Is there really a strong interest in film photography?

The interest in film has now gotten large enough for Pentax to bring out a new camera.

Alan Edward Klein said:

Here you go. 2% net income. Let's hope they keep film going.

Kodak reports full-year 2021 financial results

Kodak reported financial results for the full year 2021, including consolidated revenues of $1.150 billion and continued growth in key product areas such…

www.kodak.com

Kodak reports full-year 2021 financial results​

ROCHESTER, N.Y.
March 15, 2022

Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE: KODK) today reported financial results for the full year 2021, including consolidated revenues of $1.150 billion and continued growth in key product areas such as SONORA Process Free Plates and PROSPER annuities.
Full-year 2021 highlights include:

• Consolidated revenues of $1.150 billion, compared with $1.029 billion for the full year 2020
• GAAP net income of $24 million, compared with a net loss of $541 million for 2020
• Operational EBITDA of $11 million, compared with negative $1 million for 2020
• A year-end cash balance of $362 million, compared with $196 million at the end of 2020

“Kodak continued to navigate through an unusually challenging business environment in 2021 and delivered revenue growth in all our segments for the first time in years,” said Jim Continenza, Kodak’s Executive Chairman and CEO. “We also saw increases in customer satisfaction and market share in our key print business, achievements which reflect the success of our ongoing strategy: focus on our core businesses in commercial print and advanced materials and chemicals, invest in product innovation and put our customers at the center of everything we do.”

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Emphasis added.
Eastman Kodak does not consider its division that deals with photographic film to be its core business. And any numbers in that story relate to its business as a whole, not the smaller portion of it that is photography related.
Eastman Kodak is mainly not a photography company!
Information about the relatively small, photography related part of Eastman Kodak is relatively hard to separate out from the much larger whole.

Sirius Glass said:

The interest in film has now gotten large enough for Pentax to bring out a new camera.

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Well, at least to look into the possibility of bringing out a new film camera.

I guess getting young people hooked on film is going to be crucial for the film photography industry for years to come. Using my son as an example of a typical Gen Z photographer, I can tell you that he loves the experience of using film and the quality it ultimately is capable of, but dislikes the cumbersome digitization process and the high cost associated with it.

Out of curiosity, I put together a very primitive film digitization setup using my phone, a couple of books, a piece of card stock, a bubble lever, and a 4x5 LED light table. Assuming one already owns a smartphone, the total cost was about $30-40. I used the free app Gimp to crop and invert - no further processing was needed. Color would likely require a paid app, such as Vuescan or Negative Lab Pro.

The question is, of course, whether this is good enough for new film users. What other cheap film digitization options are there?

aparat said:

I guess getting young people hooked on film is going to be crucial for the film photography industry for years to come. Using my son as an example of a typical Gen Z photographer, I can tell you that he loves the experience of using film and the quality it ultimately is capable of, but dislikes the cumbersome digitization process and the high cost associated with it.

Out of curiosity, I put together a very primitive film digitization setup using my phone, a couple of books, a piece of card stock, a bubble lever, and a 4x5 LED light table. Assuming one already owns a smartphone, the total cost was about $30-40. I used the free app Gimp to crop and invert - no further processing was needed. Color would likely require a paid app, such as Vuescan or Negative Lab Pro.

The question is, of course, whether this is good enough for new film users. What other cheap film digitization options are there?

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Lomography sells various scanning accessories, including one like the phone holder you made (supply one's own light source I think), a film strip holder, film holder plus light source, etc. https://shop.lomography.com/us/film/scanning Clearly, since Lomo sells film and film cameras, it's in their interest to make scanning available and easy. It's not necessarily the highest fidelity, but I think accessibility is more important to new users than finest pixel count, and I think the film strip holder is generally well regarded.

reddesert said:

Lomography sells various scanning accessories, including one like the phone holder you made (supply one's own light source I think), a film strip holder, film holder plus light source, etc. https://shop.lomography.com/us/film/scanning Clearly, since Lomo sells film and film cameras, it's in their interest to make scanning available and easy. It's not necessarily the highest fidelity, but I think accessibility is more important to new users than finest pixel count, and I think the film strip holder is generally well regarded.

