Tired of film-users bashing

kristopher_lawrence · Aug 24, 2008

Hi,

This post is mainly written because I am tired of being bashed by dealer who want to sell digital only, that try to convince me that digital is the only way now. Its not about the debate digi vs film, I just need some reassurance...

If you live at Ottawa, you surely know that film users are abandonned. In one week, I have been facing rough comments on the fact I use film. The manager at Black's photo on Sparks street was arguing virulently that Kodachrome has been completely discontinued... The clerck at Black's in Rideau center was refusing to send out Kodachrome for me until the manager told him it was possible. And moreover, another manager, at another photo store, betted me that Kodak would be out of film buisness in two years just after I buyed a bulb for my enlarger.

What kills film, is people saying that it is dead. I tell them about Adox efforts in bringing back AGFA stuff, they say Adox will go bancrupsy soon... I tell them about some marvelous photo stores in montreal that cares about film (Camtec, Photoservice, Lozeau in some way, Boreal printing etc...) they say that helping film users «is not buisiness wise».

I am simply tired, I can't stand it anymore. Curiously, most «normal» persons, after they get to know I use film, think I know my photographic stuff. On the contrary, shop clerks, are always treating me as a rebel that don't want to enter the crowd of digital. No argument can convice them, they simply think I am trying to be exuberant. Maybe I should show them some pictures...

Seriously, Ottawa is a bad place for film photographers...

Thanks for reading me, I needed to tell this to someone. However, when I see the growing numbers of APUG members, I get reassured since I know there is a lot more lurkers around too.

Long live film!

Kris

Paul Goutiere · Aug 24, 2008

I buy my stuff from "The Camera Store" in Calgary and feel supported. They sell film cameras and some store members use film themselves.

Film ain't dead yet!

David A. Goldfarb · Aug 24, 2008

If those shops don't support you, then you don't have to support them. You can send your Kodachrome directly to Dwayne's, who will process it anyway, no matter where you drop it off, and order film and darkroom supplies from shops online or local to you that will be glad to stock what you need and sell it to you.

RoBBo · Aug 24, 2008

"Maybe I should show them some pictures..."

Really, that's the only way to do it.

Alisha · Aug 24, 2008

What kills film, is people saying that it is dead.

I can't tell you how frustrated I was in Photography class this week when my teacher was talking to the students (us) about film. She made it sound as if no one ever uses film anymore, or that none of us students have ever seen 35mm film and have no respect for it all because we are young. At the end of the class, I freaked out and started complaining to one of my friends that digital was barely introduced a couple years ago and now people act as if no one knows what it is anymore.

As for the store's case, I'd just do what some other users have suggested, don't shop there anymore. Obviously they don't respect your choice of media, so there's no use in going there.

Film is not dead though. I know a couple of my friends who want to go back into using film because digital makes them lazy. I had a friend who complained about the fact that she never prints any of her digital pictures because she can never get herself to do it. I have another friend who wants to get into medium format photography, so film still has some life in it.

gerryyaum · Aug 24, 2008

Edmonton is a bit better than Ottawa, but you got to remember that photo store staff are salesman and what do they have to sell? Digital cameras! so take what they say with a grain of salt.

What I get tired of is the "But digital is so much easier than film!" argument, that really gets my goat..who cares how easy something is..if you cannot work hard and suffer a bit for your photographs then your not devoted enough! Why is taking the easier way out the better way?

Gerry
www.gerryyaum.com
www.gerryyaum.blogspot.com

Sean · Aug 24, 2008

Just tell them their shop will be dead long before film is dead. With online shops able to undercut their markups by 70% their days are numbered..

Tom Stanworth · Aug 24, 2008

I think the most important thing to realise in all of this is that the world is full of ignorant, stupid people I started noticing this sort of BS 5 years ago! Some of my fondest memories are of pixelographers trying to find out what (inkjet) printer and inks I used to produce my silver exhibition prints. They were clearly baffled and desperate but it did not even occur to them that they may not have been produced courtesy of Epson and a custom profile.....Oh, they had no interest in the prints themselves. The technical issues consumed them!

I shoot digital too and find that those most vociferous on the topic tend to have overly saturated, overly sharped inkjets hanging up to show how 'good' the medium is. Many are technophiles not photographers. Film has the same issues sometimes with people being more into the process than the outcome, but digital has swallowed up millions of IT/computer Nazis that really have little interest in 'art'.

At the end of the day, who gives a (insert expletive of choice)? They day shop clerks have a bearing on my photography and need to do what i do, I am most definitely doing it for the wrong reasons. They are irrelevant in every conceivable way and you should not let it get to you for this very reason. However, once in a while, I find someone who works in a digi environment but has a burning passion for film...and they dont get enough customers like you!

Everything you need to do you can get done by ordering film online if there is nowhere decent locally, processing etc.

You use film because it gets you where you want to go. We all do. All that matters is what happens when a person stands in front of a well lit print, stops and just looks.

Jeff Kubach · Aug 24, 2008

I enjoy using film. Digital is ok, of the two I perfer film. At some of the camera shops around where I live, some of the young salespeople perfer film over digital. This is somewhat strange to me, I would have thought it would be digital.

Jeff

Dennis S · Aug 24, 2008

Ottawa is bad for ALL of Canada. !!

hawkwind · Aug 24, 2008

kristopher_lawrence said:
Hi,

What kills film, is people saying that it is dead. I tell them about Adox efforts in bringing back AGFA stuff, they say Adox will go bancrupsy soon... IKris

Is it true that Adox will go into bankrupsy?

I hope not.

--Gary

argus · Aug 24, 2008

kristopher_lawrence said:
they say that helping film users «is not buisiness wise».

Oh,

then I must be a complete idiot! There's only one digital aspect to my business and that's the buying process

G

PHOTOTONE · Aug 24, 2008

Well I live and operate a commercial photo studio in a relatively small town in Arkansas. My only local photo store has always been rather indifferent and at times hostile to professional photographers, hence I started mail-ordering all my materials long before the digital "craze" took over. It is not hard to see why the stores push digital. The digital camera makers give "spiffs" to the clerks for selling the merchandise. This amounts to a commission on each camera sold. They make more money by selling digital. This goes directly to the salesperson, not to the store, so those people are motivated.

If you live in a town with a College that still teaches analog photography (and there are still plenty of those) there will be one photo store in town that will have analog materials...for the students to purchase for their class work.

In any case, even though I have digital cameras, computers and printers, I will continue to shoot film as long as I can get it mail-order. My clients still prefer 4x5 color transparencies. I still prefer them, and I still like to process them myself. For my personal work, I prefer 5x7 b/w negs.

PHOTOTONE · Aug 24, 2008

hawkwind said:
Is it true that Adox will go into bankrupsy?

I hope not.

--Gary

No, no. That was all hot air on the part of a store clerk.

Klopstock · Aug 24, 2008

hawkwind said:
Is it true that Adox will go into bankrupsy?

I hope not.

--Gary

BS. A dealer that refuses to sell films and papers says it, did you read the context?

You know what killed so many, many, many camera and photo stores in the last years?

They lost the material business. In the past, a shop made most of the money not with cameras, but with films and prints, it was a stable income. All camera and lens business was an addon.

And then they started selling digital stuff, biting the hands that fed them.

Today, there is still a nice profit in film, paper and chemistry, but the quantity of sales is the problem. A mailorder house without an expensive downtown shop sells reasonable quantities. (Of course, most of them also sell inkjet papers etc.)

mabman · Aug 24, 2008

Well, going to Black's was your first mistake On a serious note, I believe they got new upper management in the last year or so, and seem to be going as digital as possible. They still have some film around in most stores, but selection is minimal at best (I think their house brand 35mm film is rebranded Fuji Superia, and I haven't seen any B&W in their local stores), and they've cut back on which stores still do any processing in-house.

Here in Winnipeg, they've closed 2 stores in the last year, and I believe only 1 store still does 35mm C-41 processing for the remaining couple of stores in the city (and by "stores" I mean small mall store-fronts - I don't think Black's does much of the full-size stand-alone stores, at least here). Good luck finding a salesperson who knows anything about film and processing options, though - I mentioned 120 film once, asking if they can process it at all, and got a completely blank stare.

There is one independent retail store here that caters to film users (Photo Central) - in fact, I was just there, and they've just started stocking Rollei Retro (they stocked Agfa APX when it was available), and they just announced a price drop on most Ilford films (I think Ilford got a different distributor in Canada, which may have helped, and/or pricing in Canadian dollars has changed due to the dollar hovering around prime with the US dollar).

The other pro/am photo shop in town, Don's, does carry some film, and are more into Kodak, but going to their stores in person is a frustrating experience, as they don't really train their staff on film-related products (even the basics - which films are traditional B&W, which ones are C-41, which ones are slide, which to me seems pretty fundamental - so if you ask for a certain kind of film from the fridge behind the counter, you often get the completely wrong film handed to you).

So, 2 points - no, film isn't dead in Canada, and if Winnipeg can support film users, surely there's at least 1 store in Ottawa/Hull that does the same! Stick with it, ask around, don't bother with Black's.

bill spears · Aug 24, 2008

I guess it been said lots of times but the fact that traditional materials are in the minority or are harder to obtain makes the whole process of analogue photography more interesting. I actually see it as a challenge, to 'hunt down' these wonderful 'ingredients' we have and turn them into something beautiful !

Yes it is frustrating to keep getting bashed by the dealers for being dinosuars or whatever but I've never wanted to be mainstream anyway.
I've always said to myself that if silver based materials became extinct I would seriously give up photography and take up another form of traditional printmaking such as etching/intaglio etc.

Its up to us to stick with our cause, fight our corner and thank god for APUG !!

Bill

Paul Goutiere · Aug 24, 2008

There is an upside to all of this. Some digital folks get pretty passionate about the switch. They will virtually dump their film equipment at very cheap prices.

