So I stopped by one of my local camera shops and things were just as bad there. Not one roll of 35 color negative available. They had a couple rolls of e100 but they wanted like $25 each. No thanks.
I ended up getting a bunch of different B&W film for my girlfriend. She shot exclusively TMX and TMY when she was learning to shoot, develop and scan for simplicity’s sake, but she never had much chance to explore B&W because she moved on so quickly to color so she’s excited to try all the variety of emulsions available and see what she likes.
She’s been shooting 6x7 for the past several years so she’ll just keep doing that for color
For me I almost never shoot color anyway. I just bought a couple of boxes of Mummy 400 for 4x5 because it was too good of a deal to pass up so I’m pretty happy with my supply.
W/o seeing the actual numbers, I'm suspicious about the common notion that this is something related to supply issues and things like that. To me, it's no different than Sprouts Grocery store selling a bell pepper for $4. I think that's crazy, and don't shop there.
This ain't rocket science. If film is flying out the door at these high prices, what is the incentive for the sellers to cut the prices later on?
I'll tell you what that incentive is: None. It's invisible, because it doesn't exist. How often has anyone seen analog photography costs fall, not rise? If I shot color, I'd switch to digital or something. If the B&W film prices go in this direction, I'll do alternate photography and jettison 35mm and roll films altogether. But I am NOT going to pay $130 plus tax for 5 rolls of 120 Porta like I see on eBay.
I agree with you for the most part. The supply chain of companies that were producing the materials necessary for a lot of film producers to operate went under so the business partnerships that film manufacturers had in place that allowed them to take advantage of the scale of the market pre digital revolution are irreparably lost at this point.
I don’t want to pay these ridiculous film prices either but like you say when demand outpaces supply you get supply side economics. The businesses are going to gouge for profit because they have a responsibility to their shareholders to do so.
But I’m happy to see that demand is high again. It was looking like film really might be going away with all of those Fuji emulsions being canceled.
I just hope it’s not some fad that will fade in a couple years and leave people like me holding the bag.
If the demand can be sustained we could see new upline manufacturers and a greater scale of production which could bring the supply in line with demand and get the prices back down. That’s the only way it’s going to happen.
The alternative is fewer and fewer people shooting film as the suppliers slowly dismantle themselves to protect profits and then the technology will be lost like what happened to Polaroid and then no more film.