The Price of 8x10 Color Film Out of Control

138S · Mar 2, 2020

Alan Edward Klein said:
How much silver is used? What is T-grain for Tmax and Portra made of?

Manufacturing a 810 color sheet or roll is under $2 marginal cost for sure, but a corporation also has to charge for a lot of fixed costs, financial duties, profits, etc The way they charge more in a product or other is an internal affair.

Kodak/Fuji do punish a lot LF photopgraphers, compared to ilford/Foma, no doubt.

Of course they are free to do what they want.

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 2, 2020

Just an aside. I saw Amazon was selling 35mm Tmax film that expired in about 7 months hence. ( I sent an email to the supplier for them and asked.) B&H was selling the same film that expired about twenty one months hence. Price isn't everything.

138S · Mar 2, 2020

Alan Edward Klein said:
Just an aside. I saw Amazon was selling 35mm Tmax film that expired in about 7 months hence. ( I sent an email to the supplier for them and asked.) B&H was selling the same film that expired about twenty one months hence. Price isn't everything.

Well, it depends, at $30 per shot, Portra 160 8x10" in the EU, to me price is all, I won't shot it.

DREW WILEY · Mar 2, 2020

As usual, how do you know any of this? The usual industrial spies you've planted into Kodak or Fuji board room meetings? They aren't charities. And the price of 8x10 color is indeed getting out of reach for many of us. I'm just hoping to pace my own shooting of it intelligently enough through my 70's so that I don't need to buy much at these way higher prices; after that, I'll have to see how my comfort level is with that big of a camera. But as long as 4x5 film is selling it is still feasible for occasional cuts of 8x10 color film to be done on demand too, based on minimum cut requirements. Ilford and Foma don't even make color film. Nobody is being punished. Inflation combined with reduction of overall demand is just a fact of life. Be happy we have color sheet film at all. But price-wise, 4x5 is the new 8x10. But things like museum board and plexiglas glazing have gone up just as badly. Fortunately, color printing paper has gone up only modestly, so I can still print a certain number of my already on-hand 8x10 images. And black and white film remains reasonable. I use both Ilford and Kodak b&w sheet films, depending; gave up on Foma. I use Portra 160 to make internegs from older 8X10 chromes; but that's an inherently limited volume of Portra simply due to the significant amount of work involved each instance.

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 2, 2020

138S said:
Well, it depends, at $30 per shot, Portra 160 8x10" in the EU, to me price is all, I won't shot it.

I was only making the point that for the same film, expiration date may affect the price of it. So that should be a consideration that someone makes when buying. A young wife may have more expensive tastes. But there are hidden benefits.

DREW WILEY · Mar 2, 2020

Well, the Foma price does not get you Kodak film, and certainly not anyone's color film. Unrelated commodities. Short-dated or even post-dated film might or might not be a bargain, depending on how it's been stored. I've shot lots of it without issue, but made sure it had been cold stored the whole time.

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 2, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
Well, the Foma price does not get you Kodak film, and certainly not anyone's color film. Unrelated commodities. Short-dated or even post-dated film might or might not be a bargain, depending on how it's been stored. I've shot lots of it without issue, but made sure it had been cold stored the whole time.

I was referring to product being sold by Amazon where I doubt if it's been stored in a freezer, just laying around in their storage bins.

athbr · Mar 2, 2020

Price discrimination probably plays a role. A billionaire pays the same price for an iPhone as a single mom even though he'd be willing to pay much more. Apple would love to charge different prices for different people but that is impractical for a number of sound economic reasons.

One way to extract more value from customers who are willing to pay more is to charge them for special SKUs or product features. This is why extra storage on an iPhone costs so much more than what SSD chips retail at wholesale. Because Apple have identified that extra storage is a feature higher income customers desire and overcharges because they know they'll pay (on average).

Same logic applies in explaining why business/first class seats in airplanes cost disproportionately more than economy.

In this case, Kodak/Fuji/Et. al have identified that LF shooters are largely higher income earners and more willing to spend to achieve results. So they price accordingly.

Bottom line, businesses don't charge what they need but what they can get away with.

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 2, 2020

athbr said:
Price discrimination probably plays a role. A billionaire pays the same price for an iPhone as a single mom even though he'd be willing to pay much more. Apple would love to charge different prices for different people but that is impractical for a number of sound economic reasons.

One way to extract more value from customers who are willing to pay more is to charge them for special SKUs or product features. This is why extra storage on an iPhone costs so much more than what SSD chips retail at wholesale. Because Apple have identified that extra storage is a feature higher income customers desire and overcharges because they know they'll pay (on average).

Same logic applies in explaining why business/first class seats in airplanes cost disproportionately more than economy.

