ես դեռ մի անի տուփ ունեմ։ #ժապաւէն
@{ petapixel (unofficial) ; petapixel@spyurk.am} 23.09.2020, 19:01:32
The Market For Discontinued Photographic Film
My fridge was recently full of instant film. I mean that literally, it was not possible for me to put any more packets of the film into the fridge without risking damaging them.
I had acquired all of the film one day when my printer sent me an email asking if I wanted to purchase 93 packs of Fujifilm FP-100C for 2,790 Swiss Francs (~$3,000) in Switzerland. That’s ~$32.50 per box, about three times what this film used to retail for and about one-third of what it currently sells for1. So I thought about the offer for five minutes, then said yes.
I figured I could sell half of the packs and recoup my costs, after various expenses, then I would have around 45 boxes that I could shoot a photo project with. So I picked the film up and thanked my printer. He even included the above fridge, three Polaroid cameras, and a bunch of accessories for free. So whichever way I spin this, even if a few packs went missing in the post, I would still be close to doubling my investment at the least if I decided to sell all the film. Not bad.
The film had been discontinued, at least announced to be, in early 2016. The film was still available on a wholesale level up until sometime in 2018 so people had started stockpiling it and the prices inevitably went up. The problem with photographic film is that it will start to go off in a few years as the chemicals break down, so it needs to be cold stored. This is especially the case with instant film as there are chemicals not just to record the image but also the entire development process is included in each frame.
Instant Film
There’s a market for this stuff as there is a range of old cameras and backs for other cameras that can only function with it. The film comes in dedicated plastic packs that the cameras/backs are designed to work with. You load a pack, fiddle about a bit, and you are ready to shoot. Like other instant films, you take the shot, pull out the frame, give it a minute or two, then “peel apart” the frame to reveal the image.
The film can still be bought “new” on auction sites, some analog specific photography stores, and private sellers; but all of the film is now expired as the last batch was marked to do so in early 2019, so there’s a risk involved in any purchase of this film if you want it “fresh”. To purchase a single box of the film from one of the last batches you should expect to pay around ~$108. Ten times what it originally retailed for.
Given there are ten frames in each box, and due to the fickle nature of the cameras that shoot this type of film you can often lose one or even two frames due to mechanical or exposure issues, you’re paying in the region of $13 per photo.
This is not a case of having to learn how to load and use the film – sometimes you just have bad luck. The paper mechanism used to pull out the shot frame and prepare the next sometimes tears. Just last week I was using some and the first frame leader from the box tore, I had to open the camera to retrieve the next leader and lost another three frames in the process. Somehow the third frame managed to hide among the rest and turned up again between the 6th and the 7th frame, something I’ve not experienced before.
This is not fun, it’s quite ridiculous, and if I’m being honest I don’t see the point of this stuff and find it all very annoying. I say that as someone who is steeped in the film process. Sure I understand the aesthetic and the tangible nature of the process, but that’s not for me. I mean, if you really want to shoot it that’s fine, but at this price point, I would now prefer to emulate it, at least when the reason to do so is to have some sort of contextual point for the aesthetic. Each to their own of course.
Anyway, Fuji has got form with this. I’ve been using some of their film stocks for close to two decades so have seen product lines come and go, and my other fridge/freezer (above) contains some of those products that I do continue to use. Of course you can still purchase some of the discontinued film if you really want to. A few of those I use or used to are detailed below, and this is in no way an exhaustive list:
Neopan 1600
A mid- to high-speed black and white film that had a grain structure that I haven’t seen in other films. I used this quite a bit when shooting skate photos but it was never available in formats larger than 35mm so I stopped when I moved exclusively to medium format. You see this now and then for sale, but it won’t be good to shoot as it’s at least a decade expired and mid-high speed film doesn’t last more than a few years after expiry unless it’s frozen; and of course, you can’t guarantee the storage history.
