Wrong.
The numbers are available, if you do a proper research. Some manufacturers are obliged to publish their financial data (like Ilford, Kodak, Fujifilm). E.g. Ilford there has published their film sales, which have been increasing for 4 years. In 2017 (latest published year) they had in increase in film sales of +9%. At Fujifilm their instant film production is running in three shifts 24h each day 7 days a week to keep up with demand. The number of sold instax cameras is reaching a new record every year. Their silver-halide business is 2/3 of their total photo business, their digital section is only 1/3 of it.
Kodak reported for 2017 increasing film sales in the 5-15% range (depending on the country).
All film manufacturers recently have either introduced new films, or increased their marketing investments (or did both). Clear signs of increasing demand.
Furthermore the number of labs and used camera gear shops is increasing because of rising demand. Last weak I heard that in Bangkok alone 8 new labs have opened in the last 12 months.
Last Photokina I talked also to the big film distributors like ars-imago and Fotoimpex and all reported significantly increasing demand. The distributors have hired lots of new employees to keep up with the increasing orders.
The number of film photography channels on youtube has exploded in the last 24 months. The number of film related postings on instagram, too.
Here on rff lots of members are still captured in their "film is dead" bubble. Get out of it 😉.
Cheers, Jan
Jan,
“Is there commonly available (reliably independent) sales figures for film stock?”
That was the question Splitimagereview asked. My answer was “No. If there’s is let’s see it.”
Intentionally quoting people out of context in an attempt to make cheap points by categorically labeling others as “Wrong” doesn’t advance your argument, neither does endlessly repeating the same industry talking points.
The OP originally asked one thing, “What if Nikon (and Canon) released new RF FILM cameras (and lenses)?” and said “Wouldn’t that be fun?” Fair enough, and yes, it would be.
The only way to make anything of that order of magnitude appear plausible has been for the thread to devolve into mostly using Instax “film” and Instax camera production numbers to make it appear that the dawning of a new age is upon us, a point further bolstered by talk about new pinhole cameras as if pinhole cameras, fine in themselves, have anything to do with the level of camera this thread was talking about. At least, that’s what I’ve been talking about. Perhaps that is the source of the disagreement, that we’re talking about two completely different things.
Instax cameras are the Easy Bake Oven of the photography world. Photographers who have and enjoy one in addition to their other “real” cameras, that’s great. I’ve considered one myself. But, people who have an Instax as their
only (retro hipster lemming trendy vibe) “camera” that’s entirely something else again. People who are 30 in calendar years, but 9 in developmental years. Dedicated followers of fashion. Lemmings. Yeah, okay, that’s harsh, but, seriously, get off my lawn.
A minority percentage of those people will indeed go to their favorite Etsy store and buy an old “real” camera for $60 to help cement their retro cool status among their manscaping friends, but I personally doubt that is going to bring about the future of new, solid, legitimate 35mm cameras from major players that this thread was about. It wasn’t about something I can make in my wood shop. (Nothing wrong with that, and it would be a “film camera”, fun and legitimate in its own way, but fairly far afield from what many of us are talking about, and what many of us thought we were all talking about.)
Attached is a photo of a Nikon F2A I bought 6 months ago on eBay, available to anyone, in the midst of the purported exploding “rising prices” phenomenon. It functions perfectly, the meter has exactly matched the readings I get from the F2AS I had Sover refurbish for me. One of the best film cameras ever made. It cost me $245, shipped, from Japan. It’s possible to acquire cameras like this all day long.
I made a joke a day ago about the fact that I had bought most of the cameras on eBay. Sometimes it feels that way. Most of the people on this forum, and on every photography forum worldwide, have more than one camera. People my age tend to have
way more than one camera. It’s the “so easy and cheap to buy all those wonderful cameras I could never afford when I was younger” effect. Cameras just like this Nikon F2A.
Here’s how this works and affects the supply side of camera economics: when people my age die, all these cameras, lovingly maintained, come back onto the market. By the hundreds of thousands. This is in addition to all those constantly coming onto the market when people of all ages, who now only use their phones, decide to clean out their closets. It’s the camera version of Neitzsche’s Eternal Return. There are going to be hundreds of thousands, or millions, of (repairable, maintainable) cameras available for a very long time, for dollar amounts that are so low, even if they quadruple, that no manufacturer will be able to compete with, by building a camera of similar quality and sell at a comparable price.
The magical thinking quality of responses to this thread have even included scoffing at the economic effects of the supply and demand curve, so people will continue to see what they want to see, regardless. I’m not immune, and I’d love to see Canon or Nikon do this (as originally proposed), but there is simply no need.
If the conversation has shifted to a discussion of a startup making new pinhole cameras in a shed, in the stated 4-5 year time frame, I’d agree that was perfectly realistic.
But, Jan, if it’s your honest belief that “For future 35mm and 120 format cameras: I expect that in about 4-5 years to start”; If you are talking about something of the same marketable and saleable quality as the F2 shown here, or the cameras this thread started off being about, and if you are willing to bet $1,000 this will happen in 5 years, and if we can find an escrow account held by an independent party, I will write a check to cover that bet today, because it’s not going to happen until the supply of all the existing cameras is exhausted. (If even then, due to the short lived nature of the trendy.) And that is going to be decades from now.
“Here on rff lots of members are still captured in their "film is dead" bubble. Get out of it.”
That is my roll of Panatomic -X in my $245 Nikon F2, so I’m personally not in the film is dead bubble. But...“Film is alive”, and “major manufacturers making F2 and Nikon SP level cameras as a viable business is alive” are two separate things and the latter does not follow on from the former. Not in this world, not in five years.
Adox, Ilford and Ferrania are surviving, and hopefully doing well, by serving the
existing market comprised of the millions of perfectly competent already existing film cameras. There is no logical connection between the given fact of a possibly healthy emulsion market, and the need for, and rationale for, new film
camera production.
If you can’t manufacture a perfectly functioning F2A, sell it for $245, and make a profit, you don’t have a viable business model, because that’s exactly what the competition is doing. And that competition is going to be there for decades. Maybe after that there will be a business model for a new film camera, if anyone still cares.
Besides, Phones do bokeh now, I’ve seen it on the tv.
All the above IMO.
No animals were harmed in the making of this screed. May the past be with you.
