
The Market for Discontinued Photographic Film - leejo
https://leejo.github.io/2020/08/14/the_market_for_discontinued_film/
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throw0101a
ILFORD still makes film. They have a tour of their factory on their YouTube
channel:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXpoALotxf0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXpoALotxf0)

See also The Impossible Project, some folks who reverse engineered how to make
Polaroid instant film:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM5k4B1C7cs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM5k4B1C7cs)

* [https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/27/weve-come-full-rectangle-p...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/27/weve-come-full-rectangle-polaroid-is-reborn-out-of-the-impossible-project/)

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ninjin
That video is nothing short of amazing. Ilford HP5+ [1] has been my go-to film
(I only shoot black and white) since Fujifilm dropped Neopan 400 [2] back in
2013 and my supplies ran out two years later. I have heard that Oriental
SEAGULL 400 should be similar to my old love Neopan, but there is only so much
time I have as an amateur to shoot.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford_HP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford_HP)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopan#Neopan_400_Professional...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopan#Neopan_400_Professional_\(Presto\))

Film photography is certainly something I can recommend, at least to anyone
interested in photography in general. The lack of instant feedback does indeed
change how you operate even when you shoot digital. I would never dream of not
shooting primarily digital though if your salary depended on capturing
anything but a fully controlled scene.

~~~
rangibaby
Good on Ilford for keeping film alive. Fujifilm finally ran out of Acros 100
in their freezer, so now get Ilford to make it.

There’s some mystique around Oriental Seagull, but in reality it is “just”
rebadged Kentmere. It was really cheap and nice for about 5 minutes back in
2016...

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dillutedfixer
I work in a retail photography environment. The amount of 16-25 year olds who
come in to buy film is astonishing. Many of them don't even know why they're
shooting film. They need help loading their cameras and have no idea what to
do with the film afterwards. They'll regale me with stories about how they got
an amazing deal on a Canon AE-1 for $200. To me it's quite obviously an "in"
thing to do with young people right now. I have to admit that it kind of makes
me laugh, but overall I am happy that it's helping an element of an industry
that I love stay viable.

~~~
Aloha
200 dollars, for an AE-1? I remember when those were selling for 20 dollars.

~~~
rangibaby
They’ve gone from being so old they’re crap to being so old that they’re cool
again. All the sweet deals now are on 90s camera equipment.

The autofocus versions of the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens are competitive or cheaper
compared to the manual focus ones even though they have identical optical
formulas and the manual focus ones are almost guaranteed to need an expensive
professional overhaul at this point.

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mobilene
I shoot a lot of film; it's my main hobby. I have 50 film cameras here. The
FP-100C this fellow writes about was very nice while it lasted, and I enjoyed
shooting it.

The trick with expired films is that unless it was stored refrigerated or,
better, frozen, it degrades. Some films degrade quickly, others slowly. I
sometimes shoot 40-year-old Kodak Verichrome Pan b/w film and it usually looks
like new. I've used other expired films that looked like crap. Some people
like that degraded look but not me.

There are enough good films still produced that I've decided (except for that
Verichrome Pan) to just shoot fresh stocks.

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atoav
Curious, just last week I shot one of the last Kodak Aerochrome rolls
available in Germany. This was particilarilly challenging because it was a 40
mm sheet glued onto the 120 roll film and I used a Twin Reflex Camera, which I
had to use sideways to get a panorama format with that stripe. This means the
image in the viewfinder was not only cropped and mirrored, but also upside
down. This made the little adjustments to the camera position and angle one
usually makes automatically a particular kind of brainfuck.

I actually quite like TLRs with their mirrored viewfinders, as it forces you
to view the image a little bit more abstractly which gives better results
(unless you have to react quickly etc).

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vr46
I have been scavenging film from people who have switched to digital for
decades now, they would give me bags of it. I rescued a load just before
lockdown else it was going in the rubbish, some of it was from the early 1980s
or late 1970s. You don't know what you'll end up with as a result, but it's
all part of the the fun.

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imglorp
Doesn't that go bad eventually, from background radiation if nothing else? Or
from slow chemical reactions?

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vr46
It no longer meets the specifications, that is correct, but expiry imparts its
own unique qualities, which reflect the history of its storage and treatment -
and that is often quite an attractive trait in film, which retains its mystery
until developed :)

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catmistake
I was pretty depressed when Kodak discontinued Kodachrome. There was one place
that still developed it for a long while, but then they shut down also.
Luckily, Fuji still makes Velvia Fujuchrome. They had discontinued Velvia 100
in 2005, and there was an outcry, and they brought it back with Fujichrome 50,
redesigned the original coatings to work with the new base. Actually, I always
preferred Fujuchrome to Kodachrome or Ektochrome, colors are more saturated.
Velvia 50 tends to make people look a little red, so find and use Velvia 100
for people, but for anything else with color, Fujichrome Velvia 50 is sick.

