Silly Photographer, Tri-X Is for (Rich) Kids!

I was browsing the B&H Photo Video website and I was looking at the price of bulk Tri-X rolls. I was surprised to see it at $99 USD. Seems a little high compared to other bulk rolls. When did it go up in price?

a buck per foot = too rich for me. Cine reversal also went up.

I also noticed the price hike. I was tracking Tri-X's 100' price on B&H every now and then. About a month ago it was still $69.99, a week ago it jumped to $79.99, then a few days later to $89.99, and now it's $99.99!? That's weird. At this price 100' bulk is not economical at all comparing to the 36-exp. rolls.

I eventually bought one can from Unique Photo. It's $74.25 plus tax (NJ) and shipping. You can Google a discount code to get 5% off.

Wait a minute here...

My B&H screen shows the 100-foot price of bulk roll Tri-X 400 as $99.95, and the price of single 135-36 rolls of Tri-X 400 as $4.49 each.

One can bulk load 18 rolls of 36-exposure from 100-feet. That comes to $5.55 per bulk-loaded roll...

Huh?

Ken

I can't tell you but I haven't been interested in bulk loading since Freestyle sold the last of the Legacy Pro rebranded Tri-X and Plus-X bulk loads. You just don't save enough any more, and I don't shoot enough 35mm black and white.

See above from Ken, it seems it's actually cheaper to buy individual rolls now anyway!

I have no knowledge but I would not be surprised if single rolls and TMX and TMY in 100ft rolls will go up to in the near future. Could be that Tri-X was the first to be stocked at a new price.

THIS is why i only shoot expired film
fresh film is a commodity expired film
people think i worthless
and it is every bit as good
as NONexpired stuff

btw

it might be the difference
between old stock
and new stock

sometimes pricing changes
and from what i remember reading prices went UP across th
e board ... maybe the next shipment of new film will reflect the "new" cost?

Roger Cole said:

I can't tell you but I haven't been interested in bulk loading since Freestyle sold the last of the Legacy Pro rebranded Tri-X and Plus-X bulk loads. You just don't save enough any more, and I don't shoot enough 35mm black and white.

See above from Ken, it seems it's actually cheaper to buy individual rolls now anyway!

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I bought a bunch of TMX bulk rolls for about $55 USD about 6 months ago from Henrys in Toronto, which makes it cost effective for "rolling your own" film. However, as the costs rise, this is little to no incentive to do so now. You would think bulk rolls would be cheaper to manufacture. Ostensibly, something else is at play but what is it?

Apparently Kodak doesn't want to sell any film. That's too bad. I like Tri-X, but I like A-1 too, but there's other things to pour on your hamburger.

Tri-X in preloads is competitively priced, and not particularly expensive. I don't see the problem unless one is really addicted to bulk loading.

Snapshot said:

I was browsing the B&H Photo Video website and I was looking at the price of bulk Tri-X rolls. I was surprised to see it at $99 USD. Seems a little high compared to other bulk rolls. When did it go up in price?

Click to expand...

and yet adorama has hp5 plus for $55, on sale...i just ordered 2. It says "out of stock, in soon..." so I hope this locks in the price.

got another 100 sheets of hp5 while i was at it. what the heck...

There are a lot of kids today who won't know what the title of this thread means!
I've got cans in the freezer to last a good while.

" this cereal is supposed to be be good for you ...
you eat it
i don't want to eat it
you eat it ...

lets give it to mikey, he'll eat anything ..

hey mikey, he like's it "

Snapshot said:

I was browsing the B&H Photo Video website and I was looking at the price of bulk Tri-X rolls. I was surprised to see it at $99 USD. Seems a little high compared to other bulk rolls. When did it go up in price?

Click to expand...

meanwhile, lest we forget, a month ago Ilford cut prices:

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/pressroom/article.asp?n=186

Snapshot said:

I was browsing the B&H Photo Video website and I was looking at the price of bulk Tri-X rolls. I was surprised to see it at $99 USD. Seems a little high compared to other bulk rolls. When did it go up in price?

Click to expand...

Well, still cheap comparing to Europe: 135 euros (185$) in fotoimpex!

Roger Cole said:

You just don't save enough any more, and I don't shoot enough 35mm black and white.

Click to expand...

The price gap between bulk and type 135 very much depends on the brand. Rollei/Agfa films are still available here for 57$/100'.
What makes a ratio 135/bulk of 1.7

Not sure if it's risen recently, but I just looked at the prices for 8x10 film (guess what? I just got an 8x10 camera).
10 sheets of Tri-X for $76 is actually cheaper than $85 for TMX.
But then they're trounced by 25 sheets of D100/FP4/HP5 for $110, less than half the price per sheet. People who shoot Kodak must reaaaaalllly love it (and/or hate ilford) to pay those prices...

