Now that's information I can use!
Originally Posted by Steve Smith
Now that's information I can use!
Drew he's asking a simple question. I didn't see a request for condescension, platitudes, or psychoanalysis. Either you have some information on the future of film availability or you don't.
It's stupid to pretend these questions won't be relevant to anyone. Some people are faced with making investments in equipment and knowledge. The expiration date on that equipment and knowledge makes a difference.
For some those options suggested by Drew are valid research methods.
Personally I believe we are within 10 years for colour negative film, transparancy sooner, I will stock up when the time is right with colour neg.
I have the same feeling about silver gelatin fibre paper, once again I will stock up when the time is right, or make it myself.
Useful as insight into the long term stability of the market is, does it actually matter? The images you make now using 4x5 will still be your work if/when the medium becomes obsolete. The experience and knowledge you gain by shooting LF (and the fun you have) will not be wasted. If you want to be conservative, don't drop any 5 figure sums on high end kit. Even if you do, and 4X5 stops being manufactured next summer, you could still use the equipment with paper, or adapt it to shoot wet plate. Analogue photography is much more versatile than digital IMHO.
Do you plan to work in a studio or walk about with this hypothetical gear? Let's imagine you plan on doing just black and white work with a view camera, then stumble upon something that would be stunning in color. Are you going to be able to
carry a parallel digital system? If so, how, and at what expense? Do you want to have an extra filmholder with color in it,
just in case, or plan to pull out a DLSR instead, which utilizes a completely different method of visualization and composition? How complicated do you wish to get? I can sure think of one good reason for dumping 4x5 color film usage -
namely, 8x10 color film!
Life don't work that way. It's a crap shoot. Look around.
Thanks paulr. I was expecting a little bit of a spanking for asking the question and I know it is a difficult one to answer. I have also asked someone associated with a national lab the same question but I certainly don't expect them to fully know either. Hell, Kodak and Fuji probably don't know. They have to sell enough to make it worth their while and, when that number goes below a certain point, bye-bye color film. I'm not worried about my 8x10 b&w work because, if and when a time would come that no one was making commercially available b&w film, I'll just learn to make my own or learn wet-plate, etc. Color just seems to be a different animal since, as far as I know, it is extremely difficult to make your own color film.
I put together this 4x5 kit just before Katrina. I had been doing quite a bit of editorial work and was just expanding into some commercial architectural work so I decided to invest in the 4x5. Since Katrina, however, I have been working for someone else (shooting digitally on 4x5 w/MFDB) but periodically do some small commercial jobs on my own to keep my toe in the water. I'm just trying to look ahead at the next five to ten years and think of how my equipment is serving me. On the one hand, since I do just a few outside gigs a year, I'd like to keep doing them on 4x5. On the other hand, I can realistically shoot those jobs on the digital gear I already have and am thinking of ditching the 4x5 and putting that money into another larger format. I've watched Polaroid go away; I've watched Fuji discontinue their 4x5 color instant film so my question seems legit. And, as I said, I'm just thinking out loud and thought there might be other people who are interested in the state of 4x5 color film.
Nobody has that information. Nobody on the planet. The only thing that can be done is to look up various "demise of film" articles, and take a look at what has been published, and extract from that. That's all that can be done. Kodak is still producing truck loads of film, just not as many truck loads as before. What we see is something similar to an inverse exponential curve, where there's a huge drop, followed by a long tail. So what will happen in the future? It depends on whether Kodak can keep sucking air.
What if:
What if Kodak doesn't emerge from bankruptcy, goes into full liquidation, and everything is sold off or demolished? That means Fujifilm will be the sole producer of color film. That means no more special order sizes for color. It's possible that Fujifilm might import 160NS over here for 4x5 and 8x10.
What if aliens land and their drive systems interfere with digital cameras?
What if there's a film craze for 4x5 point & shoot cameras?
What if ...
I have no idea at what point the production line will stop for 4x5 color. Kodak no longer makes regular cuttings of 8x10 film, and there's no more Kodak E-6 produced. What's in the future? I have no idea. I know that I correctly predicted the sequence of what would happen, but that's an easy call. The prediction of a time frame isn't something that any of us can do. Fujifilm was diversifying like mad in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and they didn't spin off various divisions into separate companies, so film is about 1% of Fujifilm's revenue. Kodak didn't diversify, and they spun off successful divisions.
My best prediction is that Fujifilm will be the last producer of color film, but I don't know when that will be. And I don't know when it will be "lights out" at Kodak.
(added) Fuji dropped the 4x5 instant film simply due to lack of demand. The packets were twice as expensive as the next size down, and you couldn't get the negative from them without some work. Demand had dropped off for Quickloads, or else Polaroid was making Quickloads for Fujifilm like it was making Readyloads for Kodak.
"It's the way to educate your eyes. Stare. Pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long." - Walker Evans
I'm sorry, but I answered with both condescension and platitudes. I didn't throw in psychoanalysis because I don't have the credentials. The question may be relevant, but it should be obvious, even to the poster that no one has anything close to an answer and anything that most responders can come up with is simply a WAG. We see a lot of that lately.
As far as my Crapshoot comment, the OP or any of the rest of us could have been at the finish line of the Boston Marathon lately.... Now THAT'S Relevant. Yes folks.. gather in big crowds???
Bottom line, the answer to the question simply is "Shoot 4X5 until no one sells it any more". Then shoot what you have in the freezer. Then check out eBay for the hangers on who had it but decided to raise the price to exorbitant levels and sell. When you can no longer buy it, and none is left in the freezer, and nobody on eBay is selling, you're done. The last sheet of the film you want will be found on eBay.
You will not find an unexposed box of color 4X5 film on Sotheby's at auction, or at least that's what I would think.
Not sorry for the condescension and platitudes. Sorry I took the time to post.
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