aad
Not so new now.
bmattock said:
Mr. Mattock, you predicted C41 would be gone in 2 years-just over 2 years ago. Things aren't as bad as all that. Nor will it be so hard to run a film plant.
How long does film have?
- Thread starter rlightfoot
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 460
- Views 8K
Mr. Mattock, you predicted C41 would be gone in 2 years-just over 2 years ago. Things aren't as bad as all that. Nor will it be so hard to run a film plant.
infrequent
Well-known
for people in the know, how convenient / feasible is using movie film in 35mm cameras? even with the digital switch in moviemaking, surely film is critical and survive for a while?
bmattock
Veteran
infrequent said:
35mm movie film can and has been used as still camera film. It is not optimal, but it is possible. However, a lot of movie film is reversal (slide) style film. They don't have as much use for negative (print) film.
The color negative film they make is not balanced the same as color print film for 35mm still cameras, but it can be used.
FWIW, although the movie industry is huge and still consumes a bunch of film, new movie theaters are being built 'digital' and cannot do film. I do not know of any theaters currently being built that use film.
bmattock
Veteran
Ade-oh said:
I must have missed the Ilford color print and slide film on the shelves. They make a lot of that, do they?
bmattock
Veteran
Krosya said:
I visited my local dealer at Century Camera in Royal Oak, Michigan last year after I got here. They were full of scorn and derision for digital, which they could not sell as cheaply as the local Wal-Mart, and they had a complete lab and all the darkroom supplies I could want. I was in heaven, given that I had just moved up from a rural area of NC where the local Walgreens was my only local film connection.
Oh - they're out of business now. After 50+ years.
But that's OK, I found another shop in Mount Clemens, right downtown, run by a great guy who told me his film business was actually increasing due to the demand by the local college students, where they teach a B&W class. A bit of a drive, but well worth it.
Oh wait. He shut down six months ago. After 50+ years.
Currently, I go to Ad-Ray, which is in Dearborn, a bit of a hike, but they have a branch in a shopping mall in Troy. They have all that I desire - including 120 and chemistry, and they assure me that they're doing fine. I notice I'm always the only guy in there and they have five employees, though. But I'm sure they're doing fine.
bmattock
Veteran
literiter said:
I don't know. I once said color film would only last another two years; and has been pointed out in this thread, that was two years ago.
So clearly, I was wrong. About the date, not the demise.
But you can believe whatever you like - you clearly wish it to last a good long time, and maybe it will. I don't think so, and the evidence to date has not show any upticks - only declines. But think as you wish.
bmattock
Veteran
aad said:
Yes, I was wrong about C41 being gone, wasn't I?
However, the trend has been down, not up. And precipitously. The film aisle at Wal-Mart is now a film patch on a shelf. No more slide film. No more B&W. No Fuji at all. Just Kodak, some 200, some 400, and some single-use cameras. At least, that's what is at my local Wal-Mart Superstore.
Things are as bad as all that. I suppose not if one refuses to read the papers.
And let me know about the film plants you hear opening up.
Ade-oh
Well-known
bmattock said:
They certainly used to and if Fuji and Kodak pull out of film completely (which I doubt) it might well be profitable for them to do so again.
In any case, the question is, fundamentally, will film survive? My view is that it will, as a niche product for enthusiasts who like to use it and for some 'niche' pros as well. Of course it won't be a mass market product, any more than pro-spec DSLRs are a mass market product, but I predict there will be enough demand to keep film profitably in production for the rest of my lifetime.
literiter
Well-known
bmattock said:
I don't really believe anything at this point. I suspect, like you, that film has seen it's time. The actuality will lie within the doors of the film manufacturers, and they aren't telling.
If/when it happens I cannot get film easily I'll gladly go digital...what am I gonna do? I'd like film to last a while longer, perhaps 'till I croak. But if not, so what?
The tone of your comments seems to suggest that you support the rapid demise of film. Is this only for the sake of arguement or did someone at Fuji pi$$ you off?
JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
I am hoping that there is at least one good silver gelatin B/W film and paper brand available into the indeterminate future. But my hoping about it isn't going to change the fact that such materials are currently manufactured in large 'batch processes', in factories designed to supply large quantities, to a market that can no longer sustain that volume.