I have seen this selling for $32 to $54 for a single roll of 35mm, or ~$270 for ten packs. That’s five to ten times its original retail price.
Fuji Fortia
A once/twice off color slide film that was released around 2005. It was like Fuji’s Velvia 50 (detailed below) but with even more saturated reds. There were rumors that it was a batch of Velvia that didn’t pass quality control, so Fuji sold it as a special edition for the cherry blossom season in Japan. It was available for a couple of years so probably just a single run, which does backup the “it was a messed up Velvia batch” rumor.
You see rolls of this for sale now and then, with the price approaching ten times what it originally retailed for. This was available in medium format so I did shoot it and you can see what I mean about the saturation from the image below, which I actually had to desaturate a little in post as it was just too much.
Acros 100
Another Fuji specialty. A medium to slow speed black and white film that offered four selling points: extremely fine grain for its box speed (100 ISO), very contrasty in normal development, very sharp, and very good reciprocity failure rates. You can shoot exposures up to several minutes long with little adjustment required, which may well be unique amongst all film stocks.
This was discontinued a couple of years ago but then came back as Acros II. However, it is no longer Fuji manufacturing it and I believe it is a co-operation with Ilford. This is probably a good thing, but the 4×5 version of the film is not being made. Luckily, I stocked up on this a few months before its original discontinuation was announced so I have enough to last me for a few years at least. I am using this film for a specific project, which is why I bought a few boxes; my current count is 12 remaining, that’s 240 frames.
I rarely see this for sale in its 4×5 version, and those I do see tend to not be from the final batches, which had expiry dates of 2019-10. This was selling for about $76 a box when it was available and I suspect those final batch boxes would go for at least twice that now.
Velvia 50
The classic landscape (and Formula 1?) photographer’s slide film. Very popular up until around, I dunno, 2005? It’s still going, but I suspect will be discontinued soon. It’s no longer available outside Japan in large format sizes, and Fuji has cut down on the number of options for it in smaller sizes. Also of note is that when I was stockpiling it the boxes had very short expiry dates, less than a year, suggesting that sales have slumped. Since then the price in Japan has gone up 50% so it’s no longer a compelling option.
I still shoot this, but it’s very fickle. It needs graduated neutral density filters in many cases (which I don’t have) and suffers from terrible reciprocity failure and very easy over/under exposure even if you know what you’re doing. You often have to bracket your exposures +/- a stop, which is not cheap when shooting large format film. When you get it right you understand why it was number one in its niche, again another shot that I had to pull back the saturation:
What Does This All Mean
Discontinued film stocks are selling for twice to ten times their original retail price, so should you invest in film? Nah, not at all. Unless you discover a batch of Fuji FP-100C that’s been cold stored, is from 2018 or 2019, and selling at less than $43 a box, in which case go for it and double your investment. Clearly, there is a market for discontinued photographic film emulsions, but they’re a niche within a niche and we’re now down to the products that don’t offer a unique selling point.
The discontinuation of the above stocks doesn’t mean much, really - you can just switch to another stock and adjust as necessary. Yeah, it’s frustrating at first, but that’s the nature of film. The issue with Fuji FP-100C being discontinued is that it also renders an entire range (and more) of cameras unusable. There are no other options, or at least limited options, to continue using the cameras2.
That’s what’s kind of sad about this entire thing, although I guess that is the end state of all technology designed around using refills to function. Printers, things with fixed internal batteries, liquid fuel vehicles, SodaStreams? There’s more of these than you think. We will still have 35mm film for a long time I suspect, and 120 and 4×5 and 8×10 and so on; but some of the more niche products are approaching obsolescence and thus unavailability. We can retrofit some of the technology that requires these refills, but eventually the expense isn’t worth it.
My reasons for shooting film are because it gives me access to alternative formats and some technical controls that I can’t get elsewhere, at least not at an affordable price point3. Movements, a square or panoramic frame, an alternative way to interact with my subjects. An interesting observation about instant film is the reaction to it, compared to shooting a digital image that is effectively the same. The tangible nature of the process really is a hook.
