Where they cut down and perforate film to the various formats. Or a place that makes candy.
What is a confectioning facility?
?! What is Kodak Alaris' dependence on China?
Where they cut down and perforate film to the various formats. Or a place that makes candy.
Does Sino Promise provide film to Alaris?
No. Never has.
People engaged in a hobby, unless they are wealthy, need to try to control their spending, since every part of it is an expense.
I'm far from wealthy and I still buy film (I print, too). Problem these days is that there are too many of us, so the film is mostly out of stock.
Is the problem there are too many of us or that there are manufacturing and distribution problems?
I'm far from wealthy and I still buy film (I print, too).
Many reasons, here's just one: speaking for myself purely, I don't enlarge my colour film but I much prefer the colours I get from scanned+inverted Colorplus than those I was getting from the so-called 'Film Simulations' in my Fujifilm X-T20 mirrorless camera, which quite frankly sucked.Almost no one is enlarging the film, anyway, so why bother with it? -because it's cool?
Is the problem there are too many of us or that there are manufacturing and distribution problems?
But buying film and paper, if you're strictly doing it as a hobby, uses money you can spare - and that is limited, right?
Many reasons, here's just one: speaking for myself purely, I don't enlarge my colour film but I much prefer the colours I get from scanned+inverted Colorplus
But at what point does that cease to matter? If film becomes so precious that you need to conserve it for the most special of images, won't that render it unusable?
Strictly speaking, I wasn't talking about people who are actually discriminating on that basis. Most people take photos to get a photo - the way it looks is secondary to them. That includes most of the people who like film because it limits their shots or slows them down or makes them think - all of those things can be done with a digital camera.
I know there are some people who genuinely prefer the colours they get from film, etc. But at what point does that cease to matter? If film becomes so precious that you need to conserve it for the most special of images, won't that render it unusable?
And you can only expect the "Film Simulation" filters to get better.
So you are saying that the engineers at Kodak are so stupid that they cannot find their way out of bed in the morning without help? That is what you are stating in your post. If the cost of quality film is too high for you, you need to change what and how often you photograph or get a new hobby. I am willing to pay what it takes to use film that I can count on having consistent high quality.
Kerrisdale Cameras in Langley still has a good stock of film. They have the stuff the other stores in the chain are out of. They just don't sell as much film in that store.
Because of price, I have been ordering all my film from B&H and having them import it for me via courier. It still ends up way cheaper then if I had bought it at our local stores here. Only exception is Ilford, where the Canadian distributor sells it quite cheap.
Thanks for the update, Matt. The problem as I see it is everyone tries to maximize their profits. That's the way the world works of course without breaking the whole product. So Sino Promise, formerly Eastman Kodak, who now makes the film for Alaris, will keep their prices as high as possible to Alaris. Alaris has nowhere else to get the film. So now that their earnings are being squeezed by Sino, they have to raise their markups to retailers to make a reasonable profit. So there's a double whammy keeping prices higher for retailers and subsequently we photographers. Two markups when Ilford has one. Plus, the first markup is at the mercy of Sino's greed that Alaris can do little about because they're stuck with Sino.
Alaris should have bought Kodak rather than letting Sino buy them. That way they'd control the manufacturing and their overall costs. Now they're dependent on a Chinese supplier who will dump Alaris the first legal chance they get. Dumb move I think in the long term. My guess is that the owners of Alaris, the retirees getting their pensions, didn't want to give up any of it. They were more concerned with their current pensions than long-term company growth. Do you know why they didn't buy Kodak?
The thing that should scare Alaris is that their only supplier is now Chinese. While Eastman Kodak, an American company, was bound to secure and effective American bankruptcy laws and US courts to enforce them, Alaris now has to depend on Chinese commercial law to protect them by keeping the bankruptcy terms. Knowing how China has disregarded commercial contracts in the past, that's a very iffy situation for Alaris.
Ok I just looked it up. SIno is only a distributor for Alaris in China. So it seems Kodak in America still makes the film. But the problem with two markups still exists which may account for some of the higher prices. (The quote about Alaris being American is theirs.)
Business - Sino Promise Group
http://www.sinopromise.com.cn › ...
Established in Hong Kong in 1993, the Sino Promise Group is the largest agent of the US company, Kodak Alaris, in the Greater China region.
There is no serious alternative for Kodak negative colour film and there won't be any for at least a few more years (and even that is a big "if"). Adox is selling a nice (but worse in every technical parameter) colour negative film at almost twice the price of Kodak Alaris' consumer film. Orwo's (limited run!) offering is even more expensive.
You are basing your conclusions too much on the comparatively expensive (at the moment) BW film from Kodak. But that is just the problem at the supply side. Eastman Kodak has a bottle neck in confectioning facilities. Until that is resolved, Kodak Alaris will mostly buy those films from Eastman Kodak that they can get the highest margins on - colour negative film. Everything else, BW and slide film in the formats that Fuji hasn't discontinued yet, is basically just to stay in the market and sold at higher than competition prices.
I purchased five rolls of TMAX400 120 at a retail specialist in Hamilton earlier this month. It was just over $18 a roll. To be honest I was shocked it was so high. I had planned to shoot TMAX400 for an up-coming project but have re-considered and will be using HP5 instead. I just ordered 30 rolls of HP5 at $7.50. Not sure the best way to expose HP5, and what to develop it at, but I can learn.
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