Is now the time to sell our film cameras?

[anthonym3]

Clearly you haven't met some of the very fine photographers I know who take excellent wildlife photographs using digital equipment.
Yes they tend to take more photographs then film photographers, but wildlife photography is still a demanding genre, and still takes skill and judgment to consistently obtain high quality results.
There are some technical advantages of digital that make it advantageous to use for wildlife photography - primarily high ISO performance and high resolution from smaller sensors - but it is just as capable of yielding lousy results as film is.

As I said point and shoot on automatic and chose from hundreds of images. Wildlife photography once was highly specialized, now it is merely snap shooting.The only thing that I view as being demanding is lugging the equipment.

 

[rayonline_nz]

outsourcing, one would lose control.

Even in the film days, most professional photographers outsourced prints. Even now with quality photo printers available those that I know who have turned their hobby into their full time job (at my camera club) most also outsource the prints .... I can see how darkroom in particular gives you more control, unless a pro was into fine arts or doing their own thing. I think those who are taking up film photography now of course are no where the same volume as in the film days, but I guess even less of them would have a darkroom.

 

[pocketshaver]

If a person WANTS to get out of film, it is a good time to sell off old gear and film stock.

Right now a massive surge in people wanting to get away from electronic gizmos is underway. I don't know the exact term for it, but its not just hipsters and yuppies buying up film gear and accessories. ALOT of them are normal people who like to do photos already, but go to film instead of digital for personal and ethical considerations. As well as considerations of simple thoughts like:

If I get a digital and take 400 photos in 10 minutes, am I accomplishing anything compared to running a 135 and only taking 10 photos in an hour?

 

[Kodachromeguy]

If I get a digital and take 400 photos in 10 minutes, am I accomplishing anything compared to running a 135 and only taking 10 photos in an hour?

Wow, an old topic from the past. Volume versus quality, hmmm....

Also, take a look at the book, The Revenge of Analogue. It is very interesting. A review at the NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/books/revenge-of-analog-david-sax.html

 

[Kino]

Wow, an old topic from the past. Volume versus quality, hmmm....

Also, take a look at the book, The Revenge of Analogue. It is very interesting. A review at the NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/books/revenge-of-analog-david-sax.html

View attachment 236877

Yeah, I ordered that book.
Don't bother. Very light weight and superficial. The article is more informative than the book, which very lightly touches on film.

I DO like the meme!

 

[anthonym3]

As I said point and shoot on automatic and chose from hundreds of images. Wildlife photography once was highly specialized, now it is merely snap shooting.The only thing that I view as being demanding is lugging the equipment.

Yes they tend to make THOUSANDS more per shoot.

 

[eli griggs]

Anyone here walking away from Analog kit, please fell free to send me any of your castoff Leica, Hasselblad, Canon FD/FL and NIkon ai kit, filters, lenses, or other.

Yes, I'm serious, I still love this stuff and all of it will be welcomed!

Cheers!

 

[anthonym3]

Film is back and here to stay for quite some time. I never strayed having shot film since 1965.

 

[pentaxuser]

Based on what could be Armageddon for all film(see new scanners thread) except that sold and made in the same country and then not taken overseas by any means of transport then definitely time to sell. It should be possible for Ilford users in the U.K. and the rest of Europe Adox and Foma users to travel across the European landmass and even cross the Channel by boat. As for those from the Americas wanting to visit the "Old World" as either Dick and Donald used to call us then it's a life on the ocean wave for 10 days including return.

pentaxuser

 

[BrianShaw]

Film is back and here to stay for quite some time. I never strayed having shot film since 1965.

I completely understand that sentiment but I’ve been feeling quite liberated by the good quality of mobile phone cameras. Makes snapshots a breeze! But like you... I still love film photography.

 

[removed account4]

OP
yes its about that time. you probably won't get much $$ for it though
unless you have cameras and lenses that are collectable or that are "popular/cult items" now.
but still i'd get rid of everything that you don't want or use. too much gear too many lenses
it all a massive distraction to the business of making photographs.

good luck!

 

[AndyH]

Look at the demographics of film users. The median age seems to have dropped to less than half the early 2000s level. The crowd at our local film camera show (one of the largest in the country) is now more than 50% millennials. (It was 75% Medicare a few short years ago)

Like many other things artisanal and hand crafted, film photography is on an upswing based on demographics. I don’t see this changing on my lifetime. Brands are still the most important factor, and there will still be bargains for those seeking them. But just look at what’s happening, and continuing to happen, with Hasselblad, Leica M, Mamiya 7, Pentax 6x7, and others. They aren’t making any more of them, and the demand is growing.

If you want to cash in, that’s fine. But I’m glad that I have gear I love to shoot with while I can still afford it.

