The longest Survivor: 120 or 135 format?

[Skiff]

I think it is stretching things to call Impossible Project a "huge success." You've got to give them props for getting folks to spend lots of money on a poor quality product, but they are a tiny niche at best.

You don't know the facts: They are already selling some million films. And their films are getting significantly better from version to version. Their latest version introduced this autumn is quite good and almost on the level of the former Polaroids. If they hold this pace in two or three years their films may be even better than the former Polaroid material.
In contrast to you I've used the films and know how they are.
And they are expanding their distribution worldwide. Tomorrow they will open another "Project Space" shop in Warsaw.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Like I say. Their marketing is spot on. Digital killed Polaroid, who already produced the real thing. Impossible Project aimed their product squarely at the young "arty photographer" market. If they get too good with the product, though, they will kill the golden goose. The appeal of the product to their market was its quirkiness.

 

[Skiff]

"But not in dynamic range. Here film is still king and significantly surpass all current sensors."

DXo says the dynamics range of the D800 is 14.5 EVs. That exceeds almost any film made.

DXo's typical marketing nonsense.
No current sensor get real 14 stops dynamic range, all are much below that.
But there are some films with more than 14 stops dr.

DXo also say that with their film simulation software you can get pictures identical to the specific film type.
That is simply a big lie.
If you compare their film simulation results side by side with the specific films, they look significantly different.

In this digital age too much photographers are brainwashed by marketing. And by "tests" where the testers are paid by the manufacturers to get the results the marketing wants.
I prefer to do my own tests.

 

[Skiff]

The appeal of the product to their market was its quirkiness.

No, the appeal is that you get a tangible photo in your hand, a real picture independent from electronics, which is unique.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

So why weren't these same people buying Polaroid's stuff, if the appeal was a photo you could hold in your hand? Was Polaroid just a failure at marketing?

 

[Skiff]

135 has potential future issues as the required anti-light-piping substrate has no other application. If film volumes get too small to absorb the minimum amount that can be produced at a reasonable price, we might be out of a suitable acetate or polyester base,

No, definitely not. Triacetate base production is no problem. And even it it would be in the future, you can always coat on PET base. Currently we already have some films on PET base.
PET is one of the most widespread chemical products, used in lots of different products which have nothing to do with photography. So coating on PET will always be possible.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

The reality is that the future of film will not be determined by any of this stuff we debate, but by business folks in a boardroom. Kodak didn't quit making B&W paper when they did because it wasn't selling, but because it wasn't selling enough, and it didn't fit into whatever plan they had at the time to move forward.

 

[Skiff]

So why weren't these same people buying Polaroid's stuff, if the appeal was a photo you could hold in your hand? Was Polaroid just a failure at marketing?

Polaroid did some major marketing mistakes, yes. The company was run in a quite bad way in the years before they decided to stop production of their Polaroid instant film.

Impossible Project and Fujifilm are doing a much better job and now have a very attractive market with double digit growth rates.

Ilford and InovisCoat are benefitting from IP's success, because they produce some major components of the IP film.

 

[Skiff]

The other factor will be the general decline in people over the next 10 to 30 years who are able or interested in repairing film cameras, and parts to repair them.

Someone who can repair a mechanical watch is also able to (learn) to repair a camera.
Old watches, decades old, are now repaired by mechanics which are much younger than the watches they are repairing.
We see the same with classic cars: 70,80,90 year old cars are now restored and repaired by 30, 35 year old mechanics.
And to repair a classic car is much more difficult than repairing a camera.
Besides: There are more than 500 million analogue cameras out there in the world. Even if 90% of them broke and will not be repaired there will much more cameras remaining than needed to keep film alive.
And there are also more than 20 manufacturers of film cameras worldwide who produce new cameras for film.

 

[Skiff]

This from 2011 for total rolls:

"A report by The Associated Press suggests that within the next 9 years film may be going the way of the Dodo. Film sales have been declining by 20% each year, with sales as low as 20 million rolls of film expected this year. Sales of film cameras are expected to be similarly low at 100,000 this year, compared to the peak of nearly 19.7 million in 2000, despite new film cameras being announced, such as the Lomo LC-A Wide. "

That is only a small part of the market: This report refers to PMA data of the US market only. And they forgot to say that in the same period in the US market 36 million single use cameras were also sold.
For 2012 the worldwide market is estimated to be 330 million rolls of CN film (BW and color reversal excluded). Here is the report:
http://www.showdailys.com/E-publisher/Photokina2012_day2/
(page 19 if I remember right)

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Skiff, good on you! Keep spreading the gospel. We need more cheerleaders for film, that's for sure. 🙂

 

[Skiff]

What dictates the availability of our current form of film in 120 and 135 formats is the motion picture industry.

No, absolutely not.
That is a myth circling around in photo forums for years. Lots of people copy that without critical thinking about.
It is so easy to see that it is wrong:
Just look at the different film manufacturers and see what type of films they are producing. And then you see that most of them do not manufacture motion picture film at all!
Only Kodak is more dependent on that market. But not the others, which either have never produced movie film, or have already stopped production of it some time ago, but continue to produce other types of film, or only have a very small percentage of movie film products in their portfolio.