To refer to a blog post I often quote from: “Film is still available and I shoot it. Eventually it will be much more difficult to get and I probably won’t shoot it anymore.”
With the aforementioned situation, with the difficulty of servicing/repairing my film cameras, I recently feel much closer to the latter part of that statement.
I’m down to my last 35 boxes of Fuji FP-100C, having sold 50 or so boxes and shot some of the film. I’m not a fan of it, as I’ve already explained, so I might sell it all and put the funds towards buying a digital back for my Hasselblad.
1. At the time of writing, and during that time it went up from ~$65 a box to about $97.50 a box.
2. One Instant is doing work here, but they admit that it’s a very expensive, labor-intensive process. In other words, it won’t last long.
3. Digital medium format and technical camera setups are still prohibitively expensive for a non-professional.
About the author : Lee Johnson is a photographer and software developer based in Switzerland. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Johnson has been a contributing photographer to several print and online magazines in the past and is now working on a few long term photographic projects. You can find more of his work on GitHub, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. This article was also published here.
#educational #equipment #discontinuedfilm #film #fp100c #fujifilmfp100c #leejohnson #market posted by pod_feeder_v2
that’s what happens, when proprietary product fails to gather necessary market share, and is not viable by market terms.
if it were free, it would be alive.
moral: don’t support proprietary software on kickstarter.
#proprietary_software #software #pressgram #market #economy #internet #freedom
apparently today software in order to be competitive, must be not only good, but also free and / or open.
software for software developers.
microsoft and apple probably got wind of that, and opening c# and swift compilers followed.
however, developers differ from the “regular user” and they let’s say developed and obtained more needs than they realized ten years ago.
will come a day, when this “regular user” will have a need to use free and/or open software, therefore software producers in order to be more competitive will have to free/open their software? i don’t know. i don’t know.
i don’t know.
#free-software #free_software #need #market #economy #competition #c_sharp #swift #microsoft #apple #freedom
one of the main technologies that keeps java afloat, and reasons why java is used today, is android. (so oracle needs to review their patent claims and just let people use java)
and if oracle wants java to be a player in internet of things business, they need to wish android success in that niche instead of suing google constantly.
#android #java #oracle #internet_of_things #business #market #patents #freedom #software
Today I have watched Woody Allen’s “Irrational man” film at the “Moscow” cinema theatre in Yerevan. (: And now I am sitting at my balcony, it is raining outside, and I feel cosy writing this post.
I believe Woody is a great director. He knows people very well. And he tries to make deep works. Alas, not often people notice that. There were only 7 couples at the screening. I think it’s not a coincidence that Woody gave up trying to get money for films in USA. He works in Europe now. I just checked, surprisingly, this movie was produced in USA. This situation makes me think about how to make good films in case of free market? My usual guess is that when you have big enough market, then you have enough minority, which will pay for good films, thus they can be produced. However, it seems that even USA market is not big enough.
Whatever, this is a film about a man, who spent almost all of his life in the struggle for fairness. And he paid high price for it - deaths of close people, suffered a serious illness. Eventually he got despair, depression. He failed to make world a better place.
In particular because he was struggling by peaceful means. While the world around him was struggling against him with not very fair, peaceful means. That’s how fair meed fails.
Now this man decides to make something against the cruel system. Some small, but important thing. The difference is that he feels that he exhausted all the peaceful and legal ways to make a change. He decides to act illegally. And he thinks he can win. However the film is about that he cannot win, that fairness cannot win in this world.
Even if the world consists of beautiful and clever amazing girls around who think they believe in fairness.
