I Want to shoot 35mm again

Philsheath

Philsheath

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Phil
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Like a lot of people I learnt photography shooting film in my case I started on a Minolta x300..lovely camera..but for the last 18 years I’ve gone over to digital completely but I have in my arsenal a beautiful Canon 30v and want to have another go at film, my issue is the cost! I can’t believe how much film is..do people really pay Amazon prices for it! I paid £1 last year at Poundland for a roll just to try the camera out..it was fine.. so where do you buy your films? What about processing? I’d love to do my own but don’t have the room..it’s such a waste of a good camera sat in my bag...
 
Hi Phil
Unfortunately the days of cheap film have gone, the only thing you can do it hunt for offers on the net or ebay etc....but in saying film is not cheap now, well if you calculate inflation it is what people were paying in the old days. For processing? Well there are quite a few places to send your film, for me I send to Filmdev and they would dev 36 exp, scan to jpg which you download and an index and they will post your negs (and index) back to you for free, if you choose the cheapest scan (low) the total cost excluding posting to them is £4.
enjoy
 
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It’s expensive but if you enjoy it then do it. You don’t have too shoot so much, just shoot a roll every other month. You could probably get Kodak colour plus for about £4 a roll. If you really want to save money then shoot b&w film. You could easily develop that at home, no darkroom required and then scan the negatives. (You do need an appropriate scanner)
 
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Harrisons have 36exp Fuji C200 at £3.99 a roll at present. You have to add £2.95 postage (unless you spend over £30, or can pick up in person), but if you buy just a few rolls it works out cheaper than most places, where they seem to be going for around £7 a roll (!) even before shipping.

Fujifilm C200 - ISO 200 - 36 Exp - 35mm Colour Film

Fuji's Fujicolor 200 Film is designed for its ease of use and flexibilty, Fujifilm C200 works equally well both outdoors in daylight or for indoor photography when using a flash. Fujifilm 200 features enhanced colour reproduction, great sharpness and benefits from a smooth, classic fine grai...
www.harrisoncameras.co.uk www.harrisoncameras.co.uk
 
I have one small, narrow, floor level cupbard in the kitchen for my (B&W) dev stuff. It doesn't take up much room at all. The actual developing needs as much room as making a salad plus a sink.

When I did the maths, the rough cost of home (B&W) developing was about £1-2/roll in terms of consumables (developer, stop bath and fixer). If you assume the cost of non-consumables (tank, changing bag, beakers, thermometer) is about £100 and you assume lab cost per film is £7 (inc postage) then you recoup your cost after about 20 rolls. Everything after that is profit!

Ilford HP5 Plus is a great 400 speed general purpose B&W film and you can get 24xp rolls for £4.30. I bulk roll my own which comes in at around £2.80/roll but if you don't want to do that (yet!), you can get even cheaper if you use Harman's "budget" Kentmere 400 (£3.80/roll) or Fomapan 100 (£4/roll).

Lab developing is (for me) a toss up between Filmdev (if I want a scan) or AG Photographic (if I don't want a scan, or if I want slide film processing). Scans done by the labs are very acceptable for web use at the smallest size, but if you want prints bigger than 6x4 you'll need to step up the scan size which can get expensive. DIY scanning is similar to home developing. You need the space for the scanner, the money for one, and the time & inclination to do it. Something like the Plustek 8100 (35mm scans only) or the Epson V550 (will do 35mm as well as 120) will set you back a couple of hundred quid, so it will take much longer to recoup the cost.

I don't think there are many people that do film because it's cheap, although if you don't get terrible FilmGAS, you will save on upgrading that digital behemoth to the latest & greatest every year. If you want to try it out, pay a couple of extra quid for decent film and some nice scans to see just how good it could look. If you get the bug, then you can quite easily shoot film on a budget. Bulk rolling and home develop & scan though, require commitment to the medium to make the return worth the investment.

Welcome to TP anyway!
 
Philsheath said:
Like a lot of people I learnt photography shooting film in my case I started on a Minolta x300..lovely camera..but for the last 18 years I’ve gone over to digital completely but I have in my arsenal a beautiful Canon 30v and want to have another go at film, my issue is the cost! I can’t believe how much film is..do people really pay Amazon prices for it! I paid £1 last year at Poundland for a roll just to try the camera out..it was fine.. so where do you buy your films? What about processing? I’d love to do my own but don’t have the room..it’s such a waste of a good camera sat in my bag...
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Welcome to the forum. Film prices have gone up lately, partially due to supply and demand causing Kodak to up their prices (I believe there was a shortage of base materials and their suppliers upped their prices, causing a knock on effect) and partly due to increased demand and short stocks during the Covid-19 lockdown, during which furloughed people probably had time to play with some of their old toys.

