21

Two years ago 25 sheets of Ilford Delta 100 4x5 B&W cost just over $25. My last purchase last fall it was ~$35. Now it's $46. That's a steep rise! What's driving these rising film prices and can we expect them to drop again some day?

steel
  • 1,286
  • 1
  • 10
  • 29
  • 7
    Film camera sales effectively went to zero about ten years ago. Kodachrome died at the same time. Cinemas were the only major consumer of film left and, in the ten years between then and now, they've all switched to digital as well. Film manufacturers have been killing products for years, distributors have been selling the last scraps of discontinued stock... the writing has been on the wall for a long, long time. – J... Jan 14 '19 at 16:38
  • @J... Much cinematography is still done on film, particularly Indian "Bollywood" productions. The entire Bollywood industry is quite a bit larger than the US motion picture industry. – Jim MacKenzie Jan 14 '19 at 19:34
  • @J...which is somewhat of a crying shame. I'd love to see a 1V with an updated autofocus system. Maybe we can convince Canon to do a limited production run pre-funded a-la Kickstarter. Wishful thinking...I know... – OnBreak. Jan 14 '19 at 19:35
  • 1
    @JimMacKenzie Bollywood is also majority digital now, afaik. If you have a source otherwise I'd like to see it. Seriously, dynamic ISO alone is a massive incentive to ditch celluloid, nevermind operating costs and expensive digital transfers. – J... Jan 14 '19 at 20:11
  • I stand corrected. Bollywood is majority digital now. Pity. – Jim MacKenzie Jan 14 '19 at 20:56
  • 1
    This is too OT to be an answer but the article Better Imaging from the American Dental Association offers another perspective. If you use film and are invested in it then change in workflow, equipment, and training is costly for benefits that may not be understood. If you are starting a new practice costs are approximately equal and it's obvious that the benefits are enormous. -- Exaggerated answer: No one [studio] new will go film, no one old can afford to shun digital forever (for over a decade more?). Digital has come. – Rob Jan 14 '19 at 23:34
  • 1
    @Rob I was in the dental industry at a company that sold sensors in 2010. Offices were switching even then, when the tech was newer and software buggy. I’m always surprised to see holdouts now. – OnBreak. Jan 15 '19 at 12:16
  • @Hueco - But there are holdouts, rationalizers, people whom know best [sarcasm]. One use of film that makes sense is the field of industrial x-ray (for NDT), *that's* a growing industry: Fuji, GE, etc. *do* sell enough film, though where digital is useful (airports) they have moved from film completely. In industry film is traditional. – Rob Jan 15 '19 at 12:58
  • Besides photographers that still use it, film is being used for long term storage of digital cinema https://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/lab_and_post_production/archival_films/vision3_digital_separation_film_2237/default.htm – moorej Jan 20 '19 at 02:01

4 Answers4

35

The sale price of film is going up because of “economy of scale”. In other words, the more you make of any particular article, the lower the cost to make that article. Digital imaging has overtaken film imaging and this movement continues at a rapid pace. Thus as film sales drop, the cost to manufacture goes up. It is as simple as that!

