Is there really a revival of analog photography

[Helge]

Movies shot on film are really expensive compared to still film.

If you are talking shoestring budget movies, then yes. But those where always made with the cheapest method available.

For even a small Hollywood movie of today the film budget is negligible. Easily covered by not feeling obliged to over-shoot as much and not having to work so hard in post.

For tent pole movies, it’s a drop in the ocean.
The usual $150 to 400 million production cost is just so insane that film is not even a dot in the budget.

 

[removed account4]

Especially if you talk like that on public forums.
Casual members and random people from Google searches will see these posts for years and have various amount of FUD induced, which they will spread to others.

You only have to Google simple terms like “digital vs. analog” or “film revival” to see how sticky and meme like some forum posts and texts can become, seemingly at random. Becoming gospel and copied.

I would not worry about cameras at all yet. There are plenty to go around for years. Perhaps even more if we could stop the pest of mirrorless tards leaching off lenses that were made for and work best on film SLRs.

Good scanners are a much, much bigger problem.
It’s what is keeping many people from realizing that film is really not a quaint, whimsical retro fad, to score authenticity points off. But an incredibly sophisticated, unequaled image sensor.

Even if they do know that, it’s academic to them, because they are not ready to invest in and deal with a macro’n stitch camera scanning rig (mostly because of imagined ideas and false anecdotal evidence that it’s cumbersome and takes up more space than a scanner).

Then we need to get many more people into optical/wet printing. We need to make it easier and more accessible.

Only then, as a third priority, should we look at cameras.

In another camp it’s also very important to show support and enthusiasm around, is movies shot on film.
Having steady production of cine film makes it much easier to justify having still film as a side business.

A single roll of 1000 foot cine film contains about 11 min worth of footage. But about 186 rolls of 135 film.
That’s more than what even the most ardent amateur will shoot in a year. And 180 rolls more than what the casually interested will shoot in a year.

other than google searches with those things as key words do you have any real evidence that there are now hundreds thousands, maybe millions( or more ? ) of new people now using film, and using it consistently and regularly ? I think as others have mentioned its important to rely the area of film sold. I realize there ARE people who are very enthusiastic, there are people posting images all over the internet, there are people buying film online and buying cameras galore but do those numbers really mean there are that many more people using and buying and processing film and there is really a resurgence or a fad (fads are not bad things don't get me wrong ) ? sorry to seem a skeptic. but im not one for "I heard" or "someone told me" or "I did a google search" ... but actual hard evidence like square feet or feet of film sold. I know any increase is fantastic and I am all for that, but IDK I don't really see an increase where I am and I am inbetween NYC and Boston 2 east coast USA hubs of art film and commerce ... maybe I'm blind to what's really going on but it seems like a big fat nothing burger and I am OK with that, because my life isn't tied to film sales... ( I can't afford to buy new film btw )

 

[Helge]

My mirrorless works wonders in this regard. Wearing an F mount lens on the adapter no less.

Just sayin'...

And this is in opposition to what I wrote how?

 

[pbromaghin]

 

[Helge]

other than google searches with those things as key words do you have any real evidence that there are now thousands and thousands of people now using film ? I think as others have mentioned its important to rely the area of film sold. I realize there ARE people who are very enthusiastic, there are people posting images all over the internet, there are people buying film online and buying cameras galore but do those numbers really mean there are that many more people using and buying and processing film ? sorry to seem a skeptic. but im not one for "I heard" or "someone told me" or "I did a google search". but actual hard evidence like square feet or feet of film sold. I know any increase is fantastic and I am all for that, but IDK I don't really see an increase where I am and I am inbetween NYC and Boston 2 east coast USA hubs of art film and commerce ... maybe I'm blind to what's really going on but it seems like a big fat nothing burger and I am OK with that, because my life isn't tied to film sales... ( I can't afford to buy new film btw )

No one is ever, ever going to give you hard numbers.
They are tightly guarded sales secrets.
Of course.
Under NDAs and tightly controlled.
Even if you should hit upon such numbers why should you believe them?

