The Price of 8x10 Color Film Out of Control

NortheastPhotographic · Feb 28, 2020

I knew the price hike was coming and I accept it as necessary. In smaller formats it's not sooo bad. Film at least in the quantities that I shoot it is affordable for me. And I shoot everything on film.

The exception to this is 8x10 film. According to Freestyle Portra 400 is listed at $248, and with an instant rebate $224, for 10 measly sheets. Sure it's a different base with a different economy of scale but a roll of 35mm at 36exp is slightly less than $11 per roll, and slightly less than $50 for 5. Scaling that up to 10 is just under $100 of course, and that comes with little plastic cases, a metal cartridge, and sprocket holes. 8x10 sheet film has a different base, but it just comes in a nice cardboard box. So how is it more than double the price?

At it's current price, Portra 400 is more than color Polaroid 8x10 film...by a lot! I really don't understand what is happening here. I get that the economy of scale is very different, but this is a little outrageous.

Portra 160 is mercefully currently at $188. Fuji Provia is $300, but you get 20 sheets. So $150 for 10, and since when is chrome cheaper than color neg?

Just ranting a bit here. I love 8x10 but at this price, 4x5 and 5x7 will have to do. I can't imagine how ULF shooters are dealing with this.

Lachlan Young · Feb 28, 2020

NortheastPhotographic said:
I knew the price hike was coming and I accept it as necessary. In smaller formats it's not sooo bad. Film at least in the quantities that I shoot it is affordable for me. And I shoot everything on film.

The exception to this is 8x10 film. According to Freestyle Portra 400 is listed at $248, and with an instant rebate $224, for 10 measly sheets. Sure it's a different base with a different economy of scale but a roll of 35mm at 36exp is slightly less than $11 per roll, and slightly less than $50 for 5. Scaling that up to 10 is just under $100 of course, and that comes with little plastic cases, a metal cartridge, and sprocket holes. 8x10 sheet film has a different base, but it just comes in a nice cardboard box. So how is it more than double the price?

At it's current price, Portra 400 is more than color Polaroid 8x10 film...by a lot! I really don't understand what is happening here. I get that the economy of scale is very different, but this is a little outrageous.

Portra 160 is mercefully currently at $188. Fuji Provia is $300, but you get 20 sheets. So $150 for 10, and since when is chrome cheaper than color neg?

Just ranting a bit here. I love 8x10 but at this price, 4x5 and 5x7 will have to do. I can't imagine how ULF shooters are dealing with this.

In other words a price correction to bring it in line with the rest of the world...

8x10 colour has always been relatively disproportionately expensive, that it was relatively cheap for a while had more to do with it being effectively subsidised by highly profitable amateur market films. It's also exponentially less used than smaller formats and was almost always a high end professional/ commercial/ artist/ very well-heeled-amateur format. Check out the price of some handmade/ mouldmade printmaking or watercolour papers if you want some real sticker shock.

NortheastPhotographic · Feb 28, 2020

Lachlan Young said:
In other words a price correction to bring it in line with the rest of the world...

8x10 colour has always been relatively disproportionately expensive, that it was relatively cheap for a while had more to do with it being effectively subsidised by highly profitable amateur market films. It's also exponentially less used than smaller formats and was almost always a high end professional/ commercial/ artist/ very well-heeled-amateur format. Check out the price of some handmade/ mouldmade printmaking or watercolour papers if you want some real sticker shock.

I'm not sure how it can be "in line with the rest of the world" when the price doesn't even correspond to the same stock in different formats, or even Provia from Fuji. 8x10 Portra 400 is listed as about $50 more expensive than 4x5 Portra 400 by surface area conversion. There is just a huge mark up. Again even Polaroid "Originals" color instant film is significantly less expensive and that stuff develops itself!

NortheastPhotographic · Feb 28, 2020

I did just notice that B&H still has them at:
Ektar $180
P160 $$155
P400 $210

P160 is a relative steal.

MattKing · Feb 28, 2020

The film stock is the least expensive component involved in bringing a film product to market.
While it may be the same area as a roll of 135-36, the production of 135-36 rolls of film involves so many more economies of scale with respect to the other, much more expensive components - cutting to size, edge printing, notching, packaging, distributing - that the relative cost of each roll vs. each sheet is bound to be orders of magnitude cheaper.

Lachlan Young · Feb 28, 2020

NortheastPhotographic said:
I'm not sure how it can be "in line with the rest of the world" when the price doesn't even correspond to the same stock in different formats, or even Provia from Fuji. 8x10 Portra 400 is listed as about $50 more expensive than 4x5 Portra 400 by surface area conversion. There is just a huge mark up. Again even Polaroid "Originals" color instant film is significantly less expensive and that stuff develops itself!

