The future of film in the context of current economy

Hi Bill,

Been a while since the last one of these threads. Kind of fun to see it come back.

My belief remains the same - there will be new manufactured B&W sheet and roll film for the foreseeable future. By foreseeable, I mean 4 to 10 decades. It won't be cheap & it won't be all that easy to find - rather like finding a tube of Titanium White is these days. It will be a small, niche market to be sure, but there will remain enough demand from us artsy fartsy types to keep one or two (Ilford? Foma? What ever Kodak's film division spins off as?) boutique manufacturers in production.

And if I'm wrong, well, wet plates aren't that hard to make :angel:

Have a good evening, sir.

William
 
Let's see, last summer, those "in the know" were predicting $7 gasoline by year's end. Last year "they" were saying it would be Rudy and Hillary on the ballot. The local weatherguessers can't even forecast tomorrow's weather.

Those who think they can predict the future aren't doing very well, are they? :)
 
About a year ago I went into our local WalMart & bought most of all Kodak's BW400CN because it was marked down with those red stickers meaning when it's gone it's gone. Walking through the store the other evening the shelves were stocked with film I haven't seen in a long while. Even the BW400CN was back.
 
dmr said:
Let's see, last summer, those "in the know" were predicting $7 gasoline by year's end. Last year "they" were saying it would be Rudy and Hillary on the ballot. The local weatherguessers can't even forecast tomorrow's weather.

Those who think they can predict the future aren't doing very well, are they? :)
Click to expand...

While I'm sure I'll live to see $7.00 gasoline, I doubt I'll live long enough to see the death of film.
 
The Wal-mart here does have four three-packs of BW400CN along with a few packs each of Kodak and Fuji film. Unfortunately, they closed the lab last month to process the stuff. I love BW400CN (but buy it from B&H), so I've ordered some C-41 chemistry to do it myself. Bah.
 
The discovery of slood may well kill or at least greatly diminish one market or the other (film or digital).

What is slood? I don't know; it hasn't been discovered yet. But slood is why predictions like this are more use for killing time than for planning our lives.

How many of the major events in your life went according to plan: where you live, what university you attended, whom you married...?

Cheers,

R.
 
Life does tend to be random, and driven by circumstances mostly out of our control. Still, it's probably better to act like we are in control and think about the future then to abandon our lives to fate. Your point is taken, though, that the belief this discussion will change the future of film or digital is magic thinking. :)
 
Fred Burton said:
Life does tend to be random, and driven by circumstances mostly out of our control. Still, it's probably better to act like we are in control and think about the future then to abandon our lives to fate.
Click to expand...

Sort of. With an event that is uncertain, it is much better to plan for how to react to the eventuality than to plan for the eventuality itself. Surprisingly many things then retreat into the ranks of "I'll worry about that when it happens," and the things that have to be done immediately also diminish greatly.

Frances's late aunt Helen was described some years ago by one of her (Helen's) oldest friends as suffering from 'hardening of the categories'. Ever since I heard that phrase, it's a condition I've sought to avoid. The finest book I know on the subect is Nicholas Naseem Taleb's The Black Swan.

Cheers,

Roger
 
Last edited:
Nh3 said:
My question is quite simple, do you think film will survive the current economic downturn?
Click to expand...

What will eventually kill film is the lack of cheap, reliable analog cameras.

Yes, there are millions of used cameras out there, but they need to be serviced. Sooner or later we will run out of spare parts and qualified technicians to service them. Even if a camera is mechanically sound, it still needs to be lubricated in order to work properly, after sitting on a shelf for decades.
 
I can't add much to these thoughtful comments. I'll note the demise of many precision optical/mechanical metal-bodied cameras, local camera stores and even the old local camera clubs.

I'm thankful, at least, for RFF!
 
Fred Burton said:
Economy? No. What is killing film is that you can't walk into a Wal-mart, at least in my area, and buy a film camera of any kind. If consumers can't buy film cameras, they aren't going to buy film.
Click to expand...

