How much will Kodak film prices increase?

[138S]

To we Europeans prices like those above would leave us with the kind of "stars in our eyes and vision of Walt's fairy tale castle with the famous "when you wish upon a start" song.

pentaxuser

Yes... Probably the ex-factory total cost of a Pro quality roll is well under $2, for sure the film in the roll is under $1 cost, this is easy to guess from bulk price of stock movie film that has very similar manufacturing. The rest is financial cost from debt and distribution, and etc.

Of course, at least, sheet film can be offered at similar per surface cost than rolls, Foma and Ilford do that, but Fuji and Kodak prices are x2 or beyond in sheets, this is about market segmentation, not about ex-factory cost.

They are free to fix the price they want, but that "film revival" we enjoy today can be reversed if they persist in the way they go, if customers feel abused then many will drop.

 

[138S]

Amazon is not a good indicator of overall pricing for a given region. There are many third party sellers on Amazon and because Amazon typically takes at least 15% off the top of the sale price, the prices on Amazon are generally higher (by at least 15%) than what you would otherwise find elsewhere. Amazon also has a very customer friendly return policy which allows returns and full refunds, even if the items are damaged and can’t be resold, and/or are never even returned. All the customer has to do is complain and they get their money back, regardless of whether they returned the product. Smart Amazon sellers factor this into their pricing.

Well, see prices in the EU, all shops have around the same $70 for Portra 160 4x5-10, Amazon is $73 but they include (Prime) shipping, so all have the same price, this comes from pricing discipline enforced by distributor.

In general always discounts had been allowed from expiry date, but today logistics are efficient and main retailers have fresh film, so you won't find much differences.

 

[MattKing]

The film itself is the cheapest part of the package. It is all the rest needed to get it into usable form and get it into the hands of the photographer that costs far more.
As an example, Ilford 120 film costs less to make per roll than it costs Harman to buy the cacking paper to spool it with.

 

[138S]

The film itself is the cheapest part of the package. It is all the rest needed to get it into usable form and get it into the hands of the photographer that costs far more.
As an example, Ilford 120 film costs less to make per roll than it costs Harman to buy the cacking paper to spool it with.

Yes... and the most expensive component of a 135 roll is the cassette...

Emulsion is 5 to 20um thick, so a roll (or 810 sheet) has between 0.20ml to 1ml of dried emulsion, taking the worst case with 1L of dried emulsion (most is gelatin) they make 1000 rolls, wich has a retail value from $4000 (consumer film) to $27,000 (sheets in the EU).

Of course film is a difficult business... But we see ilford knowing where North is, I feel they have a lot of wisdom in their policy. They are very good making enthusiats love them. For example their yearly ULF custom cuts are pure CRM, this is service and being at customer's side.

Another source of satisfaction from ilford is their support to LF, sourcing sheets at similar per surface price. An LF photographer knows how to add and how to substract from school, he calculates developer and he knows that a 120 roll has the same than a 8x10 sheet, ilford does not say weird things, they just source the sheets at fair price.

...instead Alaris thinks that you have an Arca Swiss and you want to pay x3, so they elaborate a number of pretexts to justify that 20 8x10 big sheets (with total 20ml of dried gelatin emulsion) have to cost the same than a DSLR body.

I hope that one day Kodak behaves like ilford, making film users happy and trying to expand customer base by all means, as the strategic behaviour.

Ektachrome comeback was also nice, but if we can't buy it...

 

[jtk]

Think trade policies, Brexit, Trump, China and Vietnam (where photo paper increasingly begins).

 

[138S]

Happy new year to all. Happy shooting !

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Happy new year to all. Happy shooting !

Pere, is that you?

 

[Adrian Bacon]

This isn't my experience at all. In the UK, prices for most films stocks are lower on Amazon than anywhere else. There are sometimes exceptions here and there, but that is the clear general trend.

it depends on how many sellers there are for a given product and how experienced those sellers are on Amazon’s platform. If there are a lot of sellers, and one or two of them are new, then you get a “race to the bottom” situation. In those instances, yes, the price can be competitive with other outlets, and the consumer wins, however, Amazon always takes 15%, even if the seller loses money. If it’s with free Prime shipping, Amazon charges the seller for that too.

Many many new and inexperienced Amazon sellers who think they’re competing on price don’t realize this until they’ve sold everything they have in inventory and get a check from Amazon for less money than what they started with. Then you see them jump on Amazon’s seller forums and complain about how Amazon isn’t being fair, or whatever. They did it to themselves. If you watch who’s selling a given product over time, you often see a new seller you’ve never seen before jump in with a bunch of inventory and want to capture the buy box so they lower the price, and keep going lower trying to retain the buy box until they’ve sold all their inventory, then, surprise, surprise! They disappear. Why? You can’t stay in business with no profit margin. With those sellers their loss is your gain, however it’s not sustainable.