It's still quite a bit cheaper than the approx. 385USD equivalent that 8x10 Portra 400 costs over here. Oh, and I'd happily pay that sort of money for something actually like type 809 Polaroid, rather than the giganto SX-70 film currently sold as 8x10 Polaroid.

removed account4 · Feb 29, 2020

NortheastPhotographic said:
Just ranting a bit here. I love 8x10 but at this price, 4x5 and 5x7 will have to do. I can't imagine how ULF shooters are dealing with this.

sometimes freestyle has LF as short date film, i used to get out of date 8x10 fuji chrome film from them, it was a bit more affordable than selling a kidney. i think stonenyc used to shoot a ton of 8x10 ( and 14x17? ) chrome film that was fresh from japan. he was distributing it so maybe he was able to make a little profit so it was more affordable for him in the end? i think it was $35-40/pop just for processing. i gave up and just developed mine in print developer and coffee as stained dye cloud black and white.

Wayne · Feb 29, 2020

I have never been able to afford color film for my 8x10. LFers and ULFers are by necessity, mostly well-off older men. I think they always were, at least in recent decades, but the market has weeded out everyone else.

pentaxuser · Feb 29, 2020

Wayne said:
I have never been able to afford color film for my 8x10. LFers and ULFers are by necessity, mostly well-off older men.

There may be some solace in the fact that eventually you will definitely meet the second of your 2 qualifications above If it is any consolation I am writing this post in the Accident and Emergency department of my local hospital. I started to shake my head at these prices and eventually got to the stage where the shake's orbit got large enough that my head spun 360 degrees.

pentaxuser

DREW WILEY · Feb 29, 2020

8x10 color film pricing was generally proportional in surface area to other sizes of sheet film, in other words, quite logically averaged around 4 times the amount of 4x5. Temporary shortages can dramatically affect that on a supply and demand basis. But to some extent this might be a harbinger of 4x5 about to go up too. I'm glad that I put a surplus of 8x10 in my freezer when it was about a third the cost of the going rate. I did buy a box of Portra 160 last fall for around $150. Comparisons to 35mm or 120 film are meaningless because sheet film is coated on a completely different much thicker base which has no doubt itself gone up dramatically in cost in recent years.

Wayne · Feb 29, 2020

pentaxuser said:
There may be some solace in the fact that eventually you will definitely meet the second of your 2 qualifications above If it is any consolation I am writing this post in the Accident and Emergency department of my local hospital. I started to shake my head at these prices and eventually got to the stage where the shake's orbit got large enough that my head spun 360 degrees.

pentaxuser

I believe I'll be officially "elderly" in some people's book next week. Still waiting for the money though...

David A. Goldfarb · Mar 1, 2020

When 8x10” color Polaroid hit $15 a sheet, I got out of it.

I think the decline of 8x10” color as a commercial medium is not only due to the transition to digital photography, but also the decline of print media for which 8x10” transparencies were useful, like glossy magazines, furniture catalogues, and such.

NortheastPhotographic · Mar 1, 2020

Those days are long gone. It’s definitely an artist’s medium now, and has been for probably over 2 decades? I’m on a persistent hunt for frozen stored old stocks like E100G.

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 1, 2020

Velvia 50 in 4x5 unavailable in the US costs around $145 for 20 sheets plus shipping from Japan, making 8x10 cheap.

DREW WILEY · Mar 1, 2020

Wrong Alan. 8x10 color film with processing is now averages about $30 per shot. That's triple your 4x5 Velvia per shot with processing. I'm still shooting 8x10 color , but now far less often than smaller formats. I've already got plenty of older 8x10 chromes and color negs to print from.

Adrian Bacon · Mar 1, 2020

NortheastPhotographic said:
So how is it more than double the price?

It’s more than double the price because for every box sold, at least 100 pro packs of it in 135 are sold, meaning everybody who carries it has to carry the cost of having it sit on the shelf for a really long time before it moves. That is capital that is tied up that they could be using on other product that sells and makes them more money. So... you pay for it.

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 2, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
Wrong Alan. 8x10 color film with processing is now averages about $30 per shot. That's triple your 4x5 Velvia per shot with processing. I'm still shooting 8x10 color , but now far less often than smaller formats. I've already got plenty of older 8x10 chromes and color negs to print from.

Drew, 8x10 film is four times the size of 4x5 film.

DREW WILEY · Mar 2, 2020

Duuuh, Alan. I'm referring to average pricing at the moment in the US. 8x10 costs only about twice as much to develop in C41 as 4x5. Then the film itself varies in price with respect to degree of availability and specific product. I expect all color sheet film to trend upwards.

thuggins · Mar 2, 2020

That is a surprising disconnect in pricing. A roll of 120 is about 72 in^2, so it is certainly in the ballpark of 8x10 area wise. That puts it about twice as much per unit area.

But I just bought a box of Ektachrome for about $60, which would be $240 scaled up to 8x10. I was more than happy to shell out the 60 bucks.

The "price of film" rant is pretty common here. I've done some checking on the price of film over the years, from the turn of the (20th) century, to just after the war, to the heyday 70's and 80's. While it may have been cheaper in the heyday, it certainly wasn't at any other time. Folks were paying about $20/roll for B&W film for the better part of the 20th century. And a good camera could cost a month's wages. We should count ourselves lucky.

