Shocked at how much bulk TMY-2 costs

[DeletedAcct1]

Since when does Kodak or any other major manufacturer sell mere individuals anything direct unless it's no longer fresh? First of all you, need to establish some serious purchasing clout yourself. Most camera stores now require a middleman distributor themselves. The pandemic wiped out the momentum of many of them to do otherwise. Net pricing is often based upon the size of the buy. I don't have access to the cost structure of any of these film manufacturers, but know darn well from my own career as a corporate good buyer how the game is played. Some minor brands do allow direct personal orders, but at full list price - they're not going to undercut their own distributors and middlemen if they've got any brains at all. And most simply can't waste their time on"tire kickers".

On the Kodak pdf there's written "FOR DIRECT CUSTOMER USE ONLY"
I think it's the pricing list for the end customer only, invariable of order quantities etc...

 

[Radost]

Uhhhhhh no. You can absolutely call up Kodak, as an individual, and order anything they list for sale to the public. This includes Vision3 stock and Aerocolor. Hell, I bet if you asked, and paid, they would sell you an entire master roll. I’m pretty sure that’s how they do the custom sheet orders from Kodak.

And, if you don’t believe me, I’m happy to dig out the receipt for 1 400’ roll of E100D that I got for $566 last April.

$566? Now is $520. Did it go down???

 

[Don_ih]

Since when does Kodak or any other major manufacturer sell mere individuals anything direct unless it's no longer fresh?

Kodak has maintained a price list for telephone ordering for ages. The normal way to get movie film is to call and order it from them - including Super8 film. The fact that they don't have an easy-access online shop is what's truly confounding. At this point in time, they should be making it as easy as possible to get whatever you want from them.
Kodak, as far as manufacturing is concerned, is just a bit bigger than an Etsy shop.

 

[DeletedAcct1]

$566? Now is $520. Did it go down???

Imagine Kodak 36exp rolls prices that go down...
Where? When? Impossible...
Prices always go only up...

 

[DREW WILEY]

No - so far, all the custom Kodak sheet orders have all involved a couple of predictable pool accounts, which I myself signed onto. It can take a long time to build up enough interest in a less common size for Kodak, like 5x7 or 11X14, and whoever that is has to be recognized by both parties, and obviously meet a high enough minimum quantity of boxes. Maybe they were happy to offload some 35mm E100 to you last April because that's when they were running out of the canisters necessary to package it themselves! Dunno. Try ordering one roll of still film and see what they say! - not like making a movie! Even Ilford requires their annual special size sheet cuts to go through established dealers with a standing account with them.

Fuji sells direct to labs; but try ordering something little. It's hard enough to get any kind of straight answer from their customer service dept about anything.

But if they could realistically cut out the middlemen in all their film products, that would dramatically lower the end-user price too, since that's where most of the markup is - not at the mfg level. But that would come with its own significant headaches; and they might have contract commitments.

 

[DeletedAcct1]

How dangerous is to have bulk roll shipped from Kodak in NY to the west coast? Would it pass some scanners?

Why?
US Film Pick Up Location
7758 Sunset Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90046
Phone: (323) 499-1012

 

[Don_ih]

all the custom Kodak sheet orders

So far as I know, they don't offer any random sheet film orders or single rolls of film. The Ektachrome 400' was actually a cine roll, though - and that's listed on their price sheet.

Current Canadian prices:

 

[DeletedAcct1]

No - so far, all the custom Kodak sheet orders have all involved a couple of predictable pool accounts, which I myself signed onto. It can take a long time to build up enough interest in a less common size for Kodak, like 5x7 or 11X14, and whoever that is has to be recognized by both parties, and obviously meet a high enough minimum quantity of boxes. Maybe they were happy to offload some 35mm E100 to you last April because that's when they were running out of the canisters necessary to package it themselves! Dunno. Try ordering one roll of still film and see what they say! - not like making a movie! Even Ilford requires their annual special size sheet cuts to go through established dealers with a standing account with them.

