State of the film market 2020

L

Lukesaurus

Member
Local time
4:27 PM
Joined
Oct 29, 2020
Messages
19
I was wondering , besides Adox that has posted encouraging news , did any other companies offer updates ?

Is the market still growing ? From the anecdotal evidence I have ( my local film supplier regularly selling out of certain film stocks ) i'd say the market is still growing .
 
I just bought 10 rolls of HP5+ for £59.50. This is an increase in price since my last purchase three months ago. At this rate my film cameras will become museum pieces!
 
For the first time ever, my now 20 year old son recently expressed interest in film photography and got a 1980s SLR for Christmas. Two of his friends did the same. When I went to buy him some film on Amazon a week before Christmas, they were sold out of Portra. So were a couple of shops in London. Since these 'hipster kids' went for it, I decided to treat myself to a Minolta XD, a camera I first bought about 30 years ago. Here in Hong Kong, there's a couple of shops called Showa that sell film cameras. Every time I have been in, they are packed with people half my age or younger with cameras apparently flying off the shelves. Admittedly, these are small sample sizes. Nevertheless, my sense is film is booming. Long may it last.
 
The film industry is done plummeting and is slowly stabilizing. We'll see more smaller film manufacturers and higher prices from the established companies. It won't go away anytime soon though.
 
I found no where in US to buy Kodak Gold or Colorplus or Fujicolor 200 With reasonable price. Freestylephoto used to have all of the of them at around11-12 usd/ the 3-pack but they are all sold out for several months now
 
When I started reshooting film in 2018 I went to local drug stores to find film. CVS had Fuji Superia 400 XTRA, and said they would be discontinuing it. I kept buying a little, and noticed there must have been others buying also. Later the manager said they keep running out, so as long as people buy it, they will stock it (maybe early 2019). Last week I was there and noticed that they now carried Fuji Superia C200 and 400 XTRA, but the price increased (was 3 rolls for $18-20, now $25-26 for XTRA, C200 was a $1-2 cheaper). In 2018 Walgreens had some Kodak Colorplus, but have not looked recently. Anecdotal, but an observation. Went form "we are discontinuing" in 2018 to two varieties in 2021 (local CVS).
 
markjwyatt said:
In 2018 Walgreens had some Kodak Colorplus, but have not looked recently.
Click to expand...


Walgreen's is a tough one to figure out. Most of the ones by me have recently remodelled their stores and in the process have eliminated certain of their product lines, such as film and some of the batteries and even stuff like SD cards and accessories. But then go into an older store and they have all of those. Frustrating.
 
I do recall a recent thread mentioning that Kodak has struggled with supply issues on some raw materials last year which lead to their films going in and out of stock. I'm continuing to buy 35mm Tri-X and HP5+ fresh (and occasional portra/ektar) but have stopped shooting 120 as I'm selling my Pentax. If I can get away from urban areas, I'll likely pick up a 4x5 rig though and start buying a variety of B&W, C41 and E6 films to use.

My local high end art supply store (in a city/metro area of 150K or so) started carrying Ilford 35 and 120 films, paper, and development supplies last year and in the fall picked up Kodak 35mm Portra and Gold.
 
In my smallish Canadian city, the remaining full service photography store is now processing 700 rolls per week. Up significantly over a few years ago.

I have settled into film for B&W, and digital for colour. Ilford film and paper is available at an art school supply store but the prices are creeping up. Good bless the school's photo 101 course!
 
kiemchacsu said:
I found no where in US to buy Kodak Gold or Colorplus or Fujicolor 200 With reasonable price. Freestylephoto used to have all of the of them at around11-12 usd/ the 3-pack but they are all sold out for several months now
Click to expand...

I ordered a bunch of Fuji Superia 400 three packs from Adorama in October. It was back ordered but they only charge when the order is filled. It arrived in early December.
 
KenR said:
If the film market is doing so well, where are the new film cameras?
Click to expand...

Unlike digital cameras that have much to go wrong with them and go out of date, older film cameras were built to last. There is no need for new ones. My Leica M and Nikon F3 will see me out!
 
JohnBeeching said:
Unlike digital cameras that have much to go wrong with them and go out of date, older film cameras were built to last.
Click to expand...

Yup.

Also, we shouldn't underestimate the value of nostalgia here. To illustrate, in a market not dominated by nostalgia, the MP and M-A would have been discontinued, not the M7.
 
Out to Lunch said:
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. Cheers, OtL
Click to expand...

That’s certainly true. The best market data may come from Kodak, Ilford, Fuji, etc., in their annual reports — although I’d welcome an interview by one of their officers to the industry media on this topic.

Recently I bought a Fuji Instax camera, so with my luck I expect Fuji to discontinue Instax before I’ve made 10 exposures.


JohnBeeching said:
Unlike digital cameras that have much to go wrong with them and go out of date, older film cameras were built to last. There is no need for new ones. My Leica M and Nikon F3 will see me out!
Click to expand...

Exactly. My film cameras are enough to last me over 100 lifetimes. The issue with digital, aside from being reliant on proprietary electronic components, is also psychological - newer is better and your 3-year old camera just became “obsolete”. That was somewhat true with film cameras as well (US Photography magazines of the 1970s and 1980s loved to write about new equipment), but the cycle of introduction was much slower. It is very amusing reading dpreview when a new camera is introduced and many readers wail about the new X camera not having insect-recognition or some other fancy feature that Y camera introduced two months ago. Interestingly, on that site two older digital cameras still have a good following and continued respect: the Nikon D700 and Pentax K10D.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom