Anyone else see the Facebook update from Canham cameras for TMY-2? "Estimated" price is $110/box, so $11/sheet, plus shipping. Ouch...
I love TMY-2, but $11/sheet is getting into color film territory. And silver is down compared to some years ago, oil is waaay down, but are labor costs up THAT much?
Not complaining, I won't be buying, but just something I saw that boggled my mind.
-Dan
Stone Photo Gear
https://www.stonephotogear.com/
the yellow dye they use to make the boxes is at an all-time high. It's dandelion dust from iceland.
Hmm... I always thought it was Tinkerbell golden shower.
What size ?
8x10 HP-5+ is a mere $4.40 a sheet at Badger Graphic. Not TMY2 but it can make some amazing images. and reciprocity is very good---not TMY2 great---but more than good enough if I do my part.
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
8x10. The impression I get from the Facebook page is that this is a custom run for Keith, which might explain the price. Since I only use 4x5 I don't know if Tmax 400 is available anywhere else in 8x10.Originally Posted by Ken Lee
What size ?
Boggles my mind too. I bought a ten year supply of it a few years ago at $6.20/sheet when Keith started selling it and B&H was still selling it. I'm spoiled enough with that supply I'm not willing to be a consumer of it for $11/sheet right now. (probably $12 after shipping)
It's good stuff and I enjoy using it, but with pyrocat hd, I can do pretty similar things with FP4+ sheet film if I don't need to deal with reciprocity.
Can't use the travel budget thing to rationalize it (film being the cheapest part of the adventure), as I use 90% of my film within walking distance of home.
Keith is normally spot on, or even a bit cheaper for the given point in history that Kodak is setting the cost basis for batch cutting. Fortunately, I have a good reserve in the freezer of 8x10 TMY, as well as TMX, both bought from Keith. But here's my take on value: with a high contrast scene and HP5, I have to resort to a second sheet of FP4 as an unsharp contrast mask to get as much control (crisp tonal gradation) in the extremes of the curve as I can print directly from TMY; so I don't really save any money or time. Now don't go quoting me all that compensating development nonsense, which compresses everything and sacrifices midtone tonality. I want my cake and to eat it too! TMY digs way down into the shadows much better than HP5 because it has a much straighter line down there. Now I'm certainly not dissing HP5. I've made many wonderful prints on it. But it does best in slightly lower contrast situations which I can use a bit of expansion during development to actually feature its wonderful midtone microtonality and edge effect. But if I need the most versatile fast film in 8x10, which can handle almost any situation, it would currently be TMY. This is especially important to me, because I might have only one or two b&w filmholders in my pack on a given day, the other one or two being dedicated to color film. At these kind of prices, I'm not a machine-gunner! But my worry is that Kodak will price themselves right off the map, and that we'll lose one of the best sheet films ever. Their current pricing on color 8x10 is almost triple for what I paid for the same film just
three years ago. But we'll see how this all actually turns out. Keith is a very reliable guy, and I don't think he makes much per box on these deals at all. He does
have volume industrial buyers of TMax. I'm not exactly sure who they are; but they obviously have more capital than me!
At $170/20 sheet box of Acros100 (my price, it's even higher from Japan exposure or whatever it's called) it's 8.5 (plus $10 shipping puts it at $180 total) so really $9/sheet it's not that different, though still higher than Acros100, both are excellent and unique films with really no competition.
I shoot both, I hope I can save enough to go in on the next order for at least 2 boxes as I only have 2 boxes myself.
You get what you pay for, HP5+ is less than half the resolution of TMY-2, and prints made from 8x10 film that are big enough to notice the difference are a specialty product for very few people.
But when you want to make mural size prints and want the detail and need the speed that Acros100 doesn't have in wind etc, it's really what you need....
Keith is a good guy, he really tried for me with the 4x5 Eastman Double-X cutting fiasco that never came to fruition, he really does this for the film community, it's really kodak that sets the price.
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