In this case, Kodak/Fuji/Et. al have identified that LF shooters are largely higher income earners and more willing to spend to achieve results. So they price accordingly.

Bottom line, businesses don't charge what they need but what they can get away with.

Well, I wouldn't use the words, "what they can get away with." Cost of goods, supply and demand as well as competition are the main determinants of price. For example, the price of photos and cost of professional photographers have gone down generally. THe huge availability of photos, very good ones from many non=pros, have greatly diminished the market prices. But just like 7 foot basketball players who demand huge salaries due to their rarity and ability, great photographers, and films, will always be desired by people willing to pay the price. That;s how markets work. It's not magical or corrupt.

DREW WILEY · Mar 2, 2020

Amazon is a huge octopus, or in many minds, a giant tentacled business parasite. It sells products directly; but it also licenses its search engine and payment method to a great many smaller businesses of varying degrees of legitimacy. I suspect it makes a major part of its income in that secondary manner. There are incidents of counterfeit items being sold by Amazon directly, but a problem is more likely to happen with secondary vendors. They aren't very good monitoring anomalies in that case, so you have to do your homework. There are sometimes liquidators for stocks of old film and paper, just like there are for out-of-specification flooring etc. Pricing is therefore inconsistent and a lot depends on the integrity of the specific vendor. But I'm not amused at athbr's comment, which is not only insulting but total BS. I shot, printed, and exhibited large format color when I most certainly wasn't rich, but rather, really struggling. And quite a number of serious photographers could state the same thing. We did it for sake of the quality involved. But large format photographers tend to shoot a lot more carefully; so their actual film cost might be considerably less than a small format machine-gunner. Manufacturing and distribution businesses use all kinds of strategies, some wise, some foolish. Sometimes they deliberately lose money on a product just to generate an appearance of market share, hoping to attract more investors. There are all kinds of smoke and mirrors games, and many don't end up well. Some cut their profits to unrealistic margins in order to compete more aggressively; but a bear which hasn't put on any fat before winter might not make it through. Kodak made a ton of mistakes when they had a lot of fat on.

pentaxuser · Mar 2, 2020

athbr said:
Bottom line, businesses don't charge what they need but what they can get away with.

Drew, is this the line that is total BS and if not what part of athbr's post was total BS

Thanks

pentaxuser

athbr · Mar 2, 2020

Alan Edward Klein said:
Well, I wouldn't use the words, "what they can get away with." Cost of goods, supply and demand as well as competition are the main determinants of price. For example, the price of photos and cost of professional photographers have gone down generally. THe huge availability of photos, very good ones from many non=pros, have greatly diminished the market prices. But just like 7 foot basketball players who demand huge salaries due to their rarity and ability, great photographers, and films, will always be desired by people willing to pay the price. That;s how markets work. It's not magical or corrupt.

These words aren't intended as insults. This is a general economic truth. A firm has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to maximize profits. A business that does not do this is simply a bad business.

In truth supply and demand are the only things that affect price. Cost of Goods are a part of supply in that they determine how many units can be supplied of any good per price point by a supplier or collective community of suppliers.

If costs go down, a business might lower their pricing to become more competitive. The added sales might make up for the lost margins. Or they may not. Lower costs tend to lead to lower prices. But there is no guarantee that they will.

Pricing is a complex strategy that involves many variables. But the target being optimized is always the same. To increase profits. The price they can "get away with" is the highest price they can charge before decrease in sales lower profits faster marginally than the added margin increases them.

I do not disdain Kodak for pricing what they can get away with. If I were their shareholder I would expect them to. And as a customer I am happy that they are doing their best to remain profitable.

DREW WILEY · Mar 2, 2020

athr - Don't try to lecture me with generic knowledge. I was a professional corporate buyer for four decades, having worked my way out of the starving artist phase, and knew numerous manufacturing CEO's on a first name basis. I've seen it all. You'd be amazed just how many manufacturing concerns are indeed badly run, and just how incompetent some at the top can be. That's why so many big corporations have failed in such a relatively short time. A lot of it is self-inflicted due to the greed of just a tiny number of these people at the top. The "fiduciary responsibility" many of the movers and shakers have in mind is to screw the stakeholders, ruin the company as rapidly as possible, take a giant golden parachute payout, then move on like locusts to destroy something else as fast as possible. Sometimes these kinds of managers are installed to deliberately destroy corporations from the inside, so a competitor can buy out the name brand very cheaply, then substitute a bait-and-switch line of substandard "outsourced" products as well as avoid paying domestic taxes. This kind of remark applies to publicly-traded companies. Privately held mfg corporations tend to have much higher ethics and a long-term goal in mind. If Kodak hadn't been involved in stock market shenanigans, they would have probably weathered certain transitions far better
than they did.

athbr · Mar 2, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
But I'm not amused at athbr's comment, which is not only insulting but total BS.

