New Kodak Film in 2021?

[MattKing]

When I last worked in a lab TMax was a minority film. I just went onto the B&H site and looked up B&W 120 films and sorted them by "best sellers" TMY and TMX are well down the list.

Not up here - at least with respect to the labs that do black and white.
Sorting at B&H on "best sellers" and limiting choice to 35mm, Ilford and Kodak yields a mixture of results, where the lower price of HP5 no doubt plays a big role:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...:kodak|ilford,fct_film-type_1893:b-w-negative
TMax 400 (TMY2) is in my mind the best black and white film I've ever used.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Just noticed that Kodak Tried-X is now over $10 a roll for 35mm at B&H. That's getting rather expensive IMHO.

Just the cost of doing business and using quality products. If the cost is too high for you consider mixing the emulsions yourself and coating sheet of glass.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Densitometers? The problem with some of the old classic films like Triassic-Xtinction is that the grain is so big it covers the densitometer aperture. I think they batch it using buckshot or reclaimed military shrapnel.

 

[cmacd123]

The T-max films do "need" the use of Rapid Fixer and careful processing. they do test out "better" as far as grain to speed ratio. the curve is flatter and so forth. they have always been higher priced than the conventional films which I assume is because the manufacturing takes more time and expense.

Ilford has their "Delta" series which is similar technology wise to T-max. the technology is the basis of the "Vision" series of Movie negative film, which went through 3 series while Kodak and Fuji were competing against each other in that segment.

personally, I end up using HP5 (not t-grain) myself.
EDIT: typos fixed

 

[Arthurwg]

Just the cost of doing business and using quality products. If the cost is too high for you consider mixing the emulsions yourself and coating sheet of glass.

Great idea. But at $10.00 a roll the Kodak price is way more than inflation over the last decade.

 

[MattKing]

We were selling process paid Kodachrome 64 135-36 for $13.99 Canadian back in 1979. That was essentially at cost.
What would the inflation calculators reveal about that?

 

[Lachlan Young]

We were selling process paid Kodachrome 64 135-36 for $13.99 Canadian back in 1979. That was essentially at cost.
What would the inflation calculators reveal about that?

That it would roughly equate to $40, £30 or €35. The problem is that people used to the cheapest of the cheapest commodity materials are profoundly unaware of the cost of top-flight materials (and how much they were effectively subsidised by those commodity materials in the 1990s). The self-same ultra-entitled cohort don't seem to have grasped that it's not a bad economic plan to raise the price to a sustainable level, especially if at current prices demand is significantly outstripping the ability to supply whilst not generating sufficient profit to invest in future sustainability - there will be a price point at which that equilibrium will be reached (I do wonder how many of the same price-whine-sector inhabitants have looked what professional art/ craft products cost these days).