What are you talking about?
Kodak sells directly to end users.
It's clearly written in the price list, there are even directions, and a pick up store in Sunset Boulevard...

 

[Radost]

No - so far, all the custom Kodak sheet orders have all involved a couple of predictable pool accounts, which I myself signed onto. It can take a long time to build up enough interest in a less common size for Kodak, like 5x7 or 11X14, and whoever that is has to be recognized by both parties, and obviously meet a high enough minimum quantity of boxes. Maybe they were happy to offload some 35mm E100 to you last April because that's when they were running out of the canisters necessary to package it themselves! Dunno. Try ordering one roll of still film and see what they say! - not like making a movie! Even Ilford requires their annual special size sheet cuts to go through established dealers with a standing account with them.

Fuji sells direct to labs; but try ordering something little. It's hard enough to get any kind of straight answer from their customer service dept about anything.

But if they could realistically cut out the middlemen in all their film products, that would dramatically lower the end-user price too, since that's where most of the markup is - not at the mfg level. But that would come with its own significant headaches; and they might have contract commitments.

Fuji sales film????????

 

[mshchem]

I have a suspicion you're off by an order of magnitude or two.

You think there's still labs using optical printing? I wouldn't be surprised that there's still a couple places on earth that use a lens, but 99.9% are scanning then laying down the images

 

[Sirius Glass]

My point is that we can't wholly blame manufacturing. The vendors see an opportunity to keep prices high, since it's scarce and folks are willing to pay it. They're certainly not paying anywhere near that much money to obtain it from Kodak / Fuji.

If you sense that, use the internet to locate a competitor and find a better price.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Why do you guys think Kodak stopped making bulk portra but still sale TMAX and TRIX?

Because the sales do not justify the expense of making it available. Why provide a product that loses money?

 

[Radost]

Because the sales do not justify the expense of making it available. Why provide a product that loses money?

I would think making it available will canibalize their cassette sales.
When did they stop?

 

[MCB18]

$566? Now is $520. Did it go down???

No, the $566 includes shipping and taxes.

 

[Sirius Glass]

You think there's still labs using optical printing? I wouldn't be surprised that there's still a couple places on earth that use a lens, but 99.9% are scanning then laying down the images

You need to get out of your rural farm town and come to the big cities. There are still many optical or optical only printing companies in Hollywood and the surround Los Angeles area.

 

[MCB18]

You think there's still labs using optical printing? I wouldn't be surprised that there's still a couple places on earth that use a lens, but 99.9% are scanning then laying down the images

You do realize that most of the big labs that handle thousands of rolls a day, like the Fuji lab in SC where all the Walgreens film goes now, ALL operate with optical printing systems, right? No other way to handle that volume of film.

 

[Radost]

No, the $566 includes shipping and taxes.

Do you think it is safe to have film shipped like that?

 

[DREW WILEY]

Costco in this region switched over top rapid digital printers several years back - don't remember exactly how long ago; but it was slightly prior to my retirement 5-1/2 yrs ago. Everyone hated the results. Now, at least locally, they have dropped out of film and snapshot services entirely. The local midsized labs who only do large prints inkjet now, still do their rapid snapshot "machine prints" optically. Otherwise, nobody would ask for them. They're not like the one hour drugstore lab crowd, and have certain expectations of actual quality. Sure, there's some kind of automatic electronic exposure adjustment built in to those relative to each image, which can be overridden if necessary; but the exposing unit is light - basically optical, and not little digi pixies. And these places probably have more cases, and more square footage, of Fuji RA4 paper stacked on their floors than all of us here on this forum cumulatively consume in a year. Most of it goes to those small machine prints.