On the other hand, if you watch that same product, over time, you’ll notice that there are usually at least one or two sellers that do not have particularly low prices, and don’t compete on price at all, and somehow manage to stay in business and always have that product available for purchase even though they appear to almost never have the buy box. These sellers also almost never have prime shipping. How are they staying in business? By charging enough to have a sustainable profit margin. Even though they may not often appear to have the buy box, they still get sales based on long term customer satisfaction ratings, fulfillment speed, and shipping speed simply because Amazons algorithms will route customers to sellers that will give the best customer experience, as long as the price difference isn’t large. The buy box price reflects who Amazon thinks is the best seller for you, based on where you’re located, where the seller is located, the sellers metrics, and your purchasing habits.

Of course, if some idiot seller wants to race the price to the bottom and put themselves out of business, Amazon will happily give them the buy box for all buyers because they always get 15%, even if the seller loses everything and dies. The consumer gets a great price at the cost of a business who probably shouldn’t be in business to begin with because it was losing money.

The real price on Amazon is the price those other sellers that don’t compete on price charge. The buy box price is only a price indicator of what you personally are historically willing to pay weighed against what’s currently available in inventory and is different for everyone.

 

[jtk]

So...everybody here has factored Brexit, Trump/Tweet, B&H, and China into their beliefs ?

 

[MattKing]

So...everybody here has factored Brexit, Trump/Tweet, B&H, and China into their beliefs ?

B&H (and Adorama and their like) are both good and bad.
They certainly disrupt the potential for a healthy local retail market.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

As a user of Kodak products in the UK I'd simply like a fairly priced and reliable supply of product. We don't really have the equivalent of B&H here.

 

[rayonline_nz]

I don't know about you, but I'd rather spend even $500 for a used EOS-1n (or similar) and then spend the remaining $5000+ dollars on film and processing. You'll be at it for a quite while before you've matched the cost of the digital body, which you'll be prompted to replace every 2-3 years.

Many probably have a digital camera already but thee are exceptions. One doesn't need to always upgrade their digital camera. I for example have a full frame dSLR since 2013, some wedding guys I hear are still using a 2009 Nikon D700.

FWIW for the last 9yrs I have imported film from the USA and exported to the USA for processing b/c things here are so expensive. a 35mm roll of E6 cost up to $45NZ and processing now is $30NZ per roll which is $30US and $20US resp. I think my slide shooting is coming to a close now. I may shoot the very occasional roll. I got 4 rolls of Kodak C41 in 120 format before December just to play around with it, as a landscape / cityscape person I have pretty much defaulted to slide film in the past particularly with Fuji Velvia 50. And oh .. the international freight involved maybe add $2US per roll with a batch of 15-20 rolls of film. So what is that in the USA with 120 format slide film? $8US + $8US for procesing + $2US for freight per roll.

I am not one of those shoot 50 rolls a year. Because of the freight ie prob $15US to send to the USA and prob $25US to send back here. I freeze my exposed film for up to 2yrs before I send them away so I do a shipment each 2yrs. Also there is the $10US to ship the new purchased film to me at the start.

 

[pentaxuser]

This isn't my experience at all. In the UK, prices for most films stocks are lower on Amazon than anywhere else. There are sometimes exceptions here and there, but that is the clear general trend.

I have had a quick look at Amazon U.K. in the past and never found it to be cheaper. I just did an admittedly quick and dirty check now on Amazon for HP5+ 36 frame film and couldn't find any prices to beat most of the retailers such as AgPhotographic, Process Supplies, RK Photo Sharif Photographic etc

I say this not to start an argument but simply to indicate to a fellow film user that there are other sources such as dedicated film and photo retailers whom it may be worth looking at

pentaxuser

 

[GLS]

it depends on how many sellers there are for a given product and how experienced those sellers are on Amazon’s platform. If there are a lot of sellers, and one or two of them are new, then you get a “race to the bottom” situation. In those instances, yes, the price can be competitive with other outlets, and the consumer wins, however, Amazon always takes 15%, even if the seller loses money. If it’s with free Prime shipping, Amazon charges the seller for that too.

To be clear: I was not talking about the prices from 3rd party sellers selling via Amazon, but rather Amazon's own prices.