Look at the prices of Mju IIs or Contax Point and Shoots. And indeed other popular cameras.
I ask at my local labs and shops, and they give encouraging answers. And can see the traffic with my own eyes.
I can see people with tight lips, flocking around flea market stands with camera equipment all over Europe.

It’s big.

What is big enough though?
Big enough is a hobby that is self sustaining. People can still buy electric train sets. And even if Drones have stolen much of the market, RC flyers are also still a viable market, with consumables being manufactured.
Same with home speaker building and classic cars to mention a few other techy hobbies with special needs.

 

[removed account4]

No one is ever, ever going to give you hard numbers.
They are tightly guarded sales secrets.
Of course.
Under NDAs and tightly controlled.
Even if you should hit upon such numbers why should you believe them?

Look at the prices of Mju IIs or Contax Point and Shoots. And indeed other popular cameras.
I ask at my local labs and shops, and they give encouraging answers. And can see the traffic with my own eyes.
I can see people with tight lips, flocking around flea market stands with camera equipment all over Europe.

It’s big.

What is big enough though?
Big enough is a hobby that is self sustaining. People can still buy electric train sets. And even if Drones have stolen much of the market, RC flyers are also still a viable market, with consumables being manufactured.
Same with home speaker building and classic cars to mention a few other techy hobbies with special needs.

I see what you mean and totally understand .. its a big unknown ..
hope it lasts. ..

 

[Helge]

View attachment 285299

Meanwhile

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

If you are talking shoestring budget movies, then yes. But those where always made with the cheapest method available.

For even a small Hollywood movie of today the film budget is negligible. Easily covered by not feeling obliged to over-shoot as much and not having to work so hard in post.

For tent pole movies, it’s a drop in the ocean.
The usual $150 to 400 million production cost is just so insane that film is not even a dot in the budget.

Well, that's what we're talking about. What amateurs and prosumers are doing and spending.

 

[Helge]

Well, that's what we're talking about. What amateurs and prosumers are doing and spending.

Well, you can actually shoot black and white regular 8 quite cheaply. But over a hundred dollars for 3.5 minutes of Ektachrome or scanable Vision stock is not going to win many people over.

There are however markets that love Super8 and regular 8. And even 16mm.
Skaters and graffiti artists love the aesthetic and hard to copy nature of film and have for decades.

Mid budget professional filmmakers could definitely shoot 16mm if they wanted to.
In fact I know a few who have recently.

 

[Moose22]

And this is in opposition to what I wrote how?

>if we could stop the pest of mirrorless tards leaching off lenses that were made for and work best on film SLRs.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Well, you can actually shoot black and white regular 8 quite cheaply. But over a hundred dollars for 3.5 minutes of Ektachrome or scanable Vision stock is not going to win many people over.

There are however markets that love Super8 and regular 8. And even 16mm.
Skaters and graffiti artists love the aesthetic and hard to copy nature of film and have for decades.

Mid budget professional filmmakers could definitely shoot 16mm if they wanted to.
In fact I know a few who have recently.

How much is 8mm film and the cost to develop? How much to scan 50 foot roll?

 

[Helge]

>if we could stop the pest of mirrorless tards leaching off lenses that were made for and work best on film SLRs.

But obviously you are not leaching if you are using it to scan film.
You might even own a Nikon body or own one in the future.

 

[Moose22]

But obviously you are not leaching if you are using it to scan film.
You might even own a Nikon body or own one in the future.

I more identify with the "tards" portion of this comment.

 

[Helge]

How much is 8mm film and the cost to develop? How much to scan 50 foot roll?

You get a big spiral tank and do it yourself. Reverse process it and project it.
You could even film it off the screen. Many digicams have an autosync if they detect a frame rate.
Real scanning is a bit pricer, but not insanely so at the right outfit.

But really what I meant is that professional, extensive use also benefits the amateur hugely.
Kodak uses the same coaters for Vision3 and Portra 400.

 

[Helge]

I more identify with the "tards" portion of this comment.

You identify as a tard?
The tard part is that apart from orphaning SLR bodies from their rightful lenses, they are also pissing their pants on a cold day. With help from Sony. The bread and butter of camera manufacturers was in extras. Mainly lenses.

