I don't shoot film, I'm not rich enough...

[alexnotalex]

A 100ft roll gives about eighteen 36 exposure rolls ... 648 shots!

Legacy pro which is heavily discounted Neopan 400 under another name is $26.00 for 100ft ... it can be shot at 200 ISO or pushed to 1600 ISO and is regarded by many as the finest black and white 400 film available ... at four cents per exposure without processing that's pretty damned cheap. If you develop at home, with Xtol for example, you can add another few cents per exposure ... so lets say eight cents per frame developed!

Black and white film photography has never been so cheap if you're prepared to make some effort! 🙂

really interesting economics. I bought 10 rolls of Fuji Superia 36exp for £22 on ebay... seeing a 100ft roll for £30-50 depending. £6 a roll for processing and scan to CD and a free roll of fuji C200.
thanks!

 

[Mcary]

really interesting economics. I bought 10 rolls of Fuji Superia 36exp for £22 on ebay... seeing a 100ft roll for £30-50 depending. £6 a roll for processing and scan to CD and a free roll of fuji C200.
thanks!

More interesting economics

20 roll of Fuji Pro 400 H (expired 10/09 cold stored) $58.00 on ebay
Overnight processing $.99 develop only or $2.60 develop and CD.
BTW when I dropped my film off this past Sunday the tech/cashier told me to place both rolls in a single processing envelope so it ended up costing of processing ended up be $2.61 instead of $5.32 🙂
Yes the scans are crappy 1500x1000 JPEGs but I figure I can use them as proofs and then just scan the ones I really like on my ScanIV.

 

[jsrockit]

I don't know really , I mean of course you can shoot couple of rolls when you deliberately go shooting on the street or any photo project , but generally in a single day , my friends and cats don't really require more than 36 frames 🙂 .

Oh ok, that makes sense... yes, I go days without making 30 photos when sitting around the apartment, but when I go out to shoot for the day, I'm going to take more than 100 for sure.

 

[shadowfox]

Digital or film, both have costs, and there are many different ways to bring them down to our own level of affordability, in either case.

I think the correct question is: Do I like photography enough?

We have to like taking pictures, otherwise we will keep coming up with excuses for not doing it. "Cost" is just a convenient one to throw around when people ask.

 

[alexnotalex]

My crappy photos are always really expensive... my best ones are priceless!
ymmv

 

[jsrockit]

10% is not a bad success 🙂

I believe it is lower than that, ~1-2%

But it is no different with film... 😉

 

[Thardy]

I was happy to pay $2.50 to have a lab process my color film. I would then scan it. After upgrading my computer operating system and scanner software a few months ago I noticed that scans became excruciatingly slow, so I asked the lab for a photo CD also. The price now is about $6.50.

So yeah I think using color film has become a little more expensive compared to using my DSLR. But I will continue to process B&W film at home. It's cheap, and I don't have to wait 2 weeks for the film to return.

 

[wgerrard]

Digital or film, both have costs, and there are many different ways to bring them down to our own level of affordability, in either case.

I think the correct question is: Do I like photography enough?

We have to like taking pictures, otherwise we will keep coming up with excuses for not doing it. "Cost" is just a convenient one to throw around when people ask.

Yeah, but...

Film costs. If you can afford to spend X on photography, you can buy a digital for X and you're pretty much done. Or, you can buy a film camera for less than X and spend the rest on film and processing. At some point, you will have spent more than X, i.e., more than you can afford.

Passion or how much someone likes photography don't count for that much if someone can't afford to sustain a film habit.

 

[Requin]

I shoot film - my drugstore sells 2 color films (ISO 200) for 1.75 €, one enlargement 3.5x5" is 0,01 € - why should I use digital?

 

[semilog]

Passion or how much someone likes photography don't count for that much if someone can't afford to sustain a film habit.

True. But for an initial investment of $50 for a bulk loader and cassettes (less, if you get a used bulk loader; my most recent one was $5), one can bulk load Legacy Pro from Freestyle for $1.25 a roll. Processing equpiment is another one-time cost of $50-100.

Chemistry is maybe another $0.75 per roll with XTOL or D-76. So we're looking at a one-shot investment of under $200 for a bulk loader and gear, another $200-300 for a passable scanner, and you're in business.

So: a fixed cost of $300 to $500 to get started, and then $2 a roll after that.

Not so bad.

 

[MartinP]

It seems to me that the equipment and consumables necessary for good digital prints is much more expensive than getting results from film. This would be the case even if I hadn't been using basically the same gear for decades.

At the huge series of international expos in Arles there were very few good inkjet prints - most seemed somewhat 'posterised' with incomplete ranges of tone. Maybe that is an exciting new aesthetic, but I prefer silver personally so that's another reason not to invest money and years in digital gear.

By observation, almost all digital pictures are never intended to be printed, so if we accept that the common useage of most photos today is to go on Flickr, or to be shrunk and sent by e-mail, then you still need a load of computer gear for film and the whole economic thing changes a bit.

 

[Requin]

From a 100 ft roll you get appr. 18 films with 36 exposures.

 

[Tompas]

In some cases digital is more expensive, but in most cases digital is cheaper.

I think it's the other way round. (Unless most people shoot like they would use a machine gun.)

I have a couple of very good film cameras, a couple of very good, old lenses, mostly non-AF, all stuff I can afford -- but I cannot afford a single decent digital camera.

(Currently the most 'inexpensive' good-enough-for-me camera is a Nikon D700 for about 2500 €, body only.)