I have had a quick look at Amazon U.K. in the past and never found it to be cheaper. I just did an admittedly quick and dirty check now on Amazon for HP5+ 36 frame film and couldn't find any prices to beat most of the retailers such as AgPhotographic, Process Supplies, RK Photo Sharif Photographic etc

I am not familiar with 135 format prices, as I only shoot 120 format currently. Ilford films are probably the least competitively priced on Amazon relative to other suppliers, but for Fuji and Kodak my experience is they tend to have the lowest prices. Again, this isn't an absolute rule and there are exceptions here and there. When coupled with the very low price threshold for free delivery on Amazon orders, it often makes using them a no brainer.

This isn't a situation I'm thrilled about, as I am not a particular fan of Amazon as a company, but there we are.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

To be clear: I was not talking about the prices from 3rd party sellers selling via Amazon, but rather Amazon's own prices.



I am not familiar with 135 format prices, as I only shoot 120 format currently. Ilford films are probably the least competitively priced on Amazon relative to other suppliers, but for Fuji and Kodak my experience is they tend to have the lowest prices. Again, this isn't an absolute rule and there are exceptions here and there. When coupled with the very low price threshold for free delivery on Amazon orders, it often makes using them a no brainer.

This isn't a situation I'm thrilled about, as I am not a particular fan of Amazon as a company, but there we are.

Amazon has been known to stock and sell film themselves, but not consistently, however unless it says “sold and shipped by Amazon”, it’s coming from a third party seller even if it’s shipped by Amazon.

when Amazon themselves stocks and sells film, they don’t charge themselves the 15%, they don’t charge themselves the $3+ *per item* to pick, pack, and ship it, and they don’t charge themselves monthly storage fees to store the film in their fulfillment centers. These are all things they charge third party sellers but don’t charge to themselves when stocking the same film, and their price reflects that. In fact, when Amazon first starts to stock a certain product themselves, often times you’ll see a mass exodus of third party sellers unload and dump their inventory as quickly as possible because they can’t compete with Amazon and don’t want to get stuck paying storage fees on a bunch of inventory they can’t sell. It’s better to lower the price as far as possible to get the buy box and unload your inventory as quickly as possible at a loss than to let it sit and cost you money every month until it expire. When hat happens, Amazon takes your inventory and disposes of it because it’s expired and you lose all of it. This is of course assuming they’re using Amazon for fulfillment. If they’re shipping it themselves, when Amazon starts to stock that same item, it generally kills all sales for everybody else carrying that same item as Amazon almost always gives themselves the buy box.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Many probably have a digital camera already but thee are exceptions. One doesn't need to always upgrade their digital camera. I for example have a full frame dSLR since 2013, some wedding guys I hear are still using a 2009 Nikon D700.

FWIW for the last 9yrs I have imported film from the USA and exported to the USA for processing b/c things here are so expensive. a 35mm roll of E6 cost up to $45NZ and processing now is $30NZ per roll which is $30US and $20US resp. I think my slide shooting is coming to a close now. I may shoot the very occasional roll. I got 4 rolls of Kodak C41 in 120 format before December just to play around with it, as a landscape / cityscape person I have pretty much defaulted to slide film in the past particularly with Fuji Velvia 50. And oh .. the international freight involved maybe add $2US per roll with a batch of 15-20 rolls of film. So what is that in the USA with 120 format slide film? $8US + $8US for procesing + $2US for freight per roll.

I am not one of those shoot 50 rolls a year. Because of the freight ie prob $15US to send to the USA and prob $25US to send back here. I freeze my exposed film for up to 2yrs before I send them away so I do a shipment each 2yrs. Also there is the $10US to ship the new purchased film to me at the start.

well, your situation is a bit different as you’re not in the US. Here in the US, you can typically ship 3-4 rolls for processing via USPS for $4-$5, the processing for E-6 is generally in the $10-15 range per roll for slide film depending on who you use and what is included in that cost.

 

[GLS]

however unless it says “sold and shipped by Amazon”, it’s coming from a third party seller even if it’s shipped by Amazon.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I don't know what other Amazon sites are like, but the UK one routinely stocks the major brands/emulsions.

For Kodak films in particular I find the Amazon price is rarely beaten, apart from channel island suppliers like Jaz UK, but then they tend to sell short dated stuff in my experience, so I no longer use them. For Ilford B&W and Fuji E6 I tend to find Ffordes is the cheapest, but only when sizeable orders are made as delivery from them is close to £10.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Yes, I'm aware of that. I don't know what other Amazon sites are like, but the UK one routinely stocks the major brands/emulsions.

For Kodak films in particular I find the Amazon price is rarely beaten, apart from channel island suppliers like Jaz UK, but then they tend to sell short dated stuff in my experience, so I no longer use them. For Ilford B&W and Fuji E6 I tend to find Ffordes is the cheapest, but only when sizeable orders are made as delivery from them is close to £10.

