What percentage price increase would it take before you reconsider using film?

[jaredangle]

Already paying $6-7 per roll of Fuji slide films, and up to $10 for Kodak slide films. My Fuji Neopan is only $3 a roll, if it doubles to $6 I'll have no problem paying for the same amount of film I currently buy, I'll just be more selective with which photographs I take (and I'll eat as much ramen as I need to!).

 

[peripatetic]

There are a few kinds of costs that are problematic:

1. Do it yourself processing and printing (BW only - I presume hardly anyone does their own colour). For that you need time and space. Sure you CAN do it in a bathroom, but that adds to the time required 'cos that means setup and teardown times if you actually want to use the bathroom.

I live in London. I don't have the money to buy a house big enough for a dedicated darkroom. I presume the same is true for many people who live in major urban centres.

I also leave the house at 5am and return at 6pm, bath the kids and put them to bed, by the time they are settled it's 9pm.

At that point the notion of setting up trays full of mildly toxic chemicals in the bathroom my kids use (no room in our bathroom) which then have to be disposed of and the bathroom cleaned properly is beyond the realms of being worth considering.

Weekends are occasionally less busy, but not by much. Firing up my computer, putting in a card, setting LR to download is by comparison incredibly quick and easy. It only takes 2-3 minutes and I can do that while getting the kids ready, so that I can squeeze in an hour or so a couple of nights a week.

That's the real cost of film to me.

2. Financially however. A roll of 36 on the high street costs £6. Processing alone is at least £5 for C41, usually £10+ for BW and a 10 day wait. Scans are okay for previews, but unusable even for facebook. So £10-£15 per roll just to get a negative on the high street. It can be done cheaper on the internet, but you are still talking about very close to £10 a roll total cost when P&P is included. A roll of 120 is about the same. At 2 rolls a week x 50 weeks a year that's around £1,000 a year. That amount of money pays for a pretty decent digital setup when you look at it over a 3-4 year period. Certainly 5D2 or D700 territory, though an M9 is more, but of course you are not limited to 100x36 exposures with an M9 for that cost. The point really is that 2 rolls a week is not mini-gun shooting - does anyone really think that?

Of course if the only reason you have a PC is for digital photography then the cost equation moves slightly, but not terribly much. For < £1000 you can have a copy of LR and a pretty decent desktop PC and colour-calibrated monitor for your photography. Looked at over a 3-4 year period in the UK digital photography is cheaper than film photography for most enthusiasts even if their shooting volumes are quite modest.

So that's why I don't shoot much film. It's expensive and time-consuming.

 

[zerobuttons]

I didn´t vote. Keith, this question seems to me not to be the most pressing in view of what is really going on.

The highest film prices I see mentioned in these fora are not unlike the prices we have seen in Denmark for several years. I don´t think that it is very likely that these prices (compared to the spending-power in a standard household) will rise significantly in the next 10 years or so.

What seems more interesting to me is the price and availability of developing and enlarging. B&W developing can be done without a great fuss at home. Colour developing could also be done at home, but here the chemicals suddenly get more expensive and very much fussier to work with. Enlarging - only very few non-professionals can and will. I would really like to enlarge, but I haven´t got a spare room to make into a darkroom. I know of at least one professional here who "enlarges" digitally (and does it well).

The owner of the laboraty where I get my colour films developed and enlarged, tells me that Kodak has promised to the world that it will produce film materials as long as humanity exists. His problem is that Kodak gave up having a Danish agency some time ago. He could buy the chemicals from Norway, but at a 50% price increase. He buys them from USA now. He told me that in Sweden there is only one place left to get colour developing (in Stockholm) - and Sweden is not a small country.

For enlarging, I pay three times the price I had to pay at day-to-day developing laboratories when they were still in existence in Denmark until about 6-7 years ago. That increase covers this:
# That he works more professionally.
# Increased chemical prices since then.
# Increased prices for getting rid of chemical waste since then.

 

[Lilserenity]

I think there is a limit for me somewhere but I haven't reached it yet. As mentioned recently in another thread, my loyalty lays with getting the picture and at the moment I prefer doing that with my film cameras but if it was going to cost me £15 for a roll of film each time something would have to give, and that would be getting a digital SLR or decent compact because I love pictures more than the process, it'll be a sad day though.

I'd anticipate that at some point probably in the next 3-4 years colour film will be substantially more expensive relative to my income that to continue taking pictures in colour I will need to get a digital camera to continue working in colour.

As for black and white, well, I aim to continue supporting Ilford (and Kodak for developer, D76 and HC110) as I enjoy the processing and printing at home for as long as I can.

Vicky

 

[Pickett Wilson]

"tells me that Kodak has promised to the world that it will produce film materials as long as humanity exists."

Yeah, that's what Kodak was saying about B&W paper up to the day they stopped making it.

 

[jesse1dog]

Film is basically at the level of not being cost effective for me.
It's not the film price only but also the processing, scanning and postage costs. Like many RFF members I live on the edge of civilisation - two hours drive to the nearest decent photographic supplier, and then two hours back.
But there are other considerations too. It's capturing the moment, the photograph that counts. So the most convenient way for me to do this is digitally. The reason is simple - I'm using a camera that I like to use - it has a zoom lens that I never thought I would appreciate when I just used a simple rangefinder, or an slr with a selection of lenses. I'm at one with this tool and the results are more than acceptable to me. In addition to post on the internet I need digital output. Best get it direct through the camera rather than using a scanning process.
The pictures are what is important rather than the getting there.
So in answer to Keith's question, put me in the 0% category.
Knowing how my views have changed through the years I might well be using film in twelve months time. However I'm happy using what I have now.

jesse

 

[rsosa]

Second part of the question: how much lower an M9 should cost for you to ....

right now, in my book (read shooting arista and home processing/scanning), film is much cheaper than digital

this is exactly what i was going to post, when the M9 or M9p or M10 hits my range or my wallet condition increases will take the step. Im even maybe talking about an M8 as first step here.