If you’re new to film, Nikon manual, Rolleiflex, Kowa, Mamiya C series TLRs, and the Eastern Bloc brands are still affordable entry points. But I don’t foresee a reduction in the pricing for premium Japanese and European brands anytime soon.
Andy

 

[destroya]

funny, i was thinking about this thread today while i developed a bunch of 4x5 sheets. do i need all the cameras I have? do I want to keep thinking about high film prices get before I get priced out? I have many years in the freezer, but thats not the point. with the recent fuji and kodak price increases, color is getting pricey in my eyes. I feel its better to maybe sell some things now while film is still affordable to the new to film shooters.

john

 

[jtk]

It's OK to be an antique collector. That's not similar to being a photographer.

 

[awty]

Look at the demographics of film users. The median age seems to have dropped to less than half the early 2000s level. The crowd at our local film camera show (one of the largest in the country) is now more than 50% millennials. (It was 75% Medicare a few short years ago)

Like many other things artisanal and hand crafted, film photography is on an upswing based on demographics. I don’t see this changing on my lifetime. Brands are still the most important factor, and there will still be bargains for those seeking them. But just look at what’s happening, and continuing to happen, with Hasselblad, Leica M, Mamiya 7, Pentax 6x7, and others. They aren’t making any more of them, and the demand is growing.

If you want to cash in, that’s fine. But I’m glad that I have gear I love to shoot with while I can still afford it.

If you’re new to film, Nikon manual, Rolleiflex, Kowa, Mamiya C series TLRs, and the Eastern Bloc brands are still affordable entry points. But I don’t foresee a reduction in the pricing for premium Japanese and European brands anytime soon.
Andy

Yep. My 20 year old daughter inherited my first SLR, a Nikon fg-20. I keep her supplied with HP5 and she did her first print last week and is keen to do more. All the people I see with film cameras are under 30.
A lot of people who ditched their records and record players are now buying it all back at premium prices. The record revival was mostly starded by under 30 year olds who were born in the digital world.
I wouldn't rush out and sell anything, if film producers feel they can raise the prices and expand their film production, it's most likely their market research is telling them the market is buoyant.

 

[AndyH]

I wouldn't rush out and sell anything, if film producers feel they can raise the prices and expand their film production, it's most likely their market research is telling them the market is buoyant.

Yes.

Big companies don’t restart multi-million dollar production lines without hard data on demand and demographics. If Kodak and Fuji aren’t in “sell now” mode, neither am I.
Andy

 

[CMoore]

I seem to be playing the devil's advocate this week. By way of explaining this, I'm at home, five days before I depart for Southeast Asia on one of my extended photo shoots, with no household chores to be done before I go (ours is an entirely Sagittarian environment, two humans and three cats shari the same astrological sign, admittedly in the latter case as far as we know as our felines don't have birth certificates so we go by the personalities and traits, most definitely December fur babies they are) and little to do but read, write, plan my next two months' travel adventures and daydream.

Now to return to the point...

A dear friend long involved in photography has in the past year moved fully into digital (Nikons) and mostly given up shooting film. He isn't especially pro or con one or the other but says he did so for convenience and ease of creating his images. According to him, while he "sort of" misses his black-and-white film work, his digi results are as good as anything he did before, shooting is easier, he enjoys what little post-processing he does, and he rejoices at having escaped the tyranny of the darkroom with its fixer smells, endlessly long print washing and time dedicated to fine-spotting his enlargements. In fact he says he misses absolutely none of that, except the frisson of not knowing what his results will be on the spot when he shoots an image. also the fun of shooting with is Leica iiig (which he still does, in a limited way).

He believes that the entire photo industry is now firmly poised on a great abyss - the time for mass (and massive) changes when the masses of once-dedicated film shooters give up on analog and defect to the big D. Firmly convinced that this is about to happen, he insists that NOW is the time for us to offload our film cameras while we can still get quite decent prices for them.

I tend to both agree and disagree (another hybrid Sagittarian trait). Certainly film prices here in Australia are so ridiculously high as to put off most older photographers who traditionally keep to a sensible budget but now find the costs of film and darkroom supplies so inflated as to be off-putting. Many of my friends (who are in their 60s and 70s and on reduced incomes but still share my love of older cameras and traditional darkrooms) agree with this sad summing up. If anything destroys the future of film shooting here in the Antipodes, it will be the price of film.

I got around this to some extent by hoarding in the late 2009 but am now almost out of chemistry and 35mm films (my remaining stocks of refrigerated 120 films would put your average camera shop circa 2005 to shame). Having recently relocated from Tasmania to Melbourne, last week I ventured into my favorite retail photo center to buy fresh developer and fixer and other odd bits of darkroom chemistry, and all but lost bowel control in shock when I realized the high prices for anything.

