Kodak Tri-x Price Drops

Tom1956 · Jun 20, 2014

Getting a handle on the way things work these days--American film is cheaper in England, and English film is cheaper in the US, and China beats them all on price. So... What if I start an import/export business in China that buys US made film in England, and then is shipped to China. Then from China is retailed in the US. That means a hundred feet of film for about 12 dollars. That's half the problem solved. Now for gas to put in my Nissan Frontier to go out and shoot it. Really.

Dr Croubie · Jun 20, 2014

With all that shipping, importing, and exporting, it might get Xrayed a few too many times and ruined...

StoneNYC · Jun 20, 2014

Dr Croubie said:
I'm just thankful that I'm not particularly attached to Tri-X as a film, I'll use whatever.
Speaking of reloadables though, I got 2 lots of about 20 rolls of Tri-X from a guy on fleabay, it expired in 2003 and he bulk-loaded it in 2005, besides that it's been frozen all its life (and looks fine to me).
The reason I bought it (besides being rather cheap), was for the bulk-reload cassettes. Except that he didn't use proper reloadables, he just taped it to the ends of the original film.
Still works fine, and was cheap enough so I'm not complaining, but just shows that you don't need reloadable cassettes to bulk-load.

(speaking of which, I scored a lot of about 50 or 100 old Polaroid reloadables that I don't think I'll ever use enough of, anyone want?)

That's what I do, tape film to the end of another roll.

PS although I don't shoot much 35mm, I'm going back to school in the fall and will surely be using a lot more for assignments, I'll take some of those reloadables...

Tom1956 · Jun 20, 2014

My personal remedy is to invest my small portfolio in Chinese companies. That's my best hope for a hedge on buying from American manufacturers. I wish China would open up a few gas stations around here so I could afford to drive around and shoot it. I'm not joking. You guys are talking about film prices, and I'm a virtual shut-in on gas prices, sitting here on more film than I can shoot, just going bad.

Dr Croubie · Jun 20, 2014

Tom1956 said:
My personal remedy is to invest my small portfolio in Chinese companies. That's my best hope for a hedge on buying from American manufacturers. I wish China would open up a few gas stations around here so I could afford to drive around and shoot it. I'm not joking. You guys are talking about film prices, and I'm a virtual shut-in on gas prices, sitting here on more film than I can shoot, just going bad.

Buy a lighter camera and a bicycle?

(probably more chance of this than trying to trade film for gas)

Tom1956 · Jun 20, 2014

This is a rural area, all 55mph on these country roads. A bicycle will turn me into a red spot on a windshield.

Dr Croubie · Jun 20, 2014

I suppose a horse is out of the question then?

Xmas · Jun 20, 2014

markaudacity said:
I missed all of the good ol days.

Sad really.

There used to be daylight and darkroom loads of 36 exposure lengths. They were punched with mini holes so you could identify the film type from leader like 'HP3'.

My chum used to work for BBC so could get the BBC film discount on cans of 5222 by quoting the White city's delivery address and reading out his debit card over phone.

good days indeed

but

mini labs uses film extractor and cut the film with a 1cm residue sticking out of velvet trap if you supply them a bin bag they will have less to dispose of. They normally are keen on this.

If five of you get together you can do a bulk purchase of 400 reels a lot cheaper per foot than 100 foot lengths. The last time we done this Nov13, 400 foot was 124GBP.

Orwo still do 35mm mono cine.

Roger Cole · Jun 20, 2014

Tom1956 said:
This is a rural area, all 55mph on these country roads. A bicycle will turn me into a red spot on a windshield.

No it wouldn't. I used to ride thousands of miles a year on a bicycle on roads like that. People perceive a danger different than the reality.

Sent from my iPhone via Tapatalk using 100% recycled electrons. Because I care.

StoneNYC · Jun 20, 2014

Tom1956 said:
My personal remedy is to invest my small portfolio in Chinese companies. That's my best hope for a hedge on buying from American manufacturers. I wish China would open up a few gas stations around here so I could afford to drive around and shoot it. I'm not joking. You guys are talking about film prices, and I'm a virtual shut-in on gas prices, sitting here on more film than I can shoot, just going bad.