~~~
vr46
Yaar, me too, but there is a process again to develop it, albeit in black and
white. I still have some Kodachrome left over AND some Agfa Scala! My dad’s
Kodachromes from the 50s are still perfect. I miss Cibachromes, though. The
ultimate combination.

RVP50 is not good for people. Never was.

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dvfjsdhgfv
I still shoot film, but I have to admit I always feel guilty when I dispose of
the used chemicals. That, and not the cost, is the main reason I prepare a lot
for each frame, and I tend to get much better shots.

Still, I'd like to see a day when I could get the same results on digital as
on film. The existing solutions like Silver Efex don't even come close.

~~~
klodolph
From my research, the main thing you shouldn’t pour down the drain is spent
fixer.

Classic developers contain chemicals like metol and hydroquinone, often in
combination, as active agents. The remaining chemicals in developer are things
like sodium bicarbonate, borax, and sodium hydroxide. If you are concerned,
switch to Kodak Xtol which does not use metol or hydroquinone.

Stop bath is just acetic acid and a pH indicator. You can use water as a stop
bath if you like, you just run the risk of changing the pH of your fixer.

As for fixer, it’s not fixer that is the problem per se—it’s the silver that
the fixer removes from your film or paper. The silver will mess up the sewage
treatment plant. You can remove the silver by dropping some steel wool into
the fixer, it will undergo a redox reaction and you’ll end up with rust and
metallic silver.

The only thing I am actually scared to work with is selenium toner. You should
definitely NOT pour selenium toner down the drain.

~~~
stan_rogers
Quite apart from the waste, selenium toner is... nasty. I mean the smell. One
gets rather used to many of the smells of the darkroom, equating them in one
way or another with the artist's struggle and horrible little bedsits on the
Boul Mich and so on. Selenium is different. It's the sort of smell that makes
platinum/palladium seem like a much better idea.

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duskwuff
All of the non-oxygen chalcogens (sulfur, selenium, tellurium, in theory
polonium) are known for their unpleasant-smelling organic compounds -- and, as
the elements get heavier, the smells only get worse. Sulfur compounds are bad,
selenium compounds are awful... there aren't a lot of chemists working with
tellurium compounds, but reports are that even trace amounts have a _horrific_
smell.

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lokl
An option not yet mentioned in the comments, if you shoot sheet film, is to
use X-ray film, possibly cut to the size you need.

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supernova87a
I continue to be floored by how Leica, Hasselblad, etc. retain their sale
value among the photo community. For something that is clearly (to me at
least) totally reproducible by digital equipment, cumbersome to use, and
expensive, it's like people are clamoring to buy the stuff out of sentiment.

Speaks a lot to the value of brand and emotion, doesn't it?

Note: if I could afford it, I'd buy myself a nice M6 and 903SWC...

~~~
jgust
See: classic cars. Most cars from the 60's-80's are objectively _bad_, but
there's something interesting about driving and maintaining them.

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cutoff
I bought a load of expired films a couple years ago on Facebook marketplace
for about $3 each. This allowed me to learn how to develop, scan, test
different cameras, and affordably pursue a hobby that would have otherwise
cost me thrice as much. Analog photography really changed my perspective and
I'm very grateful for that.

I'd love to see a discussion on here about the market for discontinued film
cameras. I've sold a fair amount of my point and shoots for 10x-30x as much as
I bought them for, mostly because they were usually thrifted for $5-$10.

If someone had the skills to repair some of the "for parts" cameras sold on
eBay, such as the highly sought after Olympus mju-ii, a decent profit could be
made while bringing some quality, discontinued cameras back into life.

I wonder if/when any company will ever start to reproduce analog cameras
again.

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Guybrush_T
Part of me knows shooting with film is ridiculous in 2020.

It's expensive, you don't get immediate feedback, old film cameras can often
have light leaks, etc... But there is something magical about holding and
shooting a film camera. You physically load the film. You can hear the film
advance as you shoot. You take out the completed canister. When you get your
developed film back you can see and hold the film that physically changed due
to light coming in through the camera. In a world where everything is digital
creating a physical image with light is kind of amazing.

I still mainly shoot digital. There are too many advantages to not shoot
digital in my opinion. However, if you're a fan of photography I recommend
giving film a chance. The experience is really special.

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Gimpei
Reminds me of the market for tubes for guitar amplifiers. The "good" tubes are
JAN (Joint Army Navy) tubes which were last produced in the 1960s. Someone
must have acquired quite a cache of them because they are still turning up
albeit at increasingly steep prices.

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johnr2
> The "good" tubes are JAN (Joint Army Navy) tubes which were last produced in
> the 1960s.

s/1960s/1980s

Sylvania was still making them up to 1981, when Philips ECG bought the
Sylvania tube factory so they could supply the US military. They continued
making JAN tubes until 1988. A lot of these are still available.

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dm319
Funny to see this come up. I just took my Nikon F6 with me for my family
holiday last week. It was such a pleasure to use. I've always appreciated the
dynamic response of film.