Hopefully, things will gradually get back to normal and commercial competition will eventually balance out the retail film prices again. In the meantime, for colour film perhaps have a look for Kodak Gold 200 3 packs, which can normally be reasonably good value. Kodak Colorplus is a 'budget' film, so if Gold 200 is only a little more then it's probably worth the price difference (although some like the look of Colorplus, I find it a bit grainy for my taste in colour neg films - it's personal taste though).

Beware of the 24 exposure price difference though! Make sure you aren't mistaking it for a multi-pack deal on 36 exposure rolls. They both cost the same to process and scan, so it usually works out more cost effective (per shot) to buy 36 exposure rolls. It's easy to forget this though when looking at the price of multipacks on eBay, Amazon, etc. and, with all the numbers quoted in the description, the 24 exp. factor can be easy to miss, so make sure your price comparison is like for like!

As for the ESO 30v, it's a lovely camera to use and I use mine more than my EOS-3. Also, have you seen the price of good condition EOS 30vs lately? It's partially due to the rarity of the camera, as it was produced at pretty much the end of the 35mm SLR era, so there aren't as many Vs about as there are 30s. I suppose that's one consolation, price of film has gone up lately, but so has the price of desirable cameras in good condition.
 
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A number of people have shown us adverts for film in ancient photography mags; compared with wages then and wages now, it's probably still cheaper now to shoot film than back whenever!
 
ChrisR said:
A number of people have shown us adverts for film in ancient photography mags; compared with wages then and wages now, it's probably still cheaper now to shoot film than back whenever!
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This!!

In addition if it’s an enjoyable pass time that one wishes to do then get on with it and accept that it costs....... that doesn’t mean to say that we have to agree to the film prices !!

We have choices, in this case two..... pay the prices of film and enjoy the experiences of using it and the associated kit, or refuse to pay and search an alternative firm of togging or even another cheaper hobby.

I can’t believe this is the second reply that I’ve made in f&c within about twenty minutes in in very similar topics .

Is money all people think about?.... yes it is sadly a necessity in our lives but us it the be all and end all?
For some it would seem so.......
 
Asha said:
This!!

In addition if it’s an enjoyable pass time that one wishes to do then get on with it and accept that it costs....... that doesn’t mean to say that we have to agree to the film prices !!

We have choices, in this case two..... pay the prices of film and enjoy the experiences of using it and the associated kit, or refuse to pay and search an alternative firm of togging or even another cheaper hobby.

I can’t believe this is the second reply that I’ve made in f&c within about twenty minutes in in very similar topics .

Is money all people think about?.... yes it is sadly a necessity in our lives but us it the be all and end all?
For some it would seem so.......
Click to expand...
Well aren’t you the friendly one! no one asked you to reply twice in 20 mins..you could have just skipped on by.
 
Expensive? £4 a roll - presumably 36 exposures? That's not expensive. Now FP4 black and white film at almost £6 per exposure puts the 10p a shot into perspective. That's the price for 10x8 film, by the way. I would prefer it to cost less, but I want to use 10x8 film, so I pay it.

It's a personal choice. And as one with a long memory who was there at the time (1960s), Kodachrome slide film, admittedly process paid, cost £1 per exposure in today's money, and a 36 exposure cassette of black and white film was around £7, processing extra. We seem to be living at a time of cheap film, actually.
 
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Philsheath said:
Like a lot of people I learnt photography shooting film in my case I started on a Minolta x300..lovely camera..but for the last 18 years I’ve gone over to digital completely but I have in my arsenal a beautiful Canon 30v and want to have another go at film, my issue is the cost! I can’t believe how much film is..do people really pay Amazon prices for it! I paid £1 last year at Poundland for a roll just to try the camera out..it was fine.. so where do you buy your films? What about processing? I’d love to do my own but don’t have the room..it’s such a waste of a good camera sat in my bag...
Click to expand...

Essentially budget £20 per 36 shots for film, dev and scan* Not something that's sustainable for most of us to shoot in volume, but something to supplement digital when you want a change.


*Given something like Portra, and getting a good high res scan. If you're going to bother shooting film, you might as well try and get the best results out of it.
 
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