Ilford prices skyrocketing

[semilog]

Film is still a bargain.

Yes. Yes it is.

I mean, seriously, folks. I can still bulk load HP5+ or 2TMY for ~$2.25 (US) a roll, and process it for perhaps another $0.65. Call the postexposure cost a dollar a roll once it's sleeved.

15 years ago it was $15-20 a roll for transparency film (depending on the specific film and the processing), and many, many, many of us paid.

I'm not going to freak out about B&W film until the costs begin to approach that range. This is an expensive hobby to get into, but if you shoot B&W, the incremental cost is modest unless you're shooting like a machine gun.

 

[Argenticien]

I shoot more Ilford than I otherwise might do, because I'm trying to buy local at my town's one remaining proper brick-and-mortar photo shop, rather than do them in by buying everything from Freestyle. They have become an all-Ilford shop for paper, and a mostly-Ilford shop for film and developer, so I have too. I don't think a 20% increase is crazy, if you look at silver's rise in the last two years. (Eyeball an average of $12 to $15 through 2006-2008; then the current price of $31 is at least a 100% rise -- for those of us in US anyway.)
--Dave

 

[photogdave]

I shoot more Ilford than I otherwise might do, because I'm trying to buy local at my town's one remaining proper brick-and-mortar photo shop, rather than do them in by buying everything from Freestyle.

I'm with you! 😎

 

[tj01]

I shoot more Ilford than I otherwise might do, because I'm trying to buy local at my town's one remaining proper brick-and-mortar photo shop, rather than do them in by buying everything from Freestyle. They have become an all-Ilford shop for paper, and a mostly-Ilford shop for film and developer, so I have too. I don't think a 20% increase is crazy,..
--Dave

A few weeks ago I pop over to the local pop-and-son shop ( never saw the mum ), and there was some guy in a Ferrari who just bought 3 boxes of brand new equipment with Leica written all over it. Sometimes,
I think, he thinks, he is doing me a favour by still selling Tri-X and the occasional Ilford chemicals to me.

 

[robbeiflex]

I will continue to buy Ilford film. I appreciate their transparency as well as their quality control. I have been experimenting with various budget films, and which one do I like? Rollei RPX - surprise, it's made by Harman/Ilford. I bought a good quantity of RPX just to experiment and practice, but when it comes to anything important I seem to always go back to HP5+ and FP4+ and will continue to do so. I might go for some Deltas once in a while too, that 3200 is pretty amazing stuff.

 

[Arlen]

There is roughly .0025 oz of silver in 36 exposure roll. The sensitivity of price is very low. For every $10 an ounce that silver goes up, it equates to an increase of about 2.5 cents per roll of 36. In the last year silver prices have gone up slightly higher than $10US. I wonder what the price forcast on silver is. I'm sure part of there decision was based on price forecast.

This is a general overview as different film has different quanities of silver.

Labour was on the rise before the recession. I'm sure that it has stablized, or dropped in the current economy. Oh well.