ottokbre wrote:
Amen. If this is about getting people to be social in the meat space than this is beyond worth it.
In LA you can spend $16 on the dumbest of things. Might as well go out and be creative with your friends and a roll of Portra 400 taking pictures of bridges and graffiti.
This place in Santa Monica charges $16 for half a cup of mediocre frozen yogurt.
I do see a lot of film camera users in Los Angeles, mostly in the more touristy areas and venues. They are like younger Millennials and older Gen Z? Usually using Canon, Nikon, and Pentax SLRs and sometimes Leica Ms and Contax Gs.
I was in Japan three months ago and there were a lot of film shooters, about the same age groups I see in LA. Asian and Japanese Gen Alpha mainly had old digital P&S compacts. Big mirrorless and DSLRs didn't seem too popular with casual tourists understandably with all the walking.
genjy wrote:
I do see a lot of film camera users in Los Angeles, mostly in the more touristy areas and venues. They are like younger Millennials and older Gen Z? Usually using Canon, Nikon, and Pentax SLRs and sometimes Leica Ms and Contax Gs.
I was in Japan three months ago and there were a lot of film shooters, about the same age groups I see in LA. Asian and Japanese Gen Alpha mainly had old digital P&S compacts. Big mirrorless and DSLRs didn't seem too popular with casual tourists understandably with all the walking.
I was in Japan during the same period and what struck me was the unbelievable number of film cameras for sale. Lots of people either passing, or giving up those cameras. That said, prices were at a level where there must be some demand. I purchased a great Leica 75mm APO Asph. Price wasn’t much different than in U.S.
bwcolor wrote:
I was in Japan during the same period and what struck me was the unbelievable number of film cameras for sale. Lots of people either passing, or giving up those cameras. That said, prices were at a level where there must be some demand. I purchased a great Leica 75mm APO Asph. Price wasn’t much different than in U.S.
Oh yeah, I saw your pic of the cat at Fushimi Inari in one of the photo threads. I took a pic of the exact same cat too. Maybe it just hangs out on that counter all day lol 🤔
I remember a Japan-based film gear youtuber saying film gear and film prices in the U.S. and Japan are about the same. That was like before the pandemic so looks like things haven't changed much since.
genjy wrote:
I remember a Japan-based film gear youtuber saying film gear and film prices in the U.S. and Japan are about the same. That was like before the pandemic so looks like things haven't changed much since.
The prices seem the same. The difference is availability. There is so much film gear in Japan that never made it to the US market. And so much more of the stuff that did.
So you really shop for film gear in Japan because of the ease of finding the gear you want. Just make sure to check for fungus!
Just do it all yourself. I tire of all of this complaining of prices. If you shoot 35, load it yourslef, much cheaper. You can develope everything yourslef for very little money. It is not that hard to do. I shoot 4x5 mostly. I develope everything myslelf (I shoot mostly B&W so it is easier but color is not that hard to do) and I print everything myself, been doing it for years, and I frame all of my prints that I sell myself as well. I do it in my small apratment. It cost me about $100.00 to shoot, develope, and frame a museum quality print that I sell for about a 60% markup.I frame using museum grade conservation materials. Not a cheap Ikea "gallery" frame. I buy wholesale from Italy which is cheaper than you would think. I use high quality paper, TrueVue glazing and acid free matting. Why am I talking about framing? Because that is where your photo should end up. The cost to develop film is not nearly as expenxive as people make it out to be. And if I can do it myslef and print and frame it for presentation in a galleray or for sale at around 100 bucks, that is not expensive.
cbortlearts wrote:
Just do it all yourself. I tire of all of this complaining of prices. If you shoot 35, load it yourslef, much cheaper. You can develope everything yourslef for very little money. It is not that hard to do. I shoot 4x5 mostly. I develope everything myslelf (I shoot mostly B&W so it is easier but color is not that hard to do) and I print everything myself, been doing it for years, and I frame all of my prints that I sell myself as well. I do it in my small apratment. It cost me about $100.00 to shoot, develope, and frame a museum quality print that I sell for about a 60% markup.I frame using museum grade conservation materials. Not a cheap Ikea "gallery" frame. I buy wholesale from Italy which is cheaper than you would think. I use high quality paper, TrueVue glazing and acid free matting. Why am I talking about framing? Because that is where your photo should end up. The cost to develop film is not nearly as expenxive as people make it out to be. And if I can do it myslef and print and frame it for presentation in a galleray or for sale at around 100 bucks, that is not expensive. ...Show more →
Sure, if you enjoy doing it all yourself that’s great. Some people just want to take photos and not get into smelling chemicals. Many people enjoy working on their cars…me I’d rather just drop my car off at a shop.
chez wrote:
Sure, if you enjoy doing it all yourself that’s great. Some people just want to take photos and not get into smelling chemicals. Many people enjoy working on their cars…me I’d rather just drop my car off at a shop.
