When they no longer make film...

[ZorkiKat]

What film production in China? Last I heard, Lucky was moving entirely out of photosensitive film production following two years of 99% losses and Kodak sold off their stake like a hot rock. Shantou Era is no longer producing, according to my email correspondence with them.

Yes, I know, you can buy Lucky, Shangai, and Shantou Era on eBay. That does not meant they are still manufacturing film; and as far as I know, they're not.

Is that what you believe? Or what you think you know?

Lucky is still in the business of making film. If you've been in China, you'd know. In Beijing you can find it hawked by vendors in Tiananmen Square, alongside those queer sized lithium ion batteries and memory cards in camera shops. It's as common as Kodak there.

The sellers of this film have said that they still get supplies. They're not those eBay sellers who find odd stocks. These are stores which maintain inventories.

Unless you've spoken to Lucky themselves, you can never really say, could you?

Shantou Era is different from Lucky Baoding. Era comes from a much smaller factory. Era has a town-sized manufacturing facility in Baoding.

 

[Carlsen Highway]

I remember all these type of doom ridden arguments about super 8 film when VHS video cameras started selling....yet I can still buy super 8mm film whenever I want to today, and actually, I can get more variety of film types than twenty years ago....

I remember when the home video revolution was going to kill the cinema's... yet today we have more screens than ever before in history.

Radio wasnt killed by television, the uses of radio changed.

Painting didnt die because photography was invented either...the paintings changed....



Advances in technology dont necesaarily automatically mean that mediums of the past are abandoned...just the uses of them change.

35mm may no longer be used for taking photos of babies on the lawn, but it will be around because we want to use it. Us. The film people.

 

[bmattock]

Is that what you believe? Or what you think you know?

Both.

Lucky is still in the business of making film. If you've been in China, you'd know. In Beijing you can find it hawked by vendors in Tiananmen Square, alongside those queer sized lithium ion batteries and memory cards in camera shops. It's as common as Kodak there.

The sellers of this film have said that they still get supplies. They're not those eBay sellers who find odd stocks. These are stores which maintain inventories.

We've been through this before. First, I've posted the link to the news story which reported that Lucky was leaving the photosenstive film business. Second, just like Agfa, there could be huge supplies of old stock in cold storage for sellers to sell - just because they have it, does not mean it is still being manufactured. And finally, I have emailed Lucky at all their known email addresses listed on their English-language website, and they all bounced back after a few days as being undeliverable.

I base my assessment on that.

Unless you've spoken to Lucky themselves, you can never really say, could you?

I've gone as far as I'm interested in going. I'm not going to fly back to China to look in the factory myself so that I can finally prove it to people who refuse to believe it anyway.

Shantou Era is different from Lucky Baoding. Era comes from a much smaller factory. Era has a town-sized manufacturing facility in Baoding.

I'm quite aware of that. As I've said before, I had a business relationship with Shantou Era for a short time. I also have several search agents which scour the news for anything referencing Shantou Era, Lucky, Shanghai, and others, and sends it to me. I try to stay up with what's going on.

 

[wgerrard]

Ilford 35mm film sales have been stable for at least the last year. The Croatian company Fotokemica has increased production.

Is there any evidence that film sales, overall, have actually increased or held steady?

I hope film survives forever. But it seem obvious to me that film will, sooner or later, disappear as a mainstream retail product. That doesn't mean you won't be able to buy it, if artisinal production can work. Regardless of occasional annual bumps up from one quarter or another, though, the long-trend curve points down.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

The only evidence is from public companies that post their quarterly results. And their film businesses have declined by double digits year after year. We have no way of knowing how privately held companies are doing. Clearly, if they don't have to reveal production information, they likely won't.

 

[Keith]

In Fuji's imaging solutions division, the film segment revenues declined 42 percent year over year for the 1st quarter of this fiscal year. Color paper and chemicals lost 27%.

Kodak and Fuji may introduce new products, but their revenues are falling like a rock.