 

[Skiff]

It may not be an issue for many manufacturers until they find themselves in the position Efke was in ... where needed maintainence costs for their plant over shadowed their output and profit potential.

Fotokemika is a special case and not comparable to the other film manufacturers:
Their coating machine is completetly different to all others in the industry: It's a single layer dip coater (all other are using multi-layer slide hoppers). A technology which was already outdated 50 years ago. This machine was built for the former Adox factory, and when this factory closed, the machine was moved to Croatia.
And since then they have not invested in it.
They even fired the last remaining QC engineer.
One reason why this factory so often produced crap. Big variations from batch to batch, emulsion holes, scratches, lousy roll film converting......I've so often had problems with their products.
They simply could not compete anymore against the much much superior quality of Kodak, Fuji, Ilford, Agfa-Gevaert, Foma.

And now investing money in their coating machine would not make much sense, because with this completely outdated principle they cannot reach the quality level of their competitors.

Surely all the film coating lines of most manufacturers out there have been around for years and may be pretty creaky by now. I've just checked in my Yellow Pages for 'film manufacturing equipment repairers' and can't seem to find any!

😀

There are several coating machine manufacturers. Coating is used in other industries, too.
And by the way inkjet papers are also coated, and the machines used are the same used for film and photo paper coating.
Therefore there will be no problem on the machinery side.

 

[Michael Markey]

Well they seem to be still making 35mm cameras .
Here`s a new one from Vivitar.


http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/vivitar-v3800n-35mm-camera-kit-3436-p.asp

 

[sevo]

And now investing money in their coating machine would not make much sense, because with this completely outdated principle they cannot reach the quality level of their competitors.

It was not a failing coating machine that eventually made them close, but a breakdown of the air condition...

 

[f6andBthere]

It was not a failing coating machine that eventually made them close, but a breakdown of the air condition...

Ahhh! So they were no longer able to make really 'cool' film?

😀

 

[Skiff]

It was not a failing coating machine that eventually made them close, but a breakdown of the air condition...

I've been told there have been several issues, and yes, the cooling system was one of them.
But all could have been solved in the end. But the major problem nevertheless would have been still there:
They could not / can not compete with the much better (quality wise) and much more efficient production technology of their competitors.
No one is producing cars on a production line from the 50ies anymore.
And it makes not much sense to produce film on a production line from the 50ies like Fotokemika has done.

 

[jsrockit]

Well they seem to be still making 35mm cameras. Here`s a new one from Vivitar.

http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/vivitar-v3800n-35mm-camera-kit-3436-p.asp

That kit is sure to keep film photography alive! 😉

 

[Skiff]

Well they seem to be still making 35mm cameras .
Here`s a new one from Vivitar.


http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/vivitar-v3800n-35mm-camera-kit-3436-p.asp

Well of course.
Nikon is still producing its flagship 35mm SLR F6:
http://asia.cnet.com/crave/what-goes-on-inside-nikons-sendai-factory-62213402.htm
Cosina / Voigtländer ist still producing 4 RF models for 35mm.
And for Zeiss they are making the Zeiss Ikon ZM.
Leica is producing the M7 and MP.
35mm autofocus compact cameras are offered by several companies like AgfaPhoto.
And Lomography is offering more than 20 different 35mm cameras. They sell about 500,000 cameras p.a. worldwide.

120 and 135 cameras (several models) are made by Holga. They recently made the statement in an interview that they sell about 200,000 cameras each year. Demand is growing , especially in China.
Several 120 cameras are also made by the Lomographic Society, they just introduced a new model (Belair) for 6x6, 6x7 and 6x12.
DHW Fototechnik is producing a whole line of high-end medium format cameras www.dhw-fototechnik.de.
Mamiya is producing the M 7II, RZ 67 and 645 AFD III.
Cosina the Bessa III / Fuji GF models.

And there are some others I am too lazy to list....😉

 

[unixrevolution]

Film will die when people stop shooting it because they're too busy arguing over when it will die on internet forums.

Too snarky?

Fine. 35mm, 120, and large format (up to 8x10, maybe larger) will be readily available in black and white pretty much forever. Film will not go away because of digital in the same way that canvases, oil paints and brushes did not go away because of photography.

Color will be a different thing, because the main thing keeping black and white around is the darkroom process, and that is kind of lost when you do color. Color film may be around for decades in both formats, but it will likely eventually sell poorly enough that the extremely complicated coating and developing process for color film will make it impractical.

However, 100 years from now, all the digital cameras I ever bought will have died and been recycled. My film cameras will still be shooting. My Leica M2 will have probably had 3 more CLA's at the reccomended quarter century interval.

That said, why are we sitting here with our doom and gloom predictions, instead of going outside and shooting some film to keep it alive?

Well, I mean, I'm sitting here because I'm at work. What's your excuse?