Sales of new lenses has dwindled, In an already pressured market for digicams, because no one can resist virtue signaling, humble bragging, feigning authentic and being cheap all at the same time.

 

[pentaxuser]

No one is ever, ever going to give you hard numbers.
They are tightly guarded sales secrets.
Of course.
Under NDAs and tightly controlled.
Even if you should hit upon such numbers why should you believe them?

.

I wonder why film sales are tightly guarded secrets? We regularly get car sales numbers, don't we? Or indeed tonnage of newly launched ships etc

People like Matt King, as I recall things, are able to say what the number of feet of film produced by Kodak was in the past and there has to be graphs showing the trends of film sales as there are showing cars sales etc

So is Henning the only person outside of a small number of senior film-makers' executives who is privy to this information? I'd have thought at film-makers are required to submit this info to the IRS or its equivalent in the country of the film production's origin, otherwise what's to stop any company not revealing its real sales to avoid taxes levied on such sales?

pentaxuser

 

[Helge]

I wonder why film sales are tightly guarded secrets? We regularly get car sales numbers, don't we? Or indeed tonnage of newly launched ships etc

People like Matt King, as I recall things, are able to say what the number of feet of film produced by Kodak was in the past and there has to be graphs showing the trends of film sales as there are showing cars sales etc

So is Henning the only person outside of a small number of senior film-makers' executives who is privy to this information? I'd have thought at film-makers are required to submit this info to the IRS or its equivalent in the country of the film production's origin, otherwise what's to stop any company not revealing its real sales to avoid taxes levied on such sales?

pentaxuser

Both Kodak and Fuji are rolling the film sales indecipherably into the whole corporate book and dividend.
They could do that for a number of reasons. Strange as it may sound, but I might suspect, today mostly because they wouldn’t like to admit how much of the total is actually film.
As in a surprising and rising amount.

That might not be popular with certain customers and interest holders, that are heavily invested in all things digital and inkjet.
They might see it as split interests, distraction and even an embarrassment.

Shareholders are stupid at best, with little grasp of, or sympathy with rising trends or where the employees of a company would like to see it go.
Their only thought is how much and how soon?

Ilford and Adox would probably be better candidates for getting hard numbers. But getting their numbers out when their big competitors are not doing it, would put them at a disadvantage.

 

[MattKing]

People like Matt King, as I recall things, are able to say what the number of feet of film produced by Kodak was in the past and there has to be graphs showing the trends of film sales as there are showing cars sales etc

The only reason that I know anything about some of the historic figures is because very tiny bits of that information have been released long after they were current, and to provide historical references.
That and some of the historical information became available as a result of the Eastman Kodak (and other) bankruptcies.
As for car sales, there are a whole bunch of reasons why unit numbers are reasonably well known - things like government regulation, information disclosure rules covering the publicly traded auto companies, the publicly available information about importations - both of vehicles and parts - and the history of disclosing sales as part of marketing approaches.
While you may be able to easily access sales numbers for vehicles, good luck accessing the cost and gross profit on individual models. That number is a very closely guarded secret. A long time ago - long prior to 2008 - when Chrysler sought bankruptcy protection and was essentially bailed out, they were forced to disclose those cost and profit figures. They were very interesting.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The only reason that I know anything about some of the historic figures is because very tiny bits of that information have been released long after they were current, and to provide historical references.
...
While you may be able to easily access sales numbers for vehicles, good luck accessing the cost and gross profit on individual models. That number is a very closely guarded secret. A long time ago - long prior to 2008 - when Chrysler sought bankruptcy protection and was essentially bailed out, they were forced to disclose those cost and profit figures. They were very interesting.

Isn't that true of pro photographers. The smart ones never show their photos that failed.

 

[pentaxuser]

So based on Matt's and Helge's replies, my question now is: Where is the information to come from that gives a reasonably accurate picture of what the trend is in terms of film sales and if this exists then we can start to extrapolate future sales figures etc?