Alan Marcus
  • 39,160
  • 3
  • 48
  • 91
  • 1
    Do you have some reference to back this up Alan? Film sales certainly plummetted in the decade from 2005 to 2015, but what evidence is there to say that demand is still dropping? In my anecdotal experience, interest in film is quickly rising! – osullic Jan 13 '19 at 16:33
  • 13
    How many "home users" certainly and even to a large degree professional photographers do you know who still use film? Is that quantity rising? I don't think so. I certainly agree there's a niche still for those that prefer it, but I think it's a tough sell to claim that film is clawing back any of the digital market. Digital photography is completely pervasive now. – Lightness Races in Orbit Jan 13 '19 at 17:17
  • 6
    Nobody is under any false illusion that film is going to make a comeback and take over digital. But yes certainly home users are showing increased interest in film photography...alongside digital, and maybe especially from people who never tried film photography before. Kodak Alaris re-introduced Ektachrome. Ilford started making their Titan 4X5 pinhole camera. There were 8 questions asked on photo.stackexchange.com so far today - 3 of which are about film. 37.5% is pretty good going for film in my book! Is the quantity of film users rising since, say, 2015... I do think so. – osullic Jan 13 '19 at 17:58
  • 9
    It was amateur film sales that ruled the market and these sales subsidized the professional film market. Without the amateur sales subsidization professional film making is on a downward spiral. – Alan Marcus Jan 13 '19 at 18:04
  • 1
    @osullic see my answer. Fuji credits the rise to instant - not trad B&W. And especially not large format. – OnBreak. Jan 13 '19 at 19:51
  • 2
    @osullic money comes from sales, not from SE questions. Look around, does 1/3 of people use film cameras? I'd assume 90% just use their phones and don't ask any questions. Film cameras in our days are like horses in the car age. – IMil Jan 14 '19 at 00:02
  • 9
    @IMiL I'm not stupid, I know that 1/3 people don't use film. My point is just that this argument that people are switching from film to digital is flawed. That switch is long finished. There are no more hold-outs giving up film for digital in 2019. The question talks about film prices in the last 2 years. Film use bottomed out years before that. But now, it seems to me, there is renewed interest in film, as I already mentioned. I would guess there are more people shooting film in 2019 than 2016 or 2017. – osullic Jan 14 '19 at 01:28
  • 3
    @osullic You're thinking about still photography. You forgot cinema. That changeover was later, and there's still cinemas today who haven't switched to digital projection, especially in foreign countries. One roll of 135 film is equal to 3 seconds of cinema footage, times the hours per film times the thousands of prints made for each of the hundreds of movie releases per year. – user71659 Jan 14 '19 at 05:18
  • @user71659 Apples to oranges. The same production lines don't make movie film and MF/LF sheet film. Then there's the issue of QC and unit size. When a roll of 135 film has a single defect, you lose 1/36 of a 1.5m x 35mm piece of film with a total area of 0.05 m², or one frame covering 0.0014 m² . When a sheet of 8x10 LF film has a defect, you lose the entire piece of film covering 0.05 m². – Michael C Jan 14 '19 at 07:34
  • 1
    I wouldn't say digital's "overtaking" of film is ongoing - it's effectively complete, even in the cinema industry. The only people still shooting film are an esoteric handful of romantics. Film is objectively obsolete. – J... Jan 14 '19 at 16:47
  • @J... I shoot film in my Noblex 135 S and Rolleiflex 3.5F, and I love the process. For me, it is fun, with very satisfying results. It's the first time I realised I am an esoteric romantic... – osullic Jan 14 '19 at 16:57
  • 1
    @osullic Yes, but just because you shoot film does not mean that large numbers of other people do. I'm sure you can find people who still send messages by telegraph too, but that doesn't mean it's not a dead technology. – J... Jan 14 '19 at 17:05
  • 2
    @J... well my comment was kind of tongue in cheek. But I really don't think it's all that dead. It has just changed. And of course never will be what it was. I think, in all honesty, instead of comparing to the telegraph, it should be compared to the renaissance of vinyl records. There's a renewed interest from people who are willing to try something different. I mean, take for example speedgraphic.co.uk - a reputable UK seller of photographic equipment - right there in a prominent position on the homepage... – osullic Jan 14 '19 at 17:17
  • 1
    All this discussion --- It costs millions to maintain film manufacture. It takes a heavy investment in machinery. The machinery must be maintained. You must pay for upkeep of the building and utilities. The equipment must be manned. You must have a staff to procure supplies. You must have a staff that checks the quality of input and output. You must have a marketing department. You must have an advertising department. You must have a sales department. You must have distribution.You must have numerous others things not mentioned. Most of all, customers willing to pay. – Alan Marcus Jan 14 '19 at 17:39
  • 2
    @osullic Film sales have withered to about 1% of their peak around 2003. What you read in headlines about a film comeback is essentially looking at 99% collapsed sales growing to 98.7% collapsed and someone saying "Film sales grew 30% last year! - Film is back!". It isn't. A few hipsters bought into a fad - the dilettantes will tire of their new toys and will bring their old Pentax bodies back to the thrift shops in 18 months and we'll be right back to a 99% collapse. Film is dead. – J... Jan 14 '19 at 19:13
15

Here’s Fuji’s annual report: https://www.fujifilmholdings.com/en/pdf/investors/integrated_report/ff_ir_2018_all.pdf

The page you want is page 48.