138S · Mar 2, 2020

Ex-Factory cost of 8x10 color film is aproximately the same for the same surface than 120 roll film, a 120 roll has similar ex-factory cost than a 8x10 sheet. Price of sheet film is marketing decision, simply they make their calculations to guess what price may deliver highest profits.

To have an idea of the pricing a bare 2m pallet of film:

...contains 1400 8x10" boxes that can be worth $430,000.

Essentially there is not significative overcost in serving film in 8x10" sheets compared to 120 rolls, in fact two or three employees may cut film and package the boxes in that pallet spending one or two days, even in the case they have to package film manually counting the sheets one by one, in the worst case $3000 overcost from those $430,000 can be linked to handling and packaging.

In fact we have the ULF custom cuts ilford makes yearly as an example, if anybody has a doubt...

Regarding coating the master rolls with a thicker/different base, that overcost is also not significative at all, compared with the $430,000 price, the base overcost is for sure under $1000.

Foma even sells cheaper sheets than rolls, in a probably ex-factory cost based pricing policy. A Foma 100 Roll is 3.8€ while a 8x10 sheet is 2.38€, today at Fotoimpex. Sheets 40% cheaper!!! not 300% more expensive !!!

What is sad is that Kodak and Fuji make that bet for short term profits, as they don't know how long LF color and BW photographers will stay then they may prefer taking all possible money now rather than sustaining or expanding customer base making a bet to favor long term profits. Other manufacturers like Ilford and Foma clearly keep per surface price of LF sheets close to roll film, also from a corporate decision.

What is clear is that Kodak/Fuji LF pricing is discouraging, at least for me as in my country it's even more expensive than in US while standard of living is well lower, my solution is using a roll film back for the view camera, still having movements but not the same.

Yes, I'm angry, but not because I cannot shot LF color... I'm angry becasue I feel they are killing a kind of photography.

NortheastPhotographic · Mar 2, 2020

I do get that 8x10 is expensive generally but at some point it's just unaffordable. Over $200 per box of 10 sheets is probably at that point. It just becomes kind of a dumb show-offy medium that can really only be practiced when sponsored by a well-to-do backer after that point. I am probably in a minority here in that I generally trust Kodak when they say they need to price something a certain way. But in regards to 8x10 it just seems like something has broken down.

138S · Mar 2, 2020

NortheastPhotographic said:
I do get that 8x10 is expensive generally but at some point it's just unaffordable. Over $200 per box of 10 sheets is probably at that point. It just becomes kind of a dumb show-offy medium that can really only be practiced when sponsored by a well-to-do backer after that point. I am probably in a minority here in that I generally trust Kodak when they say they need to price something a certain way. But in regards to 8x10 it just seems like something has broken down.

You can consider lucky, in the EU price is 275€, which is $307, and if you apply my country standard of living difference this is like if your price was $500, game over. Alaris...

DREW WILEY · Mar 2, 2020

Comparing Foma b&w film to Kodak color sheet film, or even their own black and white products, is irrelevant because there is such a significant difference in quality. The more sheet film does in fact get seriously expensive, the more sheer quality becomes an asset. Each shot has to count. With Foma b&w, I found myself duplicating shots because I could never really trust the sheets to be blemish free; and therefore cheaper film proved actually more expensive to use in the long run, plus a lot more hassle. If one follows the plastics industry, decreasing demand does indeed make special estar base material inherently more expensive, but certain plastics in general have gone way way up over the past couple decades.
It's called inflation, and it's not going away.

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 2, 2020

How much silver is used? What is T-grain for Tmax and Portra made of?

138S · Mar 2, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
Comparing Foma b&w film to Kodak color sheet film, or even their own black and white products, is irrelevant because there is such a significant difference in quality. The more sheet film does in fact get seriously expensive, the more sheer quality becomes an asset. Each shot has to count. With Foma b&w, I found myself duplicating shots because I could never really trust the sheets to be blemish free; and therefore cheaper film proved actually more expensive to use in the long run, plus a lot more hassle. If one follows the plastics industry, decreasing demand does indeed make special estar base material inherently more expensive, but certain plastics in general have gone way way up over the past couple decades.
It's called inflation, and it's not going away.

It is not irrelevant at all, if Foma can sell a 810 sheet for 2,38€ then Kodak cannot say that coating the same emulsion on a the sheet instead on a roll has a $12 overcost, it would be LOL.

The Price of 8x10 Color Film Out of Control

NortheastPhotographic

Lachlan Young

NortheastPhotographic

NortheastPhotographic

MattKing

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Lachlan Young

removed account4

Wayne

pentaxuser

DREW WILEY

Wayne

David A. Goldfarb

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NortheastPhotographic

Alan Edward Klein

DREW WILEY

Adrian Bacon

Alan Edward Klein

DREW WILEY

thuggins

138S

NortheastPhotographic

138S

DREW WILEY

Alan Edward Klein

138S

The Price of 8x10 Color Film Out of Control

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