One can hope. For instance, there's Ron Mowrey over on APUG, a former engineer with Kodak, who has been able to hand coat B/W paper emulsions, and is currently teaching workshops on this. He is also able to replicate a silver chloride contact printing paper every bit as good as the venerable Azo brand that's no longer around. So perhaps we'll have some silver gelatin materials being manufactured, not in large industrial-scale factories, but in cottage industry scale operations, in small batches. Sure, there will be quality and consistency issues. This is pretty much where photography started at in the 19th century.
But I'm not holding my breath. I'll enjoy my B/W wet darkroom craft as long as I can, and when the materials are no longer available I'll have to learn to love shooting with an electronic camera and printing with ink.
~Joe
One can hope. For instance, there's Ron Mowrey over on APUG, a former engineer with Kodak, who has been able to hand coat B/W paper emulsions, and is currently teaching workshops on this. He is also able to replicate a silver chloride contact printing paper every bit as good as the venerable Azo brand that's no longer around. So perhaps we'll have some silver gelatin materials being manufactured, not in large industrial-scale factories, but in cottage industry scale operations, in small batches. Sure, there will be quality and consistency issues. This is pretty much where photography started at in the 19th century.
But I'm not holding my breath. I'll enjoy my B/W wet darkroom craft as long as I can, and when the materials are no longer available I'll have to learn to love shooting with an electronic camera and printing with ink.
~Joe
Ade-oh
Well-known
Kim Coxon said:
Exactly my views, except that I believe that film will continue to be available as a specialist item just as many other odd throwbacks to past times continue to be made for the specialist markets.
Ade-oh
Well-known
bmattock said:
No other factors at work then, like internet retailing? I used to get my film supplies from a large 'professional' photographic centre in west London where they had everything, together with a lot of knowledgeable staff. It was a great place to buy from, but the internet killed it long before digital photography became a big factor. Like many people, I rarely go out to shop for anything other than groceries: clothes, books, DVDs, cameras, film (and even digital memory cards!) etc etc etc I buy from the internet and the postman brings them to me. E6 (and occasionally C-41 when I shoot a roll of print film) processing also goes out to mail-order labs - which have a national or even international 'footprint' - with an internet presence.
That is what is killing your local specialist retailer.
Ade-oh
Well-known
bmattock said:
Uh oh. Did all the Polaroid film in existence suddenly evaporate? As I understood the announcement, the film will still be made for a few months so that users can stock up.
bmattock
Veteran
Ade-oh said:
I hope it does survive as a niche market. But the available information seems to me to argue against it.
Polaroid was held up as a prime example of a niche market. Now that it's gone, the same people who said it was a nice stable niche market are now saying it was a niche of a niche, and doesn't count. Well, ok. I guess.
My question would be - from whence will come the niche maker? The evidence seems to be that film manufacturers produce until it is no longer profitable to do so, and they they stop. They don't seem to 'throttle down' so much as they just stop. I am told some B&W outfits in the former eastern bloc countries stop and start from time to time - produce a few batches, then shut down again. But that's not color, just B&W. And it is hard to keep people on the payroll for a couple weeks a year.
So my idea of a what a niche market producer would be would be someone who buys some old equipment from Kodak or whomever (Ferrania has a factory in OK, Mitsubishi had one in Rye, NY), and build something on a small scale that would be maintainable.
But I doubt it would work in the USA. Kodak is / was listed as one of the biggest polluters on earth by the EPA - they could keep on doing as they had been only because they had been around so long they were grandfathered past many environmental regulations. I doubt a new plant is going to get EPA certification to make film in the USA. For the same reason, I doubt Kodak, etc, can simply sell a film factory to another company and have it take over operations.
The areas of the world where pollution is not such a concern and the capability exists to make film seem to be centralized in certain regions of China. And in fact, Kodak and Fuji make a lot of film in China.
But if you have been following the news (I do), Kodak, which had previously (and disastrously) invested a billion dollars into the Chinese film manufacturing industry because they thought that emerging market would buy film instead of digital cameras, has demanded (and received) permission to spin off their investment in Lucky. Lucky was forced to issue hundreds of millions in bonds to buy themselves out of Kodak's grip. Lucky now stands alone, and I suspect their luck has run out. Watch for them to quietly cease production shortly.
http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/smalltimes?Page=Quote&Ticker=EK
Kodak bought a huge stake in Lucky in 2003, and ended it Feb 10, 2008. They paid nearly a billion dollars and sold it for 37 million. Wow.