Dr Croubie said:

Not sure if it's risen recently, but I just looked at the prices for 8x10 film (guess what? I just got an 8x10 camera).
10 sheets of Tri-X for $76 is actually cheaper than $85 for TMX.
But then they're trounced by 25 sheets of D100/FP4/HP5 for $110, less than half the price per sheet. People who shoot Kodak must reaaaaalllly love it (and/or hate ilford) to pay those prices...

Click to expand...

That's a lot more, but not twice as much never mind more than twice as much.

Tri-X - $7.60 per sheet
TMX - $8.50
D100/FP4/HPt - $4.40 per sheet

4x5 prices are lower but the comparison is similar. I took some flack on the Large Format Forum for saying I'm done with TMY-2 in 4x5 when I use up my current box, but I am. It IS really good stuff, and I do understand why it might be worth it to some people, but it isn't to me. HP5+ will do very nicely.

summicron1 said:

meanwhile, lest we forget, a month ago Ilford cut prices:

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/pressroom/article.asp?n=186

Click to expand...

Seriously, do you just believe everything you read? And then repeat it?

The prices at B&H are exactly the same as they were then. Please say where you see these reduced Ilford prices and post a link to them?

Perhaps the end of the line for Tri-X. Buy it while you can.

Roger Cole said:

That's a lot more, but not twice as much never mind more than twice as much.

Tri-X - $7.60 per sheet
TMX - $8.50
D100/FP4/HPt - $4.40 per sheet

Click to expand...

Yeah, remind me never to do maths when I've had this much codeine (busted my back today so I'm kinda drugged up). I just rounded to $4 and $8.

Anyway, I bought new RVP50 in 4x5 from japan for $7 a sheet, I'd rather shoot that than 8x10 TX.

back on topic, I do see some unfortunate parallels with this recent price-rise and what Fuji did with Provia 400X etc, except that it's only bulk and not bare rolls.
Could be that Kodak's jacked up the price, B+H are out of the older cheaper ones, so now they're passing on the cost of the newer more expensive ones.
Once their current stock of individual rolls is out and they have to pay the newer higher price for the next lot, they might up the price on them too (and if they do, that unfortunately proves this theory).

Honestly, while I love Tri-X, I've left off caring what Kodak does with black and white. I'm done with them in sheets once my current box is used up anyway, and while I like Tri-X a lot in rolls I can move to HP5 pretty happily. One reason I like Tri-X is that I like it a lot in Diafine at EI 1000 or so, better than Delta 3200 or pushed HP5+. But last time I tried it I got EI 800 out of HP5. That extra one third to two thirds stop isn't that important and I can always push with something else or move to D3200 which I stock and shoot a LOT of.

TMY-2 IS a great film, very possibly the finest overall black and white film ever made, but for my purposes (maybe not for everyone's) my results on HP5+ in sheet film sizes won't be noticeably different. TMY-2 has finer grain but this will matter not one bit at the sizes I can and do print. TMY-2 has better reciprocity failure characteristics but I very, very seldom need that or care. (And if I do, nothing beats Acros though it starts out two stops slower and is itself very expensive in sheets.) Think of all the great images made by people like Adams, Weston etc. in days when they could hardly dream of a film as good as HP5, for example. Heck, if Kodak keeps pricing themselves out we might persuade Ilford to make Delta 400 in sheets again! (Better yet XP-2 Super! That would be awesome!)

Kodak has priced themselves out of the black and white sheet film market for my purposes, and if roll film follows suit, well it'll be Ilford's gain. I already shoot FP4+ and Pan F+ as well as D3200.

I've rarely used any Ilford film, but that might have to change. Can anybody post a list of the Ilford equivalents to the remaining Kodak B&W films? Thanks.

Lee Rust said:

I've rarely used any Ilford film, but that might have to change. Can anybody post a list of the Ilford equivalents to the remaining Kodak B&W films? Thanks.

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well TMX is Delta 100, TMY is Delta 400, BW400CN is XP2 Super, and Tri-X probably equates closest to HP5 (plus Ilford has PanF, FP4, and Delta 3200 which have no kodak equivalents anymore).
But don't say that Tri-X and HP5 are interchangeable too loudly, or you'll start one of those hundred-page arguments. (I just haven't used either enough to properly tell the difference)