The issue of gas and film prices are very much related...

wblynch · Jun 20, 2014

Electric cars, no gas. Put solar on your roof and a windmill in the back for free electricity. We don't have to feed the oil corpse.

StoneNYC · Jun 20, 2014

wblynch said:
Electric cars, no gas. Put solar on your roof and a windmill in the back for free electricity. We don't have to feed the oil corpse.

Yes! Agreed...

Now where did I put my $100,000 to buy that tesla roadster?

Hehe

Side note, if you own a tesla, All the charging stations across the USA are free, 100% free for the life of the car... Travel the country for free....

Oil is old news, most people just don't want to read the new news...

removed account4 · Jun 20, 2014

wblynch said:
Electric cars, no gas. Put solar on your roof and a windmill in the back for free electricity. We don't have to feed the oil corpse.

hi bill

electric cars still run on either oil or gas, its just been burned someplace
else to provide the electricity to run the car .. and unfortunately some
the gas is from fracking, which is fracking up a lot of things ( water pollution, seismic-stuff ) ...

you'd need a lot of solar (large array) and wind ( extremely tall turbine ) to remove the load to the electric co.
but the gist of what you said is right ... every bit counts ...

StoneNYC said:
Side note, if you own a tesla, All the charging stations across the USA are free, 100% free for the life of the car... Travel the country for free....

they are free now, but my guess is this wont' be the case for a long time ...
and it takes a long time to charge your car, its not instant like a tank of gas

Tom1956 · Jun 20, 2014

wblynch said:
Electric cars, no gas. Put solar on your roof and a windmill in the back for free electricity. We don't have to feed the oil corpse.

Read "The Cat In The Hat Comes Back", which is an excellent treatise on electric cars.

ntenny · Jun 20, 2014

jnanian said:
electric cars still run on either oil or gas, its just been burned someplace
else to provide the electricity to run the car .. and unfortunately some
the gas is from fracking, which is fracking up a lot of things ( water pollution, seismic-stuff ) ...

you'd need a lot of solar (large array) and wind ( extremely tall turbine ) to remove the load to the electric co.

I've actually just put in solar in anticipation of charging an electric car, and it's not *that* bad a load. On an average day, the average household apparently uses something like 30 kWh, which is roughly half a Tesla battery; so, OK, if you drive a hundred miles a day it'll double your power consumption, but that's a lot of driving. Take a slightly larger than average installation, a reasonably short commute, and it's not all that big a deal. Of course the cost of entry for any solar installation is significant.

Don't you get power from the infamous Hydro-Quebec up there? They have problems of their own, to be sure, but I don't think burning fossil fuels for power generation is one of them.

-NT

pentaxuser · Jun 20, 2014

StoneNYC said:
The issue of gas and film prices are very much related...

Can you expand on that? Thanks

pentaxuser

removed account4 · Jun 20, 2014

ntenny said:
I've actually just put in solar in anticipation of charging an electric car, and it's not *that* bad a load. On an average day, the average household apparently uses something like 30 kWh, which is roughly half a Tesla battery; so, OK, if you drive a hundred miles a day it'll double your power consumption, but that's a lot of driving. Take a slightly larger than average installation, a reasonably short commute, and it's not all that big a deal. Of course the cost of entry for any solar installation is significant.

Don't you get power from the infamous Hydro-Quebec up there? They have problems of their own, to be sure, but I don't think burning fossil fuels for power generation is one of them.

-NT

hi nathan

a utilities friend told me long ago that we got some of our energy from canadian gas reserves ,
maybe its changed now .. not sure .. but i agree everything has its troublespots .
solar is good if you have a well situated array from what ive been told, and luckily no matter what
alternative energy-thing you have the electric company has to buy back the excess which is sweet.
we cant afford a tesla but id love to get a leaf or the us made alternative. i used to cringe when gas prices
were between 4-5$/gallon here, now i try not to think about it and im thankful i can afford to fill the tank,
and do what i can do to conserve ( clothesline works wonders, and low flow delta showerheads cut out water bill in half ) . have fun with your new toy ( humming lene lovich as i typed it )

john

wblynch · Jun 20, 2014

Now if we can get cars to run on TRI-X we will have a guaranteed supply for a century!

Tom1956 · Jun 20, 2014

wblynch said:
Now if we can get cars to run on TRI-X we will have a guaranteed supply for a century!

