Is film dead ?

Ash said:
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.
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Have you seen the Jessops website lately? It is almost impossible to find traditional supplies on their site now and it is the same in their shops. The high street retailers DON'T WANT your/our custom. Jessops are even advertising flatscreen TVs and SatNav for f*cks sake! If you wish you can let them know what you think of their new incarnation as Curries Mk2 here.
 
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Yikes, Andy I didn't mean to get you angry.

Personally I despise Jessops, because you're absolutely right. I go in there and they treat me as if they dont want nor need my custom. However, the store in Swindon stocks a lot of film (at least 20 varieties) and also traditional chemicals. The chemicals arent on display though. I had to ask specifically.
 
Well I didn't want to push it in case you were angry!

but nope, haven't been here long, and hoping i dont p*ss anyone off enough that I'm not here much longer!!
 
FWIW...

It is increasingly less convenient to find film, paper & chemicals locally. There are still a few camera stores in the Seattle area but even then the selection is limited. So, it requires more planning and I now order online. And there are several sources online...and they are cheaper.

Yes, I still support my local pro store and will continue to shop there as long as I can purchase the products I need. I actually feel sorry for some of the salespeople who once dealt with pro and serious photogs and now have to deal with the average digital camera user. But, it is the direction the store has chosen, and they are just anticipating the market.

My point...adapt. Figure out what you need and where to get it. There are still lots of options. All this whinning about film-vs-digital is silly.

Bob
 
For what concerns Italy films are still in shops, but if I look around myself most of people are shooting digital. Than take the card to a lab to have print done (which at the end is not so different than what they were doing a couple of years ago with film!).
What is surprising me is that is getting difficult to buy a dedicated film scanner: even big shops do not have available. I m thinking to replace my 2700 dpi with a more performant but not sure. My idea to shoot film and scan is in a difficult moment .
rob
 
...just checked my film's pulse & it's ok...whew, i had heard it was dead!!

... got to go...time to go wading through my usual stream of consciousness.


kenneth
______________________

"...patience and shuffle the cards." miguel cervantes
 
courtney said:
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 !!!!
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Yes!

All film is dead!

In fact, this past weekend I took six rolls out and shot them just to make sure! :D
 
Yes, film is dead. Your cameras are worthless, and the money you invested in them is lost.

I'll send you my home address in a PM, so you can mail me your cameras to be properly disposed of in my "camera graveyard" (a.k.a. Crumpler photo bag). I understand that this is a difficult time for you, so I will waive the normal EUR500,- disposal fee, and charge you only AUD$50 per body, and AUD$30 per lens. Payment plans with reasonable interest rates are available.

Here are some links to help you overcome your grief. They will help you to realise that you are not alone in this:
* These people haven't figured it out yet... Pity them
* These people are slowly making the switch; they'll be OK
* These people stopped caring a long time ago. They are blissfully beyond hope
* These two guys make a comic about video games. It's not photo related; it just makes me laugh. YMMV
 
Film? film? Oh- you mean those cylindrical memory storage things with the flexible interface sticking out!
Strange thing is, although a major one-hour lab chain went bankrupt a short while ago, when I walk into the local mortician- whoops I mean Dixons they automatically assume developing and prints and even offer two levels of processing, one fast cheap and nasty and one quite good which they send to a pro lab in Belgium. They even stock various slide films. And that is Dixons (yuk). As a matter of fact there are three places in my local shopping mall that do developing and printing.
 
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ok sorry about the F.I.D thread title, guess everyone is bored with that, just trying to get a global perspective of whats happening and how people are dealing with the labs.
Perhaps 'Lab situations in your part of the world' may of been a better title.
 
Just having returned to NZ, I enquired as to what places handled 120 colour film processing here in Wellington. The two recommended are on opposite sides of the same very small road - keeps 'em honest I suppose.

Just a little way down the road is another decent shop that still has excellent supplies of developers (incl. Rodinal), papers etc. for traditionalists :p , sheet film in various sizes, etc. All this and digital!

Back in Amsterdam there were quite a few places still handling the dead format in multiple dead format sizes :p
 
Thanks to digimania, the value of good, old-fashioned enlargements is increasing, not declining. Last year was an all-time record for auction sales of traditional prints. Not that I am a Steichen or an Adams, but I do find it very comforting to know that what I do is becoming a rarer skill.

I have absolutely no intention of joining the digital throng. What value is a technique that everyone else has? I had a DSLR- been there done that. Raw capture, photoshop.... yawn.
 
I think that the future is going to be "either or". I now go to a very large Canadian drug chain for my film processing. They just opened a kiosk about 3 months back. They are handling CD's for printing, they have a minilab for processing C41 only and I can get lots of film relatively speaking. They sell disposables, Kodak, Fuji, colour from 100 to 400 ISO and Kodak C41 BW at 400 ISO. Not bad.

Now for the good part.... a roll of 24, processed and scanned to CD (Kodak processing equipment and CD) at 2.99$ CDN or about 2.75$ USD... film 'is ded' ... don't think so. Or they wouldn't be doing this. BTW they are very busy.
 
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jan normandale said:
I now go to a very large Canadian drug chain for my film processing....

Now for the good part.... a roll of 24, processed and scanned to CD (Kodak processing equipment and CD) at 2.99$ CDN
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Please share! Where do you get this wonderful price?

Gene
 
'Now for the good part.... a roll of 24, processed and scanned to CD (Kodak processing equipment and CD) at 2.99$ CDN or about 2.75$ USD...'

who do dat?
 
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