Is the Analogue Camera Revival Ending?

I recently emptied my gear cupboard of a load of flotsam and jetsam, along with a Z7, to part exchange for a nice shiny Z8. I took along my old F801 bodies and an Olympus rangefinder that I used about once back in 1980 (it still worked perfectly). I always have a chat with my dealer over how the photographic gear world is trending.

We got on to film cameras. It seems the big analogue revival is starting to hit the buffers, due to the ever rising cost of film, A roll of HP5 now costs between €13 and €17 depending on where you buy it. then add in processing and maybe printing costs. The film makers have become a little greedy with their pricing it seems. He took my Olympus, which is seems is still hip and cool, but the two well used Nikons, have gone to the recycle bin as they have no market.

I read an article on some site, where I learn that a certain Fuji compact digital camera is in very great demand. It seems (at least in the USA) that people are reselling this camera, with a mark up of as much as $1000 on shop prices. Photography fashion is moving on.

My other great passion is Audio and music. Vinyl prices are mouth watering, at least here in Italy. An LP goes for €40 here. A 24bit digital download costs me €8 for the same music, which sounds perfect on my fairly high end streamer. I am told that physical format sales are starting to shift back to CD.

What are your thoughts.

last year a friend bought a deceased estate house across the road sight unseen for a bargain price, when he went in side the owner had 20,000 records the whole house full floor to ceiling. my friend couldnt give the records away and they all went to the tip. no market here in australia.

Hi,

My local camera store does a good business when it comes to film and processing. And they happily buy and trade the older equipment.

Stan

So does mine, but they believe the bubble is about to burst.

It always surprised me that only Pentax attempted so market a new film camera. The Vinyl revival has brought turntables back into production.

I cannot imagine the Pentax was a great success. Making it half frame was a strange decision.

I've always known it as film... 😉

Was there a revival? A bit of a backlash to digital "tone-mapping" maybe. I just didn't get it, the look or feel of a photo is not a purchasing choice, it never has been. Film is far less adaptable and so it's "direction of abstraction" is far more fixed than digital and also far more limited. You couldn't make the shot fit your "vision" through editing but rather had to have a vision and then go in search of a shot to fit it. You really needed to understand how the film responded and work within that. One thing that it does well is look like old technology and so mimics nostalgia. But then we tend to see the past with a rose tint, much like the colour accuracy of film if you underexposed or the developer was a tad tired...

To be completely honest, you can achieve far better and more convincing results with even the base model iPhone, a few presents and a little imagination. Note: no technical knowledge required.

I think the hipsters are beginning to realise the results often get the likes, not the cool way you lean back on you heels as you generally did when taking shots with film.

😀

I love using film and like many others have done since the '80's and will continue to do so, the market will remain. If you want hip, then check out the presets on a standard iPhone with editing apps like Afterlight. But you have to accept that the film look "is" blocked shadows, blown highlights, washed out colour often with a slight cast that varies with the colour temp of the light and often the "look" is not achievable in all circumstances but within limits if you know how...

The files my D850/Z7/Z8 produce are incredibly detailed and grain free even up to ISO2000. They are up there with the 5x4 prints I had made from my large format camera.

Ironically, my dealer had a 5x4 camera that was the same brand as I once owned. It was being sold for peanuts as nobody can afford to realistically feed the camera with film anymore, unless you are getting paid for it.

Yes, and that’s true for 35mm as well. The total cost of a 36 exposure roll of color negative film with processing and “acceptable-quality” 8 bit jpeg scans, including tax is $45-50 in my area (San Diego, CA)

Rich

That certainly wasn't our experience in Adelaide when we cleaned out our large vinyl collection. Possibly the type of music? We had mainly folk and there was no shortage of buyers.

I'm very dubious about the film camera revival. In Japan last year we saw lots of teenagers/twenty year olds wearing film cameras around their necks. But we didn't see them being used much. Plenty of phone cameras and V logger cameras used by the same age group. I began to wonder if many of the film cameras were more than a fashion item.

The "revival" is already a few years slowing down again.
There was a revival but due price increases causes by the increasing demands, world economics, production issues with various environment rules and also shortages on raw materials/chemicals the revival slowed down but still new films have been developed and various companies still are increasing their production rate.

he also had a massive highend audio collection as well from the 80s i ended up taking my truck over and loading them up. i placed so many adds on the net and couldnt get more than $50 per component. it was more to post them around australia than the selling price. I took them all to cash converters and they gave me $1000 for the lot. to be honest i would have loved these back in the day. but after testing all the amps against my handbuilt amp that i made back in the 70s they were all no better,so they all when to cash converters as well. high end record players i got $50 a peice.