I think you're right and I supect that this is why we've suddenly seen Freestyle selling Legacy Pro and Arista Premium which we all now aknowledge is Fuji and Kodak. In the case of the Legacy Pro, which appears to be Neopan 400, Freestyle have it in 100ft rolls which Fuji themselves discontinued supply of some time ago ... so why the about turn?

 

[Pickett Wilson]

The thing I wonder about Kodak and Freestyle is whether they are actually producing much new film, or are they simply dumping a lot of the existing stock that has lived in those caves for awhile.

 

[Keith]

The thing I wonder about Kodak and Freestyle is whether they are actually producing much new film, or are they simply dumping a lot of the existing stock that has lived in those caves for awhile.

That's sort of what I was eluding to ... Fuji and Kodak may have mountains of this stuff laying around and figure at least this way they can shift some of it!

 

[bmattock]

Is there any evidence that film sales, overall, have actually increased or held steady?

I hope film survives forever. But it seem obvious to me that film will, sooner or later, disappear as a mainstream retail product. That doesn't mean you won't be able to buy it, if artisinal production can work. Regardless of occasional annual bumps up from one quarter or another, though, the long-trend curve points down.

It wasn't that long ago that we had a long-winded discussion on RFF about sales curves and what they mean.

When there are five camera stores in town, and four of them close, the remaining store may well receive a bump up in sales, as any customers who previously went to the four closed stores now go to the remaining store. It would be a mistake to presume that this means camera stores are now coming back. As you say, the general trend is downwards, and temporary bumps do not affect that.

Film manufacturing can be expected to follow a similar path. When Forte closed, Efke might well have gotten a bump. When Agfa closed, it may have meant an increase in sales to Ilford.

CIPA, the Japanese film industry, formally stopped tracking sales of photographic film and film cameras a year or more ago, as the numbers were so insignificant, they had fallen completely off the charts and were no longer worth tracking. 30% year-on-year decreases drop overall totals faster than most people's 401(k) accounts did the last couple years.

In Detroit, we have seen exactly that - all but one remaining camera store is now closed. The remaining store was busy - for awhile. Now they're struggling too. I bought a lens hood there recently, and the sales guy said "Please come back as often as you can; we're on the brink here."

As it happens, I am a film-lover, and I do not want film to go away. I've got hundreds of inexpensive 35mm cameras I've collected over the years, and I enjoy them, but not to sit on shelves - I like to take photographs with them! I am not a pessimist in my life, but I am pessimistic about the longterm survival of film, particularly color print and slide film. That's not a death-wish, it's recognizing reality.

I do agree with those who say 'enjoy it while it lasts'.

 

[shadowfox]

When I cannot afford film anymore, I'll make digital negatives from my digital images and print as usual. 😛

But at every chance I get, I also ask others who are interested in learning photography to consider film. Especially for those who have never done it before (as it was in my case).

 

[Ronald M]

X rays are digital now. Cinema is going. Get with it.

 

[chris000]

Yes, there are a few industrial applications that use film, and will continue using it for a long time. A few examples are: cinema, x-rays, aerial photography, and electron microscopy.

Aerial Photography is almost all digital now. I recently managed a 5 year contract relating to habitat monitoring and we shifted to digital half way through as it was better quality, more flexible in what data we could collect and ultimately cheaper.

As a film user I'm realistic in recognising that the future of film is, at best, precarious. But I live in hope that it will last until I no longer care.

 

[Chris101]

Is there any evidence that film sales, overall, have actually increased or held steady?

I hope film survives forever. But it seem obvious to me that film will, sooner or later, disappear as a mainstream retail product. That doesn't mean you won't be able to buy it, if artisinal production can work. Regardless of occasional annual bumps up from one quarter or another, though, the long-trend curve points down.

My statement was about the two companies I specifically mentioned. Overall, as we all know, film sales is declining. Some of the anti-film people would like to extrapolate the curve to zero as fast as possible.

I certainly agree that film will (or I would argue, already is) a niche product with limited appeal. It takes a lot more manual skill to effectively do photography without electronic assistance. Folks don't really want to do that for "happy snaps" so it will soon be only the artisans who are using film.

