Yes, I know there's Rollei Ortho, but that film is much too expensive.
Here's my reasoning: A large part of the expense of making film goes into making it more sensitive, smaller grain, more sensitive, smaller grain, oh, and did I mention more sensitive? And also smaller grain. Kodak, Fuji, Ilford & co. all want you to think that every one of their films, B&W or color, has the finest grain of any film out there! And then you go out and pay five bucks a roll for finer grain that you really don't need unless you're making huge enlargements.
Also, pretty much every B&W film out there today is panchromatic. There's some expense that goes into making the emulsion red-sensitive as well. This also means that, for the guy who wants to develop his stuff in trays in the darkroom, he can't use a safelight and is deprived of the classic experience of watching his images magically appear on the film.
So why couldn't Kodak, or some other company (Ilford, are you listening?) make a bare-bones, no-frills, low-speed, don't-care-about-the-grain, orthochromatic B&W film? It would have to be much easier to make than even one of their simpler films like Tri-X. It would basically be just like their original roll films that they made back in the early 20th century, which were later branded Verichrome (am I right?).
They could crank them out in the thousands and charge two dollars apiece. I would buy ten or twenty of them right off the bat, and develop them at home. It would instantly drastically increase the volume of film I buy from Kodak, or Ilford, or whatever company it would be.
As it is, all my B&W stuff is Arista.EDU, which is the cheapest stuff I can find. I'm willing to spend more money on color.
On a larger scale, I think it's time for companies like Kodak to discard the "razor and blades" business strategy. Personally I think it would be great for some company to flood the market with cheap (but not crappy) B&W rolls of film (maybe package them with developing mailers to Dwane's or something) or even sell a home developing kit like those tintype kits Rockland Colloid used to sell, and watch the artsy millennials go nuts. The whole point of it, which would be one of the main marketing plugs, would be that it's so cheap, you can totally afford to go out and shoot three rolls of this stuff and develop it for the price of a pizza.
Here's my reasoning: A large part of the expense of making film goes into making it more sensitive, smaller grain, more sensitive, smaller grain, oh, and did I mention more sensitive? And also smaller grain. Kodak, Fuji, Ilford & co. all want you to think that every one of their films, B&W or color, has the finest grain of any film out there! And then you go out and pay five bucks a roll for finer grain that you really don't need unless you're making huge enlargements.
Also, pretty much every B&W film out there today is panchromatic. There's some expense that goes into making the emulsion red-sensitive as well. This also means that, for the guy who wants to develop his stuff in trays in the darkroom, he can't use a safelight and is deprived of the classic experience of watching his images magically appear on the film.
So why couldn't Kodak, or some other company (Ilford, are you listening?) make a bare-bones, no-frills, low-speed, don't-care-about-the-grain, orthochromatic B&W film? It would have to be much easier to make than even one of their simpler films like Tri-X. It would basically be just like their original roll films that they made back in the early 20th century, which were later branded Verichrome (am I right?).
They could crank them out in the thousands and charge two dollars apiece. I would buy ten or twenty of them right off the bat, and develop them at home. It would instantly drastically increase the volume of film I buy from Kodak, or Ilford, or whatever company it would be.
As it is, all my B&W stuff is Arista.EDU, which is the cheapest stuff I can find. I'm willing to spend more money on color.
On a larger scale, I think it's time for companies like Kodak to discard the "razor and blades" business strategy. Personally I think it would be great for some company to flood the market with cheap (but not crappy) B&W rolls of film (maybe package them with developing mailers to Dwane's or something) or even sell a home developing kit like those tintype kits Rockland Colloid used to sell, and watch the artsy millennials go nuts. The whole point of it, which would be one of the main marketing plugs, would be that it's so cheap, you can totally afford to go out and shoot three rolls of this stuff and develop it for the price of a pizza.