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Film prices

I remember when I could walk into Tandy (European Radio Shack) and buy a 7" reel of tape for £6 if memory serves....but that £6 then would be around £20 now. And guess what? I can buy a superior product from RTM for £25 even though it is a niche. In the tape recording world people also moan about how tape was £2 or $2 back in the early 70s without accounting for inflation or wage increases. Given how few people people use reel to reel tape compared to 40 years ago it's quite amazing that the price is where it is.

Film is the same, people remember the price tag of the film without thinking about what's happened in the intervening 30-40 years. Computers genuinely got cheaper. Petrol got more expensive. Film has actually stayed about the same in most cases. And honestly, the managers of Kodak, Fuji, Ilford and others are not out to get you. Sheet film and small gauge motion picture film certainly are more expensive....the days when I could throw a tenner at a roll of super 8 Kodachrome including processing are long gone. It's not going to be less than £50 for a roll of Ektachrome plus processing unless something changes radically. But I can still shoot B&W regular 8mm quite cheaply, and process it myself if the mood takes. It's not as if I can't shoot cine film at all.
 
These days you see youngsters promote enthusiasm: "one roll per day," etc. Back when I was their age, one roll = two months, unless somebody paid you to photograph, one roll lasted months!
 
Even my middle class parents couldn't afford to shoot a roll per day in the 1970s. This was impressed on me when my dad taught me the basics of photography towards the end of that decade. Film was considered expensive, as was processing. Of course there was no such thing as a mini lab at the time, and even living near one of the UK's biggest processing labs (PTP) didn't mean it was cheap. I think as a family we shot perhaps 10 rolls per year.

In the early 2000s on a working class wage I was able to burn 9 rolls of Kodacolor in a 24 hour period on a trip to Paris.Probably when photography was at it's cheapest, but then I was getting the films free with processing. If I wanted anything other than 200ISO C41 film it certainly cost a significant amount. I seem to recall that when I started shooting rock concerts in the mid 90s Fuji Super G 1600 was about £8 a roll...which would be £15 now. About what Fuji 1600 cost when it was discontinued...
 
For me when I am on vacation, film is the cheapest form of souvenirs even if it is sheet film.
 

Anyway my point is not to denigrate anyone who had a good high paying job over much of their career, with great benefits and retirement plans etc. My point is that people who are in that lucky group should know how fortunate they were, and shouldn't extrapolate their own situation to those of the majority of people who don't have that, and never will, due to forces beyond their control. Its a changed world, at least in the US, and the good old days aren't coming back anytime soon. If you are one of the people for whom the good old days never left, be happy, but don't assume its like that for everyone.
eddie said:
Actually, the median household income in 1980 was $16,400. In 2020, it's $68,400, so it's quadrupled. In that regard film has done pretty well, considering the drop in demand.
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Well there are all sorts of ways to lie with or misunderstand statistics, and this isn't the place to discuss which ones are happening here. The only way to measure whether film is more affordable is on the individual level: whether individuals find that they can afford more film now, or less. I know the answer for myself is less, far less.

I also don't know anyone who would have chafed at the cost of a roll of film 30 to 40 years ago. I don't know anyone who doesn't already addictively shoot film who wouldn't chafe at paying 10 bucks a freeking roll of 35 mm, not counting printing. Median income may have gone up but real income hasn't, for the average person.

And lastly, its just insulting to hear people who can afford film so easily crow over and over how affordable it is. Well it just isn't for a lot of people. People who think it is are probably doing better than most and should probably keep that to themselves. It certainly won't help keep prices affordable for the rest of us if Kodak and others keep seeing how affordable people think it is now.
 

I agree!
 
Wayne said:
It certainly won't help keep prices affordable for the rest of us if Kodak and others keep seeing how affordable people think it is now.
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My biggest worry is that if we assume as do others here that film prices simply reflect the increased costs of making it and presumably this will continue then there will eventually be not enough people who have either the means or the will to continue to buy film to make film production on any but an very small and expensive scale possible.

At that point it will survive, possibly, as an expensive hobby but only in the same sense as driving vintage 1920s racing Bentleys still survives as a hobby

Maybe someone or bodies can give us reasoned facts that show that in terms of film prices vis a vis disposable income things will settle to a steady state in terms of prices rises that reflect only cost of production rises. By reasoned facts I mean actual facts and figures.

I appreciate that there are those who have faith in film and those who will buy film even if it continues to outstrip disposable income by a considerable margin and that's fine but expression of that faith frankly is not enough with which to make out a case for film survival

Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide such facts and figures.

pentaxuser
 
I didn't mean to insult. It wasn't intended.
I certainly don't think film is "cheap". I think I just view the costs differently. If I take a walk in the woods with a $5.00 roll of 120 for an hour, spend a half hour developing it, and then finding 10 hours of worthwhile darkroom printing, it seems cheaper to me. Maybe I'm deluding myself with my justification, but if it fools me, I'll stay deluded.
I also tend to order supplies once, or twice, a year. When I place the orders, I am painfully aware of the costs. Months in, though, I don't notice as much.
I also sell my work, which changes my view of the costs. It's more of a business investment, with tax advantages.
Still, I think it's the kind of avocation which brings immeasurable joy to many, cost considerations included.
 


Life is choices. If film is expensive to you, give up something else. How old are your cars? I have two vehicles, one was built in 1997 and the other 1998.
 
Film isn't "cheap" in the sense that I can buy a functional radio and have hit shipped from China all for £7. That radio will likely function in the less than optimal conditions in my kitchen for several years and I will have had my £7 worth for sure. But I maintain that film is no more expensive, relatively speaking, than it was 40 years ago. This isn't talking down people on lower salaries. My parents were definitely middle class...my mother was a ward sister (senior nurse) at the biggest hospital in the area and my dad was a world's expert in furniture structures who's job had him chair several EC/EU and ISO committees as well as in demand to jet around the world as an expert witness in court cases, or to help set up furniture factories quality testing facilities. Household name brands demanded him, and only him, to work for them. If you've seen those adverts with the mechanical bums that go up and down on a bed or chair to test them....he invented those, and the entire hydraulic system behind them. The ISO standards for heavy use office chairs are based on what I weighed as a fat teenager in the 80s. Not boasting, just giving you an example of someone who was not struggling for money. And 10 rolls of film in a second hand camera was all we could justify as a family until dad discovered VAT-free Praktica SLRs in the channel islands...and bought me a BX20S a decade later direct from Pentacon in Dresden. The idea of buying a new NIkon, Canon or Pentax was outrageous. To suggest that film is comparatively more expensive in 2021 (in 135 and 120 anyway) is just not correct. My salary in 2021 in absolute terms is about what my dad was on circa 1995. In other words, inflation linked I am on a lot less. Half perhaps. But I shoot something like 50 rolls of film a year and own a selection of cameras, to my wife's chagrin. My dad could only dream of such. BTW my mum is still around so I haven't inherited anything, and am not living off some trust fund.

We all make choices. Some things are certainly more costly, try buying a house much of the UK for example. So that's something I never even bothered trying to do. Some things are cheaper, look at computers in the last 40 years...I've got a desktop PC, three laptops and a tablet between two people......or any electronics. However mechanical things are sometimes more expensive, or inflation linked certainly no cheaper....ask anyone who wants to buy a new film camera or the people building tape decks. FIlm? Everything I can actually verify suggests that it's about the same or a bit cheaper adjusted for inflation compared to the 1980s...at least in 135 and 120. YMMV with less popular formats - though I am quite happy I can buy a box of quarter plates for £35. Services such as processing...I find you need to shop around if you want the very best price. It's no longer a "mainstream" thing, so the truly cheap services where you drop off at the local convenience shop and pick up a day later for £1.99 is gone....but I can still get high quality dev and scan for £4 within walking distance on C41 and E6 for 120, 135 and even 127. Mail order labs offer services at most price points depending on what you're looking for and pretty much all of them are using fairly recent, well maintained mini-labs of some description. Honestly I do feel that people remember a small price tag from many moons ago and opine that a similar product today costs more....without considering inflation and wages. In the grand scheme of things, film is not expensive. Even Adox, a small company, manages to put out niche products at realistic prices.
 
michael_r said:
Nobody can give you those facts and figures.
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Michael I think such facts and figures are known but are never seen so it is more the case of nobody will rather than can give those facts and figures. We are governed by our visceral beliefs on this subject and these cover the whole spectrum of excessive optimism to excessive pessimism from what I see.

All we can do is question what others say that may not quite make sense and ask what information it is that they have which makes them believe what they believe in. This can at times produce annoyance at best and outright hostility and insults at worse as I have experienced here on Photrio. I try as we say in football( soccer) parlance to play the ball and not the man but this intention may not always be picked up .

pentaxuser
 
Sirius Glass said:
Life is choices. If film is expensive to you, give up something else. How old are your cars? I have two vehicles, one was built in 1997 and the other 1998.
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Mine are both 97's with nearly 300,000 miles, and one needs a new engine.

This is the typical, unaware response of someone who has the luxury of other expenses they can pick and choose not to spend on in favor of film. I have no such luxurious choices, and neither do the millions of other people who have nothing to retire on.
 