So he confesses to his girl under the pressure, by having the naive belief that she can understand him. Wasn’t she understanding before? She had so much empathy for his past privations. Of course girl does not understand him. Firstly, I believe, because she is too young. And secondly, because that is not her struggle in reality. It only seems cool to be around someone who has seen life. Yes, there was a disadvantage - he considered himself a looser. However he very soon got back to life, because he got back to struggle for fairness. And she naively thought that she made him back by her “love”. And as we saw, she was unable to accept the man who fights now. She returned to her nice guy former boyfriend, whom she dumped for the philosopher previously, and who did not show any sign of concerns about humanity, justice, etc. Yes, he could buy a ticket for a political satire. That’s what every decent person should do. Buy a ticket and enjoy politics in the theatre.
May be she was unable to accept him, because she did not love him. Or she was in love more with her perception of him, not the real him, who values many other things, not only pretty young girls. He wasn’t loved by the woman who wanted to get to Spain either. They both were just using him to satisfy personal needs. Why would he take that woman to Spain. What for? Why cannot he find other one in Europe? And why he is sure she won’t dump him in Spain to find someone even more convenient? Does she deserve to be taken there? Because he believes in people.
May be the difference between these women was that the young was not aware of her motives, but the older was. She clearly had known what does she need. And she would not pass the philosopher in to the hands of police, not because of her values, but because she eventually found someone convenient.
Also, this movie is about our inability to distinguish between situations where we have to be honest, and where we don’t. This is what the philosopher stressed right in the beginning of the movie by asking his students if they would tell the police about the thief who is hiding at the neighbour’s flat, or not. Then he challenged them with the question if they would tell Nazis about Frank’s family, just for the sake of honesty.
Roy, young boyfriend of the girl, welcomes her back. However I believe she deserves a the other outcome. It’s not fair when people get positive reinforcement for negative actions. Russians have this tale about broken through. That tale is about fairness. Because those, who don’t get negative reinforcement, take people for granted and tend to continue to abuse their friendship.
I believe Woody makes films very close to real life. Indeed, that guy would accept her back. Without even one salty word. But this time. Not the next.
Also, this abandoned husband. He said: “think again” to her. What about? He had to say “go to hell”. But he did not.
Both of them, the boy and the husband may think that they got lucky. However I believe they’ve missed a chance to know who is their real friend, and who is not. If they wanted to see.
The other question is - do they really need a friend? A close person they can trust? Or they need a cool chick/man who will take to Spain/etcetera? Also, the men. Who do they need?
Roy will surround that girl with love and kindness, will make everything for her to feel comfortable and cosy. Will she answer equally? I doubt it. Because it’s not clear she can love at all.
May be nobody is able to love, just people find convenient variants, coinciding interests. I don’t know.
Woody skilfully exposes people’s behavioural patterns. Patterns, we often don’t notice ourselves. Or even if we do we have no strength or will to behave differently.
That is when I think about how many similarities people have. Not only exterior similarities. And how predictable are they.
And me.
I have noticed “The Idiot” and Hanna Arendt’s name in the frame for a short time. It seems Allen loves Dostoevsky, it is not a first time he refers to him. May be his works will be taught in the future, just like today Dostoevsky’s works are taught or considered as must read, who knows.
#cinema #movie #woody_allen #irrational_man #review #thoughts #people #dostoevsky #hanna_arendt #existentialism #philosophy #understanding #crime #justice #struggle #fairness #patterns #script #love #relationship #relationships #humans #usa #europe #culture #market #freedom
i have an idea: almost any software will eventually become free, because otherwise there would appear an analogue of that software which is free, and the first won’t survive competition with the second.
because free has an important property/quality - it’s free. and market will choose free software, it would prefer to pay for the free alternative and/or it’s support.
btw, this is about development, about progress, thanks to entrepreneurship and fair competition.
i would also like to add - free software is a way to measure democracy: if it exists in country, if it develops, it means that laws about equal possibilities to make business indeed work. moreover, if authorities choose free software over proprietary, it means that they are less corrupted, less dependent on already existing corporations that sell proprietary software. again, this means it is more about equal opportunities and working law and court, about society where companies must compete by qualities of their production, not by using law, authorities, brute force.
of course this is not binary, but scalar. countries have some value of democracy, it’s not true or false, it’s more or less.
and once the free software idea appeared, it’ll inevitably win. #free-software #free_software #democracy #market #law #court #entrepreneurship #competition
I’ve read an interesting paper.