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Thank you for the info. I will be sure to check it out. I've read a lot of disparaging comments regarding Lomography over the years, but I have been really impressed with them, especially the last few years. They have gone way past their original "Lomo" aesthetic to become a leading brand in film photography. I bought their Kino films recently. The came beautifully packaged, and there's extensive documentation about them and other Lomography products on their website. They even sell a selection of new film cameras, some of them quite interesting and capable of great results.

aparat said:

I guess getting young people hooked on film is going to be crucial for the film photography industry for years to come. Using my son as an example of a typical Gen Z photographer, I can tell you that he loves the experience of using film and the quality it ultimately is capable of, but dislikes the cumbersome digitization process and the high cost associated with it.

Out of curiosity, I put together a very primitive film digitization setup using my phone, a couple of books, a piece of card stock, a bubble lever, and a 4x5 LED light table. Assuming one already owns a smartphone, the total cost was about $30-40. I used the free app Gimp to crop and invert - no further processing was needed. Color would likely require a paid app, such as Vuescan or Negative Lab Pro.

The question is, of course, whether this is good enough for new film users. What other cheap film digitization options are there?

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If a new film photographer sends their film out, why not get the 4x6" prints at the same time like the old days and make photo albums?

aparat said:

I guess getting young people hooked on film is going to be crucial for the film photography industry for years to come. Using my son as an example of a typical Gen Z photographer, I can tell you that he loves the experience of using film and the quality it ultimately is capable of, but dislikes the cumbersome digitization process and the high cost associated with it.

Out of curiosity, I put together a very primitive film digitization setup using my phone, a couple of books, a piece of card stock, a bubble lever, and a 4x5 LED light table. Assuming one already owns a smartphone, the total cost was about $30-40. I used the free app Gimp to crop and invert - no further processing was needed. Color would likely require a paid app, such as Vuescan or Negative Lab Pro.

The question is, of course, whether this is good enough for new film users. What other cheap film digitization options are there?

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If he shoots smaller formats, there are cheap scanners available.

Alan Edward Klein said:

If a new film photographer sends their film out, why not get the 4x6" prints at the same time like the old days and make photo albums?

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Yes, it's a great option. However, the younger photographers aren't the most patient of artists, especially coming from digital where instant results are assured.

Alan Edward Klein said:

If he shoots smaller formats, there are cheap scanners available.

Photo Scanners, Film Scanners & 35mm Film Scanner | B&H

See B&H's vast selection of Photo Scanners from top brands like Pacific Image, Wolverine Data, Kodak and Braun. Explore our unbeatable selection.

www.bhphotovideo.com

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I am becoming a believer in these cheap methods, esp. those involving a smartphone. Here's my test image, digitized with my mid-tier Android phone, straight out of Gimp, simply cropped and inverted from my phone image. Is it going to be good enough for most people? I don't know, but it is good enough for me, provided I was only interested in sharing online. I am sure people with good digital chops could improve it further in Gimp, maybe even enough to make an inkjet print.

aparat said:

Yes, it's a great option. However, the younger photographers aren't the most patient of artists, especially coming from digital where instant results are assured.


I am becoming a believer in these cheap methods, esp. those involving a smartphone. Here's my test image, digitized with my mid-tier Android phone, straight out of Gimp, simply cropped and inverted from my phone image. Is it going to be good enough for most people? I don't know, but it is good enough for me, provided I was only interested in sharing online. I am sure people with good digital chops could improve it further in Gimp, maybe even enough to make an inkjet print.

View attachment 324824

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So show him how to use his cell phone. Then he can get one of those portable printers.

aparat said:

Yes, it's a great option. However, the younger photographers aren't the most patient of artists, especially coming from digital where instant results are assured.


I am becoming a believer in these cheap methods, esp. those involving a smartphone. Here's my test image, digitized with my mid-tier Android phone, straight out of Gimp, simply cropped and inverted from my phone image. Is it going to be good enough for most people? I don't know, but it is good enough for me, provided I was only interested in sharing online. I am sure people with good digital chops could improve it further in Gimp, maybe even enough to make an inkjet print.

View attachment 324824

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GIMP is a good choice for software at a great price [FREE] for someone not ready to take the deep dive into renting Photo$hop.

Resurrecting an old thread, but it might be worth noting two discussions I was involved with/heard recently.

The school at which I work is considering bringing back photography as a subject for the first time in over a decade. The DSLRs they had 15 years ago have either been broken or have disappeared. So they are looking at starting from scratch. And they are mulling over including film, since they have to start with nothing it's not more expensive to include the basic film equipment among a purchase of digital cameras. The rationale behind this is that several students have expressed an interest in learning to take photography beyond their phones and film has been mentioned.

