On the Kodak pdf there's written "FOR DIRECT CUSTOMER USE ONLY"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".
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.
Since when does Kodak or any other major manufacturer sell mere individuals anything direct unless it's no longer fresh?
$566? Now is $520. Did it go down???
Why?How dangerous is to have bulk roll shipped from Kodak in NY to the west coast? Would it pass some scanners?
all the custom Kodak sheet orders
What are you talking about?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.
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.
I have a suspicion you're off by an order of magnitude or two.
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.
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?
$566? Now is $520. Did it go down???
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 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
No, the $566 includes shipping and taxes.
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.
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.
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
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