What you should notice is that photo imaging made up 15.7% of the business - to which photo imaging revenues were roughly 2/3. While imagine revenues have shown increases from 2014, they also appear to be plateauing from 2016 on.

Fuji directly credits emerging markets, instax, and printing for the growth - not provia, velvia, or astia. In case you missed the news, they’re retiring all B&W (https://petapixel.com/2018/04/06/fujifilm-officially-killing-off-acros-film/) [damn, I miss me some neopan 1600 about now].

Ilford is held by a private equities firm, so, there is no public data on their sales.

But, I would guess that Harman Tech was able to make it profitable, then it was acquired, and it’s positive profitability is why it still exists. They probably also declined in sales to the same plateau. The film resurgeance has been strongest with instant, followed by 135. 120 and larger are essentially being subsidized by these sales.

Prices will continue to climb until it makes more sense to nix the product altogether. Maybe they’ll still manufacture the plastic for us so we can make and coat our own large format emulsions in the future.

OnBreak.
  • 20,509
  • 5
  • 49
  • 81
  • Interesting, I’d have expected B&W to endure more than colour film, given that it has more characteristic features that set it apart from digital than colour film does. Or did I miss the memo where digital B&W is now as good as analog? – Konrad Rudolph Jan 15 '19 at 17:32
  • @KonradRudolph we're in an instant gratification world - which is why instant is really leading the come back. B&W film and Digital overlap, but they're two different beasts at the end of the day. Digital has the ability to capture in color and then apply any sort of channel mixing you want. Film, you're stuck with one spectral profile for the roll/sheet and filters to play with it to a small degree. – OnBreak. Jan 15 '19 at 17:57
  • That being said...there's something about large format especially that digital just hasn't cracked. – OnBreak. Jan 15 '19 at 17:58
6

Revenue maximisation and lack of competition:

  • Especially with Ilford, it is very obvious that they are pricing their products based on willingness to pay in a certain market. Ilford products are e.g. significantly cheaper in the US or UK compared to mainland Europe.
  • If you want 4x5″ 100ASA tabular grain black and white sheet film, your only two options are Ilford Delta 100 and Kodak T-Max 100, of which the Kodak film is even more expensive (at least in most markets).

If it doesn't have to be a tabular grain film and you are willing to consider other brands, there are at least a few more options. Here in Europe, I can get 50 sheets 4x5″ Foma 100 for around US$ 35 ex tax. I don't know if there are cheaper suppliers in the US, but B&H sells the Foma film for US$50. A bit more expensive than here in Europe, but still half the price of the Ilford product.

jarnbjo
  • 3,272
  • 14
  • 17
  • 1
    European prices are quite a bit higher than US prices because VAT is included. UK prices include VAT too but shipping and warehousing aren't major concerns, since Ilford is UK-based, which may help. – Jim MacKenzie Jan 14 '19 at 19:37
  • @JimMacKenzie I am of course comparing prices without tax. Anything else wouldn't make sense. The sheet film in question is e.g. priced roughly the same in UK and US, but is about 25% more expensive in Germany and probably even more expensive in many other continental European countries. I don't see how that can be explained with shipping costs. – jarnbjo Jan 14 '19 at 23:28
5

In addition to economy of scale as mentioned, environmental protection obligations are certainly not becoming less - and it is called "chemical film" for a reason. There will certainly be some harmful chemical waste left after making film. Also, while exposed and developed film in household/commercial quantities might be considered normal bin-able household/commercial waste, the same might not be true for cutting scrap (eg where the holes have been punched) or discarded batches of unexposed film in industrial quantities.

rackandboneman
  • 7,212
  • 19
  • 32
  • This is a good point. It's illegal in my local area to dump used fixer down the drain as the silver is bad for the environment. There are local resources, however, that will take the exhausted fix off your hands to extract out the silver. – OnBreak. Jan 13 '19 at 22:59
  • Yep. And where is the silver in the fixer coming from :) – rackandboneman Jan 15 '19 at 09:52