I don't know about LA. There's a border control point at the top of the Grapevine pass on Hwy 5 to keep SoCal types out of real California, and those that do sneak through are condemned to live in Bakersfield. But the last big lab here locally is simply way too busy just trying to keep up with film processing demand to spare time and space setting up their optical enlargers again. They even do both 8X10 E-6 and 8X10 C41 quickly. Walk in there, and it's amazing to see how many freshly processed film orders are on their shelves, awaiting pickup, a lot of it 120 film, but a surprising amount of it color sheet film too. Kinda defies all the doom and gloom stereotypes about the destiny of real film. And they aren't the only high-volume color film processing option in the area.

 

[mshchem]

You do realize that most of the big labs that handle thousands of rolls a day, like the Fuji lab in SC where all the Walgreens film goes now, ALL operate with optical printing systems, right? No other way to handle that volume of film.

Right, all these are high-speed printers tu3 film is very very quick scanned then laid down on the paper with lasers. Crazy fast. No lenses, thus no optical printing

 

[MattKing]

Drew,
Eastman Kodak has sold cine (motion picture) film loads direct to customers for as long as I'm aware.
And the reason that 100 foot loads of Portra are no longer available is that the infrastructure for 100 foot loads was high volume when the 100 foot load cameras were common - for school and ID photography - and was actually in the same building and part of the motion picture print film infrastructure. Those high volume cameras are gone, and film prints for cinemas are close to gone, so the high volume efficiencies that the little 100 foot loads piggybacked on are gone as well.

 

[DREW WILEY]

mschem - there still seem to be plenty of real optical high-speed printers around, which essentially just automatically light-meter and slightly enlarge the color negs fed through. The look is different when lasers are involved. Lots of people sure don't like the laser exposure look in terms of their snapshot prints. It's not like the big expensive laser printers based on drum scans and custom settings.

 

[mshchem]

mschem - there still seem to be plenty of real optical high-speed printers around, which essentially just automatically light-meter and slightly enlarge the color negs fed through. The look is different when lasers are involved. Lots of people sure don't like the laser exposure look in terms of their snapshot prints. It's not like the big expensive laser printers based on drum scans and custom settings.

Not drum scanners, but like Fuji Frontier machines. No ordinary photolab, camera stores have optical printers. Too bad because the optical systems are superior.
I despise minilab prints, but they are great for snaps.

 

[DREW WILEY]

No camera store around here has their own printers. The Frontiers (laser) etc are in little niche labs, or even relatively big labs nearby, which take in work from various stores. Drugstore minilabs are nearly extinct. I don't know of any Lightjet or Chromira laser printers still in use in this area (retirements). There were lots of leftover small ra4 roll machines of various vintages and exposure methods in storage as things consolidated. No sense buying new equipment. All the serious stuff was well maintained, and by the same people who started up again at different locations. The primary reason for them moving even multiple times wasn't any shortage in business opportunity, but the progressive gentrification of real estate which drove out all kinds of businesses to make way for expensive condos and tech leases. The labs themselves had to downsize. Downtown SF bet hard on that one-trick Tech business pony, and now regrets it, as more and more people work from home, and all the former diversity of ground-level businesses has been driven out, and can't afford to come back. Fortunately, I'm on the other side of the Bay, where photo related businesses have started back up. But designated couriers still go back and forth.

Creo flatbeds are still used more than drum scanners around here. I could have had a drum scanner and software for free; they're not much in demand any more. Just a few local people can easily handle those who still need this kind of service, primarily those forced to switch to digital printing simply because they're lost their own lease on previous darkroom space. The younger crowd aren't that fussy, and half of them begin with digital shots anyway. But used classic film cameras sell faster in this area than 35mm digital cameras, and at relatively high prices, at least among actual camera store clientele. Ordinary folk have largely switched to cell phone pictures.

 

[mshchem]

It's so great that film is, at least for now, is thriving. There's still a lot of really nice film cameras in circulation.

 

[Anon Ymous]

You think there's still labs using optical printing? I wouldn't be surprised that there's still a couple places on earth that use a lens, but 99.9% are scanning then laying down the images

Ah, no, the other way around. I'd make it 5ppm instead of 500.