She said her sister had just printed 250 prints at £12, from her digi.
Well lots of paper for little money, or nothing for the future, does any one care.
Graham
I wonder what paper and inks were used. I had always been under the impression that good quality inkjet photo paper and printer inks meant that the prints costs were at least comparable to darkroom costs and factoring in unproven longevity meant that trad prints were very much worthwhile.
However sivler gelatin paper has gone through the roof pricewise whereas it seems that no such increase from what you tell us applies to non trad paper.
Forget the film and dev, 250 prints in 5x7 trad paper alone is now more like £35 and if it's 6x4 it's only slightly less.
Apparently increase in raw materials account for 2 increases in price for Ilford paper. One stockist is even apologising for it on its website!
Seriously though, such increases may not dissuade the committed darkroom diehards but it will do nothing to effect any positive change in the number debating whether trad methods are worth implementing.
Coming as it does when we enter possibly the worst recession seen since the 1930s, it's bleak. The only bright spot I can cling to is that with an inevitable drop in raw material prices of which oil is the most obvious example, this will be the last rise for a number of years and that our disposable income will eventually rise while price increases will lag behind as producers such as Ilford then take advantage of raw material prices decreases and may even pass them on.
Without such light at the end of the tunnel, I fear that that the alternative is that the light in the tunnel comes from a digi express train which will roll over and flatten analogue photography.
pentaxuser
