The longest Survivor: 120 or 135 format?

[jsrockit]

Are there any real numbers out there for how much 35mm is sold vs. 120 film?

 

[Pickett Wilson]

This from 2011 for total rolls:

"A report by The Associated Press suggests that within the next 9 years film may be going the way of the Dodo. Film sales have been declining by 20% each year, with sales as low as 20 million rolls of film expected this year. Sales of film cameras are expected to be similarly low at 100,000 this year, compared to the peak of nearly 19.7 million in 2000, despite new film cameras being announced, such as the Lomo LC-A Wide. "

 

[Roger Hicks]

Worry about it when it happens.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

The question may well be based on a false premise - i.e. that (some) film will disappear eventually. Hopefully not. Vinyl albums have survived and are, like film, actually selling in increasing volume - albeit that the variety of film types has constricted.

Anyway, I'm rubbish at prophecy and I hope I'm long gone by the time any such misfortune bafalls one or the other....

 

[Muggins]

Worry about it when it happens.

Hence my concerns about 127! I know it's far from your favourite format, and I can appreciate why, but it suits the toys in my sandpit and I reserve the right to sulk if I can't play with them.

Adrian
Department of Considered Mature Responses

 

[Roger Hicks]

Hence my concerns about 127! I know it's far from your favourite format, and I can appreciate why, but it suits the toys in my sandpit and I reserve the right to sulk if I can't play with them.

Adrian
Department of Considered Mature Responses

Dear Adrian,

Indeed! But it's disappeared and reappeared before. One may live in (modest) hope. Personally I bemoan the lack of Delta 3200 in 70mm. Oh, they'll make me some -- subject to an MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) of about two lifetimes' worth.

Might be worth contacting Mirko at Fotoimpex to see if the old Croatian machinery survives for converting/packing 127 from master rolls...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Or just make yourself a 127 film slitter?
http://www.filmwasters.com/forum/index.php?topic=3362.0

Why worry? BTW I hear in 2374 there will be so many people we will run out of air...

 

[Pickett Wilson]

The significance of that 20 million number is that it shows how incredibly little film people with film cameras actually shoot each year on average. Most of these cameras must be sitting on shelves or being used as jewelry much of the time.

 

[besk]

135 will outlast 120 IMHO. There are so many 135 cameras and users (still) that it will be around a long time even if the film (in rolls) and the cassettes are sold separately.

Also, there most likely are uses and environments where image capture is needed where digital is not so practical.

Sheet film will outlast both.

 

[sevo]

The significance of that 20 million number is that it shows how incredibly little film people with film cameras actually shoot each year on average. Most of these cameras must be sitting on shelves or being used as jewelry much of the time.

Which cameras? 100.000 to 20.000.000 would be 200 films per year and newly sold camera - I vaguely remember figures less than one quarter of that for the nineties.

Statistics comparing past and present film use are pretty much useless, as the two highest volume user groups (pedestrian consumers and bulk studio work professionals) have entirely vanished - none of the remaining segments have usage patterns even remotely similar to the "one p-n-s and roll of film per annual holiday with the toddlers" mum or the "sixty rolls of 220 per work day with a staff of eighty" catalogue studio pro.

 

[Dwig]

The survey's wording makes my selection difficult. My guess is that the OP means "which will be the last to be discontinued". "How long will they be available" has a different meaning.

If you are referring to only the 135 film size then at the demise of the last survivor, 120 will probably prove to have been available longer largely due to the fact that it first became available 33 years before the introduction of the 135 packaging.

If you are referring to the raw film with our without a cassette, the answer become somewhat hazy. 35mm film, originally for movies, predates 120 film by nearly a decade, but the perforation pattern required by all modern cameras wasn't introduced until some decades later. In 1909, 8 years after the intoduction of 120, the 35mm perf standard became the "4 per frame" pattern we now use. How much earlier is was used before becoming the industry's official standard I don't know. It possibly predates 120.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Sevo, that 100 thousand is "new" cameras. Folks buying and selling used cameras far exceed that, I suspect. Most who buy these cameras must shoot no film, or only a couple of rolls per year.