My intention is never to insult nor is it ever to handle cattle manure.

I am simply describing what are generally understood and agreed upon principles of economics. That firms are profit maximizers and don't price according to fixed margins but to increase profit. Thus, there is no reason to expect that if Xm2 of some film in 35mm costs Y that Xm2 of that same film in LF should also cost Y. The cost of goods sold might be the same but the demand might be different (either due to number of people demanding or their capability to pay among other things).

The fact is that LF film costs more per m2 than 35mm. One hypothesis for this is that the market participants in that segment have a larger willingness to pay. This could be that they have more disposable income or willing to spend greater shares of that income.

I do not work for a film manufacturer so I cannot provide evidence for this hypothesis. But it does strike me as eminently plausible. LF gear can be expensive, practicing it is time consuming and the learning curve relatively steep. The average LF photographer is probably more invested (emotionally, professionally, and financially) in film photography than the average 35mm photographer (which often includes newer entrants and students).

I appreciate that you were able to commit to LF even when struggling. I'm sure others did too. And I have nothing but respect for them. But anecdotal evidence has little bearing on my argument. My argument is about the average and aggregate demand of a certain sector of the film photography market.

I have no issue with Kodak pricing their film as they see fit. I am happy they are able to supply it profitably.

athbr · Mar 2, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
athr - Don't try to lecture me with generic knowledge. I was a professional corporate buyer for four decades, having worked my way out of the starving artist phase, and knew numerous manufacturing CEO's on a first name basis. I've seen it all. You'd be amazed just how many manufacturing concerns are indeed badly run, and just how incompetent some at the top can be. That's why so many big corporations have failed in such a relatively short time. A lot of it is self-inflicted due to the greed of just a tiny number of these people at the top. The "fiduciary responsibility" many of the movers and shakers have in mind is to screw the stakeholders, ruin the company as rapidly as possible, take a giant golden parachute payout, then move on like locusts to destroy something else as fast as possible. Sometimes these kinds of managers are installed to deliberately destroy corporations from the inside, so a competitor can buy out the name brand very cheaply, then substitute a bait-and-switch line of substandard "outsourced" products as well as avoid paying domestic taxes.

I am not trying to lecture anyone.

Northeast Photographic asked why a certain product is more expensive than one might assume from the costs. I offered an economic analysis of why costs and prices don't always walk hand to hand.

I mentioned fiduciary responsibility because I didn't want to seem like I was making a moral valuation of a firm charging what they can get away with. I was making a purely observational argument.

It seems you have strong opinions about stakeholders and golden parachutes which you are entitled to. In earnest, I share some of them. But I don't come here to discuss politics.

Good night.

DREW WILEY · Mar 2, 2020

We posted simultaneously. Please read my last post. There are business school types and those who learned in the trenches what real business warfare looks like. I'm of the latter variety. To understand what's really going on with a category of products, you have to have some inside knowledge. I'm was never involved in film distribution, but did go out of my way to learn the personal character and background of the respective corporate leaders of companies I was interested in buying from. Sometimes red flags instantly went up. Some of these CEO's had ruined six or eight companies in a row. But whenever possible, I avoided publicly traded companies because there is just so much shady and random nonsense involved in the stock market. This is just the way it actually is; it has nothing to do with political opinions. Those might come into play if someone is hypothesizing a way to fix it. Real jail time might be a valid answer, but they'd have to build a whole lot of new prisons and appoint a lot of new judges for all the white-collar crooks out there. Film manufacture is probably just too small a niche to attract the vultures nowadays, which might be a good thing.

138S · Mar 2, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
I was a professional corporate buyer for four decades and knew numerous manufacturing CEO's on a first name basis. I've seen it all.

Ok, if you are that smart then for you it would be easy to guess that the Kodak/Fuji beyond x2 overpricing of LF products compared to roll film products it's about pricing policy, not related to ex-factory manufacturing cost, specially since ilford/Foma sell sheet film at similar price or less than roll film.

The Kodak/Fuji overpricing for LF it's quite coarse, we are not talking about a +10% or +15% overpricing, but about a 250% overpricing compared to rolls, one has to be quite naive to belive it's about industrial costs.

Let me explain you something, if you were not aware, KPP2 is a totally ultra-crashed pension fund with ultra-urgent cash needs that is trying to sell Alaris corporation, and Alaris has exclusive commercialization rights on Eastman Kodak products.

KPP2/Alaris wants all money they can get in the short term, if this damages long term busines this is secondary for them, they want the cash now and they also want to show short term profits to allow the sell of the corporation at the highest possible price, if they have to discourage every kind of film photographer on earth in the way then this is secondary, they won't be much time on business anyway (this is for sure), so future for them is not a concern.