~~~
tjr
I still have my Canon EOS-3. I usually use a 6D because, well, it is more
convenient, and the price both to buy and to develop film is now high enough
to be annoying, but in most scenarios, I prefer the photographic output from
my film camera.

~~~
Aloha
I have an EOS-1 that I adore.

~~~
dm319
I remember a long time ago picking up an F100 and comparing it with a 1v. The
1v felt so light!

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ekianjo
Surprised to see so many film users on HN in the comments. I also shoot film
Ilford and Portra both in 35 mm and medium formats. It feels very different
from anything digital.

~~~
cactus2093
I wonder if the increase in quality of smartphone cameras has driven more
people back to film cameras.

10 years ago or so, if you wanted to dabble in photography you could spend
$500 on an entry-level dslr kit and start taking significantly better pictures
than your smartphone or point and shoot. Then you'd quickly hit the limits of
the mediocre auto exposure settings and relatively low dynamic range, and be
rewarded with even better shots for learning about the exposure triangle and
better learning how to control your camera. It still took a bit of work &
learning which is part of what makes something a fun hobby.

Now days the latest iphone will pretty much nail the shot 8 times out of 10,
and for power users you can tweak exposure, focus, and now even low depth of
field and extremely low light stills are possible. (This is a bit of a
generalization, for some styles of photography like birds and wildlife you
obviously still need long lenses. But smartphones can cover the 24-70mm
equivalent range really well). It's pretty hard to justify an entry-level DSLR
anymore. But a film camera still offers a relatively affordable way to slow
things, and make photography more intentional, challenging, and fun.

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javiramos
For those interested in the rise and fall of film photography, I recommend
Instant [0]. The book chronicles the story of Polaroid. The last parts of the
book capture the bad decisions around the shutting down of film production.

[0]
[https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/14577509-instant](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/14577509-instant)

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hengheng
In the age of low-scale manufacturing, how hard would it be to create a film
factory with today's technology, creating or buying the various chemicals and
the physically transferring them on film rolls? Can't believe there wouldn't
be a boutique market by now.

~~~
Finnucane
Film chemistry is very complex and no small scale production has been able to
match the quality or quality control of Fuji, Kodak or Ilford.

~~~
mauvehaus
To expand on this: the problem isn’t putting out one batch of high quality
film; it’s putting out batch after batch that performs exactly the same.
Nobody wants to lose an important shot because this batch of film exposes a
little differently from that batch or has slightly different color response.

Any craft brewery can make an outstanding batch of beer, and many do it quite
often. The miracle of Budweiser is making zillions of barrels of Bud and Bud
Lite that are indistinguishable from one another year after year.

~~~
Finnucane
It's not really like that. Either you can coat a 5000-foot roll of acetate
with 14 layers of chemistry to a high degree of uniformity, then slit and
sprocket the film, and package it, or you can't.

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i_am_proteus
One of the films he mentions, Acros 100, was recently re-introduced as Across
100 II. It seems very similar to the original, although is probably made by
Ilford under contract.

~~~
leejo
Yep! It has but unfortunately they're not making it in large format sizes.

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ideashower
Kodak still makes Ektar and Portra color film, I believe.

~~~
null_object
There are dozens of current film manufacturers (if you include various
rebrands and films produced under licence in China and other Asian countries).
Among these, the best-known are:

ADOX, Agfaphoto, Bergger, CineStill, FilmFerrania, FOMA, Fujifilm, ILFORD,
Kodak, ORWO, Rollei, Shanghai and Ultrafine.

Kodak still produce Portra 100, 400, 800, Ektar 100, Professional T-Max 100,
400, 3200, Tri-X, Pro Image, ColorPlus 200, UltraMax and also motion picture
film of course.

As I understand it, Kodak sell about a billion dollars worth of film each year
- but still lose money on other parts of their business.

Still, I don't understand the generally pessimistic tone of the blog-post -
seems very strange considering the poster was gifted a very valuable and
desirable load of film.

~~~
nojokes
CineStill is basically a rebrand of Kodak motion picture film.

What is worth mentioning is that Kodak invested to start making again
Ektachrome slide film after discontinuing it 8 years ago.

Fuji also discontinue its last black and white film Acros but started to
produce a new formula after an year.

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johnminter
Kodak Alaris still sells professional film

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barrenko
Film is going to return, no doubt about it.