It is a joy, and its one of my greatest joys. I've been doing it since I was 5 and I want to keep doing it forever. I don't like the face of analog photography being those who are well off, and that's the face it has. The companies need to realize how many people they are squeezing out of the market and if every keeps saying "oh its fine" that will never happen.
 
K25 said:
These days you see youngsters promote enthusiasm: "one roll per day," etc. Back when I was their age, one roll = two months, unless somebody paid you to photograph, one roll lasted months!
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But that is a small sample of the whole population. I am 26 now, in the beginning of a career so income wise I can shoot the film I want and need. But earlier on, I was quite selective. On 35mm at 16 I stretched a Kodachrome roll across 9 months. Up till a couple years ago it was a roll a month, taking into account that I put thought in almost every frame.
Haven't gotten myself to sell work yet, but I am accumulating prints. Infact, in the search of optimising cheap/free material, there was a bunch of old paper in our photo club that lead me into Lith printing, which cost wise can be economic at a smaller scale. Interestingly some boxes have the price on it. 24x30cm 50 sheets of Brovira in 1970: $3. Which an inflation calculator tells is equivalent to $20 now.


Film wise, there are less lasting ways to use those $5 such a beer at a pub. When I think of a photograph, it is immanent and remains there for a future. Come to think of it, a late person that is photographed on negative an paper continues to be there, decades on.

I may complain a bit again when I put some Kodak or Fuji color film in a next order. Then add the cost of processing on top of it. Color is a notch above B&W as the rest of manufacturers out of Kodak and Fuji have a noticeable difference in price.
 
Prest_400 said:
Interestingly some boxes have the price on it. 24x30cm 50 sheets of Brovira in 1970: $3. Which an inflation calculator tells is equivalent to $20 now.
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Just as a matter of interest and this is open to anyone with the knowledge; what is the price of the equivalent of a box of Brovira as described above compared to the $20 for 50 sheets which Prest_ 400 has calculated as being the equivalent 2021 price for a 1970 $3 ?

Thanks

pentaxuser
 
Prest_400 said:
24x30cm 50 sheets of Brovira in 1970: $3.
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I started darkroom printing in 1970. I don't ever remember being able to buy 50 sheets of paper for $3.00. I wish I had some vintage Shutterbugs or Popular Photagraphy laying around.
 
Google books probably has lots of popular photography issues from decades ago, scanned, available to be read by anyone. Those of you who aren't too bored can have a look. That was packed with advertisements anyway...
 

eddie said:
I started darkroom printing in 1970. I don't ever remember being able to buy 50 sheets of paper for $3.00. I wish I had some vintage Shutterbugs or Popular Photagraphy laying around.
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To be more detailed, single weight brovira. A sticker with 28 Swedish crowns is on the box from 1970.
Using a swedish inflation calculator, it is equivalent to 227 SEK now. Currency calculator says that is $27.66 now. So the previous was a rough estimate and the sticker price may have been on sale.

EU prices on equivalent papers now 24x30, Fotoimpex:
Foma Variant 57€
Adox MCC 78.54€
Ilford FB classic: 91.50€
However IIRC single weight FB paper is not common anymore or maybe even not manufactured, I will delve on why that is.
 
People who have nothing to retire on shouldn't be buying film cameras. I always shake my head at posts about film costs, or viewfinders for their Leica's. A cheap hobby is taking a walk. An expensive hobby is buying boats or planes. Photography is somewhere in the middle.
 

I don't know many poor people buying Leicas, do you, or was that just your straw man contribution? The only cameras I've bought in 20 years were either sold again or were bought for under 200 bucks. Even poor people have a right to enjoy what little time they have to enjoy without patronizing life advice from those with plenty.

Millions of people have no retirement and millions more have an inadequate amount. One quarter of working Americans have nothing saved for retirement. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people here are so ignorant of that because photography HAS become largely the well-off, older white man's hobby.
 
I don't think the 36 exposure price is out of hand, considering the drop in demand.
 
For me, it is the high price of lab services in the US that makes it so expensive, especially thru mail order.
 

You realize that you are just killing the chief gripe of the "film is too expensive" crowd. Good for you.
 
michael_r said:
Of course it says little regarding “affordability” since I haven’t addressed how disposable income levels have fared over the same time interval. .
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Which is the only thing that matters. And as I said before, that's an individual judgement, not something that is likely to be captured in general statistics that could be leaving all sorts of important factors out, like personal debt just to name one. The only generalization that applies is that the rich are getting richer and can still afford whatever they want.

Sirius Glass said:
You realize that you are just killing the chief gripe of the "film is too expensive" crowd. Good for you.
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Its meaningless. It says nothing whatsoever about whether people who wish they could afford more film can afford more film, or whether potential new film users find it affordable to become film users.
 
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