Is there a way to cut down on film costs?

[gone]

It wasn't that long ago when I would shoot a roll of B&W film every day. I'd come home and develop/proof scan the negs, then try to get some prints made that same week. The 35mm Tri-X was rebranded as Arista, and only $2.50 a roll. 24 exposure was perfect for a daily shooting schedule.

But when I looked at what it would cost to do that today I came up w/ crazy numbers.....between $2500 and $3000 just for the film, not even counting paper and chemical costs.

So I thought of making the film. Just build a jig to cut edge perforations into a clear base, then coat it and stuff it into used canisters. Hardly seems to be a viable replacement though, maybe just something to try and see if it could be made to work.

Is there any way to make this less expensive, other than buying a quantity and putting it in the freezer?

 

[Down Under]

Minimalise!!
Shoot less.
Buy expired film.
Shoot less.
Buy bulk film.
Shoot less.
Break into a camera shop and steal their entire supply (not serious about this, only joking!!).
Shoot less.
(I've repeated this last point as eventually it will all come down to this anyway, sigh.)

Respectfully, you would have to be slightly "off" to seriously consider making your own film. Read up on George Eastman!!

 

[Pieter12]

Digital.

 

[Moose22]

Buying in quantity is how I did it.

Sort of.

It's just delaying the inevitable, but I got bulk loaders, saw a few rolls of Ilford for $80 each and snagged a roll of FP4 and Delta400 when I only meant to get HP5 -- both are 30% more expensive now. And I stocked the freezer and fridge with relative bargains when prices were rising last year.

I also dev at home, now, and can shoot HP5 (or FP4 or delta400) for $5 a roll developed. When I'm done with this bulk roll it'll be $6 or $6.50, or more.

If I need a lot of frames for cheap I'll go digital. I also don't mind Arista in its place. But really this is bare minimum expense, and it's only going up, so I have to learn to live with it.

 

[cmacd123]

I do miss both the Arista Premium (Tri-X) at 4 US a roll, and even better the Legacy Pro 400 (Neopan 400) at as little as 3 dollars a roll - both 36 exp.

If you can fake the needed equipment. (and I did build a jury-rig back in teh day, although I now use Movie equipment) a 400ft roll of 5222 is not all that bad a price. The ORWO N75 is in a bit of Limbo at the moment, but it was even cheeper than the 5222. 5222 is rathed at 250ASA, and many folks use the N75 at 320. The ORWO.shop site shows only the UN54, at about 100ASA for €185,92 for 400ft at the moment (72 X 36exp)

with all the "experimental" photographers these days - outdated film is often more expensive than fresh.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Buy in bulk and do that by shopping around for the best price.

Shoot less frequently.

 

[Wallendo]

Try shooting UltraFine bulk films and shooting 12-18 exposure rolls.

 

[bags27]

I bought a boatload of expired Arista.EDU and use it mainly for testing or when I want to just go for a walk and blow a roll on a whim. I think it's price is still a lot lower and it is reasonably good quality. I do find myself addicted to Tri-X, however.

 

[Cholentpot]

Be friendly and keep a sharp eye out for deals. Expired film isn't the deal it used to be but bulk rolls of expired film are floating around. Make friends with fellow local photographers and you never know what they have sitting in a freezer. Get a half frame camera, shoot 16mm film. I learned to cut down 70mm film into 120 and roll myself onto backing paper. Shoot 'offbrand films' like Svema, Orwo or Ultrafine. It's not Tri-x or Tmax but it gets the job done well. Keep a look out for shortends, learn to use cine film and deal with the remjet. EastmanXX is an excellent film, if you can dig up a contact there's always someone shooting it on a set.

There are ways to keep costs down. It's getting more difficult but there are ways.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Buy used cameras and lenses before that prices start to go up more.

 

[Cholentpot]

Buy used cameras and lenses before that prices start to go up more.

Have enough cameras already and sell the trash ones for 5x what you paid for them.

 

[Europan]

Switch to glass plates and you won’t spend a penny on film anymore.

 

[McDiesel]

@momus if you think that it's possible to have a healthy film industry by paying $2.5 a roll, you are mistaken. A roll of film is a miracle of chemical engineering, yet you believe it's OK to pay half the price of a cup of coffee? That's not sustainable. Go to a local Starbucks, order a cup of espresso, a low-tech primitive product with zero R&D behind it, and make a note of how much you paid for that.

