Cost of sheet film & quantity per box thereof

[LargeFormatShooter]

last night, I took my accountant and our two kids out to Chineese. War Won-ton soup, pot stickers, lemon chicken, salt-n-pepper fish, mu-shu chicken and hot tea all around. The bill came to right around $60. add a tip and I'm easily at the cost of a 50 sheet box of TXP - in 5x7 to boot! A nice meal lasts a night. 50 sheets of 5x7 film lasts...what, a few months or so? (and a well printed photo from that box last a life time!...or, more!)

Film is cheap! Buy the best you can afford and don't worry about it.

Food? Film?

Film? Food?

That is a difficult question to answer!

[ditkoofseppala]

I'm sorry to have to disagree with more experienced heads here, but simple arithmetic is beyond argument. In the course of surveying the cost and availability of various b&w brands and emulsions, the following facts came to light. Without generating an exhaustive comparative pricelist, just a quick look at Arista EDU, Ilford FP4+, and Kodak TMY at Freestyle, on a per-sheet basis, using the most economic available packaging for each:

4x5 sheetfilm, per sheet:
EDU - .40 (50-sheet box)
FP4+ - .89 (100-sheet box)
TMY - 1.22 (50-sheet box)

8x10 sheetfilm, per sheet:
EDU - 1.80 (50-sheet box)
FP4+ - 3.28 (25-sheet box)
TMY - 3.08 (50-sheet box)

And if one had bought the 8x10 TMY at Badger, where it's only available in 10-sheet packages, it would cost $4.40 per sheet.

These are NOT trivial differences! In 4x5, the EDU is not just half-price, it's one-third the price of the TMY at the same store! And in 8x10, the unavailability of the 50-sheet box of FP4+ pushes the price well above that of the TMY in the more economical packaging. (I didn't bother to include B&H, as their wonky website works badly with my elderly browser and what I saw of their prices was well above anyone else's.)

Photography costs. All of it costs. Film is one of its ongoing expenses, versus the initial investment in equipment. These days, anyone who has the time and energy to prowl eBay, plus the willingness to research the market to KNOW what's a good price and what isn't, and the patience to wait (whatever you find there, however rare, there'll be another one along sooner or later, and probably sooner) -- will be able to assemble a fine working LF outfit for relative peanuts, compared to what the gear cost when it was new. But when you're looking at close to five bucks a pop, each time you click the shutter (if you're an 8x10 man), there's no question that it hurts the wallet. So, one has to play it smart. Use 35mm, 6x6, or even your trusty digital to explore ideas and gain experience, and PLAN the LF stuff carefully, making sure that each time you set up and expose film you are CREATING AN IMAGE rather than just popping off exposures in the time-honoured fashion to which we've all grown progressively accustomed through the days of 35mm and yet more in the digital era. And yes, why not give the cheaper east-European emulsions a fair trial, particularly during the learning phase.

Unfortunately, I think some of us may perhaps wind up just NOT going out and making images, just because of irritation at the high price of film, and that is truly a pity and a shame. Not everyone can afford to take John's advice and simply ignore the cost of film. But we CAN fight it by refusing to shoot LF wantonly. Methodically to visualise and to create an image from that visualisation is what Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and Minor White (and others) taught us, and we still marvel at their creations.

Someone pointed out that simple rig-testing can be done using much cheaper photopaper in place of film. Ideas can be explored in smaller formats or in digital capture. Then when the IDEA is there, the one that can only be done justice to by the use of LF -- THEN is when we can't afford NOT to use that expensive sheetfilm.

Just my $0.02 reaction to this thread!

[tim atherton]

And if one had bought the 8x10 TMY at Badger, where it's only available in 10-sheet packages, it would cost $4.40 per sheet.

I think that's all it's going to be available in soon.

[Turner Reich]

I bought some 5x7 last weekend before the price went up, Kodak, the Freestyle price went up so I found it at another place where the price stayed the same for a couple of days longer. If I had known that Kodak film prices were going up I would have made a considerable investment. As it was I have film for quite a while so I'm not that unhappy. It's not that film is expensive but there is paper and mounting and framing materials etc. to consider. It's the total cost thats got my eye. It's no where near a crisis but like everything else you have keep an eye on the bottom line.

[Jim Noel]

I'm currently looking for the cheapest B&W film I can find, as I plan to use a box of it as test shots on a camera I am going to build. Basically expose, examine, adjust the camera and repeat until focus is perfect

This is perfect use for lith type films in camera. Extremely sharp, cheap, ($35 for 100 sheets) fast to develop - other films can't match these for the type testing you mention. I use APH and APHS from Freestyle frequently and and develop it either for high contrast or full scale. EI=6.