ILFORD still makes film. They have a tour of their factory on their YouTube channel:<p>* <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXpoALotxf0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXpoALotxf0</a><p>See also The Impossible Project, some folks who reverse engineered how to make Polaroid instant film:<p>* <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM5k4B1C7cs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM5k4B1C7cs</a><p>* <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/27/weve-come-full-rectangle-polaroid-is-reborn-out-of-the-impossible-project/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/27/weve-come-full-rectangle-p...</a>
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.
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.<p>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.<p>There are enough good films still produced that I've decided (except for that Verichrome Pan) to just shoot fresh stocks.
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.<p>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).
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.
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.
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.<p>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.
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.<p>Speaks a lot to the value of brand and emotion, doesn't it?<p>Note: if I could afford it, I'd buy myself a nice M6 and 903SWC...
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>I wonder if/when any company will ever start to reproduce analog cameras again.
Part of me knows shooting with film is ridiculous in 2020.<p>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.<p>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/14577509-instant" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/14577509-instant</a>
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.
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.