Working on cars is a poor analogy. Because that would be akin to working on cameras as opposed to taking your camera to a repair shop.
Desmolicious wrote:
Working on cars is a poor analogy. Because that would be akin to working on cameras as opposed to taking your camera to a repair shop.
I think it is a great analogy. Some people love tinkering with their cars…others see no joy and just take them into a shop and let others do the tinkering. Some people love developing and scanning their own films, others see no joy and take the film into a shop and have others develop and scan. Seems appropriate to me.
madNbad wrote:
I was a film user at the height of the Great Analog Selloff. I bought a M6 TTL Millennium unused in the presentation box for twelve hundred dollars. A M2 for six hundred and a Nikkormat FT2 for twenty five bucks. Everyone was convinced film was as dead as the dodo and our digital future was shining bright. We had the film renaissance which ran up the prices for gear and film, a large number of photo processors closing up shop and leaving fewer, more expensive choices. On the positive side, the growth in scanning choices. Camera scanning has evolved from the DIY days of PVC pipe and old enlarger negative carriers to the high end stuff from Negative Supply and Valoi. New and faster software for converting negatives. As the hipster film craze wanes, there is a new group digging out the film cameras they thought would never use again.Welcome back! Film isn't dead and will be with us for a while longer....Show more →
Wish I was into Leica M at the time of the analog selloff! There would have been great opportunities. Best I did at this time was getting a bunch of nearly mint Canon FD lenses for a very low budget price since the owner wanted to get rid of them quickly to move to digital EF lenses. Even prices for these FD lenses have skyrocketed with the rise of FF mirrorless and adaptability of manual focus lenses on any mirrorless body.
I paid for my first Leica M - M6 non TTL in original plastic box with red cover inside - about $1300 in 2015 and one year later for my M7 about $1700. Still good deals compared to what they are going for now.
chez wrote:
Sure, if you enjoy doing it all yourself that’s great. Some people just want to take photos and not get into smelling chemicals. Many people enjoy working on their cars…me I’d rather just drop my car off at a shop.
It is all very enjoyable and satisfying if you have the time and spend it as your hobby. I know some who built the whole automatic transmission for their car from scratch - because they enjoy the process and fixing things on cars. I have no interest to work on cars either as you also stated, but I enjoy developing and scanning my own films purely as hobby of mine. Having time and passion are the major factors here to enjoy the process.
I'm firmly in a place in my life where my time is worth far more than my money. I'll happily help keep my local lab (who is so busy they opened a 2nd location) in business
chez wrote:
I think it is a great analogy. Some people love tinkering with their cars…others see no joy and just take them into a shop and let others do the tinkering. Some people love developing and scanning their own films, others see no joy and take the film into a shop and have others develop and scan. Seems appropriate to me.
No it’s a terrible analogy. A much better one would be someone who enjoys driving a manual transmission classic car vs someone who likes to drive a minivan with automatic everything.
Modern minivans are fast, luxurious, comfortable, auto everything. No need to think, just get in and let it do its thing.
Great vehicles for the masses.
retrofocus wrote:
Wish I was into Leica M at the time of the analog selloff! There would have been great opportunities. Best I did at this time was getting a bunch of nearly mint Canon FD lenses for a very low budget price since the owner wanted to get rid of them quickly to move to digital EF lenses. Even prices for these FD lenses have skyrocketed with the rise of FF mirrorless and adaptability of manual focus lenses on any mirrorless body.
I paid for my first Leica M - M6 non TTL in original plastic box with red cover inside - about $1300 in 2015 and one year later for my M7 about $1700. Still good deals compared to what they are going for now. ...Show more →
When Leica released the M9 you could buy a perfect M6 for under $1k. Zeiss Ikon ZM for under $800. And the Fuji/Voigtlander GF670 for under $1k.
There are still deals out there, just need to stay away from the youtuber cameras.