Both Ilford and Fotokemica realize this and have structured their manufacturing systems to work with this real world market.

 

[mfunnell]

..heck we dont even have treadmills in our hospitals to stress test peoples hearts, the nurse sends you for a run around the block and up the hill, if you make it back your hearts ok 🙄

And here was me thinkiing the NSW health system was bad!

...Mike

[And I did read your disclaimer, and the NSW health system is as good as can be expected from the NSW government - it's not the health system's fault, but still...]

 

[Chris101]

Aerial Photography is almost all digital now. I recently managed a 5 year contract relating to habitat monitoring and we shifted to digital half way through as it was better quality, more flexible in what data we could collect and ultimately cheaper.

As a film user I'm realistic in recognising that the future of film is, at best, precarious. But I live in hope that it will last until I no longer care.

Scott Keating is an excellent aerial photographer (who also does a bit of land based work) who uses an airplane mounted large format film camera.

I have yet to see anyone capture the beauty he does digitally from the air.

http://pix.aerog.com/

 

[chris000]

I have yet to see anyone capture the beauty he does digitally from the air.

http://pix.aerog.com/

Chris,

sorry, my post was referring to vertical Aerial Photography for mapping and analysis - which at one time consumed many miles large format film to produce (in our case) 9" by 9" contact prints. 🙂

 

[ZDP-189]

I think at the end of the day, I don't mind film's losing it's place as a common medium as long as I can still use it myself. If I can still buy it, even if I have to import it from overseas, that's cool. Local print houses look like they will stay in business and even if they have to send it out, I will still get my rolls developed and printed.

 

[aerialphoto]

Chris,

sorry, my post was referring to vertical Aerial Photography for mapping and analysis - which at one time consumed many miles large format film to produce (in our case) 9" by 9" contact prints. 🙂

FWIW (and thanks to the other Chris for the fine comments about my photography 🙂) all we shoot is 9"x9" aerial film. Last year we shot about 4000' of 9" film, about 2/3 was color. Compared to big companies that isn't much but that was with two employees (me and another guy) and one airplane. This year we bought a new, custom-built twin and we've been keeping it busy. Across the airport from us is a similarly equipped company also with two employees and one camera (also 9"x9" format) they're usually a little busier than we are.

We have a lab in town that specializes in processing and printing aerial film (both 5" and 9"). He does 9"x9" contact prints, enlargements, scanning, and digital printing - he is very busy with BW, C41, and E6. Usually he has a couple of film processors running constantly to keep up.

There is a trend toward digital though. Most of our customers are doing their stereo work on PCs and that naturally already demands a digital product. Digital systems also drop the requirement for multiple film emulsions: IR, Color, and BW in a single exposure.

We're slowly expanding here. Adding the new airplane this year gave us two airplanes and two relatively new camera systems. Work is slow with the economy but things are improving and I hope to have both systems up and running across four states and some international work in the future.

At some point we will inevitably add a digital system but as of right now there's not enough demand to do it.

 

[chris000]

Digital systems also drop the requirement for multiple film emulsions: IR, Color, and BW in a single exposure.

One of the major advantages - we now use 4-band (R, G, B and near IR). It is actually quite difficult to find an AP contractor in the UK who is not using digital cameras ... but then for my work I'm not sure why I would want to.

 

[wgerrard]

My statement was about the two companies I specifically mentioned. Overall, as we all know, film sales is declining. Some of the anti-film people would like to extrapolate the curve to zero as fast as possible.

Point taken, Chris, and I certainly don't want to be seen as anti-film. It's a preference, like digital, but I have a very hard time understanding people who seem emotionally invested in the success or failure of either.

Someone mentioned that Kodak opened a new film facility a few years ago geared to the expected reduction in demand. I didn't know that, but it is a sign of hope.

My assessment, though, is probably gloomier than yours.

The only digital I use these days is a Ricoh GX200, 'cause it's so small. I just put it on full automatic and snap away. That's what I think digital is for.