How much longer for 4x5 color film?

[john borrelli]

I'm not sure if the real question is how much longer for 4X5 color film or how much for 4X5 color film.

I just spent 80.00 for 20 sheets for "new" Fuji Velvia 100 at a local camera store that still sells some film. That's $4.00 a sheet and that's the most I have ever spent on film. Would I spend $8.00 a sheet for Fuji Velvia? No I would not.

If that's going to be the price a couple of years from now for a good slide film then it's going to be to rich for my blood. I'll hold my nose and go digital.

[Roger Cole]

I'm glad I'm primarily a black and white shooter. That is an awfully expensive price, and don't even talk about 8x10.

But 120 is still quite reasonable. I'll shoot color in a roll film back or in a medium format camera. In fact that's pretty much how I shoot it now, but it's not primarily due the cost (it is partially though.)

[Michael_4514]

I'm betting that the dirty little secret they aren't telling us is that they've already coated the last batches of LF color and are just "keeping us happy" by selling whats already in the warehouse. After that... then the big announcement that these products have been discontinued. Isn't that the established trend from our consumer perspective?

That just makes no sense on several different levels.

[Tin Can]

I wish people would stop posting color images. I find them all together too alluring, for a person that really sees the world in B&W.

So tempting, yet also so deceiving.

Joking, almost...






OK, don't stop, I'll adjust my monitor, NOT!

[Shootar401]

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.

You're an ass, just sayin'

[Kodachrome25]

Drew he's asking a simple question.

Ummmm....not only is it not a simple question, it is one that always starts rampant arm chair, Wall Street-esque speculation. My answer is simply assume that after Kodak is done with their 2015 obligation to make motion picture stock, things could change. So either save about 3-5K in cash right now and then buy and store a ton if you need it post circa-2015 or stock up now.

Thats really it, hope for the best but plan for the worst.

[Stephen Willard]

Just for the record I am Drew Wiley groupie. If my memory serves me correct I think he, like my self, print 30x40 RA4 prints using a CPI processor that was obsoleted in the 80s. Mine still works fine, and I suspect his does too. In fact, I have three of them.

I have a friend who just paid $10,000 for a new vacuum tube amp. The sounds he gets from that thing are amazingly rich and creamy. Vacuum tube electronics died a fast death in the 60's, yet here we are in 2013 with a 10K vacuum tube amp. I do not believe there is a digital amp that could come close to replicating the sounds that come out of this vacuum tube amp. It is amazing! It just blew me away.

I print and sell big stuff on RA-4 Fuji Crystal Archive paper. 30x40s and 20x50s are my most popular sellers. I buy my paper in 40"x100 foot rolls and cut it to size myself. I can print a 20x50 for around $15.00 and that includes the cost of the chemistry. The tonality I get from my analog prints are amazingly rich and creamy, and I have yet to see any digital inkjet prints come close.

My wife and I still dry our cloths on a cloths line, and we can still buy cloths pins for it despite the invention of the modern cloths dryer. We love the smell and feel of outdoor air dried cloths, and we like the fact that cloths do not shrink when air dried. No modern cloths dryer could ever produce the scent and feel of a cloths line.

We also still cook using cast iron cook wear. There is a lot of high-tech cook wear out there, but none of it can compete with the even heat of cast iron. We get so much more control of the cooking process when we use cast iron.

My gut feeling tells me that the cloths line, the vacuum tube amp, the cast iron cook wear, and the C41 RA4 analog process will be with us 50 years from now. These solutions are not as convenient as the technology that replaced them, but because they produce a far superior result they will be with us for a life time.

I have no doubt about this.

[welly]

I've got 140 sheets of Velvia 100F in my freezer. I don't know about the rest of you but as I rarely shoot colour, I know I'm good for colour film for some time to come.

[Roger Cole]

My gut feeling tells me that the cloths line, the vacuum tube amp, the cast iron cook wear, and the C41 RA4 analog process will be with us 50 years from now. These solutions are not as convenient as the technology that replaced them, but because they produce a far superior result they will be with us for a life time.

I have no doubt about this.

Hum, so you know it's not the same?

At the risk of missing sarcasm (I mean, the eyerolling and the statement look sarcastic, but the preceding paragraph certainly doesn't SOUND sarcastic, and at risk of pointing out the very, very obvious, clothes lines, clothes pins and cast iron skillets are stone simple to produce. If there's any demand at all for them, someone will make them, and you could make your own clothes line (my folks always did anyway) easier than buying it, and carve out wooden peg clothespins without too much trouble and even probably fabricate springs for that type at home if you wanted. Casting iron is a little harder but not that hard. Probably not something folks will do at home but the demand for cast iron cookware continues to ensure it is made.

Even vacuum tubes and sockets are pretty simple compared to a complex many layer emulsion like RA4 paper, and the chemistry, unlike black and white, is not really used for anything else.

The analogy works as to why some people consider it valuable, but falls apart in terms of continued availability.

But I think you knew this.

[Drew Wiley]

Hi Stephen - I didn't know I had any following except eleven cats when they hear a can popping open! I've been working on the house since this is a relatively dry
year, and haven't had much chance to color print except some 20x24's. But I have cut some 30X40 sheets off my new roll and will finish calibrating the batch to my 8x10 enlarger in the next day or two. Are you heading into the Winds again this summer? I haven't made any plans except a brief snow slog in a couple of weeks and maybe later into the Rubies in NV. No big blocks of time until I retire in a couple of years. I'm extremely encouraged by the marriage of CAII or current Supergloss
with both 160VC and Ektar.