Would you consider going traditional if...

Roger Cole said:

Good point about the 35s, and a lot of MF was used lightly by amateurs too.

I think color neg will last a lot longer than color transparency but neither is all that promising - unfortunately. Shooting Kodachrome last year reminded me what awesome stuff it was, and casting around trying out E6 films for my "restart of photography" after being out for more than 10 years lead me to Astia, which went away in 35mm after one roll on my part, and then to E100G which I really, really like. I should probably stock up on it.

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I think the motivating factor is that for 99% of the population their cheap box type 35mm camera was good enough, that cheap box camera was replaced with a cheap digital camera or a cell phone camera. That knocked the stuffing out of the colour film industry, it's had a much smaller effect on B&W because B&W moved away from the cheap market decades ago.

What I fear is that when Hollywood moves away from film completely, that companies like Kodak and Fuji will not want to maintain the coating facilities for the small amount of film they still will produce. This is the best time to get into LF, equipment is cheap because demand is relatively low, in the future when film gets harder to find, you can always roll your own onto plain acetate or even glass.

One thing we don't want to see here is that basically all of the new film cameras produced and sold today are Holgas and Dianas and such plastic toy cameras. They sell in surprisingly big numbers every year and this year they plan to double their numbers. The same online company is also one of the largest film retailers in the world. It's not the kind of photography we are used to - but it's film photography!

Roger Cole said:

I think in the short to intermediate term black and white has a pretty good future. I'm less optimistic about color, particularly color transparencies, and just when I discovered how superb E100G is. Thankfully it's still available - for now.

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I have never understood that here on apug so much people think the situation is for BW so much better than for color.
Fact is, today 95% of all films sold are color films. BW has been only a small niche for decades. Simon Galley hast posted here the number of worldwide BW film sold by almost 10 million p.a.
But single use cameras in USA market alone (all color) is more than 30 million p.a. for example.
And the situation for color slide is probably better than most think, because these films are extremely popular at the Lomo crowd with their rapidly increasing film sales.

Roger Cole said:

There are still a few 35mm cameras being made new, and a large selection of large format, but I don't know how long the former will continue and I think medium format is just about gone. Is anyone still making new medium format film cameras?

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Lots of:
Mamiya is making the RZ67, 645 AFD III and 7II.
Hasselblad the 503 and 2HF.
Cosina the Bessa III and III W.
DHW (former Rollei) the 2,8FX, 4,0FW and 4,0FT, perhaps in future the Hy6 again.
Then some manufacturers with special cameras like panorama, Noblex and Linhof for example.
And then hundres of thousands Holgas, Dianas and Lubitels are sold each year.

Film-Niko said:

I have never understood that here on apug so much people think the situation is for BW so much better than for color.
Fact is, today 95% of all films sold are color films. BW has been only a small niche for decades. Simon Galley hast posted here the number of worldwide BW film sold by almost 10 million p.a.
But single use cameras in USA market alone (all color) is more than 30 million p.a. for example.
And the situation for color slide is probably better than most think, because these films are extremely popular at the Lomo crowd with their rapidly increasing film sales.



Lots of:
Mamiya is making the RZ67, 645 AFD III and 7II.
Hasselblad the 503 and 2HF.
Cosina the Bessa III and III W.
DHW (former Rollei) the 2,8FX, 4,0FW and 4,0FT, perhaps in future the Hy6 again.
Then some manufacturers with special cameras like panorama, Noblex and Linhof for example.
And then hundres of thousands Holgas, Dianas and Lubitels are sold each year.

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The situation for B&W is better, because B&W has, since the 1940's been primarily the domain of art photography, where the monochrome nature of the image is used as an effect. For art photographers the medium and process are as much of the work as the result. So while the number of film users and amount of film used continue to shrink, the amount of B&W film being used, should remain fairly stable, and the amount of colour film used, will continue to shrink. The biggest reason for this is that for 99% of the population, the camera in a cell phone is good enough for their snap shots. Why spend $10 for a disposable film camera, when your cell phone takes as good an image.

Medium format, has the advantage of the removable film back, so a digital camera is essentially the same camera with a different back on it, this is something that very few 35mm cameras were able to take advantage of, because it was a bigger advantage to the camera companies making 35mm cameras, to make the digital as a separate camera, rather then just a back where you could switch from one to the other, as they moved production from Japan where it costs $45 to make a camera to China where it cost $4.50 to make the same camera.

The situation for B&W is also much better because the materials are so much easier to manufacture. Maybe not all that easy but way easier than color and much more feasible for smaller companies. If it comes right down to it those of us shooting large format can even use plates we can coat ourselves. It won't be sheet film but it IS well within the realm of possibility.