I love my M, love the RF, just love it. on the other hand still doing my first steps on film, liked it very much and still need to print in my focomat when i make space at home

 

[segedi]

I've stocked up quite a bit so I have enough in the freezer to last me 3 - 4 years. And it really only has to last until 20 Dec 2010, right?

 

[oftheherd]

I have so much money invested in film cameras that I will not give up buying film easily. I will pay a lot and If I have to buy a big number of 100 ft rolls and freeze it I will. I think there will be a point where other equipment or chemicals are no longer carried by retailers. I think there will be a time when it will collapse fairly quickly over a year or so. Film prices may be a moot point. I am hoping that time doesn't come along for another 10 years. Jim

Sort of how I feel. I have a lot invested in film cameras. I like film. I don't want to stop even if I have to cut down. I can mix my own chemicals for b/w.

But if it happened, I would just move on to some useful but inexpensive digital and keep shooting.

 

[jsrockit]

How about a how much will it need to decrease in order for me to use it with frequency again option?

 

[rickp]

for hybrid film users, it's not just the cost of film ........

for hybrid film users, it's not just the cost of film ........

for me, the "end product" of using film is a good scan, followed by either sharing online or a good print from that scan.

as such, i end up looking at the total cost of film to my desired end product, so there's cost of film, cost of development, cost of scanning or scanner, and cost of printing.

as such, i'm probably not a typical film user, and not a good target for your poll. here in hamburg, a good lab (nearby, good quality) wants euro 30 ($45) to develop a 120 color roll including 18mb scans and CD.

at the moment, that seems like a lot of extra effort and cost to end up with fewer pixels and/or MB than my digital camera produces. it's at least enough to keep me away from MF film.

i'll continue with 35mm film for a while, because it is a different story and calculation. i have the necessary film scanner.

regards to all

rick

 

[daninjc]

ARGH. this thread just made me compulsively buy 80 rolls of Arista/Tri-X. hope they last for a while

 

[Michael Markey]

as such, i end up looking at the total cost of film to my desired end product, so there's cost of film, cost of development, cost of scanning or scanner, and cost of printing.
rick

Don`t forget the cost of binders and sleeves for storing the negs .
If you`re a prolific film user that`s not cheap.
Film prices seem to have risen in the UK with XP2 typically nearly five quid a roll plus ,of course , developing and Kodak BW 400CN about four quid a roll.
I for one am cutting back and using my GRD more although film remains my favorite medium.

 

[RedLion]

Cost of Film.

Cost of Film.

My cost for a roll of 120 film is:

$3.50 or so for a roll of C-41 (either Ektar 100 or Fuji Reala - whatever is on sale)

$1.50 to have roll developed and get 3" prints. Walmart sends it out. It takes about 2 weeks.

I get prints to review, so I use these prints as a kind of contact sheet to choose the keepers I want to scan.

I then use my cheap Canon 9000F scanner with Silverfast to scan only the ones I want. I scan at 4000 dpi and then downsize the 9000x9000 file down to 4500x4500 in Photoshop. Using this, I get a pretty good resulting scan for 6x6 medium format so I get a decent 20mp image for further use.

So total cost of film is: $5 a roll.

 

[karlori]

Double the current price here would just not seem mentally sane to keep up going, that would be like a new dslr every 4-5 months...

 

[newsgrunt]

If or when 8x10 TXP hits $10 per sheet, I'd probably hit the road. 35 and MF, I'd have to play by ear

 

[Jamie123]

If Kodak stops making Portra I'll stop using film.

 

[Jamie123]

By the way, if you ask at what price point I draw the line, I can tell you this. When I decided to get into large format I considered 8x10 for a quick second until I realized that film and processing would run me $50+ per sheet (c-41, no scanning or contacts). That is where I have to draw the line. I decided to go with 4x5. It's still about $10/sheet but that's not too bad.

 

[tlitody]

We surmise about this quite a lot when discussing the future of film and generally seem to agree that when the big players eventually get sick of making it (Fuji and Kodak) it will inevitably become a little more of a niche product and will likely cost more ... but should continue to be available into the foreseeable future hopefully.

So the question is ... how far are you personally prepared to go up my hypothetical price scale before you opt out?

Question is how much have film and paper prices risen in the last 5 years and what will they be in another 5 years. I think they are all going up all the time, especially Ilford. Since sales are increasing then they should only be following inflation but they aren't.
So if I were a commercial photographer using film, paper and chemicals every day I might view it from a business profit point of view and decide digital has a bigger profit margin. But as an enthusiast who likes the film and wet printing process and doesn't use a lot of film, then I don't think the price hikes will make much difference.

 

[shadowfox]

"tells me that Kodak has promised to the world that it will produce film materials as long as humanity exists."

Yeah, that's what Kodak was saying about B&W paper up to the day they stopped making it.

And yet today we still have Adox, Fotokemika (Efke, Emaks, Varycon), Foma, Harman (Ilford, Kentmere), Slavich, Oriental producing photo papers.

Therefore we don't know who will pick up the production *if* Kodak decided to stop making film. My guess is there will a new player.