The idea that the market is about fair competition is increasingly negated by the facts of extraordinary monopoly, centralization, and internationalization on the part of corporate and financial powers. The startling increase in class and regional inequalities both within states (such as China, Russia, India, Mexico, and in Southern Africa) as well as internationally poses a serious political problem that can no longer be swept under the rug as something transitional on the way to a perfected neoliberal world. The neoliberal emphasis upon individual rights and the increasingly authoritarian use of state power to sustain the system become a flashpoint of contentiousness. The more neoliberalism is recognized as a failed if not disingenuous and utopian project masking the restoration of class power, the more it lays the basis for a resurgence of mass movements voicing egalitarian political demands, seeking economic justice, fair trade, and greater economic security and democratization.
source: Neoliberalism as creative destruction by David Harvey.
You may know him from this RSA video.
#neoliberalism #quote #david-harvey #market #competition #trade #economics #democracy
competition is good. we can see it even by considering free projects: how firefox improved because of chrome/chomium and how gcc improved because of llvm.
btw, did you know about -fsanitze flag which first appeared in llvm and now in gcc? very useful!
#sanitize #gcc #llvm #competition #market #firefox #chrome #chromium #free-software #improvement
Aleksandras Macijauskas
at the market
#Aleksandras-Macijauskas #Lithuania #photofraphy #photo #bw #black-and-white #market #pig #foto #ֆոտո #խոզ #շուկա #լուսանկարներ #սեւ֊սպիտակ #Լիտվա
Any sane CEO would look at the disasterous Windows Phone failure in the market - come on, before this alliance, Windows has 5% market share in smartphones, now ‘with Nokia’ it has 3%. This after Nokia has sacrificed 31% of its smartphone market share on Symbian and Maemo/MeeGo
#windows #nokia #market #smartphones #microsoft #elop #ballmer #maemo #meego #linux #gnu #economics
DAS KAPITAL a novel of love + money markets #Վիգեն֊Բերբերյան #կապիտալ #սէր #գիրք #գրքեր #նովել #դրամ #շուկա #das-kapital #kapital #capital #book #cover #viken-berberian #money #market #love #novel
#Opera moves to the #WebKit #rendering engine The move causes observers to #worry about the diminishing #diversity of #Web rendering engines
www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/opera-moves-the-webkit-rendering-engine-212793
#browser #internet #html #html5 #www #alternative #choice #competition #market #presto #monoculture #free-software #software
my source is https://twitter.com/tomiahonen/status/295963873880702976 #Vietnam #Wife #Virgin #market
when I read about new cool project built with #raspberry-pi I think - okay - they didn’t do any low level #programming. They used #python, and they have all those #drivers ready to use. If it is considered a tool for #children - then what will they learn, they couldn’t learn by using a #GNU/Linux pc?
That’s why when I read about cheap #Linux boards I afraid that #8bit #microcontrollers won’t be used and thus less and less people would tinker with low level staff. And if they don’t deal with it, they don’t have deep understanding of how it works.
That’s why I appreciate #Arduino, and I hope it won’t be ousted from #market. Actually, that language and #compiler which comes with Arduino is too lame. I never programmed #AVR with that language, I used gcc, and thus Arduino + #gcc is a good #toy for a child. I agree. But I am not so sure about #raspberrypi
Back in 1905, Leon #Trotsky characterized tsarist #Russia as “a vicious combination of the #Asian #knout and the #European #stock #market.” Does this designation not hold more and more also for the Russia of today? http://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_true_blasphemy_slavoj_zhizhek_on_pussy_riot
