Topic: A different perspective on film price increases

[hookstrapped]

It's a good thing! 

https://www.35mmc.com/27/02/2020/some-thoughts-and-expereinces-in-favor-of-the-price-hikes-on-film-steven-bleistein/

[Francois]

I personally apply the same rule to pretty much everything. I just ask if I get my money's worth?
Good products deserve to be sold at a good price. Now if I were to pay TMZ prices for some Shanghai GP3, I'd be mighty p*****.
But all in all, I don't mind as long as there are offerings in all price ranges.

[John Robison]

Read the whole article. Cannot fault his reasoning but that of course doesn’t help the demographic of low/fixed income, old retirees who still pursue this hobby, all be it, in restricted form.
Well, nothing wrong in making every shot count. I have several binders full of forgotten negs from the carefree days of long ago that will be landfill in a few years when I check out.
Just completed making a 6x9 serviceable. Eight slow, contemplative shots, on a tripod, dutifully recorded in a 5x7 wire bound notebook.

[Francois]

That's also why there are small companies like Foma who keep producing decent products at a fraction of the Kodak price...

[zapsnaps]

In the 1990s, when film was cheap, I remember reading an article in an amateur photography magazine bemoaning the fact that d&p was too cheap. It claimed it encouraged the (now common digital) spray and hope school of photography. The move to MF was promoted as a way to slow people down, just as much as to improve image quality and technique. Try and get 1 keeper out of 12 shots, rather than 1 out of 36.

I had a studio shoot on Saturday. A single roll of 120 through the Blad and 100-odd digital snaps. The model loved being able to see the digi snaps immediately - but she is even more keen to see what the Blad produced. I like it when kids (although she is 29!) see film used and get interested in it. She expects the digital shots to be like her phone shots "but a bit better", yet has totally different expectations from the film shots. I just hope I don't disappoint when she sees them...

[Francois]

Film was definitely cheap in those days. Nikon even made a high speed version of I believe it was the F2 complete with semi transparent mirror, 100 foot film loader, 3 frame per second burst rate and all the fixings that go with that.

[John Robison]

In the 1990s, when film was cheap, I remember reading an article in an amateur photography magazine bemoaning the fact that d&p was too cheap. It claimed it encouraged the (now common digital) spray and hope school of photography. The move to MF was promoted as a way to slow people down, just as much as to improve image quality and technique. Try and get 1 keeper out of 12 shots, rather than 1 out of 36.

I had a studio shoot on Saturday. A single roll of 120 through the Blad and 100-odd digital snaps. The model loved being able to see the digi snaps immediately - but she is even more keen to see what the Blad produced. I like it when kids (although she is 29!) see film used and get interested in it. She expects the digital shots to be like her phone shots "but a bit better", yet has totally different expectations from the film shots. I just hope I don't disappoint when she sees them...

Going back a bit in time, early 70’s, I would buy a bulk roll of Tri-X for less than $10.
On one particular Saturday at Elkhart Lake racetrack with a couple of Pen F half frame cameras
I burned through the whole 100ft. Fourteen hundred negatives. In those days I was using 5 reel developing tanks and making contact sheets on 8x10. That took the next couple of days but you know, I doubt more than 25 of those negs even made it to work prints.
.

[EarlJam]

Print paper was cheap then, too. In the early - mid 70's, I regularly paid $9.95 (retail) for a 100-sheet box of 8x10 Polycontrast F. It wasn't cost-effective to buy smaller sizes or smaller packages. I regret not being more insistent that my dad teach me to shoot large format, since he had both 4x5 and 8x10 cameras, and I was gifted a 5x7 by a retired photographer for whom I did odd jobs. One of many missed opportunities.

In December 1971, silver was $8.67 per ounce. In January 1980 (thank you, Hunt Brothers), silver spiked at $118.55 per ounce. Price dropped pretty rapidly after that, but Kodak and the others didn't see much of a reason to adjust their prices for finished goods.