Fortunately I do my own D&P, as the same retailer wants the price of a kidney for processing one roll of slide film and two fingers from one's hand for color negative. And New Zealand prices it seems are up to 50% higher. Ooch!

So my query. Do you believe that NOW is the time to sell our stores of unused cameras? Will prices for secondhand gear crash to rock-bottom in the near future? With environmental destruction, climate change and all the other awfuls the media tells us are waiting at the end of the street, will film become as rare (and as expensive as) dinosaurs' teeth in the not-too-distant distance?

in 2012 I had >50-60 cameras but I'm now down to a more sensible but still oversupply of <20.

My Nikkormats and Nikkor lenses are worth only cents on the dollar and prices have not improved since 2010. My Contax G equipment would sell at the same prices or a little better as in 2012. Rolleiflex (oddly, not Rolleicords, which I consider as as good as the 'flexes) prices in Oz have skyrocketed and some Ebay sellers want megabucks for well-worn 1950s Automats with dents and missing bits. German 6x6 folders still command reasonable prices on the same auction site.

I've noted that, as for most overpriced things on Ebay, not much seems to sell. Now and then a pigeon bits the poison hook but on the auction saes are stagnant.

Bearing in mind what I said about Satan's Advocacy, what are your thoughts about all this?

All of THAT, just to get to THIS.?
Do you want to shoot film.?
If you do, you need film cameras.

 

[awty]

Yes.

Big companies don’t restart multi-million dollar production lines without hard data on demand and demographics. If Kodak and Fuji aren’t in “sell now” mode, neither am I.
Andy

Thats what I tell my wife, better investment than the stock market, unlike shoes and handbags which do nothing but depreciate .

 

[CMoore]

Thats what I tell my wife, better investment than the stock market, unlike shoes and handbags which do nothing but depreciate .

That really is not a bad strategy.
although, it would help if there were cameras stamped with logos like.... Coach and LV.

 

[removed account4]

Thats what I tell my wife, better investment than the stock market, unlike shoes and handbags which do nothing but depreciate .

i'm guessing if imelda marco's "cameras and lenses" were sold at auction they wouldn't have gotten any where near as much as her shoes.

That really is not a bad strategy.
although, it would help if there were cameras stamped with logos like.... Coach and LV.

they are >> nikon, ebony, leica &c

 

[eli griggs]

The most important thing is to keep good gear working, and to spread the love, for the personal and public "art form".

Bringing in new shooters, and helping to encourage a long term commitment to Film, Darkroom, and personal-growth, is IMO, the best way to ensure those companies that put-up and pull-down those multi-million production lines are growing in production, no stagnating in the "too little Profit to bother category.

We also need to think about how to encourage the development of 'small production line' machinery/operations.

I believe that, just as other old industrial production in a number of areas have been accessible and profitable in the use of new machinery and methods, so could film and paper production,

Old films/papers that were/are of high quality/popularity could be kept alive,and keep our art form, yes, photography is an art form, just as watercolour painting is, and has, the similar distinction, that everyday folks, old and new, can work on their own level, and if they excel, will have a demand for their work, even if they never sale a thing, and do so for pleasure or need.

Modern tech is increasingly miniaturized, from the start or in the process, and I personally see the possibilities of home printers in the darkroom, processing no images, but, one day, Photographic emulsions, film and paper, on demand.

Until then, we shoot, bring in new lovers of analog photography and encourage innovation toward small line production, keeping alive Kodak, Ilford, etc, as our generations grow and are replaced with new shooters.

IMO

PS. doing the above, if successful, will also encourge the production of proven kit, and innovation that includes purely analog cameras and lenses.

Already, individual camera builders are working in 3-D printing and CNC construction, building all sorts of analog kit.and I suggest that those that are wanting to know more, simply search for online forums about camera making.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I’ve got a freezer full of film, a closet full of cameras (plus the ones in climate controlled storage), and a cabinet full of chemicals. For now I’m good.

 

[eli griggs]

I’ve got a freezer full of film, a closet full of cameras (plus the ones in climate controlled storage), and a cabinet full of chemicals. For now I’m good.

"God bless the child that has his own..."

Eli

 

[jtk]

Yes.

Big companies don’t restart multi-million dollar production lines without hard data on demand and demographics. If Kodak and Fuji aren’t in “sell now” mode, neither am I.
Andy

I doubt anybody ever lost money betting against Kodak.

 

[Ray Morgenweck]

Every time you go out in public with a camera hung around your neck people look. 1/3 think “look at the idiot with a camera, don’t he have a phone ?” 1/3 think “wow I remember doing that.....where’s my old Canon? 1/3 think. “Can you still get film? I’d like to try that!”