Is film dead ?

C

courtney

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I just checked in with my local lab (a PRO Lab) and they informed me that they are ceasing all film proccessing !!!!!!!!
Yet another lab in my city either closing or ceasing all film work. This is in Brisbane Australia, let me know whats going on with labs in your part of the world???
After just buying my Mamiya 6 .......im getting nervous now !!!!
 
In my small town here in Belgium, no problem at all.
The local lab processes everything from APS to 4x5 (neg & slide).
Because the owner is a prof. photographer he has no intention to stop with film development.

What I read from other threads there is a worldwide problem with labs (clour, scratched films,......). To avoid those problems I went the hard way : home work.

Good luck with the Mamiya: it is a beauty

Wim
 
Who uses film? Families use cheap digital cameras or their mobile phones, and professional photographers use expensive digital cameras.

That only leaves a few of us using film. And that puts film in the same area of the market as typewriter ribbons and radio valves.
 
There are a number of places up here in the Seattle area that have ceased selling film and processing it. They now send all film work out to be worked on, and do all digital prints in house.

Film is not dead, though. Not any more dead than vacuum tube amplifiers and vinyl records. Those are older technologies in some ways (been out of the market longer), and yet they are still in production and still retain a strong following. Strong enough to show up in stores and catalogs.
 
As much as I loathe 'film is dead'-threads I'll add this weekends two experiences;

a) Came in to Gassers here in San Francisco and they are discontinuing all Medium Format film-camera sale. For anyone interested there is a final sale going on there right now.

b) Same day, walked into 'Discount Camera' that have quite the collection of classic cameras for sale and ended up talking to one of the people in the staff there who mentioned that digital is now close to 100% of their business - no one buys film or film cameras any more.

Sad but not surprising.
 
My part of the world (the Netherlands)? Strong support of film in all formats.

I keep having flashbacks of the late 70's when colour print film was taking over. Whereever you went, the message was "black and white is dead", and indeed you more or less couldn't get a roll of Ilford anywhere anymore. A single 100 ASA emulsion was all that was left. Getting processing and printing was an even more daunting endeavour, where your film allegedly went to a lab somewhere in Eastern Europe..

Fast forward to the 21st century, and I now have a larger choice of B&W emulsions off-the-shelf than ever before. Processing and printing is 2 days for 35mm and 3 days for 120 format, prices are lower than 30 years back (and that doesn't even factor in inflation). The main difference is that you now go to a dedicated photo/camera shop, while in the old days you went to the drugstore.

So, I'm not really all that worried about film.

But something has happened. Apart from the electronics shops that took up digital still cameras as an extension to video cameras, some photo/camera shops did decide to go digital. The ones that didn't apparently absorbed the analog clientele, and are now able to offer a wider palette of emulsions. I guess there's a bifurcation point where the emphasis is either on the digital camera/printers/equipment etc. side of things, or on photography itself..
 
I have no quibbles about the fact that digital is overtaking film very fast, sometimes putting straight out of business film labs. But I have this idea that the problem will be more pronounced in big cities where the digital penetration is greater. And yet again, there will always be someone around, syphoning the business of the remaining film customers. It may be inconvenient to have just one or two labs doing film work in every (big) city but it will have to do.
 
lubitel said:
somebody here had the answer in his signature:

film is not dead, it just smells funny

🙂
Click to expand...


That was me 🙂

We still have a couple photographers with small shops around.

One or two still do B/W processing and printig and one does E6 but not C-41.

All the C-41 as well as the digital goes to the minilabs at Walmart, a big photoretailer or at a big electronics chain store.

The small Kodak kiosks are everywhere and I prefer those to DIY inkjetprinting, it's cheaper and better as long as it's colour.

The supermarkets who stocked at least two brands of colour film with several ISO speeds and collected film for processing in one of the big labs up to two years ago have one or two rolls of Fuji C200 at the cashiers but nothing else anymore. Even Walmart is down to a couple leftovers in APS, a limited choice of Kodak "Farbwelt" and Polaroid.

If you're looking for other formats than 135 you're SOL.

I wanted to give the Rolleiflex a workout late last year but could get expensive slide film only and when I heard the cost for processing I put the camera back on its shelf 🙁

OTOH, we've got a couple very competent minilabs around, when I don't need 30 minutes processing I can get my film developed, look the negs over on a light table and have them printed with correct filtering etc.
With one minilab I worked out a workflow for my scanned B/W, I was there with my notebook and we tried several profiles until we got quite usable B/W on colour paper.
The ouptut is so good, that most of my friends are impressed, especialy those who tried B/W with their digicams.

I send my 135 format E6 and C-41 films to one of the two big labs left in germany, actualy it is one of the biggest in europe, and get them processed for some 2 Euro per film within three days.


So for me film isn't as readily available as I got used to in the last 25 years but it isn't dead yet.

I order B/W film and chemicals over the internet and buy cheap C-41 wherever I see some.

And if I find a way to darken my bathroom I might get into B/W printing again 😉
 
Andy K said:
Will this horse never return to the grave? 🙄
Click to expand...

She's alive and kicking 🙂

vh50600.jpg
 
Jon, the bathroom has no window but the house in which I live is some 100 years old and the doors aren't very tight anymore, if they ever where.

But two weeks ago I broke a film in my Zorki 4 when winding over frame #37 and so I put a quilt over the door and it was light tight enough that I got my APX100 out without any fogging.

Then I thought I could rig up something with plywood to set up an enlarger on the bathtub, a bit like Andy Ks kitchen setup.
 
well I have to agree there are too many FID threads. But I may as well contribute on this one.

Film is bloody expensive in England. In the shops for a decent film you're paying £5-£10. However, in Swindon where I live I can name....Jessops, Boots, Asda/Walmart that all do at least 4hour or 1hour processing of C41, and on top of that they have labs for b&w and medium format. As well as that there are Peter Gilberts, Great Western Cameras, and no doubt a variety of other shops that all do 48hr or week processing at a lab they send off to. C-41 processing is dead cheap. Unless you go to Jessops.


When I bought the tools to develop my own b&w, the guy in Peter Gilberts basically told me he'll stock more chemicals for me in the future if I wanted them, because he rarely orders any in anymore. Thats the situation.

Film isn't dead, its just unpopular.
 
Socke said:
I put a quilt over the door and it was light tight enough that I got my APX100 out without any fogging.
Click to expand...

Put the quilt back over the door one night. Bit pervy. And sit there in the dark for ten minutes. If you can see even the tiniest bit of edge of bath or whatever there is too much light. If you can't see anything then go Andy K's route.

PS Put the music player outsde the door. Ten minutes waiting time is two or three music tracks.
 
Andy, I was making a point about high street shops. Of those with enough sense to look on the net, will find a great deal on those sites, but the general population still buy in shops, and besides, if everyone bought online, and sent off for processing, then we'd still be in the mess that photo shops would eventually cease selling and processing film.
 
Ash said:
if everyone bought online, and sent off for processing, then we'd still be in the mess that photo shops would eventually cease selling and processing film.
Click to expand...

You mean like Amazon sell books and high street sellers lose out?

It's called the new economy.
 
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