Hazard a guess.

Barney

Barney

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How many photographers are there shooting film in the UK.

A lot or a few.

I read that film sales are up and manufactures are coming up with new films so there must be enough customer base for them to think that it is a viable proposition.
 
Must be just a few thousands.......a guess would be 5K?
 
Barney said:
As few as that Brian, that is a surprise.
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Well I'm thinking of guys who use mainly film, but I suppose it depends on the newbies trying film but going back to digi, then you have the mixture of guys mainly using digi and film now and again.................................................................
 
I think it will be significantly higher than Brian's estimate. There were hundreds of people who took part in the Analogue Wonderland photo walks the past couple of years for instance, and that will only be a tiny fraction of the number of people shooting. Similarly, the high price of a lot of analogue photography gear also indicates a healthy market.

I don't think TF&C, as wonderful as it is, is representative of most people shooting film these days, many of whom will be using Instagram, and other social media channels as their main online presence. I have a strong sense that most people using this particular part of Talk Photography fall into older demographics - Gen X and Boomers mostly - although happy to be proven wrong. I think that can skew the local perspective of the film photography user-base.

Maybe @stevelmx5 has some insight in to estimated numbers of analogue photographers in the UK, given his position in the industry?
 
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I'd hesitate to guess, but one thing that I'd tentatively suggest is that the proportion of film photographers who develop at home is probably greater than it was in the heyday of analogue. Development was speedy and generally reliably good back in the day. Nowadays it is such a significant part of the cost that it is cheaper to develop your own work.
 
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Interesting comment on the age question. I have no idea of numbers, but one observation. West Yorkshire Cameras closed last year (:() and I attended on the final two days of the final clearance. The first morning it was packed when I arrived, with a long queue to pay. Most of the people were probably under 40; more likely 20s and 30s. This is the closest I can get to giving an age range of a non trivial sample.

We have a local shop Zoingimage that sells film, cameras etc., with a strong Lomo bias. Whenever I've been in (most recently a week ago) the other customers looked to be in their 20s.

Chatting to people at the local artists' open houses, their are quite a lot of younger film photographers, plus people whose children are interested and using film.

Finally, if you go to Clock Tower Cameras Web site, one of the two largest analogue equipment sales places in Brighton, you'll find a group shot from a film walk to play "guess the ages".
 
Trouble is that, especially with black and white, that most film shooters are invariably tinkerers and distort the market by trying many different films. I can't help but feel this must artificially inflate the figures.
 
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I don't think that people guessing at the answer to such a question can tell us anything beyond the bias of those who choose to answer.

I'm sure the manufacturers will be doing their best to work out how many potential customers there are, but I doubt they'd want to share such information.
 
just to add the obvious o_O;)..... Kodak don't rely of film sales in the uK but world wide and that might be just enough for Kodak to continue. Also my young grandchildren think I'm a dinosaur using film so would be interesting to know how many young people have come from the dark side and use mainly film.
 
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Lots. More than you would think.

As @AndrewFlannigan says, guessing is such a finger in the air thing, especially from the few people on this forum who choose to shoot it (me included) but I guarantee it's more than you think.

Having worked recently in used (film) camera retail and see many people buying cameras and film ranging from people getting their first film camera to people going back to it who never left. Then add to that all the different genres that still use it, including but not limited to... Wedding photography, fashion photography, commercial photography, hobbyists who still shoot large format as well as other formats.


excalibur2 said:
just to add the obvious o_O;)..... Kodak don't rely of film sales in the uK but world wide and that might be just enough for Kodak to continue.
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It's well documented that Kodak sales are increasing year on year and now Eastman Kodak have started to take back distribution from Rochester directly rather than relying on Kodak Alaris which again is surely a good sign that things are going well. Combine that with the Hollywood studio who but thousands of feet of film for motion picture that they still make in 8mm, 16mm, 35mm and 70mm, I think the demand is definitely good enough.

Then when we talk about film, we perhaps have to also include instant film. Polaroid sales are on the up and they struggle to keep film stock in due to limited number of machines that the new Polaroid company now own as well as Fuji Instax being a good market for the people who want fun, instant photos.
 
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Worldwide film market is forecast to grow at 4.9% year until 2033
In 2024 UK accounted for a little over 6% of worldwide 35mm camera sales
 
Downhill Specialist said:
Combine that with the Hollywood studio who but thousands of feet of film for motion picture that they still make in 8mm, 16mm, 35mm and 70mm, I think the demand is definitely good enough.
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Christopher Nolan has been quoted as saying he shot over 2 million feet of 70mm film for The Odyssey, which releases this year.

Even if you pretend it was shot on 35mm stock, it still equates to the equivalent of about 365,000 rolls of 36exp film. For a single movie.

Not all movies shot on film will use as much, obviously (and many movies are shot digitally), but I expect that overall motion picture film sales will dwarf that of stills sales, even with the upturn in popularity for film photography.
 
FishyFish said:
Christopher Nolan has been quoted as saying he shot over 2 million feet of 70mm film for The Odyssey, which releases this year.

Even if you pretend it was shot on 35mm stock, it still equates to the equivalent of about 365,000 rolls of 36exp film. For a single movie.

Not all movies shot on film will use as much, obviously (and many movies are shot digitally), but I expect that overall motion picture film sales will dwarf that of stills sales, even with the upturn in popularity for film photography.
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Oh absolutely. I used the stills examples as there's definitely more people that some would think shooting stills, whether amateur or pro.

Kodak still exist to produce still film BECAUSE of Hollywood. It's all to the benefit of us who shoot still film (and occasionally 8mm).
 
