Why I'm WORRIED About Film Photography

How screwed would we be if Kodak stopped making film?

No worries. Amazon will come in and say why not? Guess we can make it.

Novelty film stocks, exactly.

Lomography has lomo 800

Don't forget Agfa color and Agfachrome I used to use it and Kodachrome.

When I initially heard the comments from Kodak about continuing to make film until at least 2028, and continuing if there is a demand, I see this as a possible exit strategy for Kodak. Time will only tell, but I really believe that the resurgence by Kodak into the film market was something that that they believed was just a “short term trend” or “hype” and they played along with this not realizing that there is a serious demand for film. The question is, does Kodak set a higher benchmark for demand than what is the actual demand level? Only time will tell, but it is definitely concerning.

Do I think film is dead? No! I do think that black and white film will continue to be manufactured by companies such as Ilford, Foma and Ferrania. I think there is a possibility of companies in China like Shanghai increasing production.

If we lose Kodak, we will definitely lose good quality color and black and white film stocks. If Kodak does keep film manufacturing alive, they most likely continue manufacturing 35mm and possibly discontinue medium and large format.

I can not understand how Kodak would think of discontinuing film when we have companies such as Leica, Fuji and Mint (Rollei) producing 35mm film cameras.

This is definitely interesting.

I’m mainly a black and white shooter so I haven’t been affected as much by Fuji giving up. Acros was nice but not my favorite. Ilford and Foma are still going strong, and there’s also Adox and Ferrania. So the black and white landscape doesn’t look too bad. The last big heartbreak I remember was Plus-X getting the axe and that was a long time ago.

There’s something else that worries me. The cameras we’re using are at best 20 years old. I don’t want to know how many thousands of them die and go forever every single day.

I feel the need to say this, while shooting still on Kodak Vision 3 is cool, it seems like now with a lot of companies selling it with or without remjet, the novelty of shooting on movie film is wearing off. I think we need more options for both consumer grade film and professional grade film

Kodak Eastman has contracts with Kodak Alaris until 2029. So we will have to see what happens then.

Christopher Nolan will single handedly keep Eastman Kodak film in production for a long time. He pretty much only shoots film. 50D, 250D, 500T, and double X (cut for IMAX for the very first time for Oppenheimer).

As much as I love film photography (and being old enough to have only film at one point), all of these pop-up, off-color film stocks are so uninteresting. Having to rely on 1 color accurate film manufacturer and the ludicrous pricing has certainly played a roll in me going back to shooting digital more. This is also most likely why major camera brands aren't solely interested in doing R&D for a new film camera. We need a few more heroes to step it up in the world of film stocks.

There's a better chance of Kodachrome coming back than Aerochrome. Film shooters are fortunate that Kodak invested in an entirely new line (building) in the early 90s, with all the modern technology back then. Imagine if they were still running equipment from the mid 20th Century, held together with baler twine and duct tape.

I don't think the continued extinction of Aerochrome is a good metric for measuring their willingness to ignore the community as there are some very serious technical limitations that are keeping Kodak from bringing it back-- mainly that their emulsion coating light tight rooms are no longer free of ambient infrared light. It would be WAYYYY too expensive for them to build new emulsion depositing tooling just because pink leaves look dope (which they definitely do).

This video has been a real eye opener!

I heard recently that Fujifilm has started manufacturing again although it is only being sold in japan.. at least for now hopefully

I’d like to start by thanking you for a nice, digestible, and informative video.
I don’t foresee Kodak backing out anytime in the foreseeable future.
Pharma is a big money maker, high initial cost for them, but the rewards are huge. I’ll see if i can spot a rep at the next few trade shows i have to go to.
Regardless, with Mint and Pentax stepping back into the film ring, i think we will see a huge moment that can either really help bring film back and make it cheaper, or send it back on a spiral.

Film cannot survive just on old cameras. It needs new cameras. That is why the new Lomomatic 110 is important. But we need new 135 and 120 cameras. New cameras will goose film sales.

All valid points. The other side of the coin is aging film camera equipment. We’ll see 2 new film cameras this year but the half frame is pretty much a novelty. The new Rollei with LiDAR seems like a serious effort though. Other than that there’s not a camera company that seems to be interested in film. Even if they just made a new run of their last most popular camera bodies with no changes, it would really boost the market.

People have been saying this for 20 years. 😅

I don’t think we will ever see another company again making film as good as Kodak. In this digital age, we are very lucky that Kodak is even still going through the difficult process of making film when most people are shooting away on their phones. If film prices continue to rise, then demand for film will slow down. With Fuji releasing cameras like the recent X100VI that does a good job of replicating the look of film, a lot of people will be thinking is film worth it anymore? But I will plow on flying the flag for film for now, but I am one more price rise away from quitting and that Fuji is tempting me more and more.

Imagine if film was easy to make. We'd have endless options and it would be cheap.