 

[Edward C. Zimmermann]

Digital is more expensive--- unless you are using you cell phone and don't print

Digital is more expensive--- unless you are using you cell phone and don't print

Film is cheap. A roll of good colour film can be had for as little as 1 EURO. B&W can be purchased for 2.50 EUROs. Printing at the DM drugstore chain in Germany (work done by CeWe) costs 95 cents for development plus 8 cents per 10x15cm print and you only need to pay for the prints you want.

Digital...

1. Unless its your cellphone.. you need to purchase the camera.. and its rate of depreciation is more than 80% over 5 years.. in some cases even 3. You also have routine costs for batteries, software, computers etc.
2. The cost for printing is higher for digital than analog. While there is no cost for development there are either handling costs or higher per print costs.
3. Cost for archiving images is expensive. Amazon S3, for example, charges 0.15 USD per GB/month. Using a 21 Mpixel camera that comes down to $5 USD per month to store 1000 pictures plus upload and transfer costs. Even a very small archive quickly costs many 100s of USD per year to maintain.
4. Archiving technology is not proven. What is proven is that technology like CDROMs and DVDs are wholly ill-suited.
5. High density of storage means that a single point of failure can wipe out a large collection of images.
6. Many people tend to take large number of pictures but print few.
7. The images need not survive their technology.
8. Digital is fast from capture to print or distribution.

Film

1. Cameras are already fully depreciated. A 50 year old rangefinder can keep going for another 50 years.
2. Old cameras are repairable.
3. Archiving is uncomplicated and comparatively inexpensive. The technology is proven.
4. B&W imaging quality is unsurpassed.
5. A workflow that forces printing.
6. Images easily survive the state of technology upon which they were created.

 

[Pherdinand]

a month ago i went to the usual local photo shop to drop 4 films for development.
Before it cost me 2 euro 90 cents to let one roll of slide film be developed.
Now they told me the prices increased "a bit" . Turned out i will have to pay 8-something per roll.

I think i won't buy color film anymore. I still have a number of rolls - i'll see if i ever use them...

 

[Edward C. Zimmermann]

a month ago i went to the usual local photo shop to drop 4 films for development.
Before it cost me 2 euro 90 cents to let one roll of slide film be developed.
Now they told me the prices increased "a bit" . Turned out i will have to pay 8-something per roll..

Slide films can be sent off mailorder--- should you not have a drugstore with cheap processing in your near---- for ~ 2 EUROs each. Example: EUROCOLOR Gera pre-paid envelopes from Nordfoto cost 1.89 EURO (including 19% VAT). The quality of EUROCOLOR development is very good. Slide films are, of course, more expensive than print. The least expensive slide films I currently know of is from Kodak: Elite 100. The DM chain sells it in their own boxes as Paradise for ~ 2.75 EURO.
For projection there is ABSOLUTELY no cheaper technology than slides. A good slide projector with a good transparency can beat nearly ANY beamer on the market including many 2k resolution projectors. $5000 USD class projectors these days still don't go beyond HD.

 

[dfoo]

I was quite shocked what Wolfe camera charged me last time I brought a roll there... Now that Costco has dropped developing in my area, it sucks to get color film developed. Luckily for film I'm a 99% B&W guy.

 

[Viktor Sebastian]

Film is to expensive for me because I can’t afford the time it takes to, bulk load, shoot, unload, develop, dry, scan, image edit, post/print.

Digital = shoot, image edit, post/print.

 

[Steve M.]

This has been an interesting thread.

I'd have to agree w/ the gentleman you met though. Film is quite a bit more expensive to shoot, even if you develop it yourself, as w/ a digital camera it's free. And you do need to be a better photographer to shoot film (well, to get meaningful results anyway). Not necessarily if you shoot an AF camera w/ AE. Just load the film in and send it to the lab....how hard is that? But to use a manual focus camera that doesn't have a meter, especially if you shoot B&W and develop or print yourself, requires a knowledge of many processes that have no parallel in digital shooting.

What this has made me think about is: why exactly do I shoot film? OK, I like B&W, so that's something digital isn't going to work well with. And I like 6x6. That's OK for the serious side of things. But what about a walk around camera that is more for grab shots or traveling photos? Wouldn't a small digital camera that possibly took Leica glass be just the thing? A lot of these types of shots would never even be printed. Looking at them on the monitor, emails, and posting them on the web would be all I'd need. Why don't I just buy a digital just for that? Hmmmm.

There's almost enough reasons for me to sell the one 35mm camera I have left and buy a digital except for one thing. The time spent in front of the computer. I use a scanner only to proof, then it's on to the enlarger. Maybe I'll downsize a scan for the web now and then, but that's optional. If I was shooting digital regularly I think I'd be on the computer day and night. Downloading the files, photoshopping them, posting them here and there. Then I'd be back to the monitor for all that nerve wracking inkjet printing. And of course I can still shoot Tri-X in my little walk around 35mm camera, something that would be forever lost w/ a digital.

So for now, using a digital for my For Sale stuff and taking fun pics of the cats and around the house is great, but when I walk out the door for a spin I have a lot more options w/ a film camera.

 

[JohnnyT]

Film is indeed very expensive... In Montreal, I pay from 5.00 to 20.00$ for a single roll.... Without the processing... When I do it myself, in BW, I can save some bucks, but in color... or in reversal 🙂....

I do love my film cameras, but sometime it takes time and big attention... Like a woman! Not a real bad thing, thought.... But... 😀