Why would you have to get your film camera from Wal-Mart? How many of RF-forum-people have bought their cameras from Wal-Mart? :D. And indeed, who would buy those film cameras they would sell.

How much money will film manufacturers from film cameras sold in a Wal-Mart? :)

It is true, the mainstream of basic consumers won't shoot film for too long, but that is not killing film. They haven't shot b&w film for a long time and still theres a whole lot of that stuff available. So I don't think it is the death of film if the averagy granny can't get film for her P&S from Wal-Mart 10 years from now, or a film camera.

Enthusiasts, professionals, artists etc. will keep shooting film and I think the biggest digi-hype is already over. At least where I live and teach darkroom-stuff in an university club, theres many more people coming to a course than last couple years. Of course this is could be just "luck" and probably is, but I keep thinking theres some more people trying film for change...

A "real" hobbyist doesn't have to get his film from the coffee shop, he can order bigger amount and keep it in his fridge.

For example I live in Tampere, Finland (quite a big city in Finlands scale), where there is jsut a couple shops selling b&w film. None is selling Tri-x, so I order it from Germany (because it is cheaper to order from there than Helsinki, capital of Finland). I get the film half at the price that I would get (Tmax or HP5+) from local shops. I see no problem with film availably, even though I live here, far north.

Also, I don't think film will disappear when there are no more VHS's, because I don't see (m)any advantages in VHS's. LP's would make a little better comparison.

Film still has quite a lot of advantages for people who know to appreciate them and those people will keep using it, even if they had to order it a bit further or pay a bit more.

Fuji and Ilford have been giving press releases saying they are not going to stop producing film. Ilford bought Kentmere and is still making even Ilfochrome-stuff. Fuji introduces a new 6x7 folder. Jobo is selling their processors and chemicals... Zeiss Ikon's and Zeiss lenses are selling, Leica is still making film cameras and seems like Voigtländer is doing fine with them too. etc, etc...
 
There are also many more complicated mechanical machines, that people learn to repair and do repair, than mechanical cameras. Some professionals and hobbyists have learned to service their own cameras. I see no problem with new people learning to service old cameras, it is not magic. Most of those cameras are anyway pretty simple (after all).

Ready spare parts can be hard to find, but making those parts or replacing them with parts that are alike, but not manufactured by the original factory can be done.

So far I haven't serviced any of my cameras, except for one Retina that was a bit faulty. It still worked (except for the easier way to launch the shutter) and was probably 60 years old.

My main 35mm body is made -74 and it keeps going fine, even though it was not used recently by the previous owner. Usually they do work just fine even if they weren't used recently. Of course they might use a "CLA" or such every 10 years or so to make sure they work just as they were designed, but they might as well work just fine without.
 
Well, I wouldn't publish press releases saying I was going to abandon film if I had a few hundred thousand rolls in cold storage, either. :) Don't forget that Kodak made the same statements about black and white paper just before they stopped making it.

I have no idea what the minimum amount of film it will take to keep Kodak and Fuji making it. These companies built their film imaging business on a model where they sold millions and millions of rolls of film every year. Will economies of scale now prevent them from continuing to produce it? We'll be told only after they stop producing it and sell off all the stock on hand, certainly not before. Perhaps that is what Kodak is up to now. Who knows?
 
Svitantti said:
. . . At least where I live and teach darkroom-stuff in an university club, theres many more people coming to a course than last couple years. Of course this is could be just "luck" and probably is, but I keep thinking theres some more people trying film for change...

Fuji and Ilford have been giving press releases saying they are not going to stop producing film. Ilford bought Kentmere and is still making even Ilfochrome-stuff. Fuji introduces a new 6x7 folder. Jobo is selling their processors and chemicals... Zeiss Ikon's and Zeiss lenses are selling, Leica is still making film cameras and seems like Voigtländer is doing fine with them too. etc, etc...
Click to expand...

I hear this from a lot of people, though others pooh-pooh the idea.

It is entirely possible that colour film will disappear before B+W, though don't forget that film base (substrate) is something that most manufacturers buy in, and photo paper is dependent on Schoeller's since Schoeller bought up Glory Mills and knocked them on the head. There does come a point where too much infrastructure is gone for the niches to continue -- but I don't think it's likely for film in the next few decades.

