Anybody buying color sheet film these days?

[NortheastPhotographic]

Every other year or so I buy a box of 50 sheets of 5x7 Portra or Etkar from Kieth Canham. I used to buy 8x10 color but it's too expensive now. I don't consider the 4x5 film prohibitively expensive personally.

Even as someone with an 8x10 enlarger, I have to admit that 4x5 is sufficient for most realistic uses (i.e. grainless 20x24s).

 

[DREW WILEY]

I love shooting 8x10, and even in a 16X20 or 20X24 print I can tell the difference from a 4x5 enlargement, but doubt the public can. The 8x10 version might have an almost contact-print look, and subtly more accurate hues, if I've pulled out all the stops printing it at optimal quality (optically, of course, using top-end process lenses).

But it's more a matter of how an 8x10 slows you down even a little more, that is, in a positive sense, contemplatively. I'm a format schizophrenic anyway, and bounce back and forth between cameras and film sizes, including a lot of 120 roll film work.

Keith is a great resource to have around.

 

[NortheastPhotographic]

I love shooting 8x10, and even in a 16X20 or 20X24 print I can tell the difference from a 4x5 enlargement, but doubt the public can. The 8x10 version might have an almost contact-print look, and subtly more accurate hues, if I've pulled out all the stops printing it at optimal quality (optically, of course, using top-end process lenses).

But it's more a matter of how an 8x10 slows you down even a little more, that is, in a positive sense, contemplatively. I'm a format schizophrenic anyway, and bounce back and forth between cameras and film sizes, including a lot of 120 roll film work.

Keith is a great resource to have around.

I mean I agree, it's just whether I can justify the costs for that extra oomph. I don't think I can at the moment. I do have maybe 40 or 50 sheets in the freezer of C41 which should last me a while.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, cost-wise, 4X5 is the new 8x10. Downsizing isn't such a liability as it once was, due to the higher detail capacity of newer films, and the superior quality of relatively modern lenses. But that set of facts comes more into play when trying to substitute 120 shots for 4X5 ones - another cost-saving option. I've got quite a backlog of house remodeling at the moment, so have to be careful about any optional spending.

Thanks to certain lucky breaks, including ordering from Keith at fortuitous times, I have a decent reserve of 8x10 film in the freezer. But it would be tough to resupply all that now, if I had to. It's even difficult for me to decide to order a single box of 8X10 Porta 160 for sake of a few more 8X10 internegatives from old chrome shots. Mostly now, I just shoot 8X10 Ektar instead, and print directly onto RA4 media, if I happen to have an 8x10 itch. But I've still have some exceptional old 8X10 chromes which have never been printed yet, which deserve high-quality color internegatives, and printing them (especially onto Fujiflex Supergloss). But it's simply impossible to print all the good ones. That would take another lifetime. Fortunately, I did about 25 yrs of Ciba printing first.

More often these days, I'll sort through old sheet film chromes and select out ones for making exciting black and white internegs. They provide a different look in print than straight black and white shots. Have one of those ready to print in the darkroom right now.

 

[SodaAnt]

I remember back when I switched to digital and thought it was such a breakthrough compared to film. I could buy a memory card for roughly $40 that would hold 1,000 images, and I could erase it and reuse it 10,000 times! That's ten million images for $40.

Those ten million images are equivalent to 277,000 rolls of 36 exposure 135 film. At, say, $5 a roll, that's $1.4 million. Wow! Digital is 0.00003 of the cost of film.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yeah, but I rather have one good large format film shot than four million little digital ones. The mere ease of doing things that way promotes reckless machine-gunning that often never does hit the bullseye, due to cultivating bad habits.

The great need is for people to slowwww dowwwn, and think about what they are shooting, and do so selectively and contemplatively, and in such a manner that something worthy can come of it. That still leaves room for the billions of phone shots and so forth that most people are content with. I'm just not one of those "most people".

 

[Don_ih]

Digital is 0.00003 of the cost of film

That has nothing to do with the cost of sheet film, though.

And you'll probably get the thread shut down....

 

[SodaAnt]

The mere ease of doing things that way promotes reckless machine-gunning that often never does hit the bullseye

Promotes, but does not mandate. When I shot digital landscape I'd often come back from a day's outing with 15-20 images.

I'm switching back to film because my best memories in photography are from when I had a darkroom and developed and printed my own film. Those memories are important to me despite having to deal with the dark and chemicals and scratches and all of the other baggage use of film entails.

 

[DREW WILEY]

A few scars and war wounds prove you have actually lived and experienced something, just like all the dents and scratches on my wooden tripods. No need for a poison oak simulation APP on Photoshop, when you can wear the real deal. Besides, big view camera tripods are great for whacking poison oak vines off the trail too. It's hard to do that just swinging around a little digital camera.

 

[Richard Man]

Sounds like a good investment. Good luck on your project. Tell us more about it?

Thanks!

FYI, I have written up an intro of my projects here:

I'm Richard Man, a Hugo Award Finalist

Elsewhere on a thread, I mentioned that I have shot over 1500 sheets of 4x5 Portra for my various portrait projects, and @Alan Edward Klein replied: "Sounds like a good investment. Good luck on your project. Tell us more about it?" So here's my introduction, even though I have been a Photrio...

www.photrio.com

 

[Donald Qualls]

Hugo as in the science fiction award (named for Hugo Gernsbach, the publisher who pretty much created modern science fiction)? Nice!