Then a few days later I was on the bus from work and overheard some kids from another college nearby talking about how they were disappointed that the college's photography course didn't cover film at all.


Just one little microcosm of North London but I do believe those are conversations which would not have taken place a few years ago.

They would be foolish not to include a film/darkroom component. When I took over the program here, I shifted it from 10% film/90% digital, to 90% film. The following year, the program grew from one class, to 4. The kids love the darkroom.
I'll retire at the end of this school year. My worry is that they will stick anybody in there, even if they know nothing about the darkroom. Admin basically doesn't care.
Pinhole starts this week! Can't wait!

My father and his were both military and professional photographers. I grew up in my Dad's darkroom, so to speak. (With a few pinups, as they use to call them, on the walls. My introduction to women, ha ha....) Even as a kid, I was mesmerized how an image would magically appear in a tray of "water."

I was a fairly early adapter of digital. Not bleeding edge, but way before the proletariat even knew what it was. My first digital camera was an Olympus with 2.2 mp. The memory cost me $1 per megabyte, used. Megabyte, not gigabyte. More cameras over the years, last one a Pentax DSLR in 2015. I used it about a year when I realized that I missed film. It has sat in my closet since then. Just before then, and a major move, I sold my enlarger. At my home a darkroom would be very difficult to accomplish, so I'm happy with the hybrid....shoot film, print on the computer.

Anyway, I ramble on the way to a point. About six years ago my daughter, a Girl Scout leader at the time, asked if I could do a quick class for the photography merit badge. I had only an hour or so after school. I brought in a small selection of my ancient cameras and put together some "slides" to use with my laptop and projector, I compared BORING to better composition and different perspectives. |Then I turned them lose into the school yard for a brief while to use what they learned.

Consider that every young girl had a camera. And a phone. Instant color gratification vs. the Brownie my father bought me ca. 1955. We compared pictures after regathering. It was pretty amazing what a brief instruction period did! They made me a poster thanking me with a number of pictures they took on it. It hangs on my wall, and in fact, I just turned around to look at it. And grin.

Yes, it's fun to pass the torch.

Rant: Digital photography is a blessing and a curse. Anyone with a few thousand dollars picks up the latest whiz bang camera and pronounces themselves a photographer. Money has replaced talent. Film is unforgiving, even with some form of autoexposure.. Pictures used to represent time, money, and at the bare minimum, a little bit of skill. Now with "free film" of digital, billions of images are taken everyday...everything set on auto...most never to be looked at more than once. The literal and spiritual price of an image has fallen to less than zero. Most are litter.

To ask this question on a mainly analogue film website, is like asking butchers if eating meat is good for you.

benjiboy said:

To ask this question on a mainly analogue film website, is like asking butchers if eating meat is good for you.

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Hard disagree, because we are the few....we do not represent the wider population.....the wider population felt that film was wholly irrelevant 10 years ago. The majority even assumed film was no longer manufactured. Kids had no idea what film even was.

For the last 7 years film manufacturers have struggled or even failed to keep up with the unexpected and sustained increase in demand. Younger adults and kids are starting to want to shoot film. Old farts like us are no longer assumed to be insane for being out and about with vintage gear.

I think the question of whether there is an upswing and where it might go is important.

Agulliver said:

Hard disagree, because we are the few....we do not represent the wider population.....the wider population felt that film was wholly irrelevant 10 years ago. The majority even assumed film was no longer manufactured. Kids had no idea what film even was.

For the last 7 years film manufacturers have struggled or even failed to keep up with the unexpected and sustained increase in demand. Younger adults and kids are starting to want to shoot film. Old farts like us are no longer assumed to be insane for being out and about with vintage gear.

I think the question of whether there is an upswing and where it might go is important.

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Interest might be related to region as much as it is to age. Yes, we old timers (I am making the assumption that many/most of us here are not new users of film) are still clicking along and some youngsters are seeing it as an interesting means of expression, but I wonder if geography plays into this as well. In my area, the only camera shop folded a few years ago. Another one started up as a side business to something else and I just noticed their inventory being dumped on FB Marketplace. While I’m pretty well involved in my community in a variety of activities and organizations, I know no one who shoots film and, as far as I know, I may, outside 2 schools, have the only darkroom around. Of course whenever there is a resurgence of anything, Eastern Montana is about 20-years behind picking up on it.