Desmolicious wrote:
When Leica released the M9 you could buy a perfect M6 for under $1k. Zeiss Ikon ZM for under $800. And the Fuji/Voigtlander GF670 for under $1k.
There are still deals out there, just need to stay away from the youtuber cameras.
Yes I missed this golden timing to purchase film gear! I only started back with film after having fully moved digital in 2005 because I was handed a mint Beseler enlarger working up to 4x5" negative sheets including enlarger lens. I became curious how this works and set up a sporadic darkroom under the staircase of my former home in 2015. I used my old Canon Rebel film camera to snap a B&W film, had it developed in a lab, and made my first darkroom prints from it. I was hooked and got into developing film on my own - soon the shutter of my Rebel camera broke, and I came across Leica M camera since I already owned one M lens used for my mirrorless digital Sony A7R. Or in other words: without the gifted enlarger, I doubt I would have ever considered moving more into Leica M gear which I use predominantly now in my photography.
Desmolicious wrote:
No it’s a terrible analogy. A much better one would be someone who enjoys driving a manual transmission classic car vs someone who likes to drive a minivan with automatic everything.
Modern minivans are fast, luxurious, comfortable, auto everything. No need to think, just get in and let it do its thing.
Great vehicles for the masses.
I don’t think so. Either one enjoys doing something on their own like developing and scanning film or tinkering with a car or making your own frames in your shop or growing your own vegetables or just farming out those things to someone else because it is not enjoyable for you. Your manual versus automatic transmission analogy is totally missing the point. Forget about hitting the target, you missed the entire barn.
Ignore that Kodak news, they even felt the need to clarify in a press release. Kodak will be fine. In fact the film division is doing so well they just completed major upgrades to their factory line. The most recent problem for Kodak was MEETING demand. They sell every roll they make of every stock they make.
A few years ago labs were relying on old processors and old scanners. Now there are new processors available to buy, even dip and dunks, and new lab ready scanners. There are actually 2 lab grade systems that have hit the market for scanning just this year from very small players. They ain't cheap, so don't think you're going to plop one next to your Valoi 3D printed camera scanning gear. It's a huge relief for business owners in the smallish film photo industry.
Even for a non scanning workflow, there are a lot of new enlargers and darkroom based gear available.
Lucky color film is coming and only going to get better, and Orwo has a new color stock out that doesn't look like absolute rubbish.
Honestly the only thing I have to complain about is the fact that Kodak Endura is gone and Fuji is cutting the wrong color paper into sheet sizes. Harman should have had Pheonix (Just my opinion!) end up being the reintroduction of cibachrome, which they own. Not so much for slide printing, but for in camera shooting (See Richard Learoyd for absolutely stunning in camera cibas). Not that I'm complaining about their color film, it's getting halfway decent! Where is the sheet format?
Honestly the question you should be asking is, "is AI killing digital photography?". My opinion is, yeah kinda. That new Ricoh GR4 looks decent but I'm going to upgrade to an iPhone 17 Pro and call it a day. Computational photography, great video, and the capability to make pretty decent small to medium sized prints, with automatic archiving to the cloud. That's the ultimate digital experience IMHO. My GFX100 is only for scanning.
chez wrote:
I don’t think so. Either one enjoys doing something on their own like developing and scanning film or tinkering with a car or making your own frames in your shop or growing your own vegetables or just farming out those things to someone else because it is not enjoyable for you. Your manual versus automatic transmission analogy is totally missing the point. Forget about hitting the target, you missed the entire barn.
Next analogy Chez is going to try to use is he says he prefers eating fast food to cooking at home, because he does not want to plow a field….
Desmolicious wrote:
Next analogy Chez is going to try to use is he says he prefers eating fast food to cooking at home, because he does not want to plow a field….
Honestly the question you should be asking is, "is AI killing digital photography?". My opinion is, yeah kinda. That new Ricoh GR4 looks decent but I'm going to upgrade to an iPhone 17 Pro and call it a day. Computational photography, great video, and the capability to make pretty decent small to medium sized prints, with automatic archiving to the cloud. That's the ultimate digital experience IMHO. My GFX100 is only for scanning.
I agree. I don’t see the point of the GR4 over the latest iphone. Neither have a VF so it’s not like the Ricoh gives you an intimate photographic experience over the iphone. Plus the iphone does so many other things the GR4 cannot.
