China Lucky to resume color negative film production in 2024

Hello! With the caveat I am forwarding some news from other forums regarding this; please mods feel free to update title thread as facts should be checked and there is no official announcement yet.

A user posted in Reddit's Analog Community that Lucky in China are going to produce color negative again later in 2024, posting an image of a 35mm finishing line and a wrapper with "Lucky" label. In the comment thread, someone posted a link to a chinese site of which I copy the text here; and decided to start this thread upon reasonable minimum data sources. The Reddit thread OP mentions that "Source from a bunch of photographers in China, who were invited by lucky to have a tour of their factory in Hebei China":

胶片摄影｜乐凯彩色胶片复产官方已确认 #每秒都值得记录 好消息！好消息！好消息！ 乐凯彩色负片胶片尘封十年的生产线 今天我们到工厂终于看到真容啦 乐凯胶片的工程师们正在全力恢复生产中 受到一些原料的进口影响 官方争取最快会在今年年底 最晚在明年年初完成复产产品上市 国货当自强 胶片玩家们的福利来啦 另外乐凯做为国家队 也开始整治冲扫行业了哦 某猫搜索乐凯官方冲扫 价格品质都很顶哈 小伙伴们快去试试吧 #胶卷 #胶片 #北京暗房体验 #胶片相机 #胶片摄影 #乐凯 #乐凯胶片 #乐凯工厂 #乐凯复产 特别鸣谢@暗房咖啡 小E组织本次参观活动，@通州布列松 全程组织引导 .

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Translated:

Film Photography | Lucky Color Film Officially Confirms Resumption of Production #EverySecondIsWorthRecording Good news! Good news! Good news! Lucky Color Negative Film, which has been dormant for ten years, is finally back in production. Today, we visited the factory and saw its true appearance. Lucky Color Film engineers are working tirelessly to restore production, despite some challenges due to imported raw materials. The official goal is to resume production by the end of this year or at the latest in early next year. This is a boost for domestic products. Film enthusiasts, your benefits are here! Additionally, Lucky Color, as part of the national team, has also begun to regulate film processing. You can search for Lucky Color’s official film processing services on a certain popular e-commerce platform. The prices and quality are excellent. Friends, give it a try! #Film #FilmPhotography #BeijingDarkroomExperience #FilmCamera #LuckyColor #LuckyColorFilm #LuckyColorFactory #LuckyColorResumption Special thanks to @DarkroomCoffee for organizing this visit, and @TongzhouBLS for guiding us throughout. ”

It’s great to hear that Lucky Color Film is making a comeback! If you have any more questions or need further assistance, feel free to ask!

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In March this year, there was the announcement of Lucky producing B&W film again: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/another-brand-heard-from-after-a-long-while-lucky-film.204681/
A reasonable guess is that they will produce a similar product to the Lucky Color 200 that was discontinued in the late 2000s/Early 2010s. That IIRC must have been a Kodacolor sourced formula during the Lucky-Kodak partnership.

I hope this as well as Ilford's new color offering provide downward pressure on prices. Now if someone could produce an inexpensive general use E-6 like Sensia...

There were persons very keen on Lucky 200, I never tried it personally. I suppose just 35 mm, no 120...

I hope is it an updated emulsion, the old version was Kodak 1980s vintage.

I'd be very happy with 1980s Kodaocolor. The colour rendition of Gold has never sat well with me, hence my preference for Color Plus over Gold. Ultramax isn't as bad but the reds have been toned down compared to the previous Gold 400 offering. But a 200 ISO and better yet 400 ISO film based on earlier versions of Kodacolor would sit very well in my camera bag.

So I hope this news is true and that Lucky Colour film becomes available in the West. More choice, but perhaps not direct competition against Kodak because the Lucky product will be different to anything they are currently offering.

Whether it drives prices down will depend more on the ongoing costs involved in Kodak manufacturing and distributing colour films....not if they have competition. Despite what some think, there aren't big men in even bigger chairs stroking Persian cats and deciding to set the price of film arbitrarily high for sh!ts and giggles The profit margin on film is *very* small.

I remain sceptical, but cautiosuly hopeful.

loccdor said:

I hope this as well as Ilford's new color offering provide downward pressure on prices.

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What have you seen that gives clear if not actual incontrovertible proof that the current Harman Phoenix film has exerted downward pressure on prices? Has there been a fall in say Kodak prices that can clearly be linked to the Harman Phoenix arrival?

Thanks

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

What have you seen that gives clear if not actual incontrovertible proof that the current Harman Phoenix film has exerted downward pressure on prices? Has there been a fall in say Kodak prices that can clearly be linked to the Harman Phoenix arrival?

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It was probably meant in the way that every additional supply of the goods will ease the pressure on price. Alaris or resellers didn't lower C-41 film prices because of Phoenix, but we also don't know if there has been less of a demand for Kodak films because of Phoenix. I'm pretty sure even Alaris doesn't know if or how much Phoenix affected the sales of their 35mm C-41 films.

All I know is that I paid 13.70 EUR (at Nordfoto.de) for the first Phoenix rolls available in Europe and Phoenix is now sold for 15.88 EUR at FotoImpex.de (at Nordfoto it is still sold at original introductory price). Some resellers will be more responsive to the market than others. Vote with your wallets.

brbo said:

I'm pretty sure even Alaris doesn't know if or how much Phoenix affected the sales of their 35mm C-41 films.

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I'm willing to bet that they do know, and that the answer is "virtually nothing". Not all that much Phoenix has been distributed so far so logically, it wasn't even possible to put a dent in Kodak sales that way.

If there's going to be a price effect, it'll manifest itself once a (truly) competing product becomes available in significant volumes. I have a feeling that Lucky's proposition is a far more serious factor in this sense than Harman, Adox etc.

All speculation on my end, of course.

brbo said:

It was probably meant in the way that every additional supply of the goods will ease the pressure on price. Alaris or resellers didn't lower C-41 film prices because of Phoenix, but we also don't know if there has been less of a demand for Kodak films because of Phoenix. I'm pretty sure even Alaris doesn't know if or how much Phoenix affected the sales of their 35mm C-41 films.

All I know is that I paid 13.70 EUR (at Nordfoto.de) for the first Phoenix rolls available in Europe and Phoenix is now sold for 15.88 EUR at FotoImpex.de (at Nordfoto it is still sold at original introductory price). Some resellers will be more responsive to the market than others. Vote with your wallets.

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Thanks Your explanation of what the poster said may be a more balanced way of defining the theoretical effect of pressure on price but as yet he hasn't replied so we don't know if any evidence in his experience exists

I haven't see any as yet and while in theory more makers = more downward pressure on price I am not sure we have enough competition for that to be the case, especially when Harman at the moment is not a real competitor in what is the Kodak market

Phoenix in its current form does not represent what I want for my colour film

pentaxuser

koraks said:

I'm willing to bet that they do know, and that the answer is "virtually nothing".

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Well, in my book, that is "they don't know". Harman sold virtually nothing and it affected Kodak virtually nothing. That means they know nothing about how much Phoenix can hurt their sales or ability to dictate price once Harman becomes a player in C-41.

koraks said:

If there's going to be a price effect, it'll manifest itself once a (truly) competing product becomes available in significant volumes. I have a feeling that Lucky's proposition is a far more serious factor in this sense than Harman, Adox etc.

All speculation on my end, of course.

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I'd love to see another producer of C-41, but so far Lucky has showed very very little, even compared to Harman. All we have is a speculation that they might put some effort in it. Sometime in the future.

As you said it, it's all a speculation, but one thing we can probably all agree on is that new players are not (re)entering market with expectations that the general price levels will go down in the future. They know that the market leader has no means (production bottleneck) and therefore no incentive to compete on price.

brbo said:

That means they know nothing about how much Phoenix can hurt their sales or ability to dictate price once Harman becomes a player in C-41.

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OK, but I was responding to how you formulated it:

brbo said:

how much Phoenix affected the sales of their 35mm C-41 films.

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(emphasis mine).
If you meant to say it like you did just now, it's a different matter:

brbo said:

how much Phoenix can hurt their sales or ability to dictate price once Harman becomes a player in C-41.

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(same)
That's not just a difference in nuance - it's an entirely different question. Also valid, mind you.

brbo said:

new players are not (re)entering market with expectations that the general price levels will go down in the future

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I hope not, in a way. It would be worrisome for the future of C41.

pentaxuser said:

What have you seen that gives clear if not actual incontrovertible proof that the current Harman Phoenix film has exerted downward pressure on prices? Has there been a fall in say Kodak prices that can clearly be linked to the Harman Phoenix arrival?

Thanks

pentaxuser

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I never claimed it was happening. It was just a hope.

For it to happen I do think Ilford will have to develop their color products more. Or perhaps Fuji will reenter the market and this will be moot.

Thanks for the reply, loccdor

pentaxuser

The re-entry of Lucky (or Harman) to the market is unlikely to have a big effect on price due to anything resulting alone from increased film manufacturing.
What might have an effect would be if it was accompanied by increased amount of resources devoted to distribution and marketing.
Something that would build both demand and economies of scale back into the market.
If film is a niche market, it will always be expensive.

MattKing said:

If film is a niche market, it will always be expensive.

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Competition should help. It does seem like the 2005-2012 era where the switch to digital was happening also caused the best prices by supply outstripping demand. Maybe it's foolish to believe something like that can happen again, when you take a look at historic film prices in old magazines and adjust them for inflation, we aren't doing so badly.

loccdor said:

Competition should help.

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It will only help if volumes also increase.
The costs/roll are relatively huge with the current volumes - particularly because of the distribution costs.

loccdor said:

the best prices by supply outstripping demand

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These 'best prices' were unsustainable. It led to bankruptcies of both Kodak and Ilford, removed Agfa from the market of color still film, and it led Fuji to cut back capacity dramatically (culminating in their virtual exit from C41 presently). I'm not so sure what's "best" about it, in the long run.

loccdor said:

Maybe it's foolish to believe something like that can happen again

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Let's hope it doesn't.

35mm C41 has underwent some interesting times, I missed the Pandemic shortages and ColorPlus at Portra prices as I was shooting B&W mostly at the time as well as just having my own frozen Color.
I missed that in the social media site there is a picture of the packaging, Lucky New Super 200. In there as well there was the mention of challenges in procuring raw materials. Producing (color) film has a lot of special components so it might benefit even Kodak if Lucky is jumping in.
If Luckycolor 200 has 1990s consumer film quality and undercuts Kodak in price it can be reasonably succesful. Remember that a lot of film users are in for the "tones and vibes". Looking at Flickr results off the original formulation it does seem like a Kodacolor spinoff.

Phoenix ATM is no competition to Kodak Color, as with the Inovis-OrwoLomo 92 films, it is a prototype film.
Orwo-Inovis was working on some 200 C41 film as a next iteration of the NC series, which was rumored to have reasonable quality. Not much has been heard in the last months. For the sake of diveristy, I hope all of the new entrants get to improve their color films.

At this point, I would not expect film prices to decrease significantly prior to 2023 levels but the market did not take Kodak's last price increase that well. Gold in 120 and Tri-X 35mm were lowered in price during winter.

koraks said:

These 'best prices' were unsustainable. It led to bankruptcies of both Kodak and Ilford, removed Agfa from the market of color still film, and it led Fuji to cut back capacity dramatically (culminating in their virtual exit from C41 presently). I'm not so sure what's "best" about it, in the long run.



Let's hope it doesn't.

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I took a pretty big hiatus from photography from roughly 2009-2015, buying a cheap DSLR in the interim but never really doing a lot as a poor graduate student who couldn't afford film or processing in there(as cheap as it was). Getting a "real" job prompted me to re-enter, and I had a bit of sticker shock compared to the 2005-2009 prices I was paying. With that said, 2015-2019 I would say was definitely the time to buy film gear, and I'm glad I bought as much as I did then. My 4-lens, 2 back 500C kit cost me less in 2018 than a similar camera+80mm+single back would now.

I'm glad too that I stocked up on film then, especially E6. I guess E6 now is selling enough to be profitable at current prices, but I'm not sure how it's sustainable especially given the increasing scarceness of E6 labs out there(plus the quality of the ones I've used more recently...). I'd not be surprised if E6 ends up being a casualty, although the reintroduction of Ektachrome a few years ago I thought then was a promising sign. I still shoot E6 for the color, and Ektar is the only film that seems to be able to get me E6-like colors, but other than that it's hard for most people to make a case for it. It's more difficult to shoot, more difficult and expensive to process(at home or at a lab), bad processing is more obvious, unless you're sitting on a stash of Ilfochrome/Cibachrome paper and chemistry there's no direct-to-positive optical printing, and for a hybrid workflow I mostly find C41 easier to scan(although there's something to be said for directly referencing the color on the transparency when scanning). Given the current low prices for both projection equipment and quality loupes, I think there's probably not a lot of direct viewing going on either.

I realize current prices are more in-line with inflation adjusted historical prices, but how far can it go?

Even 90s early prices, which I remember even though I was only occasionally buying snapshot film then, were especially low. I never remember Agfa branded film being big in the US, but I'm pretty sure a lot of store brand film was Agfa. Even 2005 or so, I was buying a lot of "Polaroid" brand film sold at Wal-Mart, which I was told by some people I'd trust was Agfa. That was around $4 for 5x 24-exposure rolls(which made film pretty inexpensive to shoot, even for a high school student, when you could have 3x5 prints back in 3 days for $3/roll, or less than $4 total for film+dev+print). 90s prices had the volume to support them, and in a hypothetical world where digital photography didn't exist or at least wasn't readily accessible, I suspect the inflation-adjusted prices would be even lower. The other thing through the 2000s that I suspect propped up a lot of film production was motion picture print film, but that tapered off toward the end of the decade and IIRC basically went away overnight around 2013 or so when the big studios quit supplying film prints for most movies.

With all of that said too, with the talk of Lucky having 1980s Kodak technology for C41, it would make my year if they had 80s E6 technology too. I still love EPP and Elite Chrome(which IIRC was based on EPP). Back in the mid-00s I shot probably 100 rolls of Elite Chrome, and it still to me is just a great all around slide film. It's not as technically perfect as E100/G/GX or as saturated as Provia(much less Velvia) but just is a great looking and well behaved film. To me the color balance is perfect, too-it seems to split the difference between E100/E100G(which I find too cool) and E100GX(which can tend a bit warm). Elite Chrome seems to just look the way I see a scene...I know that's all wishing for too much, though, as I can't imagine there's much if any hypothetical market for budget E6.

When Eastman Kodak and Kodak Alaris came to the mutual decision to bring Ektachrome back, they took the opportunity to design in some changes. Some of those changes related to changes in availability of some of the constituent ingredients that come from 3rd parties. Some of those changes related to desired subtle changes in imaging. And a significant number of those changes related to the changing environment for film. Things like adjustments to reflect the fact that products and components now have to be stored for longer, due to decreased volumes for sales of final product, and shipped product has to be more robust, due to modern vagaries in the distribution system.

Paul Howell said:

the old version was Kodak 1980s vintage.

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I would welcome 1980s/1990s vintage colour film. Anything that will expand the available supply of C41 film is good IMO.
Looking back then, I think we were spoiled for choice with colour film from the main manufacturers, Kodak, Fuji, Agfa, Ferrania, Konica.
Of course, the landscape has drastically changed since then but some old C41 emulsion revival would be great.

`If Lucky produce something based on 80s Kodacolor, that might well become a product that I choose. But I doubt it would seriosuly take away sales from Kodak even if it is cheaper....because it won't compete with Ultramax, Portra or even gold and certainly not Ektar. And I suspect that I am a bit of an unusual sod in preferring the pre-Gold Kodadolor. Gold was and remains very successful.

What it might affect is sales of Color Plus. But that will depend on how much Lucky film makes it into the Western market, at what price, and whether it's distributed effectively.

Harman Phoenix has caused a stir and it will be very interesting to see Harman's 2024 accounts when they're published....but I think the numbers of films sold will be a drop in the ocean compared to Kodak.

koraks said:

These 'best prices' were unsustainable.

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No argument here. "Best" only from the perspective of someone entering the film photography world being able to get started at a small fraction of what is paid today. Do paradigm shifts ever happen without a lot of mess and chaos? Big businesses aren't good at adapting to the bottom falling out of a market that existed for a hundred years.

Ben Hutcherson said:

With all of that said too, with the talk of Lucky having 1980s Kodak technology for C41, it would make my year if they had 80s E6 technology too.

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Yes, please. The $10/roll Sensia 100 I am buying is able to hold up pretty well with as much as 30 years of expiration but it's not going to last forever. It would be nice to have a 400 speed slide option, too. I have found Velvia and Provia too contrasty for general photography, and Ektachrome tends to expire badly. Astia is pretty good when it can be found at a decent price.

When film was at it's cheapest, earlier in this century, it was because the major manufacturers had to contend with a sudden cliff drop off in sales and were left with huge stocks of film they needed to get rid of.....which they probably did at a loss. Prices were very much artificially low and we will never see the likes of one dollarpoundeuro Kodacolor again.

But we might just see something from China that's cheaper than Kodak can put out. If they can get distribution up to scratch.

Agulliver said:

When film was at it's cheapest, earlier in this century, it was because the major manufacturers had to contend with a sudden cliff drop off in sales and were left with huge stocks of film they needed to get rid of.....which they probably did at a loss. Prices were very much artificially low and we will never see the likes of one dollarpoundeuro Kodacolor again.

But we might just see something from China that's cheaper than Kodak can put out. If they can get distribution up to scratch.

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Was it a cliff drop and if so over what period? Unless that period was only a matter of weeks or a few months was there nothing that the major manufacturer such as Kodak could have done such as cutting out shifts, 4 or 3 day week working or voluntary redundancy etc to curtain production such that production then failed to meet the downward trend of demand slowing which was then met by its stock of film which had been already made

The cliff drop argument is superficially sound and may be deeply sound if the demand did say suddenly drop "overnight" i.e a matter of weeks or months and film stocks made in the boom time of only a few weeks previously were about to reach expiry dates but can that really be what the situation was?

Do the facts really support this cliff drop argument and if so what were the numbers backing this argument


pentaxuser