Checking the Pulse of Film Photography

CMur12 said:
. By the same token, I fear that color slide film will be the first type to disappear.


I'm an old slide shooter (35mm and now mostly 120), so I dread Fuji dropping their color transparency films.


- Murray
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Peel apart instant film was the first to disappear.
 
css9450 said:
I wonder: Is that really a big thing? I don't know anyone who has one, nor have I ever seen one that I know of. Or maybe I'm just not the target audience. I know there are some members (HHPhoto? Skiff, I think, or maybe they're the same person?) who like the Instax system but it seems like a niche within a niche, so to speak. But I might be completely wrong.
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INSTAX camera sales are up to 6 million/year. Along with that are film sales of 10 million packs a year. INSTAX is HUGE for Fujifilm.
 
Ted Striker said:
INSTAX camera sales are up to 6 million/year. Along with that are film sales of 10 million packs a year. INSTAX is HUGE for Fujifilm.
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Kind of a pyrrhic victory to be sure. Film is booming! But we're dropping Acros and maybe next year Velvia and Provia too. But Instax is "film" too so its all good!
 
My retirement job has been servicing enlargers in school darkrooms here in Sydney Australia.
I have 80 schools still teaching B&W film photography in Sydney.
The rationale is : learning photography with film gives a much better grounding than digital (which can be taken in photography 102) You always get a result with digital but you don't know why.
With film you can see if you have under or over exposed instantly after Develop and fix.
I still use 35,120 and 4x5 and process to print myself.
Regards
Kangaroo2012
 
I will mention my friend Louis Mendez was a big user of pack film (Polaroid), flash bulbs, and now that Fuji FP-100 is costly has adapted an Instax wide to his Crown Graphic.

I also see that he has resurrected some old Polaroid to utilize some of the new Polaroid films that are available.

Louis had 4 kids from 4 different women, never married, and sent all four kids to college shooting street portraits. He is an urban legend and back in the day hung out with W. Eugene Smith during the "Jazz Loft" era.

Here is a man who has dug in. 70 plus years old. He is out there every day shooting.

Cal
 
ptpdprinter said:
Yes, but for each camera sold, they sell less than two packs of film. Not high usage was my point. Seems like a try it and abandon it type of thing. Maybe it's the expense. I remember being (too) judicious with my SX-70.
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I'm sure there is some level of abandonment with cameras like this. Those that remain probably shoot quite a lot of film. Fujifilm earns more from INSTAX than they do from their digital cameras.
 
Peter Wijninga said:
Louis Mendez: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mendes
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Peter,

Thanks for the link.

I'll check with Louis. Wikipedia reports only two children. Louis told me 4.

Also one day I met up with Louis at the Park Ave Armory. He asked if I was going to hang out for a while, so he hands me his camera and says, "I'll be back in twenty minutes or so; hold onto my camera and watch my wheelie; I'm going to get some lunch; want anything?

So I find myself doing a Louis Mendez impersonation suddenly, and I got mobbed.

"You're not Louis," some woman leaving the Armory show said to me like I stole his identity.

"Where's Louis?" a few people said.

One guy rather aggressively wanted to know what I was doing with Louis' gear and stood watch like a soldier waiting to see if I was telling the truth that he went for some lunch.

Anyways this was a powerful experience. Louis is a widely known and loved walking tourist attraction. Every year he invites me to go down to NOLA for Marti Graws.

Cal
 
Calzone said:
Peter,

Thanks for the link.

I'll check with Louis. Wikipedia reports only two children. Louis told me 4.

Also one day I met up with Louis at the Park Ave Armory. He asked if I was going to hang out for a while, so he hands me his camera and says, "I'll be back in twenty minutes or so; hold onto my camera and watch my wheelie; I'm going to get some lunch; want anything?

So I find myself doing a Louis Mendez impersonation suddenly, and I got mobbed.

"You're not Louis," some woman leaving the Armory show said to me like I stole his identity.

"Where's Louis?" a few people said.

One guy rather aggressively wanted to know what I was doing with Louis' gear and stood watch like a soldier waiting to see if I was telling the truth that he went for some lunch.

Anyways this was a powerful experience. Louis is a widely known and loved walking tourist attraction. Every year he invites me to go down to NOLA for Marti Graws.

Cal
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It's always a pleasure to run into Louis when I visit the City - he is a indeed a moving landmark and treasure.
 
Here’s a good article from May 15 summarizing the history, current state and sales impact of Instant photography.

Quote from article:

Fujifilms Instax is among the best-selling cameras on the market. No qualifiers needed. In its 2016 fiscal year (ending March 2017; fiscal year 2017 numbers aren’t available yet), Fujifilm sold 6.6 million Instax cameras and printers; the company says it plans to sell 7.5 million this fiscal year. For comparison, the entire digital camera market—point-and-shoots, DSLRs, mirrorless lens cameras, Canons, Nikons, Sonys—sold 18.91 million units in 2017.

https://www.theringer.com/platform/...2466/instant-print-polaroid-instax-fuji-kodak




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