How do you cope with high film cost?

400 frames for a portrait session?!? Holy cow Cosmo, that's a huge amount of work. Is this the norm for portrait photographers?
 
Photo_Smith said:
35mm film is cheap and plentiful at least here in Europe I pay £1 per roll for colour and about £2.50 for mono.
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That`s interesting ...I can pick up Agfa Vista 200 for a quid a roll in the UK but where are you getting the mono for £2.50 ?

Regarding the number of shots ...I did a portrait session recently for a friend.
I rarely do stuff like that so was surprised that she expected to be able to choose between two to three hundred shots.

I can only assume that is considered the norm .
If so it makes film a very expensive option.

That`s not to suggest that you need to take that many shots.
 
Cost is not a major concern. People brought m9 or d3x for 7k cash, now sell at 4k less than 3 years later. 3k cash would get you about 500 rolls or more, average 170 roll a year, 15 a month.
 
I get the cheap 4-packs of Fujicolor 200 at WalMart for $7 and develope them at Costco for $1.95 a roll! (sans prints, just negs)
 
I have good luck at camera shows. Last year I bought (for two dollars/roll)a dozen rolls of Agfa color film that was "slightly" expired. It has worked very well. The last roll is in my Retina IIa. Recently I asked about expired film at a camera shop and got a few rolls of Reala for half price.
 
I try to find good alternarive/rebranded film whenever and wherever I can.

I get B&W films from Freestyle (Arista Premium in 35mm, Arista.EDU Ultra in 120) and grab color film like Kodak's ColorPlus 200 which is an excellent and very underrated film.

eBay is another good source for fresh film and even better for expired stuff.
 
KM-25 said:
What an odd thread, kind of different from person to person don't you think? And should it not read color film since black and white is still really cheap?

How I cope with it is make a good living off of photography and write off the expense of it. I also think that compared to things like the price of gas, a new car or decent home in a nice town, it has not gone up that much. Who can complain about 4x5 Delta 100 being a little over a dollar a sheet....you are kidding, right? Rollei IR400 in 120 is now at $10 a roll but what am I going to do, I would pay triple that considering what an important film it is to me and my business.

I also think I will pay a lot more to keep companies that make film in business.

I guess it depends on the person...
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Likewise. Highlight: well, not good, but tolerable.

Cheers,

R.
 
cosmonaut said:
For those of you still using color how do you cope with high prices.
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Well, there are no high prices: If you consider inflation in the US over the last 15 years (more than 3% p.a. on average), and look at film prices, then film is indeed a bit cheaper today than 15 years ago.
The film prices went up during the last four years, that is right.
But before that they have been stable for 10 - 15 years, whereas all other cost had risen. Therefore in relation film got indeed cheaper during this period.
What we now see is a kind of "normalization" of film prices in relation to energy, rents, food prices and so on.

And what most people ignore is that digital is not cheaper if you consider all costs. For example archiving your pictures: Digital archiving needs permanent maintenance, permanent work over the years. It is much more expensive than archiving of film.
That is the reason why all film studios even their completely digital filmed movies archive on film only for long term storage. It is about 11x cheaper (and more safe) than digital storage (see the scientific evaluations "The Digital Dilemma" on oscars.org).

cosmonaut said:
Is there some where it is cheaper?
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Buy online.

cosmonaut said:
Have you quit color all together?
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No, just the opposite: I am shooting much more colour film and much less digital now. There are several reason for that.
One reason is also that it is cheaper. With colour film I get perfect pictures right out of the camera. No post-processing needed.
With digital I shoot RAW for quality. But RAW always need post-processing. That takes time. Time is always cost in economic terms, because in that time I have to refrain from other activities I like.

And I like my colour pictures very big, sharp, with best tonality and brillance. The best quality for that I get with slide projection. The quality is much better compared with even the most expensive beamers. And because of the extremely high costs of beamers slide projection is also much much cheaper.
And it is much much cheaper than digital prints:
A slide projected on a screen of 1m x 1,50m cost me less than a buck. A digital print of the same size costs me much more than 100 bucks.
 
