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View Full Version : Colour negative Film shortage!


John King
27th February 2020, 07:48 AM
There does seem to be a continuing shortage of the cheaper Colour Neg film such as Fuji C200 or the Kodak equivalent. AG have some, but not a lot and they seem to be expensive. Morco don't have any, Silverprint the same. However I found that Firstcall have Fuji C200 still under £4 a cassette so I bought a pack of 10. It seems that both types are on long backorders and silverprint or Morco don't know when they will get any more.

Mike O'Pray
27th February 2020, 12:56 PM
Yes, your experience John lends weight to the contention expressed on another site and largely bought into that there has been an upsurge in demand for colour C41 film and for reasons that sound plausible, at least on the surface plausible, this has been brought about by companies such as Kodak in particular downsizing in terms of facilities and then having bottlenecks which will last as long as it takes to re-invest in such facilities

Are we seeing a permanent change to the demand for film which augurs well for the world of film or at least colour film or is this a "fad" which will fade

I don't know but my jury is still out on quite how big this demand is in terms of a substantial change as in a real and substantial change to the overall market for film v digital( in the broadest sense of the word such as iPhones)

Mike

John King
27th February 2020, 01:33 PM
When I ordered my pack from Firstcall I spoke for some time with the owner and it seem that the companies which make the film have been caught on the hop by the upsurge in demand with in excess of 1.5milllion cassettes behind with the orders.

On another tack if the website is to be believed Mr Cad, still has Agfa slide film E6 on sale at close to £10 a roll. Talk about opportunist!!!

Quendil
27th February 2020, 02:09 PM
Yes I also noticed this when trying to buy some colour film recently. I had difficulty getting Portra but found some at Speedgraphic. I couldn't get any Fuji C200 so got Kodak Gold instead. I don't buy very much colour but needed some for a project and for my daughter so have never noticed whether it is usually easier to get hold of.

Richard Gould
27th February 2020, 05:35 PM
Although only a very occaosional user of colour film I have noticed that there is very little around, and I have heard that Kodak Alaris is way behind on orders due to this upsurge in demand that has caught Eastman Kodak napping
Richard

maxwellmakosk
27th February 2020, 06:27 PM
Kodak really needs to get they're ish together, It makes me wish someone would just buy theyre film paper and chem division already and hire a stellar marketing team to make them some money and get us some film. Rumor is Kodak is now only doing 2 production runs of chems PER YEAR. If it's true that's ridiculous. There's an eBay seller with Fuji superia 400 stock he or she is selling on 100ft rolls for 60 quid I think. I've tried some and liked it. Of course I'd reccomend going down the ol ecn2 road. It's long and hard, many hills but legend is there's a pot of gold at the end :P

John King
27th February 2020, 07:17 PM
100ft rolls of Superia. now that is worth having but what is the expiry date.
The only ones I knew of that made bulk rolls of colour was Agfa. With the onset of speed and traffic light cameras in the early 90's this was used in modified motorised Robot cameras.

Anecdotally, I worked with a Traffic Sgt who was responsible for the design, planning and setting up the 1st trial on the traffic lights system of the gyratory system on the North Circular. I remember him telling me for the 1st month after starting they were getting through 3 rolls every 4 days. The image size was 24x24mm not 24x36mm so that will tell you the number infringements and it was for jumping the the lights only not speeding! However apart from catching offenders who ignored the lights, it proved who was responsible for a fatal road crash. If it had not been caught on camera another driver would have carried the can

maxwellmakosk
29th February 2020, 12:59 PM
I stand corrected apparently it's 90 ft. Expiry says December 2019 not sure if it's actually superia but that's what it said on the box, I'll check the edges when I'm at my other place (archive is across town) Traffic films are some of my favourite. I love how many film photographers find ways to repurpose things in this 21st century age of agx.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200229/f635d4d9e50762cd180b58ed15efa93d.jpg