Its a bit different here in the US then as Amazon does not normally stock much themselves in the way of film. If they did, given their fairly anticompetitive behavior, they’d put a whole pile of businesses out of business, including my own. Despite the fact that I carry on as many online channels as I can, Amazon still accounts for over 80 percent of my sales.

 

[GLS]

Yes, as I said I'm not a fan of Amazon due to said practices, but sadly most people are only concerned with getting the cheapest possible price, and that is understandable to a large extent. Speaking of which, I see the new prices are already in effect here:

A 120 pro pack of Portra 400 is now listed at £52.51 and £52.86 at Ag Photographic and Silverprint, respectively. Frankly that's a bitter pill to swallow when you are accustomed to buying it for £34.99, and once that old-price stock is gone I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon start selling it for £45 or less...

 

[Sirius Glass]

If you pursue that line of discussion further, considering its applicability to matters political, this thread might end up in the Soap Box.

That would improve the website.

 

[rayonline_nz]

well, your situation is a bit different as you’re not in the US. Here in the US, you can typically ship 3-4 rolls for processing via USPS for $4-$5, the processing for E-6 is generally in the $10-15 range per roll for slide film depending on who you use and what is included in that cost.

The USA lab I use is AGX which is $8US for 35mm or 120 format processing. 35mm mounted is $11US.
When I get my film from Freestyle or B&H I think their postal rates are $12US for up to about 15 rolls.
The thing for me is that I need to import m film (pay post), export for processing (pay post) and import back the processed film (pay again). A batch of 25 rolls prob cost $20US to send to the USA and maybe $25-30US to ship the film back to me.

Color slides have gotten too expensive for me. And the thing is I can only do a 24 monthly shipment to keep the cost down, unlike some I am part of that group that don't shoot 50 rolls a year.

I have just imported 4 rolls of Kodak C41 and see how that goes. Over here I can get them processed for about $6US equiv. B/W I can process them myself with a paterson tank. Also for those that say, develop my own color film! We can't buy color chemistry here, nor does Freestyle or B&H send them outside the continental USA. The Film Photography Project does, but they charge something like $60US for freight which again is uneconomical, I know 1 or 2 here that does it they buy 3 kits and pay the $60US shipping.

 

[Ariston]

The USA lab I use is AGX which is $8US for 35mm or 120 format processing. 35mm mounted is $11US.
When I get my film from Freestyle or B&H I think their postal rates are $12US for up to about 15 rolls.
The thing for me is that I need to import m film (pay post), export for processing (pay post) and import back the processed film (pay again). A batch of 25 rolls prob cost $20US to send to the USA and maybe $25-30US to ship the film back to me.

Color slides have gotten too expensive for me. And the thing is I can only do a 24 monthly shipment to keep the cost down, unlike some I am part of that group that don't shoot 50 rolls a year.

I have just imported 4 rolls of Kodak C41 and see how that goes. Over here I can get them processed for about $6US equiv. B/W I can process them myself with a paterson tank. Also for those that say, develop my own color film! We can't buy color chemistry here, nor does Freestyle or B&H send them outside the continental USA. The Film Photography Project does, but they charge something like $60US for freight which again is uneconomical, I know 1 or 2 here that does it they buy 3 kits and pay the $60US shipping.

Why can't you buy color chemistry there?

 

[rayonline_nz]

Why can't you buy color chemistry there?

Lack of suitable demand I guess. Even if count proper labs that does E6 including camera shops that sell stuff ... is probably only 2 or 3 places in NZ that does E6 development. Maybe another 2 or so .. home business that uses the Tetenal kits I guess? But they are only good if you ship a couple of rolls of film to them because the courier cost to them cost $6US there and another $6US back. We only have a population of 4.6M.

Many other labs or shops only do C41 and they courier your film to other labs in the country to process E6.

 

[Agulliver]

I don't think I have ever bought film via amazon.co.uk because I can get it cheaper elsewhere. Amazon prices in the UK, be it direct through Amazon or fulfilled by another retailer, are not particularly competitive for photographic film. The exception is instant film.

 

[138S]

I don't think I have ever bought film via amazon.co.uk because I can get it cheaper elsewhere. Amazon prices in the UK, be it direct through Amazon or fulfilled by another retailer, are not particularly competitive for photographic film. The exception is instant film.

It depends on shipping, film sold as a "Prime" product includes shipping, that sold as "Plus" product has free shipping if buying some other things Amazon has, so even in the case that it may be more expesive sinergy may make it a better choice sometimes, at least for small film orders, because shipping has a cost...

One of the Amazon's strong points is shipping cost.

Right now I can buy 5 FP4 rolls at Amazon for 32.33€ shipped. Fotoimpex has it for 30.00€, but add shipping.