At the moment we have a never ending debate and threads on the question of film revival and its real, or otherwise, importance based on either what people like Henning tells us or other anecdotal evidence. The problem with anecdotal evidence is that it is a reflection of one member's experience or even several members which can often lead to conflicting pictures of what may be the real picture

Are we stuck in this never ending debate and if not, can anyone throw some light to illuminate the dark?

pentaxuser

 

[MattKing]

So based on Matt's and Helge's replies, my question now is: Where is the information to come from that gives a reasonably accurate picture of what the trend is in terms of film sales and if this exists then we can start to extrapolate future sales figures etc?

You shouldn't expect to ever know. It will stay a trade secret for as long as there is both an industry and competition.
Even Hennig's information will be incomplete.
And I will certainly never know.

 

[jrhilton]

Where is the information to come from that gives a reasonably accurate picture of what the trend is in terms of film sales and if this exists then we can start to extrapolate future sales figures etc?

Harman Technology Limited (Ilford etc) has to publish accounts each year and you can see them for free at this address https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05227615/filing-history. They put comments about the industry in there. For the 12 months ended 31 December 2019 they said this:

"Film sales continued to grow well with volume growth of 5%, reflecting the continued resurgence in analogue photography interest, particularly among those under 35 yrs old. By contrast paper volume declined 8% in volume when compared to 2018. This reflects the artificially strong paper sales in 2019 (as the US supply chain continued to refill following the former distributers demise into administration), whilst also incorporating the overall longer term trend of lower volumes that is being seen across all print platforms.

Supporting products for the film and paper continue to do well, reflecting the higher overall interest in analogue photography with revenue for the processing chemicals and darkroom accessories both growing by 10%"​

So film volume grew 5%, and paper volume fell. And they quoted revenues for the third point, so you would have to work out what the price increase % was for chemicals and darkroom accessories to tell if 10% revenue growth equated to a volume growth or not. The fact that volume was not quoted on that one is interesting as volume was quoted else where.

2019 turnover for Harman was £23m GBP / c$32m USD ( I would guess smaller than many on here would imagine). Take some assumptions about the split of film/paper/chemicals/accessories, then and assumption for list price to wholesale ratio and you can haves some fun guestimating the unit volumes of each sold...but I can save you some time, volume is low in the grand scheme of things for worldwide demand. You can also do the same over time as historical accounts are at that URL for free too.

Revenue split is 12% for UK, 26% for EU, and the rest is stated as just ROW.

Their accounts for the year ended 31 December 2020 are due to be submitted by the end of this month so we can see the C19 impact, will be interesting reading.

 

[MattKing]

And while Harman are a big fish in a small pond (relatively large producer in the black and white market) the two major colour film producers (Eastman Kodak and Fuji) are public companies that have a small segment of their business servicing the film photography market. For that reason, and notes to financial statements are unlikely to be very specific about film sales - with the possible exception of Instax.
Kodak Alaris' financial statements might be interesting in future years, but as the 2020 statements are likely to reflect mostly the divestment to Sino Promise, I wouldn't expect much detail there.

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks jrhilton for the info on Ilford which at least is information on volume growth for the year ending 2019. 5% in a year isn't bad and if this is a genuine trend and not a one-off then I feel as far as Ilford is concerned that we might tentatively conclude that there are signs of a revival

A trend graph over say the last 3-5 years would be even more useful.

As far as the rest of the film industry is concerned it would appear that any thirst for facts will have to go unslaked. Still on the basis that facts tend to kill threads, we can at least take comfort in the constant revival of threads like this which form an entertaining discourse.

History seems to show us that most changes take us by surprise( usually unpleasant) and in an unprepared state to meet them but maybe occasionally we experience something that bucks the trend of nasty shocks. Maybe film revival having reached at least the stage of unassisted breathing, in medical parlance terms, will be one such experience.

pentaxuser

 

[Helge]

Trouble with using B&W exclusive manufacturers for any kind of gauging of the market is that it’s a very different and almost entirely separate market. At least economically speaking.
Most small labs don’t accept anything but C-41 (which is terrible and is something that should be worked on immediately).

Many people are mystified as to why you’d shoot B&W in the first place, having to have their collective memory primed and triggered by masterpieces, or just plain good examples of B&W.

Even if they do want to shoot B&W, finding a lab or getting their own chemistry and tank and beakers and thermometer and measuring graduate etc. seems an insurmountable challenge.