There will be regional variations. Mostly I speak of the UK as that's where I live, though I do travel a fair bit. I have no position in the industry at all but I talk to retailers and where I can I talk to those in the industry. There's undoubtedly been a continuing global increase in film sales, driven mostly by young people taking up photography using C41 colour negative film.

I live close to London in a town where there are a couple of colleges and a university. I've seen the landscape go from zero interest in film to students roaming the streets of the town shooting on vintage cameras for their college/uni courses....I've seen the educational establishments restart their darkroom teaching. I've seen the local shop tearing their hair out trying to obtain enough consumer grade C41 film since 2019. I've also talked to retailers in neighbouring towns and in the South and North of England and in Wales....similar story....educational establishments as well as the larger retailers restarting teaching in darkrooms, shops unable to obtain enough film because there's a huge increase in sales....young people coming in wanting film for their (grand)parents old camera that they found in a cupboard....or for the college course. The school I work for hasn't taught film photography since the mid 90s and are just now taking the earliest steps to look into it again.

Just my own personal experiences but when I started shooting B&W film at a small music club in 2019 I was thought to be mad. Even the club owner who is a photographer and who peppered the walls of the club with film photography memorabilia thought it insanity to shoot at that club on film. Then people saw the results. I've shot an album cover there on HP5+, numerous film photos have been used by the club and musicians/bands in their promotional materials and there are now up to four people shooting film in that club that has a total capacity of 90. My favoured local camera shop has lots of young people, teens and early twenties, coming in wanting second hand cameras, film, and to learn.

Now, on my last visit to the mid-West and Southern USA, certainly people were surprised that I was shooting film. This was late 2022 when Fuji dropped a lot of genuine Superia 400 in Wal-Mart. It just so happens one of my nieces works at a Wal-Mart, or did then, and I did a bit of digging via her. She talked to managers of various Wal-Marts in Arkansas and Missouri and guess what? The Fuji Superia was flying off the shelves. A survey of a bunch of stores revealed I could only buy 18 rolls. That was all that was available in the area.

Very interesting about the Superia in Wart-Mart!

Those kids must have a lot more money than I ever did or do. About a year ago I was just curious about the price of C-41 film and processing. I live attached to the north end of Austin, TX. As to film. the cheapest I could find mail order from the usual discount suspects was around $18 for a 36 exposure roll. There is a huge full service camera store in Austin, Precision camera. I just check their services for 35mm. Almost $8 to develop.....with a two week turnaround, and $11 for TIF quality scans and add a week for turnaround. Apparently no prints available. The long turn around time indicates to me that they either send it out, or the demand is low and so they wait until they have enough to run.

$37 for to buy, develop, and scan a roll of film. Insanity. Probably there are less expensive mail order options, but I just kept it local. What a long way from one hour minilabs! You would think a big outfit like Precision would keep a minilab in back, even if they ran it only once per week. Negs and prints.

I'm really surprised, per our little anecdotes here that there isn't more interest in B&W. Wanting to set up darkrooms would indicate such interest, I guess. Shooting color neg only is so limiting in one's photographic knowledge.

Back in October 2022 when I was looking for the Fuji Superia in Wal-Mart, I think it was selling for about 22 bucks for a three pack of 36 exposure genuine Made In Japan Superia 400.

Today Wal-Mart online has 3 packs of Kodak Ultramax for $30 and three packs of "FujiFilm" 200 for $23. Three packs of Kodak Gold for $33.

Even today I can walk into a brick and mortar shop in England and buy Kodak Ultramax or "FujiColor" 400 for £12 which includes our wonderful 20% VAT....and get it developed and scanned in the same shop for £5, normal turnaround is two to three days with prints available for extra. So typically £17 or about $21.50 to buy, develop and scan a film.....in a small independent shop that has no buying power and therefore it's prices are higher than some other places. I can get the FujiColor at Boots (big pharmacy chain) a bit cheaper. I can buy online about 20% cheaper.

Sometimes I really wonder if people are deliberately trying to buy the most expensive film to make a point?

Agulliver said:

Sometimes I really wonder if people are deliberately trying to buy the most expensive film to make a point?

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I don't know what the possibilities are in Texas, for instance. Regardless, the bottom end of the market that you seem to regard as representative (which I doubt) is IMO problematic.