I find fujifilm at wallmart. But 1 or 2 packages at a time.

If Kodak goes out of business in film forever, that same obligation to shareholders would require selling the patents required.

There's always bulkloading Fomapan and developing in Caffinol! I'd rather shoot black and white permanently than these weird color films with barely any latitude if kodak decides to pull the plug.

While color film may be new to these two manufacturers these are not new companies, Harman is just a 2005 continuation/re-organization of Ilford which was founded in 1879 and Adox started in 1860 making them both older than Kodak.

I`d say we need to try to support adox and harman in this. sure they are not perfect, but this is a huge thing for us and they can be improved. I don`t think Kodak will stop producing film as long as there is film demand in hollywood. I have question, why there are no respooled fujifilm like there is from kodak like their vision film?

For the vast majority of people film photography is already dead and buried and confined to history. No one I know uses film. Even digicams are history. All their picture taking is done using smartphones. Film is now a small niche/hobbies market relying on a few remaining manufacturers keeping film production going as long as it makes some sort of profit. After all these companies are not charities.

Fuji has actually restarted production on a lot of their film stocks recently. Now its currently in a small scale but they plan to get back into mass production hopefully

I am also very good in worrying but it does not make the situation any better. The only thing that does help is to live in the moment and enjoy shooting film

Gone and not coming back, the sad truth as far as I can tell. My favorite color film back in the day (70's and 80's) was Kodachrome 25. Gone. Black&white was and is Tri-X. Held off long as I could then bought a digital camera in 2014. I shoot color digitally and then sometimes a roll of b&w in a Leica I bought in 84. Hate seeing that camera otherwise just sitting there. When and if Kodak finally folds it'll then be Ilford all the way (hopefully) and color will have to be captured with a sensor. I have a friend with foresight who enjoys the film process in the now and has spent $$ to stock up on film and refrigerates it in anticipation of the factories closing.
Thanks for your well prepared and presented video. And, we better get out there and take some more pictures before it's too late!

Don't know about Harman, but ADOX or ORWO both produce on Agfa machines and at least for ORWO I know they also work with Agfa recipes and even people who worked for Agfa. Of course you'll never get to Kodak's level again, but ORWO produces in Wolfen at the same site in the 1930s the first photo color film was invented (that's where the US sent photo specialists in and took away patents and even the inventor of the color film to the US).

I am happy that Fuji is back in stock. I think they realized that there is interest. They produce their Instax film, so it's sensible to do a few rounds of "normal" film. ORWO shares the film production line in Wolfen with Polaroid for example. Nothing gets cheaper ever! But having Fujifilm produced by Fuji on a regular basis is important. Then small players with good emulsion recipes and professional coating machines can supplement that at bite of a few percent that at least keeps Kodak on their feet (regarding price and size of their lineup).

The biggest practical obstacle to color film photography is that 95% of scanning sucks. Color scanning is about 4x harder than B&W scanning. If there were a way to use digital references to calibrate a scan super easliy, maybe some AI can take care of that skillfully someday, we can adapt to more unusual color films. Yes, Kodak's offerings are nearly untouchable excellence sometimes, they are not neutral color balance either.

The end of the film era is now underway. agony. photographic film in the consumer market has become a fetish, instead of a household need. The industrial production of photographic film is now supported solely by orders from the military and the film industry. but both are in the process of switching to digital, and when that happens, consumer photographic film will die completely, with these 100,500 new producers of photographic film from the garage. The good old cameras are breaking down, there is nothing new. garbage, children's toys with one exposure, which are now being produced under the Kadaka and lomografiya brands, these are not cameras, but children's plastic rattles.

Fujifilm recently started the production of new colour film in Japan

What a lot of people forget is the following: It took Kodak 80 years to reach the level of Portra. What Adox, Harman or Orwo are doing is basically on the level that was in the 60s. Look at colour negatives from back then, horrible 🤣. I doubt however that they will ever reach the level of 90s colour negative because they don't have the money from the market. Black and white film will stay, for sure. Colour, hmm, yeah, hmm, yeah... Miss Fujifilm Superia and Agfa Vista 😢. At least we still have, for now, Kodak Gold.

To add to Fuji point another rumor that started is that Fuji sold there film naming rights to Kodak and Kodak just manufactures Kodak film and puts a Fuji name on it. So yea if Kodak stopped we’d be very screwed

I see where you’re coming from but I feel like the points you’re making are ones we’ve been living with for years. If anything things are better now than they were 2-3 years ago. There is more reason to be optimistic than there is to be worried based on even the reasons you give in this video. Thanks for continuing to make these appreciate the point of view.

I'm all about black and white myself. Although I have dabbled with making trichromes.

Growing up, photography studios and camera catalogues used to be a thing. The culture and curiosity are as important as ‘demand’.

I was just thinking about dabbling in film photography.