Then multiply that by 10 and that would be a fair price to pay for a roll of film. Feel blessed to enjoy 36 shots (!) for less than $100. Look around your house. Most objects surrounding your life can't hold a candle to a roll of film in terms of value they deliver. Ask yourself how much you paid for that crap at Home Depot? Even stupid shit like this is $18!! Your dumb mouse pad is probably $10.

I come from mountain biking, not the most expensive hobby in the world, yet I'm amazed by how ridiculously cheap film photography is. There's room to raise prices for everything 10x. If you're not willing to pay, you're not serious about it.

In fact, we all must experience a jolt of guilt every time we pay less than $20 per a roll of film. $20 per roll would actually a far better price. Every shot is a miracle. When it comes to film pricing, I welcome the normalcy.

 

[Nitroplait]

Fomapan 30 feet bulk rolls are around €40, that's about $2.50 pr 24 exp roll.
A little dated look but a perfectly fine film to enjoy film photography. Foma's material prices are also very "2-3 decade ago".

Then there are all the many ways you can reduce consumption.

 

[BMbikerider]

Digital.

That is not really very helpful.

 

[BMbikerider]

This has been more or less enforced upon me. I used to use more colour film than B&W but with Kodak and Fuji playing stupid, colour film has become almost unobtanium. Then once you have the negatives the price of RA4 developer and paper is going up in leaps and bounds with some papers and chemicals (My prefered being Kodak) are also virtually impossible to find.
My only recourse is to revert to B&W which is a lot easier to process but printing has it's own challenges.

A 36 exp cassette of Kodak Gold 200 in UK if you can find any is anything between £9 and £15, B&W in bulk is less than a third of that

 

[Don_ih]

Carry two identical cameras - one loaded with film, one not. Shoot the picture first with the empty camera. Linger on the viewfinder a while.

 

[bags27]

@momus if you think that it's possible to have a healthy film industry by paying $2.5 a roll, you are mistaken. A roll of film is a miracle of chemical engineering, yet you believe it's OK to pay half the price of a cup of coffee? That's not sustainable. Go to a local Starbucks, order a cup of espresso, a low-tech primitive product with zero R&D behind it, and make a note of how much you paid for that.

Then multiply that by 10 and that would be a fair price to pay for a roll of film. Feel blessed to enjoy 36 shots (!) for less than $100. Look around your house. Most objects surrounding your life can't hold a candle to a roll of film in terms of value they deliver. Ask yourself how much you paid for that crap at Home Depot? Even stupid shit like this is $18!! Your dumb mouse pad is probably $10.

I come from mountain biking, not the most expensive hobby in the world, yet I'm amazed by how ridiculously cheap film photography is. There's room to raise prices for everything 10x. If you're not willing to pay, you're not serious about it.

In fact, we all must experience a jolt of guilt every time we pay less than $20 per a roll of film. $20 per roll would actually a far better price. Every shot is a miracle. When it comes to film pricing, I welcome the normalcy.

This would be a terrific thread on its own. Thanks for raising this so boldly and clearly. I disagree (of course! and BTW, I come from the world of road biking and know what you mean about relative costs).

Photography changed the world. The representation of the image, especially when in newspapers, had a profound effect on nation-building, democracy, modernity, the crisis of objectivity, etc.

I won't bore people with bibliography. Just to say this: Abraham Lincoln attributed his surprise presidential victory to the Matthew Brady photograph, reprinted in newspapers, of him at Cooper Union. Lincoln was suddenly the Everyman. Someone people could relate to, believe in. Lincoln changed America, and America changed the world.

Okay. now we have cell phones. We don't need film photography any more. We don't even need cameras any more. But to keep alive a historical process involving art and interpretation is an essential mark of civilization.

Film should cost whatever the price of production, plus reasonable profits for all involved in marketing, distribution, and selling. But it should not be artificially high to deter its use. Every shot is not a miracle. Shots are exploratory, emotional, experimental. The process depends on the shots that aren't valued as much as on the shots that are.

Making film cost more dramatically undermines the hobby except for those who use glass plates or large format. That's reasonable for some, but even Ansel Adams embraced the Hasselblad when he discovered it.