The big auction site sells a lot of film cameras for prices that would have unheard of 10 years ago. Film camera prices seem to increasing which would indicate to me
a renewed interest. (Used digital cameras are generally ignored or sell very low.)

A herd mentality drives the marketplace. Some people can be driven like sheep. Their opinion is worth little.

tim_walls · Aug 24, 2008

PHOTOTONE said:
It is not hard to see why the stores push digital. The digital camera makers give "spiffs" to the clerks for selling the merchandise. This amounts to a commission on each camera sold. They make more money by selling digital. This goes directly to the salesperson, not to the store, so those people are motivated.

You know, this got me thinking.

When I were a lad (as they say in Yorkshire,) I worked in a major high-street electronics chain here in the UK, which also made a very nice living out of selling to cameras to people who didn't want to be patronised by the 'proper' camera shops.

Anyway, it was the case then that with all the things we sold, the profit margin was much better on consumables than it was actual equipment. All the staff incentivisation - spiffs, as you say - was predicated on this fact.

Seriously, there was more profit on a bulk pack of video tapes than on the video recorder to play it on. I'd be surprised if that had changed much in the intervening years - the consumer electronics manufacturers have a very tough time indeed and margins are razor thin in that business. One major CE company I later went to work for in a professional capacity actually sold televisions at a loss in the UK just because they couldn't afford their brand not to be seen in the stores.

The consumer electronics business is not one which the photo stores can possibly want to be in. Consumables & services always has been and always will be where the real money is to be made; you'd think they'd cling onto their film sales as long as possible...

DaveOttawa · Aug 24, 2008

News flash - film lives in Ottawa!

As others have said forget Blacks, you are wasting your time and their time by trying to get them to sell something they don't want to sell.
Future Shop doesn't sell vinyl or tube amplifiers either
Henrys stores carry some film and paper, they can order in products that aren't on the shelves as well. Mail order is another option, try www.bigcameraworkshops.com which is in ON before crossing the border.
Film is most definitely alive and kicking in Ottawa.

rore · Aug 24, 2008

Its good to know that i´m not all alone...

Vonder · Aug 24, 2008

I own ten or so digitals (6 dslrs) and 30+ film cameras. I can converse in both worlds. When I shoot weddings I give my clients the choice and so far, only 2 in the last five years has wanted film, despite the fact I digitize and make available online the film-based pictures. When I shoot really important stuff I use film. Like my kids. My dogs. I'm fortunate enough to have two film labs in town, even though one basically sucks, but at the good one, MAN do they push digital. I witnessed them in action - someone asked does anyone shoot film still? The reply - Not really. Students mainly. Give your film camera away to your nephew. They aren't worth anything.

*sigh*

I suppose I coulda said something, but decided not too. The folks behind the counter are just folks, like me, trying to earn a living. Salemen have been telling half-truths for centuries. Carpe diem. The shop still does GREAT C-41 work, and sells darkroom supplies, and film, so I keep buying from them. It's sad that they have to say those things to make a sale.

dbonamo · Aug 24, 2008

Wolfeye said:
I own ten or so digitals (6 dslrs) and 30+ film cameras. I can converse in both worlds. When I shoot weddings I give my clients the choice and so far, only 2 in the last five years has wanted film, despite the fact I digitize and make available online the film-based pictures. When I shoot really important stuff I use film. .......

Wolfeye,

Just wondering, out of all your clients what was the main reason for them choosing digital over film?

removed account4 · Aug 24, 2008

it all has to do with money.
as mentioned clerks get money for selling ...

people are people and don't know everything,
even though they want you to think they do ....
they read "stuff" online or get "info" from a friend
and they don't make sure it is true.
and of course we hear thing too and jump to conclusions
the same way they do.

if you don't like your shop don't shop their, the world is small now

good luck!

Shelley-Ann · Aug 24, 2008

Paul Goutiere said:
There is an upside to all of this. Some digital folks get pretty passionate about the switch. They will virtually dump their film equipment at very cheap prices.

The big auction site sells a lot of film cameras for prices that would have unheard of 10 years ago. Film camera prices seem to increasing which would indicate to me
a renewed interest. (Used digital cameras are generally ignored or sell very low.)

A herd mentality drives the marketplace. Some people can be driven like sheep. Their opinion is worth little.

So true. I know many people here in Toronto who still religiously use film. Mind you, Toronto is a bigger market than Ottawa, but there must be at least one store there that supports film users.

Blacks can't even make decent digital prints, much less film ones. They don't want to help you out? Move on. There are lots of places online that will happily help you out.

Tired of film-users bashing

kristopher_lawrence

Paul Goutiere

David A. Goldfarb

Moderator

RoBBo

Alisha

gerryyaum

Sean

Admin

Tom Stanworth

Jeff Kubach

Dennis S

hawkwind

argus

PHOTOTONE

PHOTOTONE

Klopstock

mabman

bill spears

Paul Goutiere

tim_walls

DaveOttawa

rore

Vonder

dbonamo

removed account4

Shelley-Ann

Tired of film-users bashing

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Admin

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