you can say the same thing about every company who sells digital cameras. Expending time and energy on something that you cannot change or control is pointless. It’s either more than you’re willing to pay or it isn’t.
They owned the RA-4 paper manufacturing facilities, a product that still it is sold well, but they destroyed that business and now they rebrand photopaper made by a 3rd party in Canada, IIRC.
One major reason for film in these applications is, that film is much easier to store long-term than digital files.
sigh... it’s painfully obvious that you’re complaining for no other reason than you don’t think it should cost that much.
do us all a favor: go open an online storefront that carries exclusively large format sheet film, then price your product so that you can stay in business for the volume you’ll sell. You’ll discover very quickly that the price you end up charging has *nothing* to do with the cost of goods sold and *everything* to do with how much volume you move. You’ll also discover that your prices will be so high that nobody will buy from you. You’ll then make the discovery that you’ll have to start selling other products that move at much higher volumes in order to stay in business, which will then let you charitably lower the price of the sheet film so that you can even have half a chance of selling it.
slower moving product is always priced somewhat charitably, in terms of profit margin.
besides, are you shooting 8x10 for personal reasons or for business reasons? If it’s for business reasons, just pass your costs on. If your clients won’t tolerate it, then they don’t value you using 8x10, which should prompt you to change what you’re using. Business is business. Making expensive business decisions purely on personal feelings is not a great way to do things.
I know nothing whatsoever of professional archiving of images so this is about as naive of an opinion as one can have.
Film has indeed lots of advantages for archiving of pictures and documents. Mainly in the fields of safety and costs. It makes a resurgence also in these areas. Have for example a look at the "Digital Dilemma" research projects of the film institute in Hollywood.
FilmoTec has currently a research project (supported also by the government) concerning long term storage of bank data on film. Banks are very interested in it.
Best regards,
Henning
Exactly, Mr "138S" should really open a film store and give real evidence of all his claims, showing us that he can do this business so much better.
Honestly, I would bet all my money on his fast failure. It would be a 100% safe bet. He will be bancrupt in a very short time.
exactly...
we should be thanking our lucky stars that we can even still buy 8x10 at retail at all.
For example, Kodak lost their BW photopaper business long ago, while other manufacturers today enjoy a privileged position in that sector.
Alaris is an specially interesting case about missmanagement as they also lost their manufacturing business in RA-4 sector, having to rebrand photopaper produced by others in Canada. Canada is not cheaper than UK for manufacturing, difference is management.
Now let me explain a case of succesful CRM: Yearly ULF custom cuts from ilford, this is about serving well customers while making money.
Something else, making a management effort to source LF products at similar price than roll film, ilford charges an additional 20% while kodak charges an additional 100%.
There is no colour emulsion making and coating factory in Canada at all, and therefore also none who works for Kodak Alaris. Their RA-4 paper is made in the US.
BW sheet film is much different to CN sheet film because of much higher demand. CN sheet is niche in a niche in a niche.
And Ilford is much different because they can convert in a more cost efficient way. They can cut parts from their parent-roll. That is not easy. General operation in the industry is converting a parent-/master-roll completely.
One really good shot is better than a thousand ordinary one. My philosophy with color sheet film is that if it's not worthy to be printed, don't trip the shutter.
"138S"
Again you are repeating the same lies again and again and again.
You have never been in a film factory, but you want others who have to lecture how film production is running. Always ignoring the facts. Sorry, an extremely arrogant and ridiculous behaviour.
Discussing with you is just a complete waste of time, because you are completely reluctant to learn and to look outside your bubble.
Have you been in touch with Eastman Kodak/Alaris to point out the error of their ways? I am sure after you explain everything to them, they will realize their miscalculation. Less expensive film for us and higher profits for them: it's a win-win. Let us know how that works out.
Which is why I asked you had contacted them. I don't know the costs of manufacture or the costs of distribution, so I don't know how to allocate the responsibility.Frank, you miss something quite intresting, who has the distribution rights is Alaris, not EK. Most of that crazy overprice is sinking in the KPP2-Alaris black hole, that have 1.7bn deficit.
Do you have your actual 138S on a set of rails yet? .
Which is why I asked you had contacted them. I don't know the costs of manufacture or the costs of distribution, so I don't know how to allocate the responsibility.
I haven't used a roll film back on my Norma yet except for testing its applicability, which is excellent. I mainly use these on my little Ebony 4x5 folder for especially long backpacking trips now that Quickload and Readyload sleeves are no longer available. Roll film, both b&w and color (except for the new 120 Ektachrome) is a comparative bargain here, price-wise.
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