Agulliver said:

get it developed and scanned in the same shop for £5

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But this relies on either a big lab still willing to run a very marginal profit, or a small shop willing to essentially for free. How sustainable is that? More realistic prices I hear these days are around €10 for develop + scan from a small retail outlet sending their stuff off to a major lab or about €15 for develop + scan from a local lab that runs their own (old & refurbished) minilab and salvaged Frontier scanner. The latter is also a marginal existence by all accounts. This puts your film incl. process + scan at €20-€25, with substantially higher price points for entrepreneurs who try to run a more sustainable business.

To give further context, we used to have (until recently) a big chain of general stores that would process a roll of color film for <€5. This was develop-only, no scan. Scanning would only be possible if you also ordered prints and this would bump the prices to around the same €15 point mentioned above. However, the <€5 option recently dropped away because negotiations between the retail chain and the lab in question (one of the biggest silver halide labs in Europe) broke down. Apparently, the price point was unsustainable and attempts by the lab to fix this resulted in prompt discontinuation of the business, altogether.

So the question is whether the low cost option you tout is actually sustainable, which I highly doubt.

Fact of the matter is that film, especially color film, is a highly complex niche product, which reflects in the price. And film processing and scanning are challenging in terms of economic. One approach is to rely on an existing installed base of high volume infrastructure that has carried over from the glory days >20 years ago. But this is getting increasingly difficult to sustain, and labs running at this scale are getting very scarce (they need to be, because the market simply isn't big enough for many of them). The other is reliance on stores run by enthusiasts who are willing to work for a nominal fee or next to no compensation for their efforts. I see an increasing number of the latter, at least in my country, and without exception these businesses are marginal and often only exist because the owners work one or more side-jobs in order to survive.

koraks said:

But this relies on either a big lab still willing to run a very marginal profit, or a small shop willing to essentially for free. How sustainable is that? More realistic prices I hear these days are around €10 for develop + scan from a small retail outlet sending their stuff off to a major lab or about €15 for develop + scan from a local lab that runs their own (old & refurbished) minilab and salvaged Frontier scanner. The latter is also a marginal existence by all accounts. This puts your film incl. process + scan at €20-€25, with substantially higher price points for entrepreneurs who try to run a more sustainable business.

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In Germany, every large drugstore chain accepts film to have it developed in a big lab (there are 2-3 around I think, CEWE, then one out-of the ORWO heritage (no idea how it is called now), and maybe a few more.
Development only for a film is less then 2 €. Here a price list from the DM chain mentioning € 1.25 for development, plus € 0.05 per image printed -> for a 36 exp roll this is € 3.05. Scan on a CD is 3.85 € extra, so in total less then 7 € incl VAT. https://www.fotoparadies.de/assets/preisliste-analoge-fotoarbeiten.pdf

Here in Montreal in a smaller lab I pay for development only $6.50 CAD (creeped up in the last 10 years from about $3). I cut and scan by myself. https://photoservice.ca/en/minilab/lab-services/traditional-film

I still find this not too much, at least in larger cities are options. If you live more out, I guess your options are self developping everything or mailing. Of course you can always find labs which charge more.

@ant! I'm familiar with CeWe. The issue is that it (like comparable labs) are running 30-40 year old equipment (best case) that's kept running by people close to retirement age, and the service is mostly offered as a courtesy to retail customers in the hope of selling prints - because that's what they do make money off of. It's great these services are still offered, but like I said, the sustainability of the thing is troublesome. You notice this if you actually set foot inside these labs and start talking to people.

koraks said:

….that's kept running by people close to retirement age…

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Unfortunately, this is the case in many areas of our interests. Finding someone to work on our aging cameras is tough. In the audio realm, tube-based equipment is a relic. In the automotive world, to find someone who can rebuild and synch a pair of carburetors requires visiting a retirement community. Eventually we’ll be attempting do our own repairs and making our own parts of just chucking the stuff out and taking up a different pastime.

VinceInMT said:

Unfortunately, this is the case in many areas of our interests.

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Yeah, and I'm not surprised, really. The things you mention aren't necessarily very attractive lines of business to jump into for the young.

VinceInMT said:

Unfortunately, this is the case in many areas of our interests. Finding someone to work on our aging cameras is tough. In the audio realm, tube-based equipment is a relic. In the automotive world, to find someone who can rebuild and synch a pair of carburetors requires visiting a retirement community. Eventually we’ll be attempting do our own repairs and making our own parts of just chucking the stuff out and taking up a different pastime.

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There is LOTS of support for the tube based audio community. There are new amps besides the classics, and plenty of tubes and expertise available.