My color film is the least expensive film I shoot. I guess your cost will depend on how you buy your film. I always shoot from my freezer stock and replenish when opportunity arises. When I find deals I buy big and fill the freezer.
 
...what do you mean cope? I shoot probably 100 rolls of film a year, bulk roll my own Tr-x and it comes out to about $350 a year or $30 a month. This is probably less than how much a high end digital SLR or RF body (such as the Leica m8, m9, mono, "m") depreciates every year. I think the right question would be "how do you compensate for the TIME you spend using film", although I'm sure there's many digital photographers out there who spend more time sorting, organizing, editing, backing up, etc. photos than I do developing and printing them.
 
I shoot Arista Premium 400, instead of Kodak branded Tri-X. It's the same film for a lot less money.

Color film is another thing. It's gotten really expensive and unfortunately I think this may lead to its demise.
 
Black and white film is dirt cheap depending how you buy it and use it ... colour film not so much.

I've also never really liked the look of grain in colour photographs so shooting digital for my occasional foray into colour is a no brainer these days.
 
Film is still cheap. I frankly do not understand the whining. When I was in high school, in the early 1990s (I graduated in 1994), I remember buying Kodak Ektachrome Lumiere 100, which was Kodak's flagship professional E-6 at the time, and it was $10 a roll for 35mm at the local camera store. I bought some Kodak 35mm E100G before they stopped making it, and it was $8 a roll from Calumet in Chicago (the local place didn't sell it anymore).

Black and white film was about $5 a roll when I was in high school, and its about $6 now (for Kodak film, its much cheaper if you get Foma or Freestyle's rebranded films).

People keep prattling on about digital being 'free' to use. No it isn't, the cameras cost a fortune. Digital allowed camera makers to triple camera prices overnight, and while the image quality has vastly improved over the last 10 yrs, prices for pro level gear have not gone down much.

I'd love a digital Leica Monochrome, but the thing costs as much as I spend on film in 16 years! I shoot a lot of film, and it costs me about $500 a year. The M-Monochrome is $8000. Do the math. Film is CHEAP.
 
I use only b/w in 135, 120 and 4x5, develop all of them in HC110. I order two or three times a year from B&H.
I do not hoard, nor do i store film in the freezer. I order what i expect will be needed in the short term. The main thing is not to be short of film.
 
Hobby not work

Hobby not work

As a photo hobbyist the cost is not prohibitive especially developing my own B&W. However, one of the factors that drove the pros to digital was the lower cost. If you were a pro shooting a couple of weddings in a weekend, the film and processing costs were high enough to justify purchasing a new camera system (especially if you could keep your old lenses). I don't have that problem - shooting apx 100 rolls per year keeps things manageable. However if film becomes a niche item, costing several times what it does now, then many of us will rethink the equation.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Film is still cheap. I frankly do not understand the whining. When I was in high school, in the early 1990s (I graduated in 1994), I remember buying Kodak Ektachrome Lumiere 100, which was Kodak's flagship professional E-6 at the time, and it was $10 a roll for 35mm at the local camera store. I bought some Kodak 35mm E100G before they stopped making it, and it was $8 a roll from Calumet in Chicago (the local place didn't sell it anymore).

Black and white film was about $5 a roll when I was in high school, and its about $6 now (for Kodak film, its much cheaper if you get Foma or Freestyle's rebranded films).

People keep prattling on about digital being 'free' to use. No it isn't, the cameras cost a fortune. Digital allowed camera makers to triple camera prices overnight, and while the image quality has vastly improved over the last 10 yrs, prices for pro level gear have not gone down much.

I'd love a digital Leica Monochrome, but the thing costs as much as I spend on film in 16 years! I shoot a lot of film, and it costs me about $500 a year. The M-Monochrome is $8000. Do the math. Film is CHEAP.
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I think the last thought in any potential Monochrom buyer's mind is film cost balanced against the price of the camera.

Someone posted some images in the MM thread the other day taken with the Monochrom and the latest Noctilux ... that twisted my head a little when I thought about the cost of that particular combo! 😱
 
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