 

[Richard Man]

Hugo as in the science fiction award (named for Hugo Gernsbach, the publisher who pretty much created modern science fiction)? Nice!

Yes, it is! Very honored to make it to the short list in the Best Fan Artist category based on my portraits work!

 

[Mr Negative]

I have to say, every time I buy 4x5 film I mumble curse for a few hours about the manufacturers constantly jacking up the price. But then, every time I pull the film out of the Jobo I say a quiet prayer that they never stop manufacturing it. It’s expensive. It’s stupid expensive. But man, there’s just no better feeling that seeing that giant negative/positive come out of the tank. It brings me back to when I was a kid and would open a pack of baseball cards. Every time I think about the cost of film, I price a gfx100… in ten years when I shoot through enough film to have covered the cost of the gfx, it’ll be as technically useful as a paperweight. Just my thoughts.

 

[faberryman]

Every time I think about the cost of film, I price a gfx100… in ten years when I shoot through enough film to have covered the cost of the gfx, it’ll be as technically useful as a paperweight. Just my thoughts.

Why? As long as you have a battery and a memory card, the GFX100 will give you the same quality images as it does today. Just like your 4x5.

 

[Mr Negative]

Why? As long as you have a battery and a memory card, the GFX100 will give you the same quality images as it does today. Just like your 4x5.

That’s fair. I more meant from the perspective of the technology vs what’s on the market. The digital market moves so fast, if you try to keep up, you’ll spend far more there than you will on film. That’s more what I meant to say (though I did so poorly). The paperweight comment was more about how the market treats the technology. When I’m out shooting with my 5DSR (a camera that still produces incredible images and I love it), I’m constantly met with comments about how I should get rid of it and go mirrorless.

 

[faberryman]

When I’m out shooting with my 5DSR (a camera that still produces incredible images and I love it), I’m constantly met with comments about how I should get rid of it and go mirrorless.

You are hanging out with the wrong people. The only time I see other photographers is when I am at a workshop. I just don't run into random people who comment on what my next camera upgrade ought to be. The next time someone tells you that you should go mirrorless, ask them to show you their prints. Chances are they don't have any. The internet is a great leveler of image quality.

 

[Prest_400]

Why? As long as you have a battery and a memory card, the GFX100 will give you the same quality images as it does today. Just like your 4x5.

I have had similar thoughts about high quality digital with a used GFX50 series instead. Funnily then I could shoot both film and digital Fuji medium formats!
My digital is an EM5 from 2013 that is still quite good and hits well sufficiency, and would generally say that a good enough quality has been here since 2012. On the compact side, a RX100 is all I need nowadays for EDC.

My only contribution to the topic is that I don't as I am not a LF shooter. Before the price increases I wanted to try LF but my style primes mobility and a GW690 has fulfilled well as a "half frame 4x5"
Have been thinking to order to some 120 Ektachrome.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I have to say, every time I buy 4x5 film I mumble curse for a few hours about the manufacturers constantly jacking up the price. But then, every time I pull the film out of the Jobo I say a quiet prayer that they never stop manufacturing it. It’s expensive. It’s stupid expensive. But man, there’s just no better feeling that seeing that giant negative/positive come out of the tank. It brings me back to when I was a kid and would open a pack of baseball cards. Every time I think about the cost of film, I price a gfx100… in ten years when I shoot through enough film to have covered the cost of the gfx, it’ll be as technically useful as a paperweight. Just my thoughts.

When you find the 4"x5" drug film of your choice at a good price, buy up all that you can and all the necessary chemicals to save money and to keep the film and chemicals from hoarders.

 

[ntenny]

My only contribution to the topic is that I don't as I am not a LF shooter. Before the price increases I wanted to try LF but my style primes mobility […]

I think this is the very definition of “I need a Speed Graphic”. Handheld LF is fun.

-NT

 

[koraks]

I more meant from the perspective of the technology vs what’s on the market.

So the good thing about film is that since long ago, it has basically come to a standstill, and that saves us from a considerable amount of angst

 

[DREW WILEY]

Color film has undergone progressive refinements all along. And there's nothing stopping the possibility of even well established black and white films for being re-tweaked. It just happened in the case of the Acros II version. It's much like the refinement of chromogenic color printing papers - no huge quantum leaps for decades, but a steady progressive evolution. Inkket has already reached that plateau itself : "good enough"; so pretty much everything going forward will likely involve only incremental improvements, while all kinds of alternate patents and R&D ideas are likely to get mothballed forever.

 

[qqphot]

I used to shoot 8x10 Provia and make contact prints on Cibachrome. (as well as enlargements of course) I haven't bothered for years now, I think I just concluded at some point that while technically pretty, very little of I was producing was artistically worth the always increasing expense. So now I take my junk photos on 35mm and 120 and scan directly.

 

[miha]

I used to shoot 8x10 Provia and make contact prints on Cibachrome. (as well as enlargements of course) I haven't bothered for years now, I think I just concluded at some point that while technically pretty, very little of I was producing was artistically worth the always increasing expense. So now I take my junk photos on 35mm and 120 and scan directly.

The most brutally honest reply I've seen in a while.

 

[koraks]

The most brutally honest reply I've seen in a while.

Yup. And I can get behind it, too.

 

[miha]

Yup. And I can get behind it, too.

Yeah, tell me about it.