Downhill Specialist said:
Oh absolutely. I used the stills examples as there's definitely more people that some would think shooting stills, whether amateur or pro.

Kodak still exist to produce still film BECAUSE of Hollywood. It's all to the benefit of us who shoot still film (and occasionally 8mm).
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Well, there might be a counter argument that there could be more profit in selling short lengths of film to still photographers.

I don't have accurate data, but a very quick search suggests that 1000ft of Kodak Vision 3 sells for £576. That could be made into 187 rolls of 36 exposure 35mm. Kodak Colour Plus 36 exposure 35mm film cassettes are offered by Wex at £9.90. That's over three times the price.

The costs of running a different emulsion, chopping to length, the cassette, the cannister, the box and shipping can't add that much.

What motion picture definitely does add to the mix is volume.

I suspect there is a more complex interplay between selling still films to consumers and motion picture stock to professionals than simply the one allows the other to exist.
 
Boots said:
What motion picture definitely does add to the mix is volume.

I suspect there is a more complex interplay between selling still films to consumers and motion picture stock to professionals than simply the one allows the other to exist.
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What I meant was, and it is quite well documented, that during the rise of digital and correlating decline of film, it was largely stated that it was the motion picture industry that allowed film to survive. Of course now film sales are on the rise, you're quite right that it more nuanced than that but the commitment of the big studios to keep buying film is what kept Eastman afloat.
 
FishyFish said:
I think it will be significantly higher than Brian's estimate. There were hundreds of people who took part in the Analogue Wonderland photo walks the past couple of years for instance, and that will only be a tiny fraction of the number of people shooting. Similarly, the high price of a lot of analogue photography gear also indicates a healthy market.

I don't think TF&C, as wonderful as it is, is representative of most people shooting film these days, many of whom will be using Instagram, and other social media channels as their main online presence. I have a strong sense that most people using this particular part of Talk Photography fall into older demographics - Gen X and Boomers mostly - although happy to be proven wrong. I think that can skew the local perspective of the film photography user-base.

Maybe @stevelmx5 has some insight in to estimated numbers of analogue photographers in the UK, given his position in the industry?
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As a rough finger in the air I’d guess there are a lot more than 5000 people in the UK using film in some way, the majority of which are probably younger people using the wealth of “reloadable disposable” cameras that the likes of Analogue Wonderland sell heaps of.

I’m friends with the guy who runs Dubble, and sells the “Show” camera. We were chatting a while back about working on something together and he said that (at the time, probably 2 years ago) he’d sold around 100,000 “Show” cameras worldwide. I don’t know how many were to the UK but he has a lot of contracts with retailers/Department Stores who buy in volume so I’d assume a decent amount are here in the UK.

Personally, looking at 2025, around 30% of my cameras/accessories were bought by photographers in the UK, with around 50-60% by North American customers. I’m nowhere near the volume of cameras that my friend sells though!
 
Over 25% of UK film sales are in London.
 
Barney said:
Over 25% of UK film sales are in London.
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Would that include dealers in London selling to other places by mail order? Some of my large format film would count as a New York sale, as I use B&H.
 
StephenM said:
Would that include dealers in London selling to other places by mail order? Some of my large format film would count as a New York sale, as I use B&H.
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It would.

excalibur2 said:
Must be just a few thousands.......a guess would be 5K?
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There are a few thousand LF shooters in the UK, so add in 35mm and Medium format 5K would be a big underestimate.

Ian
 
My son is in his early twenties, as well as using film himself several of his friends use film, mostly 35mm cameras ranging from Canon Demi half frame to late Nikon AF SLRs. I would say that he knows more people of his age that are 'into' film photography than I knew serious hobbyists of my age back in the late 1970's or early 1980's.

The big change in film use since I was in distribution or wholesale is that of recording, photogrammetry and journalism we used to ship thousands of rolls to the news organisations and cases of Polaroid to the hospitals. We did not get involved in X-ray or speed camera use but that would have been a massive market back in the day which is now much reduced as indeed is the casual snap shot and family photography thanks initially to digital compacts and then smart phones.
 
I still use film, and recently bought slide film from Bass and Blight in Harrogate and from Cambrian, because they had some on the shelf. £29 for Provia, which seems scary but actually when you compare with my wages in 1990 versus now looks quite cheap.

Whilst buying film is nowhere near as convenient as it used to be, ie you can no longer hop into Boots to get their slide film knowing it is repackaged Agfachrome (RIP) it's the loss of the professional film development companies like Peak Imaging that hurts. Luckily DSCL have serviced me since, but another factor that limits my use of film is the cessation of the production of mounts for slides...

So I think 5k is quite realistic. Surprised Kodak is upping production, I thought the trend was in the opposite direction (although I have bought a Kodak branded CF express card...)
 
Barney said:
I read that film sales are up and manufactures are coming up with new films so there must be enough customer base for them to think that it is a viable proposition.
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I hope there's enough to motivate Harman to keep going with their colour film exploration! They showed off what their R&D team is able to achieve from scratch given 1 year of time, I think it would be great to see what the same team can do given 5 more years and sufficient funding.
 
StephenM said:
Would that include dealers in London selling to other places by mail order? Some of my large format film would count as a New York sale, as I use B&H.
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The dataset does not specify Stephen
 
Barney said:
I read that film sales are up and manufactures are coming up with new films so there must be enough customer base for them to think that it is a viable proposition.
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Are they, though? There is an awful lot of rebadging, and apparently reject stock, being marked as new and experimental. I'm sure that someone, somewhere has a film that is covered in pink spots and thinking it can be marketed with a boutique name and a increased price. The actual number of film producers you could probably count on the fingers of one hand.
 
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