Again, I'd have liked this a seperate thread, as I'm curious how others feel about it.

 

[Cholentpot]

This would be a terrific thread on its own. Thanks for raising this so boldly and clearly. I disagree (of course! and BTW, I come from the world of road biking and know what you mean about relative costs).

Photography changed the world. The representation of the image, especially when in newspapers, had a profound effect on nation-building, democracy, modernity, the crisis of objectivity, etc.

I won't bore people with bibliography. Just to say this: Abraham Lincoln attributed his surprise presidential victory to the Matthew Brady photograph, reprinted in newspapers, of him at Cooper Union. Lincoln was suddenly the Everyman. Someone people could relate to, believe in. Lincoln changed America, and America changed the world.

Okay. now we have cell phones. We don't need film photography any more. We don't even need cameras any more. But to keep alive a historical process involving art and interpretation is an essential mark of civilization.

Film should cost whatever the price of production, plus reasonable profits for all involved in marketing, distribution, and selling. But it should not be artificially high to deter its use. Every shot is not a miracle. Shots are exploratory, emotional, experimental. The process depends on the shots that aren't valued as much as on the shots that are.

Making film cost more dramatically undermines the hobby except for those who use glass plates or large format. That's reasonable for some, but even Ansel Adams embraced the Hasselblad when he discovered it.

Again, I'd have liked this a seperate thread, as I'm curious how others feel about it.

$20 a roll and I'd be glad to pay for it?

$20 a roll and you'll have 5 people nation wide shooting film. Give me a break. The technology is mature and developed. The market seems to be underserved currently. Kodak can pull some ancient emulsion out of its basement, roll it up, call it KodaRetro and make a bundle.

The high costs can be mitigated with some intelligent marketing. Kodak doesn't seem to have that and Fuji doesn't care.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Digital.

Yes, exactly. One cannot cut down on film expenses more than by eliminating them totally.

That is not really very helpful.

Why not? If the OP is interested in photography, rather than technology, how much more helpful could a reply be than one that answers their question directly?

 

[Pieter12]

That is not really very helpful.

And why not? The object of taking photos is to make an image. Using film to make that image is a subset of that category. Using digital is another. Film is not photography. If the OP is so concerned with the cost of making photographs on film, then digital is a viable alternative. If film is essential to the OP's work, then bear the cost. It's not that expensive today, even compared to its heyday.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...The technology is mature and developed. The market seems to be underserved currently. Kodak can pull some ancient emulsion out of its basement, roll it up, call it KodaRetro and make a bundle.

The high costs can be mitigated with some intelligent marketing. Kodak doesn't seem to have that...

Have you offered your wisdom and expertise to Eastman Kodak? You seem to know more about how to manufacture film and effectively market it than that company does. It would be a fool not to hire you as CEO immediately.

 

[NB23]

Foma 100/400 bulks still Comes down to about 2.50$ per roll.

Great films too.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Have enough cameras already and sell the trash ones for 5x what you paid for them.

That smacks of capitalism!

 

[Sirius Glass]

@momus if you think that it's possible to have a healthy film industry by paying $2.5 a roll, you are mistaken. A roll of film is a miracle of chemical engineering, yet you believe it's OK to pay half the price of a cup of coffee? That's not sustainable. Go to a local Starbucks, order a cup of espresso, a low-tech primitive product with zero R&D behind it, and make a note of how much you paid for that.

Then multiply that by 10 and that would be a fair price to pay for a roll of film. Feel blessed to enjoy 36 shots (!) for less than $100. Look around your house. Most objects surrounding your life can't hold a candle to a roll of film in terms of value they deliver. Ask yourself how much you paid for that crap at Home Depot? Even stupid shit like this is $18!! Your dumb mouse pad is probably $10.

I come from mountain biking, not the most expensive hobby in the world, yet I'm amazed by how ridiculously cheap film photography is. There's room to raise prices for everything 10x. If you're not willing to pay, you're not serious about it.

In fact, we all must experience a jolt of guilt every time we pay less than $20 per a roll of film. $20 per roll would actually a far better price. Every shot is a miracle. When it comes to film pricing, I welcome the normalcy.

Thank you, that is stated much better than I have been doing.