The cost of color film and processing

I recently posted the question, "If you could shoot only one color film, what would it be?"


One forum member, can't remember who, brought up his disappointment in the matters of cost. He historically relied on Walmart, Kodak Gold, Walmart processing. As most of us know, that's history. Especially local minilabs.


I did suggest that he shop around, and then I did likewise. And I was flabbergasted. Looking at C-41, the best deal I found was for Fuji 200, 36 exposure, for about $8-9/roll if you include shipping. I looked at Freestyle, Amazon, Film Photography Project, Photo Warehouse, B&H, and Adorama. Across the board, most of the merchants are out of stock on the value films. Some to be soon restocked, others unknown.


On top of the film cost, there's the matter of processing, if you don't do it yourself. OK, even if you do it yourself, there is at least a couple of dollars a roll cost. No more minilabs, no more daily pick up/drop off at various merchants, drug stores, grocery stores. Gone for at least eight years, generally. I did a thread on this in 2014 looking at my local options in Sarasota, Florida. So now you have to mail your cassettes....how?....no more cloth bags....and pray that they get there. If you live in a "big city," you will probably find a lab, but then there's the drive time to deliver and pickup. It appears to me that a simple development with perhaps low quality scanning will run about $10. So we are looking at a minimum of about $20/roll with no prints! High quality scans, add $5. And then you still need to print them yourself if that is your end game. (Although what with the internet and sharing prints are going the way of the dodo bird for most people.)


I'm going to think that most of us on this forum are not interested in 4x6 color prints. But if you are, add 35 cents per? Another $13. All told, call it $33 for what we used to get for, what, $10? Not counting inflation, of course.


And this isn't even addressing the cost of E6 slide films which are a lot more!


I'm fortunate that I have towards three dozen cassettes of C-41. Some Ektar, a lot of Kodak HD400, the consumer "High Definition" film that should have been pro. Kept frozen and in a lead bag. And I do my own C-41 processing which I then can scan. And an inkjet print.


If I ultimately deplete my color films I will reserve color for something very special. Like 120 format E6. Love them images! Otherwise, I will not be able to afford color.

would be great if it was as cheap or available as back in the good old days.. same with everything..

shoot them all! fun as, and that's usually the point.

I reserve film shooting for special times and subjects. I'm very selective about what shots I take. For regular shooting, I'll use digital.

Alan Edward Klein said:

I reserve film shooting for special times and subjects. I'm very selective about what shots I take. For regular shooting, I'll use digital.

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I'm starting to go that way with prices here in the UK. There's also the question of quality of basic 4x6 prints from film.....just had four very "technically" poor sets of C-41 from what has previously been a reliable mail order lab, and a similarly poor set of B&W prints from the Ilford/Harman service. The negs are fine in both cases, normal "daylight" subjects, nothing fancy, and scan-and-print digitally just fine. (I normally process my own films, but just needed a quick set of these for the family, it's usually develop-and-scan at home.)

railwayman3 said:

I'm starting to go that way with prices here in the UK. There's also the question of quality of basic 4x6 prints from film.....just had four very "technically" poor sets of C-41 from what has previously been a reliable mail order lab, and a similarly poor set of B&W prints from the Ilford/Harman service. The negs are fine in both cases, normal "daylight" subjects, nothing fancy, and scan-and-print digitally just fine. (I normally process my own films, but just needed a quick set of these for the family, it's usually develop-and-scan at home.)

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I remember the one-hour photo services all over town a few decades ago. You bring your film in and an hour later you pick it up developed with two 4x6 prints of each with the negatives all in a small envelope. YOu had one set for your photo albums and the extra copies for a wall or desk frame or to give to other family members. Those days are long gone.

Inflation! I have my color slide film processed in Florida. Mailing is cheaper and less time consuming than a trip to the city, or at present using gas driving to a Walmart’s ( even if still processed film).
My tuition at Columbia U was $45/credit hr. Now about $500-$600. So real price is not that different, especially when considering the huge decline of economy of scale.
As for current inflation, to steal a phrase from Al Jolson, “You ain’t seen nothin yet!”

guangong said:

Inflation! I have my color slide film processed in Florida. Mailing is cheaper and less time consuming than a trip to the city, or at present using gas driving to a Walmart’s ( even if still processed film).
My tuition at Columbia U was $45/credit hr. Now about $500-$600. So real price is not that different, especially when considering the huge decline of economy of scale.
As for current inflation, to steal a phrase from Al Jolson, “You ain’t seen nothin yet!”

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Tuition has probably gone up twice as much as everything else, maybe more. Government loans to students have escalated the demand causing a huge rise in prices for tuition, books, campus housing, etc. I agree with Al Jolson though. Buy your film now and freeze it.

Alan Edward Klein said:

I reserve film shooting for special times and subjects. I'm very selective about what shots I take. For regular shooting, I'll use digital.

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Yeah, same here, except the last bit. I planned on picking up digital again a couple of weeks ago or so, but so far, I haven't managed it. Lack of interest. So I shoot a mix of B&W and color, but only shoot what I find worthwhile. The days of 'spray & pray' snapshotting are long gone, thank God.

I don't worry too much about cost; yes, it's a pity color film in particular has become so expensive. Yes, I'm worried about the continued availability of C41 chemistry; it has become less plentiful over the past 2 years, although I can still get it at somewhat reasonable prices. (And no, not a couple of dollars/€ per roll of chemistry costs; I'm still way below the €1/roll mark in consumables.) I'm also concerned about long-term viability of RA4 printing and paper availability. But as it is now, even though the pool has been shrinking, the water's still nice, and I enjoy it.

As to inflation, policy, tuition fees etc. - can we please not go there, or at least reserve it for the soapbox?

Where I live, you can still drop your film in a drug store and collect it a week later (with scans and/or prints). It used to be ridiculously cheap, like 2-3 EUR for development and scans (admittedly, that might have changed with years). Minilabs, still present (although less than 10 years ago) in my county, will typically process your C-41 for something like 4 EUR.

I do it all myself and at the end the cost of an RA-4 wet print is considerably less than a BW wet print (largely because RA-4 paper in rolls is so much cheaper than BW sheets of paper I can buy).

It's true that there is basically no Fuji C-41 film produced (at the moment at least), but finding C-41 film is very hard nowadays so somebody must still be shooting it since Kodak is still producing C-41 film and even increasing production slightly every year. Judging by the Photrio, people are obviously getting priced out of colour film photography, though, which is a shame. You hear about this less in BW section. Maybe getting to a BW wet print never was as cheap as colour was up until not long ago?

brbo said:

Maybe getting to a BW wet print never was as cheap as colour was up until not long ago?

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I think most of the complaining about cost is not so much related to prints, but mostly film & film development. After all, many people don't print, or rarely so, and just scan and then process & enjoy digitally. At least that part of the process has low or even zero marginal cost.

Btw, valid point about the cost of RA4 prints - they're ridiculously cheap to make, really. We're riding the back of the big printing industry whale. We should enjoy it while it lasts.
Not that printing B&W is very expensive. After all, how many prints do you make in a typical setting? For me, it's not all that many. It's really difficult to burn a lot of cash printing B&W, especially if you prefer smaller prints, as I do.

Just this week I dropped off a roll at an older pro lab in SLC to see how it goes. Base price is $4 for film processing and 40 cents per 4x6 print. If the quality is good enough I’ll probably use a little more color.

For black and white at home, my time and materials for each 3.5 x 5 print are certainly more than 40 cents. Then again I only print the keepers. A decent compromise may be to have the lab process the film, choose my favorites on the light table, then print only my favorites.

As much as I’d love to buy 4-packs of 400 speed color for $10 and pay $5 per roll for someone else to do all the work, it’s never going to happen again.

koraks said:

As to inflation, policy, tuition fees etc. - can we please not go there, or at least reserve it for the soapbox?

