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Glenn Kroeger
3-Oct-2004, 20:31
For someone who shoots LF E6 films, it is the best of times, it is the worst of times! The simultaneous availability of Velvia 100F, Provia 100F and Astia 100F in Quickload is great, but I worry about the future.

I assume that landscape and fine-art photography cannot support the perpetual availability of these films, and that studio product and food photography and commercial architectural photography have provided the volume demand to support the production of these products. While small companies, like Efke, can clearly maintain the supply of B&W sheet film for artistic use, it is not at all clear that E6 products can be supplied by any companies other than Fuji and Kodak. My two local professional E6 labs are both experiencing precipitous drops in the demand for E6 processing, particularly in MF.

It seems obvious that C41 emulsions and processing will survive for quite a long time given the volume of amateur use, but availability of color negative film in sheet sizes is already poor. So where does LF color go?

In the studio, scanning backs make sense. For a landscape photographer like me, it seems that trends in architectural photography might be the best guide to the future of landscape photography.

Since I am not an architectural photographer, I can't clearly envision that future. It appears that 36mm x 48mm digital chips are the convergence for MF digital. I can't see the economics of a larger single-shot chip ever leading to its manufacture, let alone affordability. (Assuming these attain the pixel density of Canon's recently announced EOS 1Ds MkII, they should top out around 33MP. That's about 140 pixels/mm which corresponds to a Nyquist of about 70 lp/mm. That would seem a pretty good match to lenses for that format. That would produce about 5000 x 6800 pixels, a 25x34 inch print at 200 dpi.)

Is this my destiny? I cannot imagine critical focusing with movements at this image size. And none of the current MF systems support movements, so I assume this leads to small view systems like Linhof 679 or Arca-Swiss?

I hope I am wrong, and that availability of E6 sheet film and processing will outlive me. But I have nightmares that my future consists of a used Canon EOS 1Ds body and a 24mm TS lens.

Any informed insight on the dynamics of the E6 film market or emerging trends in architectural photography would be appreciated.

Andre Noble
3-Oct-2004, 21:51
B&H Currently has (14) C-41 and (34) E-6 film products in 4x5 format.

If you're really concerned, you could try to stash some fresh 4x5 Velvia 50 and freeze it. I have no doubt it would last for 20-25 years if well frozen, and that people and places like Ron Mowrey and Photographer's formulary could help supply with chemical formulas - all this is in the worst case scenario.

4x5 B&W sheet film will always be around.

This is my uneducated guess.

Tadge Dryja
4-Oct-2004, 01:45
Well I can't help tell you about the future (of course) but I can tell you about the present. Or rather, immediate past.

Anecdotal, sure, but I dropped off my first batch of film at a Tokyo lab called "pro lab create". very nice, minimal lab, spotless, just light tables and loupes...

...and I'd have to say at least $10,000 worth of 4x5 E6 film waiting to be picked up on the counter. More boxes of RVP than I could count. I felt silly handing over a mere 8 rolls of 120 NPS, but they were of course very polite.

So the bottom line is, at least right now, at least in tokyo, someone or something is shooting a prodigious quantity of E6 sheet film.

Frank Petronio
4-Oct-2004, 04:25
Eventually, you will have to mail order your processing, as local labs depend on a certain volume to keep the chemistry stocked and fresh - the E6 can't sit around dormant. But the chemistry is well understood, and even if Kodak killed it off in 5-10 years, another company would pick it up.

Ultimately, it will be a lost process, but we're talking 20-30 years, IMHO.

Nick_3536
4-Oct-2004, 07:07
The problem isn't the chemicals. You could make that up yourself if you really wanted. The problem is the film. It would be nice if one of the smaller companies started making sheet film. Does LF sheet film really need to be the latest greatest? Do all the small grain advances needed for 35mm really matter for sheet film?

Ralph Barker
4-Oct-2004, 08:24
Predicting the future of large-format color, or even LF B&W, is essentially a time-management problem. That is, how much time does one spend wringing his or her hands over the problem, and how much time is left for making images. While it is possible to create a comparison matrix of technology features and their best application areas, I'm not sure that usage really controls the fate of the products.

It seems clear (to me at least) that Kodak's film future is controlled by the expectations of profit and stock-price growth by the pundits on Wall Street. It seems equally clear that those pundits have little understanding of the products, the markets the products serve, and the people (consumers - both pro and am) affected. The Wall Street pundits seem only to care about the money. Hopefully, the folks at Fuji have a longer-term view of the world.

Certainly, advances in digital technology will continue to erode the film market. Most of those advances, however, are aimed at amateur-level consumers, and to a lesser degree, professionals for whom 35mm and 120 have been sufficient. So far, LF digital has largely been constrained to using MF-sized digital sensors. Presumably, due to the economies of scale of leveraging components developed for the mass market. It might be possible, however, for some clever entrepeneur to devise an economical method of assembling an array of those sensors for LF use in the studio, where the camera can be tethered to a computer. Working in the field, however, obviously presents different sets of technical and practical problems.

The challenge to film manufacturers, I think, is to maintain the flexibility of being able to downsize film production machines and operations to fit the market, while maintaining a reasonable profit margin. Those who can avoid incurring large amounts of overhead (debt, fixed plant expenses, etc.) will likely be nimble enough to survive, even with a shrinking market. Smaller companies might, as Frank suggests, pick up the technology of the former-greats (e.g. Kodak), but there would still be legal issues involved that might curtail doing so.

Bryan Willman
4-Oct-2004, 19:53
There's another item to think about.

My understanding is that film, be it C41, e6, B&W, whatever, comes off very large coating machines in some large size. It is then cut down, punched, notched, has id numbers flashed onto it, and so forth.

This means that any manufacturer making, say, e6 35mm film, is already a large part of the way to making e6 sheet film. It might be costly because it's a special run, or you might have to buy it as some enourmous size reel and then cut it down yourself. But up to some very large size, it's a matter of cutting down, not "patching up".

As for availability at all, that will come down to economics, and perhaps the economics of bankruptcy. If selling the plant off as is is the best liquidation, some new organization may come to own it for much less capital, and thus be able to have a profitable business making film at lower volumes. If the land the plant sits on is worth more as a parking lot or shopping mall, the plant itself is likely to disappear, though any good liquidator will try to sell off the machinery.

But in the mean time, don't worry. Not because it'll never be a problem, but because worrying won't help...