Today, right this minute, I'm waiting on my air compressor to charge up so I can put air in my hand-truck tires. It just flipped off--gotta go. I'm wheeling the big propane tank down to the street for the propane company to come get it. You know where they can put their 4 dollar a gallon propane prices? My chain saw only uses a gallon of gas every 3 weeks, and the maul only requires food to fuel the hard-working maul operator. (me).
The end gain is more money to buy English or Chinese-made film. Just part of my "film effort" in these runaway inflationary times.

StoneNYC · Jun 20, 2014

FILM has to be shipped shipping costs cost money that money is transferred to the buyers of film and to the film prices.

Tesla power stations run on solar energy IIRC, it does not cost any kind of fuel to burn to make power.

It does cost some fuel to make the solar panels but if we all replaced the roofing shingles with newer flexible solar panels we wouldn't need any fuel at all, sure rich people would lose money and some of that would cause economic issues for a while but it would all stabilize.

Also there's a new road panel design that incorporates solar panels under the road, and LED's in the panels, think of all the energy you can create with all out highways are replaced with panels... And the LED's are there to change the road for different driving conditions, so if there is construction or an accident, the "smart road" adjusts the lane lines according to need.

This isn't future tech, this is tech available NOW, the reason it's not implemented .... Well that's political and that discussion isn't allowed here, but it has a lot to do with the price of film...

cmacd123 · Jun 20, 2014

In the 1960's Kodak, Ansco and Ferania (3M) all had cassettes with end caps that snapped off and were held on by riding a grove in cassette. If you can find any "Kodak Snap Cap 135 magazines" they still have that system on the removable cap.

the first Ilford 35mm I got came in a aluminium cassette with drawn end caps which were held on by the label.

ADOX (the original one) used plastic cassettes with one end cap that was threaded.

AGFA had removable caps with a concave profile, and Ilford switched to one that matched.

Kodak came out with the STAKED caps - first in North America, for several years the Grey Market "Kodak Limited" film still had reusable caps.

eventually everyone went to the staked caps.

Tom1956 · Jun 20, 2014

Well guys, guess what I got in the mail 2 days ago? A BEAUTIFUL Nikon F2S for $150, in gorgeous condition. Just stopped off at a cornfield and shot my first picture of the tall corn with a big puffy stormy-looking cloud hanging in the blue sky. Had my No 8 filter on, and got a nice one. I'm going to like this. This camera wants film and gas bad. Going to have to find a way to feed this hungry sweetie-pie.

Richard S. (rich815) · Jun 20, 2014

Tom1956 said:
Well guys, guess what I got in the mail 2 days ago? A BEAUTIFUL Nikon F2S for $150, in gorgeous condition. Just stopped off at a cornfield and shot my first picture of the tall corn with a big puffy stormy-looking cloud hanging in the blue sky. Had my No 8 filter on, and got a nice one. I'm going to like this. This camera wants film and gas bad. Going to have to find a way to feed this hungry sweetie-pie.

Nice Tom!! I have an F2 and love it as well.

Tom1956 · Jun 20, 2014

Just googled up 100 feet of Tri-X, TM 400, and HP5 prices. The HP5 I can get for $55 for my new F2S sweetie. Tell me again now--why should I be buying the higher-price US film? Because I'm loyal? Not feeling a lot of luv here. Seems like my loyalty and 10 dollars gets me a cup of coffee and a doughnut.

Dr Croubie · Jun 20, 2014

Heh, speaking of Solar, I put 5kW of panels on my roof for $8k last september. I pay 35c/kWh to pull in stuff from the grid, and get paid 25c to sell it back. In 9 months they've made 6MWh, that's 20-25% payback already. The elec-company owes me money, I use that to pay off my gas (stove/hotwater) bill, and I'm still ahead.
As soon as I scrape together $15k I'll get me an iMiev. It's an ugly tiny car, and I'd much prefer a Leaf or Tesla, but they're $30k or $100k respectively...

Meanwhile, back to film. I was rather surprised last night, I went to my local shop not expecting them to have any 8x10. Not only did they have some 25xFP4, but it was only AU$109 , that's US$102 (cf US$109 at B+H plus $60 shipping). So now Ilford is actually cheapest in Australia?

Kodak Tri-x Price Drops

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