 

[Photo_Smith]

Sevo, that 100 thousand is "new" cameras. Folks buying and selling used cameras far exceed that, I suspect. Most who buy these cameras must shoot no film, or only a couple of rolls per year.

I'm not sure that makes sense. How do you know the ones buying the new cameras aren't shooting 1-2 rolls a year? You know the 'I bought a Holga and use it as a supplement to my main camera which is an iPhone' but only shoot a few expired films...

We have no data so conjecture is rather weak, fun on forums but not based in reality because of the few data points.

You realise the much bandied about 20 million films sold per year is a figure for USA only consumption? (and was an estimate at that)

Data—the devil is in the detail...

 

[splitimageview]

Methinks it doesn't take much extra effort to make one or the other, so if it's being manufactured, they'll make both.

Heck, there are essentially zero 4x5 shooters out there (comparing the number of 4x5s to the number of 35mm cameras) but film is still available for them.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Photo_Smith, I guess I don't understand your point. The only point I was making was that with all the film cameras out there, new and those being bought and sold on these forums and eBay, 20 million rolls is a small number. A lot of those camera owners are obviously not shooting much film.

 

[JohnTF]

I can see 35mm surviving in bulk mode longer in many emulsions, but am not sure that "counts".

My Czech friends, younger than myself, recall buying it in bulk packages that included what you needed with rolls of film with leaders' tongues cut, but still in one longer roll.

It was also very common to have to mount your own slides by hand after processing.

Kodachrome came with processing in much of the world much longer than in the US, and you had a choice, much of the time, between mounted and unmounted.

I can recall often being asked if my camera was a "slide" camera, or if my camera took "slides" .

Am not sure how it will relate to the survival of anyone continuing to produce cinema using film.

Regards, John

 

[Photo_Smith]

I don't see that Picket Wilson. Why? because that 20 million (est) is for the USA. If we take the amount of actual films sold in the USA of 20 million + 30 million disposables then divide them by the population of the USA we get how many rolls per head of population? (it's silly to say each person shoots that many films)

The 20 million* figure was an estimate based upon decline in sales extrapolated over a timeframe, the writer states in 10 years film will die if 1999-date data is used, interestingly enough if we take a shorter timeframe from those figures of 1999-2004 it should already be gone...

It doesn't matter because the figure is meaningless, we have no idea of the ratio of people who buy new cameras compared to use old ones.

What if the users with the old cameras have 5-6 camera bodies and use 100-200 rolls a year?
We have no idea of how many people use film worldwide, let alone the proportion of old cameras still in use, we don't know how many cameras each user owns.
Do you say films per camera or films per user?
How many people worldwide still use film? 50-100k is a figure I've seen quoted by some...

With so little data it's silly to make assumptions

*Figures quoted from PMA (USA)

 

[JohnTF]

Photo_Smith, I guess I don't understand your point. The only point I was making was that with all the film cameras out there, new and those being bought and sold on these forums and eBay, 20 million rolls is a small number. A lot of those camera owners are obviously not shooting much film.

I believe I posted something earlier in the year that noted that most 35mm film sold today has shifted to single use cameras, which work rather well for some folks who only want a vacation camera, or give them to guests at an event to record what is going on around them. I wonder if it will become cheaper to pull a roll out of a single use camera to feed to a Leica?

I share the feeling the next shift will be away from P&S digital to simply cell phone cameras. I know serious photographers who already have shifted to "quality" very small equipment.

Photography may return to its earliest roots, before images could be fixed, as most images may become temporary as they are electronically formed, some shared and most if not all deleted. I would guess now from what my friends are doing that few of most people's images are printed, and phones eventually fail.

OTOH, I have boxes of negatives that will be tossed when I fail.

Maybe one or two images will glide by when RFF recycles them as someone logs on. ;-)

Regards, John

 

[Pickett Wilson]

O.K. Since all numbers are meaningless, I guess that precludes discussion. I can live with that.

I still don't get your point, though. Must need another cup of coffee. 🙂

 

[Cutly]

As long as there is a market for one, the other will be around since they both start off as the same stock.

Phil Forrest

thank you for such an obvious answer. Same film, different cut, they'll die together - if they do.