Amateur large format photography is an american concept. It would take time to settle in Europe, if at all.
Reintroduction of film cameras
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The trick with buying used is knowing how to check out the camera. Just a couple of weeks ago at a photo show I and another old timer helped a two young ladies buy used 35mm SLR's They knew not even where to start and certainly could not properly check a older camera. They both wound up with Pentax Spotmatic SP's with one having a 50 f1.4 Super Tak and the other one a very clean 55 f1.8 Super Tak.
The bodies both worked fine mechanically but we could not check the meters but.....at $10 per body they grabbed them. The lenses were more, the 55 f1.8 costing $35 but no matter, they got two fine cameras for about $100, not to shabby.
The bodies both worked fine mechanically but we could not check the meters but.....at $10 per body they grabbed them. The lenses were more, the 55 f1.8 costing $35 but no matter, they got two fine cameras for about $100, not to shabby.
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Any new film camera has to compete with a marketplace full to the brim of used but fully functional cameras, which were hundreds or thousands of dollars when new. But with few exceptions (like Leica) a film camera maker today does not have a ready clientele willing to spend the kind of money people did in the past on film cameras.
The only camera marketplace which makes sense is what would still be considered a specialty camera: 35mm true panorama (like XPan), 120 roll film camera for longer than 6x9 images, extreme wide angle fixed lens cameras, large format 8x10 and bigger, handheld large format, the oddities that LOMO sells, like the action sampler, spinner, etc. Basically the whole crop of things that had too small of a market in the past to justify mass production is still worth making because there's no cheap used alternative.
The only camera marketplace which makes sense is what would still be considered a specialty camera: 35mm true panorama (like XPan), 120 roll film camera for longer than 6x9 images, extreme wide angle fixed lens cameras, large format 8x10 and bigger, handheld large format, the oddities that LOMO sells, like the action sampler, spinner, etc. Basically the whole crop of things that had too small of a market in the past to justify mass production is still worth making because there's no cheap used alternative.
TheFlyingCamera
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There's just as many large format users running around Europe that I can tell... especially in the alternative process world. There's a huge wet-plate collodion movement in Europe - there's even an annual conference for it!
But more to your point, regardless of location, the US or Europe or Asia or Africa or Latin America, getting a mass movement to switch to large format would be an uphill struggle to say the least. And that's not my point in bringing it up - my point is that it is an alternative option for those dedicated to shooting analog in mechanical cameras, should the mass-produced film market retreat enough that 35mm and medium format cease to be available. Large format film, dry plates, and wet plate could be made on a boutique scale rather than industrial, while maintaining a minimum quality standard. IF you were dedicated enough to the craft, you could sustain shooting analog through that method, but it would require a serious dedication of time, energy and resources, because boutique image-making would be expensive. We already have a sense of how that would be from folks working in alt process- you'd be talking about $3/image for wet plate 4x5 or thereabouts, $10-ish per image for an 8x10, and so on. So yes, the number of casual analog image-makers would plummet, but the craft would not die.
Very well put.
Let's say all film coated upon flexible base goes away. I will still have: plate backs for Contax and Rolleis, 4x5 to 8x10 inclusive, some very good lenses, and a nice assortment of about 15 museum quality cameras and lenses. I'll be fine with that.
It might well make me a better craftsman.
I suspect that there is actually a market for a freshly manufactured reasonably priced 35mm camera. Not every aspiring new film photographer has access to trustworthy sources of used cameras and repair people. A new camera with a warranty would be desirable.. The large number of available used cameras can make a buying decision overwhelming.
APUG members tend to be tinkerers, but there are people who would buy a simple reliable camera with a warranty.
Whether this market is large enough to support a new film camera is a real question mark, however.
APUG members tend to be tinkerers, but there are people who would buy a simple reliable camera with a warranty.
Whether this market is large enough to support a new film camera is a real question mark, however.
I like the constant currency comparison. In 1963 gas was 25 cents- one quarter. Silver in a quarter is worth about $3.06 today ($12,260 for $1000 face value- do the math). How much is gas today? About $3.06. Gas costs the same today as it did in 1963 in constitutional money at least.
Not sure which i am having a harder time following.
That a high school kid would be required to buy a Thousand Dollar camera in 1945.
Or that a high school kid could save a Thousand Dollars by selling newspapers in a year of 1944.
Obviously, this would exclude most of society at the time.
Sounds like Mr Bach ran a pretty successful program, for quite a few years; that segued young photographers into the World of Professional/News/Journalism/Sports Photography.
Talk about your "Good Old Days".......
Would be Very Interesting to get a bunch of his students (any still living) together and hear their stories.
Not sure which i am having a harder time following.
That a high school kid would be required to buy a Thousand Dollar camera in 1945.
Or that a high school kid could save a Thousand Dollars by selling newspapers in a year of 1944.
Obviously, this would exclude most of society at the time.
Sounds like Mr Bach ran a pretty successful program, for quite a few years; that segued young photographers into the World of Professional/News/Journalism/Sports Photography.