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Could not have said it better. Except, of course, as the Soap Box has been removed, the alternative now is closure of the thread!

Photography was not and still isn't a cheap hobby but that depends on what you consider cheap.

Back in the 1990s we never had it so good with minilab and wholesale mailorder labs fighting for the customer's business. It was a price war where the only winner was the customer.

Many labs, by trying to follow cut price processing and printing, left themselves under capitalised for future investment. As a result, when digital came along they faltered as they couldn't afford or were unwilling to invest to keep up to date.

By the early 2000s, a lot of minilab/labs dumped the C41 processing machine as the film volume dropped. A few did keep them running and refurbished them and are now enjoying increased film volume. This is now a niche market and so will have pricing accordingly. The day of €1 / $1 / £1 development negatives only is long gone.

Personally, I get my C41 films developed and scanned by a minilab I post my films to. I then can choose to make prints online if I want RA4 prints.

Film is dirt cheap right now. The only reason people are upset is the psychological anchoring to abnormally low prices we've had during film industry collapse. Now everything is back to normal.

How much do you want to pay? $5 per roll? I am not aware of anything of comparable value that's worth $5. If you believe that current price per roll is too much, look around and look at prices for everything, even a plastic crap like this.

Steven Lee said:

Film is dirt cheap right now

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No, it isn't. Historically seen it's not excessively expensive, but it definitely isn't "dirt cheap". It used to be, but not anymore.

Film isnt cheap, but not much today is. A pint of beer is now over $6 where I am. Often way over $6. Kentmere 400 is cheaper than that. Cigarettes are, I assume, much more than $6.
Movie tickets are $14 each. How much is that payment on your $60k new SUV?

You just decide where you spend your money.

Thinking back to the early 1960's when I started out using a camera and film was then a large proportion of my wage. I started processing myself almost immediately because I wanted to not the cost.
The price of a colour transparency film was for me horrific and the choice was very small either Kodachrome 1 at 10iso or Ektachrome at 32iso and always horribly green

The equivalent price today for the Kodachrome would be about £17 or around 18$ incl processing and mounting. The cost then was about $4. That is not far off the price you would expect to pay for todays new Ektachrome incl processing.

My main problem is not the cost, but the lack of ready availability of C41 film. 120 isn't too bad at the moment, but the situation with 35mm is dire. I have a reasonable stock of 35mm (18 x 36 exp cassettes, plus 8 x 120 Kodak gold). However if it doesn't improve, I have made a conscious decision to stop using C41 and stick to B&W only.

Steven Lee said:

Film is dirt cheap right now. The only reason people are upset is the psychological anchoring to abnormally low prices we've had during film industry collapse. Now everything is back to normal.

How much do you want to pay? $5 per roll? I am not aware of anything of comparable value that's worth $5. If you believe that current price per roll is too much, look around and look at prices for everything, even a plastic crap like this.

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You apparently did not read my analysis which is the original post. Summary: Looking across six(?) mail order houses, here in USA, the cheapest C-41 35mm was some Fuji 200. With shipping, $8-9 a roll. Already quite out of your $5 target.

I have always taken photographs with planning and care so there are not a lot of throwaways. I send my color photographs go to Samy's Camera to develop and print either 4"x6" or 5"x5" prints which I use for sorting for future considerations. Photography has always been pricey, in the past for cameras and now for film and processing, and I just consider it the cost of doing business.

Paul Verizzo said:

your $5

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To be fair, he didn't set that target if you read what he wrote.

Anyway, I do pity the high cost of color sheet film. Argue left or right, but that stuff has only gone up in price and is now by any standard just very expensive.

Paul Verizzo said:

You apparently did not read my analysis which is the original post. Summary: Looking across six(?) mail order houses, here in USA, the cheapest C-41 35mm was some Fuji 200. With shipping, $8-9 a roll. Already quite out of your $5 target.