I'm sorry, I don't see a niche manufacturer emerging. I wish I did, I promise.
bmattock
Veteran
Ade-oh said:
Perhaps you haven't been reading RFF threads on the topic? It seems to have evaporated - out of stock on Polaroid's website, and a call to Polaroid seemed to confirm that they actually stopped manufacturing it a while back and now it is gone - they're not going to have any more. Very little in the pipeline or on shelves, and what there is, is being cleaned out very efficiently at the moment.
I am not positive on this - just what I read here. Haven't tried to find the stuff myself - never used it much.
bmattock
Veteran
Kim, the evidence is in their annual reports. All you have to do is pull the public reports for the past several years and plot the curve. It's really clear. I'm not sure how much more 'evidence' anyone needs.
It is hard to distort a year-on-year decline heading down and to the right on the chart, other than to posit that at some point it is going to stop doing what it is clearly doing and do something else. And then one has to support that theory with something tangible.
It is hard to distort a year-on-year decline heading down and to the right on the chart, other than to posit that at some point it is going to stop doing what it is clearly doing and do something else. And then one has to support that theory with something tangible.
N
Nikon Bob
Guest
Kim
To a company and it's investors any decline in sales from the previous year is considered a loss regardless of whether they still made money or not. It may not make sense to most but that is the way it is perceived.
Bob
To a company and it's investors any decline in sales from the previous year is considered a loss regardless of whether they still made money or not. It may not make sense to most but that is the way it is perceived.
Bob
Kim Coxon
Moderator
Bill,
I am not disputing the figures in the reports. I was making the point that those figures need to be produced without a slant on them. If you say "Kodak is making a loss on it's film sales", it conjures up a very different image to most people than "Kodak is selling less film but still managing to make a profit from it". It is also very easy to take the figures of the worst performing company and make it seem as though they are the same for all regardless of seasonal variations et al.
If you were to predict today that C41 would be finished in 2 years, I would disagree with you (again). If you said 5, I would neither agree nor disagree because I don't think we can predict it that far ahead. That is why I feel it pointless to vote in the poll attached to this thread. 😉
Kim
I am not disputing the figures in the reports. I was making the point that those figures need to be produced without a slant on them. If you say "Kodak is making a loss on it's film sales", it conjures up a very different image to most people than "Kodak is selling less film but still managing to make a profit from it". It is also very easy to take the figures of the worst performing company and make it seem as though they are the same for all regardless of seasonal variations et al.
If you were to predict today that C41 would be finished in 2 years, I would disagree with you (again). If you said 5, I would neither agree nor disagree because I don't think we can predict it that far ahead. That is why I feel it pointless to vote in the poll attached to this thread. 😉
Kim
bmattock said:
bmattock
Veteran
Kim Coxon said:
I completely agree with you on both points and your conclusion. I made a 2-year prediction and I was clearly wrong. I won't make that mistake again - the market indicates direction, but it is not a good predictor of dates.
I am going to continue to use and appreciate film for as long as it exists. I feel it is not only superior to digital for many uses, but indeed, there are many facets of photography that simply cannot be done by digital presently (for example, a 4x5 sensor). Some types of photography will cease to exist when LF and MF format films go away, and that sucks.
As to a niche market, I need to correct myself - I do feel that there will be a small niche market; in fact, there already is - for people who are 'fine art' photographers and using alternative processes. I believe that hand-coated B&W emulsions will join others who are doing carbrotypes and argowhatsits and so on - yes, they will still exist - anyone can make them with enough patience and skill. A return to the 19th century, but really cool stuff nonetheless. Hell, I may try it myself. But it will make wooden cameras and Petzval lenses popular on eBay, not Nikon F2AS Photomics.
I doubt that a niche market will be spooling 35mm film that looks anything like, say, Kodak Gold 200. It just won't exist - in my opinion. So maybe when people say 'niche market' they are thinking of something different than what I'm thinking of.
Krosya
Konicaze
Well, I just went to a local Walgreens to pick up a thing or two and went by the film section. They even have APS/Advantix film!, which should have died out regardless of digital. I suppose things are not so bad after all, right? 😉