Talk about your "Good Old Days".......
Would be Very Interesting to get a bunch of his students (any still living) together and hear their stories.
Not sure there are too many left. My dad passed at 86 last year and he attended towards the end of the program. Bach produced some Life and Sports Illustrated photographers, but many of them were probably 5-10 years before my dad. Still it is an interesting story.
That would be 153 papers a day if he worked 5 days a week and made 2.5 cents a paper (1/2 the nickel). He must have been great at it. I think I was lucky to sell 40 a day, but as a kid I didn’t work full time. $1000 was an astronomical sum for a kid to earn. I think I paid $70 for a used 1946 Baby Speed Graphic in 1966 earned from selling newspapers, and it wasn’t easy earning that! Hopefully his photography career made it worth it.Not sure which i am having a harder time following.
That a high school kid would be required to buy a Thousand Dollar camera in 1945.
Or that a high school kid could save a Thousand Dollars by selling newspapers in a year of 1944.
Obviously, this would exclude most of society at the time.
Sounds like Mr Bach ran a pretty successful program, for quite a few years; that segued young photographers into the World of Professional/News/Journalism/Sports Photography.
Talk about your "Good Old Days".......
Would be Very Interesting to get a bunch of his students (any still living) together and hear their stories.
Did you all see this picture? Some of the gals in the program with there Speed Graphics:
Donald J. Wyatt; mid 1940s
Nice photo! The babe in front also had a tlr around her neck, and the third one back is carrying a Graflex slr. Gotta love the hair styles!
Hey Yeah.......are we so sure Mark's Father did not have..."other"... reasons for joining this program.?
The matter is more complex than just looking at inflation rates, or the price development of certain goods.
But one would have to take into account the share of income free to be spent on leisure.
I wonder what a new 35mm movie film camera would have to offer, if it was to meet with some success on sales.
This is an advertisement from Popular Photography of 1944.Did you all see this picture? Some of the gals in the program with there Speed Graphics:
Donald J. Wyatt; mid 1940s
Second hand of course
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A digital sensor.
There is oversupply of fully serviced 35mm film cameras in the rental market. Unless things have changed ARRI, Panavision and Aaton all stopped making new 35mm film cameras long ago (c2011). There are still lots of articles on the net about it dating from that time as it was viewed as milestone in movie history.
They discontinued all their 35mm camera's, iirc the main reason of their discontinuation was the stop of production of the copal square shutter they used.
You'll get an idea if/when Kodak release that Super 8 camera
The market prices of used cameras simply need to go up enough to permit profitability for the large scale production of new film cameras, which I think will happen long before all the shutters are dead with no more spare parts available. I've noticed the average prices for used film cameras have nearly doubled over the last 10 years. Every year a little bit more.
Very true - when I bought Olympus OM-2 last summer it cost me 30$ sans the lens. Right now the same camera in the same condition costs around 45$. Same goes for other OM system gear and some of Minolta X series cameras - those are the ones I've been actively tracking.
But of course a new machine will not cost anything less than a few hundreds of dollars, most amateurs like me would skip them entirely for cheaper alternatives.
According to the Ilford representative in the US, the biggest growth in film sales is medium format roll film. If any niche is able to support a new film camera, 120 is it. I looked at a Mamiya 7II on eBay recently and it was £2.5k and climbing, with numerous bidders. Depreciation on such a camera is negligible. High quality hand held interchangeable lens rangefinder cameras in roll film format are thin on the ground, so their value is at a premium. Clunky studio varieties, less so.
I don't think the real threat is a lack of new film cameras. The real threat is a lack of new automatic processors for film labs. My local lab told me they can only buy old used equipment. There are no new large output film commercial film developers being made this day in age (again, from the lab). They keep buying old ones and cannibalising the parts from them, but you can only do that so long. Once commercial lab support is gone, then the prices for us hobbyists will really go up.
As for cameras, while there are some brands making new film cameras (leica, lomography, specialized large format cameras) it's true that there are considerably fewer going out on the market. Old cameras will likely last us another 50 years give or take. They may be repairable but the knowledge to repair them and people willing to take the job on will dwindle. That will become a problem.
The state of film production I wouldn't call healthy but it's likely to be the last thing to die as everyone shooting film needs film, but not everyone has to bring it to a particular lab, or has to buy a camera from a particular manufacturer. The consumables usually continue to be manufactured longer than the items that consume them. You can still buy typewriter ribbons at staples, but try and find a new typewriter...
As for cameras, while there are some brands making new film cameras (leica, lomography, specialized large format cameras) it's true that there are considerably fewer going out on the market. Old cameras will likely last us another 50 years give or take. They may be repairable but the knowledge to repair them and people willing to take the job on will dwindle. That will become a problem.
The state of film production I wouldn't call healthy but it's likely to be the last thing to die as everyone shooting film needs film, but not everyone has to bring it to a particular lab, or has to buy a camera from a particular manufacturer. The consumables usually continue to be manufactured longer than the items that consume them. You can still buy typewriter ribbons at staples, but try and find a new typewriter...
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