible for Kodak to make the volume and variety of film they did 25 years ago; shareholders would have a fit and hire lawyers. Kodak's 'economy of scale' went from asset to liability. Maintenance and repair alone would be an issue. But three entreprenuers in a coffee shop in Crete might see another economy of scale that returns a profit. Profit isn't the only motive for manufacturing. Do the smaller digital camera makers make a proft, like say Ricoh, on their camera sales? I don't know. What about Cosina? Until they manufactured poor man Leica bodies and lenses, what was Cosina's rep to you? I doubt there's any profit; whether or not, I doubt it flags itself on the company's balance sheet, and the decision-maker has an amortized plant and can make good quality film cameras and lenses that sell at a low-price point. So, he makes a decision because he can and because he wants to.</p>

<p>One day digital will be replaced by something else. I imagine that will occur when the market is saturated (as digital was brought into the market when Japan Camera, Inc realized their slr market was saturated in the late 80s, and so they plugged a digital sensor in slr film bodies). I think film will still be around after digital is superceded.</p>