Just one small aside: the Ilford that makes Ilfochrome in Switzerland is not the Ilford that makes B+W film in the UK. Used to be; isn't now.

Cheers,

Roger
 
Syitantti, I'm not sure it makes sense to base forward looking business decisions on the basis of how many old cameras may be rusting in people's attics. I'm just glad I'm not the one having to make those decisions as Kodak and Fuji are having to do.
 
Keith said:
Considering that in one of our age related threads we established that we have members ranging from low teens to mid eighties ... that's a confusing statement.

Please be more specific and give me an exact date for the demise of film! :p
Click to expand...

Nothing confusing about it! I mean that every single person posting on this forum today, November 23, 2008, will be able to buy new 35mm film until his or her death.

To qualify, I do think it will disappear from malls and drugstores within a few years, if not by next Christmas. It will mostly be ordered online, or I dunno, through the electrodes attached to your forehead. Options will be limited, and it may become absurdly expensive. We may have to buy huge reels of it and load our own cassettes.

Here's why I think this. Film is kind of like tempera paint, or oil paint. It's an obscure and old-fashioned thing to want, and only artists will want it. But they WILL want it. Also, filmmakers will want it to be around, as an effect at the very least. And, perhaps most importantly, there are millions of Leicas, and almost everyone agrees they're the best cameras ever made. In fact, they're considered some of the best mechanical devices ever created by human beings. The idea of all of them becoming worthless forever just doesn't make sense. People love them enough to make sure they can use them. Even if the major manufacturers stop making film, eastern europe or china might well pick up the slack. People like Mr. K will take it over. There may be breaks in its manufacture along the line, but it will come back.

Film will become the domain of artsy professionals and hardcore hobbyists, but I think it will be here, in some form, for all of us to enjoy until we croak. There's your bit of wild optimism for this Sunday morning.
 
There may be millions of Leicas (although I think that's a stretch). But most of them are hidden away in vaults or sitting on shelves and will never shoot another roll of film. The very act of trying to preserve them as investments may eventually kill film and make them worthless.
 
Fred Burton said:
There may be millions of Leicas (although I think that's a stretch). But most of them are hidden away in vaults or sitting on shelves and will never shoot another roll of film. The very act of trying to preserve them as investments may eventually kill film and make them worthless.
Click to expand...

I think we'll be safe from that eventuality...as long as Leitz keeps making film cameras. When they stop, I think there will be a real danger of what you're describing coming to pass. Though I still think film will endure.
 
If there is a Leica on a shelf, what happens to it when the 60-80 year-old owner passes away? I dont think it will sit on the shelf anymore, or at least theres a big possibility it will end up somewhere else.

Also I wouldn't judge Fuji and Ilford from what Kodak does or did. Even if Kodak did quit making film, theres still Fuji and Ilford and the European and other Asian manufacturers. Kodak probably is the first one to go, at least judging by the information they've given out and their actions.
Their film business still does make profit for them, but the profit is not rising. This is bad for the stock owners, but if someone had the money to buy that part of Kodak, they would still make quite a nice money of it... There are still parts of world, where electricity and computers is not everywhere, but the economical growth is giving people opportunity to take photographs. This means even the consumer over there would buy film.

I think mabelsound's comparison to paintings is better than to compare VHS and DVD. VHS probably will disappear, but paintings - I don't think so.
(Film) photography has quite a history, somewhat alike traditional paintings etc. handcraft. It isn't going to end very easily.

There's still even Kodachrome, that quite isn't what the mainstream buys and shoots. Dwayne's says they process probably 1000 rolls a day or more.

BTW Leitz doesn't produce cameras anymore ;). But Leica still does. They also do service on Leicas. Even in Finland there is (or recently was, dunno) opened a new "official" Leica service.
 
"If there is a Leica on a shelf, what happens to it when the 60-80 year-old owner passes away?"

Somebody on RFF buys it from the widow and then sells it in the classifieds for a nice profit :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom