Don't complain about the cost of paper or film

[halfaman]

the Hungarian Photo company whose name has slipped my mind

Forte

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Film is still relatively cheap (except TMY )...

8x10 TMY-2 just went from $12/sheet to $15/sheet:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/533811-USA/Kodak_1930106_TMY_8_x_10.html​

Beyond what I'm willing to pay. It's now a rich man's film...

Since yesterday, B&H has altered the pricing. Now it has 400 sheets available for $12/sheet and 220 sheets at the higher $15/sheet. I assume based on expiration dates. Far from cheap, but possibly "one last buy" by those of us not wealthy.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Sometimes I wonder about "people".

People complain that the price of film is higher than it was "back in the day".

Someone points out that "back in the day", when adjusted for inflation, film is actually not much more costly now. Indeed if average wages are taken into account it's probably cheaper. So people still moan that Kodachrome was $4.80 in 1990 completely missing the point that the $4.80 in 1990 would be $10 today....without factoring in wage inflation.

Sure, I could buy Kocacolor for £1.99 in the early 80s. Say 1983.....in fact that is the price Argos were selling it at....so would have been higher at specialist camera shops. Today that is £6.88 which is *less* than Color Plus sells for. Looking at Ilford B&W prices they're not much different adjusted for inflation too.

Remember, you could buy a new car for £3000 then. And average weekly wages were a pittance compared to now.

What is not fair, is comparing today's prices to those of the turn of the 21st century when film stock was practically being dumped.

I have more income in my retirement than I had "back in the day" and I no longer have to work my photography around a work schedule. Screw "back in the day"!

 

[DF]

Ektachrome at $24 per roll - and I DON'T have a right to complain...??

 

[logan2z]

Ektachrome at $24 per roll - and I DON'T have a right to complain...??

$19.99 at BH but, yeah, that's expensive.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...576_E100G_135_36_Ektachrome_Professional.html

 

[Ai Print]

Ladies and Gentleman…these are the “Good Ol’ Days”…

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Inflation is raising everything. My haircut went up 33%. Cleaning my drier's exhaust vent up 5.5%. FIlm is not only more costly. Getting there to take the shot has gone up too. Gasoline cost me almost $60 to fill up (Premium required) in a regular sedan. It's nuts!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

It’s really a shame that the most advanced B&W film made seems to get further and further beyond the reach of many photographers.

What about us poor color shooters of Velvia 50 in 4x5 which runs almost double that? Or any color for that matter?

 

[Paul Howell]

A 20 exposure roll of Anscochrome was $2.28 or $23.40 after inflation but a roll of 828 was only $0.98 or $10.12 after inflation, while a box was $2.85 or $29.54 after inflation. At Wards (at least), shooting 35mm was really expensive compared to 120 and sheet film.
(Moderator's note: fixed it for you )

 

[halfaman]

Gasoline cost me almost $60 to fill up (Premium required) in a regular sedan. It's nuts!

It is a funny complaint from european point of view. Many would kill in the old continent to refill for only $60. I have a small compact car (Renault Megane) and cost me around $80 using regular gas, with Premium gas would be $90.

 

[Paul Howell]

Gas in my area is $3.19 in 1952 would have been $.33 a gallon, a little research and gas in L.A was selling for .27 a gallon.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Gas in my area is $3.19 in 1952 would have been $.33 a gallon, a little research and gas in L.A was selling for .27 a gallon.

And at .27 per gallon for regular, we would pay more to premium because we did not want that cheap watered down gas.

 

[Paul Howell]

Boy is that the truth, as a poor starving college student I used a brand called Seaside, there were number of stations, gunked up the carburetors on my MGA, (nice car but so unreliable) had to walk for weeks until I could afford to get the rebuild kits.

 

[foc]

You are very lucky in the USA to have such low fuel prices.
My local (Republic of Ireland) petrol prices are €1.54 / $1.80 per litre or €5.85 / $6.84 per US gallon.
Our diesel prices are €1.43 / $1.68 per litre or €5.43 / $6.35 per US gallon.

 

[Agulliver]

Similar prices for petrol and diesel in the UK. Assuming we can even get fuel at the moment....

When I lived stateside some 22 years ago people would complain that gas had gone over the dollar-a-gallon point....and I used to urge a sense of proportion as it was around $4 a gallon equivalent price in the UK at the time. They simply chose not to believe me. Often people don't believe the real lived experiences of others which are very different to their own perspective.

The fact that, in most cases, film is as affordable or even more affordable than it was 40 years ago is quite amazing when you consider it was once omnipresent and is now a niche market. The smallest niches within the niche are genuinely more costly, colour reversal and some sheet films especially. But the cost of shooting 35mm, 120 in B&W and C41 is certainly no greater than it was in the 80s;

 

[MattKing]

We got a deal yesterday on gas - $1.50/litre CDN for premium at Costco in Abbotsford.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

We got a deal yesterday on gas - $1.50/litre CDN for premium at Costco in Abbotsford.

I saw it for $147/litre at Poco Costco on Thursday. If I go to Mobile, I get 7 cents off/litre in the form of points that I use in Superstore. The other shocking thing I saw at Mobile, diesel was a bit more expensive that gasoline! I don't ever recall seeing that before...
What we need are good old fashioned gas wars! Remember those? I remember the price dipping to around 30 cents/litre in Victoria, summer 1990.

 

[MattKing]

I saw it for $147/litre at Poco Costco on Thursday. If I go to Mobile, I get 7 cents off/litre in the form of points that I use in Superstore. The other shocking thing I saw at Mobile, diesel was a bit more expensive that gasoline! I don't ever recall seeing that before...
What we need are good old fashioned gas wars! Remember those? I remember the price dipping to around 30 cents/litre in Victoria, summer 1990.

Regular gas was $1.40/litre yesterday at Costco Abbotsford (no transit levy).
Diesel is actually a byproduct of the production of non-diesel gas. The relative prices are a function of how the two markets are functioning. When demand for diesel is higher than gas, the spot market price for diesel is higher.
I expect that the switch is at least partially due to the growing number of electric and hybrid vehicles.
And by the way, I think it probably is Mobil, not Mobile

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Regular gas was $1.40/litre yesterday at Costco Abbotsford (no transit levy).
Diesel is actually a byproduct of the production of non-diesel gas. The relative prices are a function of how the two markets are functioning. When demand for diesel is higher than gas, the spot market price for diesel is higher.
I expect that the switch is at least partially due to the growing number of electric and hybrid vehicles.
And by the way, I think it probably is Mobil, not Mobile

Yup. Mobil...keeps me mobile heh heh

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

It is a funny complaint from european point of view. Many would kill in the old continent to refill for only $60. I have a small compact car (Renault Megane) and cost me around $80 using regular gas, with Premium gas would be $90.

Americans tend to drive longer distances. So it works out about the same. In any case last year I was filling up for around $35 - $40 I think. So it's relative.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Gas in my area is $3.19 in 1952 would have been $.33 a gallon, a little research and gas in L.A was selling for .27 a gallon.

When I was stationed in Japan in 1965 in the USAF, I used to buy US Navy gasoline on base for $0.11 a gallon. Cigarettes were $1.05 - a carton. Rum $1.65 a fifth and hookers were 1000 Yen, not that I bought them, of course.

 

[Don_ih]

Americans tend to drive longer distances.

Everyone here has to drive for an hour to get anywhere. I drive somewhere between 20 and 25 thousand km a year. I'm usually working at least 60km away from where I live - sometimes more than 100km.

Back to film. 40 years ago, film was all that was used but average people took hardly any photos. Most people had a pretty bad camera and took bad pictures two or three times a year. People bought school photos and had photos taken at shopping malls. Film was relatively expensive but very few people used much of it. Professionals used a lot but they charged a lot, too. We now live with a completely different mentality about what should be photographed, who should photograph it, what should photograph it, and what should be done with the picture. The attitude that digital photos (readily available phone photos) and the internet (its massive presence in everyone's life) has infected how many people use film, as well. So, people using film now quite possibly individually use more film than they would have 25 or 30 years ago.

 

[MattKing]

Back to film. 40 years ago, film was all that was used but average people took hardly any photos. Most people had a pretty bad camera and took bad pictures two or three times a year.

That is 1981 or so. There were a lot of people using a lot of film then. What was happening though is that many of them were moving or had moved from slides and movies to print films - the one hour minilabs were everywhere. And a fair few of them were taking a fair number of photos.

 

[Don_ih]

a fair few of them were taking a fair number of photos

Compared to right now, you would need a minilab for every 3 people to develop and print all the pictures people take - they'd be running 24 hours a day to keep up.

Apart from how many places developed photos, if you have any recollection of the regular average citizen of 1981, how many of them were taking a picture every few minutes? -- or every few days, for that matter?

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

... if you have any recollection of the regular average citizen of 1981, how many of them were taking a picture every few minutes? -- or every few days, for that matter?

"if you have any recollection of the regular average citizen of 1981"

That statement might have some validity if you were talking about 1881... Some here might regale you with the shots they took of their grandkids in 1981.

From the 1980 through to 2010 I'd say the rate was a roll a week to a roll a month - I'm sure somewhere there is a Frost & Sullivan report that could give you better numbers. On vacation or big family get togethers the rate would be several rolls a day. The rate went up with the popularity of motorized point & shoots; nothing like a motor for eating up film. Cleaning out my parents' estate I went through and tried to put some order into the boxes of photographs. Gads, did they take pictures. The low point in quality was color negative photography 1960's to early 70's. After the mid 80's with Kodak Gold films and a great improvement in processing the photo quality for snapshots was very good.

My rate is about the same with B&W, a bit less with color snaps.

You are right, though - the number of pictures taken by the current crop of tweens to twenties is mind boggling. There used to be concern about the volatility of digital photos, but I have to say my attitude has changed to 'good riddance.'

Back to 1881, my Grandfather's pictures from that time didn't survive the Russian revolution and WWI. I never asked him how many he took - heck, they were probably cabinet cards. So, yeah, I guess I have some recollection of the average ordinary citizen of 1881.