People who are not deeply into photography seldom think about film these days. I recently go an email from a photo club member who had a relative who was about to take a photography class. The instructor required the students to have a SLR film camera. The letter writer had no idea that film still existed and needed to know if there was anywhere (at all) where she could find a used film camera and film. She got several replies telling her it was easy and giving several more or less local sources. But this is indicative of the general knowledge about film. Many people do not know that film is still in use and that film cameras are even still being made. Talking to a number of professional camera store people in the area, it seems that film is holding it own. Sales are way down from 15 years ago, but they are steady. Those who actually do photography in any serious way are quite aware of film and generally use it, although they may use a lot less than they used to.

mablo said:

One thing we don't want to see here is that basically all of the new film cameras produced and sold today are Holgas and Dianas and such plastic toy cameras. They sell in surprisingly big numbers every year and this year they plan to double their numbers. The same online company is also one of the largest film retailers in the world. It's not the kind of photography we are used to - but it's film photography!

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...and so it provides some market support for film production, which is all to the good. What worries me is that it's basically a trend, and prone to fade away as trends do---I don't think very many of those Holgae are going to see a lifetime of use.

My hope is that the toy-camera thing converts a certain critical mass of people who find themselves saying "this is fun but I wish the camera were better". They'll age out of the hipster/Lomography scene and the inclination to take blurry photos of mundane objects, but some of them will discover that they can take film with them. Who knows---maybe they'll create a slight upmarket pressure for the toy-camera makers, and the next thing down the pike will be a reasonably solid plastic camera with a triplet lens and a basic but reliable shutter. That'd be quite acceptable for a lot of "real" photography.

-NT

I am very, very optimistic about the future of monochrome film and paper, I cannot talk about colour as it not my area of expertise. Monochrome has always been a niche, we ( ILFORD ) chose that niche back in the early 1960's.

Whilst ILFORD UK failed 6 years ago, the monochrome photo business was profitable and remains so. Obviously volumes have declined over the years and especially since D*****L exploded from 1996 onwards.

When we took over the business we just had to look at things in a different way, be more flexible and adaptable and re-engineer our business to be more efficient and use our expertise to make lower amounts but maintain quality, this we have done. We obviously do other things as well, but make no mistake monochrome has always, and always will be our number one and abiding passion. To be fair other monochrome manufacturers I am sure feel the same.

Film photography is a very important part of our whole social structure, education, history and art, I believe it will be still around in generations to come, smaller perhaps, more specialised but still around.

Photography, the art, skill and artisanship is too important, and as long as we have creative people we will have photography of all sorts , including film and silver....

Simon. ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology limited :

ntenny said:

...and so it provides some market support for film production, which is all to the good. What worries me is that it's basically a trend, and prone to fade away as trends do---I don't think very many of those Holgae are going to see a lifetime of use.

My hope is that the toy-camera thing converts a certain critical mass of people who find themselves saying "this is fun but I wish the camera were better". They'll age out of the hipster/Lomography scene and the inclination to take blurry photos of mundane objects, but some of them will discover that they can take film with them. Who knows---maybe they'll create a slight upmarket pressure for the toy-camera makers, and the next thing down the pike will be a reasonably solid plastic camera with a triplet lens and a basic but reliable shutter. That'd be quite acceptable for a lot of "real" photography.

-NT

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Holga, despite being a toy camera, isn't a recent fad and I hesitate to call it a fad. It's a niche style, just like panorama, or pictorialism.

I'm personally not into the Holga/lomo cult, but there's this photo school nearby Maine Media Workshop that has been teaching with these image making tools with acclaim from everybody for as long as I can remember; probably the '80s, and this place is not stuck in the past by any means. Something continuously taught in school for that long is something that makes it an established part of photo culture, whether you like the image aesthetics or not.

jp498 said:

I'm personally not into the Holga/lomo cult, but there's this photo school nearby Maine Media Workshop that has been teaching with these image making tools with acclaim from everybody for as long as I can remember; probably the '80s, and this place is not stuck in the past by any means. Something continuously taught in school for that long is something that makes it an established part of photo culture, whether you like the image aesthetics or not.

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My apologies if I sounded like I have an objection to the image aesthetics---I don't mind them, I just think they're something that most people pass through as a stage rather than continuing to work with for a lifetime. There are lots of people in their 20s who are very taken with "lo-fi" or "toy camera" photography, but there don't seem to be so many in their 40s or 50s.

-NT

ntenny said:

My apologies if I sounded like I have an objection to the image aesthetics---I don't mind them, I just think they're something that most people pass through as a stage rather than continuing to work with for a lifetime. There are lots of people in their 20s who are very taken with "lo-fi" or "toy camera" photography, but there don't seem to be so many in their 40s or 50s.

-NT

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Then there are those of us in our 60's or beyond who enjoy using old Brownie Box Cameras. They are about as 'lo-fi' as you can get, but much better built than a Holga or lomo camera.

mhcfires said:

Then there are those of us in our 60's or beyond who enjoy using old Brownie Box Cameras. They are about as 'lo-fi' as you can get, but much better built than a Holga or lomo camera.

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The problem with the old Brownies is they don't create an "buzz" in the blogosphere. Any marketing guy will tell you that increasing market share is all about the buzz, not much of anything else.

On one of my rare visits to the local strip mall, I walked into a Wolf camera, walked a single loop through the store, and walked out. I had thought it was a photography store, but I saw nothing in there for me. I guess I'm not into what is called photography nowadays. I wonder what it actually is that I do.

I know we call it APUG to differentiate it from digital, but I personally describe what I do as chemical photography.