Nail in the Film Coffin

Two summers ago at Ada's annual July 4 celebration in Wintersmith Park, I ran into a photographer who was shooting with a beautiful Mamiya C220. No one in town can process the film for it, so unless he has a darkroom, processing is an obstacle. He was the only person I've seen with a film camera in the field in the past few years.
Two summers ago at Ada’s annual July 4 celebration in Wintersmith Park, I ran into a photographer who was shooting with a beautiful Mamiya C220. No one in town can process the film for it, so unless he has a darkroom, processing is an obstacle. He was the only person I’ve seen with a film camera in the field in the past few years.

I recently posted that Kodak Alaris was reintroducing a black-and-white film to their lineup, T-Max P3200, which I regard as a likely mistake. Substantiating this is a recent announcement by Fujifilm that they are ending manufacture of all black-and-white film in October.

I've got a fair share of film cameras sitting around, but I can't think of a single reason to buy film for them.
I’ve got a fair share of film cameras sitting around, but I can’t think of a single reason to buy film for them.

For the entire first half of my career, I shot film, and though digital was fairly primitive when it came along, I embraced it, and have exactly no desire to go back to film. Fuji apparently agrees with me, though for a very different reason: profitability. It’s clear that companies can’t make money selling 20 rolls of film to 20 moody millennials who think film is “edgy” or “hip,” so the film game is over.

If I had my way (and/or a Kickstarter plan), I might be inclined to find a way to integrate digital photography into the millions of wonderful old film cameras we all own and relish, but I have no urge to shoot film with them. It’s pretty apparent that no one else does, either, because no one ever asks me to teach them anything about the darkroom or film, and I almost never see anyone shooting film in the field.

[stextbox id=’info’ caption=’The Shrinking World of Film…’]I came across my next door neighbors last night, and they had an old film camera with a broken-off rewind knob, so they couldn’t remove the film to have it processed. We picked at it with a pocket knife to no avail, and I went on with my chores. Even if they get the film out and take it to Wal Mart or Walgreens (the last places in town that say they can process film), those businesses no longer have actual C41 processors, and will need to send the film to Dallas or Los Angeles or Hong Kong to be processed. Like them, I am curious to see what’s on the film, but have no reason or desire to shoot any more film.[/stextbox]

But hey, if you think there is money to be made in making and selling black-and-white film, get some investors and make Fuji an offer for their Acros brand, or start your own. What’s that? Only a fool would try to make a living selling film in 2018? Ah.

Somebody handed me a four-pack of Kodak color negative film recently. Upon opening it up and taking the rolls out of their cans, it felt very familiar to handle them. I have a lot of latent knowledge from the early period of my career.
Somebody handed me a four-pack of Kodak color negative film recently. Upon opening it up and taking the rolls out of their cans, it felt very familiar to handle them. I have a lot of latent knowledge from the early period of my career.

1 Comment

Comments are closed.