Me, I'm angry, because that abusive policy for the short term is to damage color LF long term survavility, that prices are discouraging not only for present practitioners, but also for young newcomers.

Lachlan Young · Mar 2, 2020

NortheastPhotographic said:
It just becomes kind of a dumb show-offy medium

Arguably, that has been the case with 8x10 for a long time - it's more about the effect of the camera on the sitter or the user. And it's perfectly illustrated by one particularly entitled poster clogging up this thread with his usual ignorance and wild guesses. Especially as he seemingly can't tell apart the massive cost of design and coating difference between Foma (single coating plus topcoat) and Portra (about 15-16 layers).

138S · Mar 2, 2020

Lachlan Young said:
Arguably, that has been the case with 8x10 for a long time - it's more about the effect of the camera on the sitter or the user. And it's perfectly illustrated by one particularly entitled poster clogging up this thread with his usual ignorance and wild guesses. Especially as he seemingly can't tell apart the massive cost of design and coating difference between Foma (single coating plus topcoat) and Portra (about 15-16 layers).

Man, the coating technology it's exactly the same for rolls than for sheets, nothing, absolutely nothing of industrial kind justifies a 250% overpricing of sheets over rolls, it's about marketing policy instructed from the crashed KPP2, hey, you are in the UK, so you should be aware...

https://www.insideimaging.com.au/2019/exclusive-kodak-up-for-sale/ : "The trustees of KPP2 intend to hand over what’s left of the Kodak Alaris group – after attempts to sell some or all of the various business units – to the UK Pension Protection Fund."

So better to squeeze as much money they can now, as at the end it will be all owned by the UK government anyway, it's time to squeeze all possible money in every product range for the short term. What would you do in that situation ?

DREW WILEY · Mar 2, 2020

8X10 color film is wonderful to print from. I'm glad I mainly worked with it for quite awhile and still have a decent reserve of Ektar in the freezer. But I did sell off my balance of 8x10 chrome film after Cibachrome went extinct. Now it's becoming more a special project medium for RA4 printing. That's OK because I can divert much of my energy and budget to black and white work or smaller format color instead. My annual budget for pet food is more than film anyway.

NortheastPhotographic · Mar 2, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
8X10 color film is wonderful to print from. I'm glad I mainly worked with it for quite awhile and still have a decent reserve of Ektar in the freezer. But I did sell off my balance of 8x10 chrome film after Cibachrome went extinct. Now it's becoming more a special project medium for RA4 printing. That's OK because I can divert much of my energy and budget to black and white work or smaller format color instead. My annual budget for pet food is more than film anyway.

I am enjoying scanning E6 film so I've started buying E100G when I can find it frozen. I am kind of interested in contact printing RA4 though sometimes I think I must be crazy. I have a perfectly good 4x5 enlarger and a 4x enlargement would be...I'm sure nearly as good. Why do I do this to myself?

DREW WILEY · Mar 2, 2020

Alas, I sold all of my 8x10 E100G, Astia 100F, and even CDUII. I do have one box of post-dated E100G Readyload paks still in the freezer. The new E100 product looks quite similar, but if 120 roll film pricing is any clue, it's going to come out about twice the price as color neg in sheet version. Like I already mentioned, I'm getting superb results printing old 8x10 chromes via Portra internegs. But I only made 12 of those 8x10 internegs a couple months ago for use later this Spring, so that kind of film usage isn't going to break the bank. Ektar is a lot more fussy with color temp balance than most chrome films. You really need a couple of warming filters on hand or you can get cyan crossover that's very difficult to post-correct.

MattKing · Mar 2, 2020

I'll repeat myself - the film itself is the very least expensive component of what we buy.
And the price of what we buy is most affected by economies of scale.
What sorts of economies of scale does 8x10 colour negative film enjoy?
It doesn't make any sense to analyze costs based on square inches of film. What makes sense is to analyze costs based on how much production capacity is consumed by each product.
If it takes the same production capacity - specialized staff and specialized equipment and otherwise not duplicatable production time - to produce 100 boxes of 8x10 Portra as it does to produce 10,000 rolls of 135-36 Portra, why should Kodak price those 100 boxes at a price less than 10,000 rolls of 135-36?

Wayne · Mar 3, 2020

NortheastPhotographic said:
I am enjoying scanning E6 film so I've started buying E100G when I can find it frozen. I am kind of interested in contact printing RA4 though sometimes I think I must be crazy. I have a perfectly good 4x5 enlarger and a 4x enlargement would be...I'm sure nearly as good. Why do I do this to myself?

The fun?

Deleted member 88956 · Mar 3, 2020

I think a simple comparison of what 4x5 vs. 8x10 holder costs, brings the price of 8x10 film in line with same insanity.

The Price of 8x10 Color Film Out of Control

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