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I meant to say that if you want prices to go back to pre-COVID times, a roll of film was $5 IIRC. And I was pointing out that's just unrealistic because even the cheapest plastic crap at Target is more than that. When I compare film to other consumables I buy, I see the best bang for the buck. Nothing even comes close, in fact I can see a roll being $30 and that's absolutely fine. Not because I'm loaded, but because very few consumables under $30 carry the same value.

Let me reiterate: my problem with your complaint is that you're simply saying: it used to be cheaper and because of that I can't afford it. That's just not true. You certainly buy other things over $9. So I'm inviting you to compare film to that, not to film from the past.

In other words, is a roll of film the best way to spend $9? I think so, that's why it's dirt cheap.

koraks said:

No, it isn't. Historically seen it's not excessively expensive, but it definitely isn't "dirt cheap". It used to be, but not anymore.

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Please see my message above. Maybe I should have said that current film prices still represent amazing value.

Sirius Glass said:

Photography has always been pricey, in the past for cameras and now for film and processing, and I just consider it the cost of doing business.

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I think this just needs to be accepted up front. The peak of 35mm film use resulted in a situation where prices were low and availability almost universal. If that was your normal, and it was for me, then anything else will always feel expensive. However, top tier cameras and lenses were still very expensive - yet people bought them. Even back then my amateur budget couldn’t afford the tools and materials aimed at professionals. I remember one shop in town that didn’t want to interact with you if you weren’t prepared to drop a pile of money on the table. Unsurprisingly, they folded as soon as digital arrived.

Today I have a kit I could not have dreamed of in the 1990s, all for pennies on the dollar. Well, not the M3… but otherwise it’s true.

Looking beyond photography, every time I go to Moab I see dozens of toy hauler rigs that make my camera and film budget look like pocket change. One-ton mega-cab pickups with tuned diesel engines to haul giant fifth wheel campers and a second trailer loaded with side-by-sides or whatnot. How much is that racing down the highway at 85mph? $150K? Easily. $250K? Not out of the question. Nothing cheap about that hobby. A set of tires and rims for the truck would cost more than a new film Leica. Fuel costs must be atrocious now. But they still keep doing it.

AZD said:

I think this just needs to be accepted up front. The peak of 35mm film use resulted in a situation where prices were low and availability almost universal. If that was your normal, and it was for me, then anything else will always feel expensive. However, top tier cameras and lenses were still very expensive - yet people bought them. Even back then my amateur budget couldn’t afford the tools and materials aimed at professionals. I remember one shop in town that didn’t want to interact with you if you weren’t prepared to drop a pile of money on the table. Unsurprisingly, they folded as soon as digital arrived.

Today I have a kit I could not have dreamed of in the 1990s, all for pennies on the dollar. Well, not the M3… but otherwise it’s true.

Looking beyond photography, every time I go to Moab I see dozens of toy hauler rigs that make my camera and film budget look like pocket change. One-ton mega-cab pickups with tuned diesel engines to haul giant fifth wheel campers and a second trailer loaded with side-by-sides or whatnot. How much is that racing down the highway at 85mph? $150K? Easily. $250K? Not out of the question. Nothing cheap about that hobby. A set of tires and rims for the truck would cost more than a new film Leica. Fuel costs must be atrocious now. But they still keep doing it.

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The less expensive approach. Notice the watch to work ratio, it must have been a government project.

My late 1960's-early 1970's high school time affects my judgement on this. A 20 exposure roll of Kodacolor-X cost about 1 hour at my minimum wage fast-food job, cheapest processing about 1.5 hours. Kodachrome total was about the same, subsidized by all the home movies going through the labs. E4 (Ektachrome/Dynachrome) was about 20% more. I learned BW lab work because chemistry was available and the school had the equipment.

There was a minilab boom in the 1990's as others have pointed out, cutting prices on both film and processing. Now we're about back at the old ratio of minimum wage to color film roll price, though E6 is hard to find. If you find a youngster with interest, help them out with lab skills.