Film Photography Is at a Crossroads Headed for Extinction: What It Would Take to Turn It Around and Why It Won’t Happen

Film Photography Is at a Crossroads Headed for Extinction: What It Would Take to Turn It Around and Why It Won’t Happen

The writing is on the wall for film photography. It is a zero-sum game with only one end result – the extinction of film photography. Perhaps something will happen to change that but I doubt it.


There are three types of film photographers: those that have been in the game before digital was around, those that got into shooting film in a world after digital cameras became ubiquitous, and those that have yet to try it but will in the future. For many young photographers, regardless of experience, they have at least one experience of al older photographer talking in a condescending manner towards them for shooting film. This blows my mind. 

My personal experience with an older photographer of the curmudgeon variety was with the man who owned and ran the only film processing place in town who would do one of two things every time I saw him. One, he would tell me that he didn’t understand why I would shoot film – that it made no sense and I should stop. Or, if he wasn’t actively trying to discourage me from shooting film, he was trying to sell me more film than I needed or sell me one of his own cameras. It was the strangest juxtaposition. He didn’t want me to shoot film for selfish reasons but then again, he had a particular vested interest in me to continue shooting film and using their lab to process my film. It got to a point where I made an effort to only visit the shop when the owner wasn’t in. 

At the end of the day, this whole dynamic was by and large one of the strangest I’ve ever had with another person. In summation, I needed his shop to be around so I could get my film processed and he needed me to continue being a customer because without me and others like me, he would have been out of business. That said, he despised young film photographers and I found his company grating. There was never a clear winner in our exchanges, only business transactions. 

Zero-Sum Game

What is a zero-sum game you ask (or maybe didn’t)? It’s simple. For every team playing a "game," the wins are perfectly balanced with the losses. In its simplest form, there are two teams. Whatever amount team A starts to win by, team B starts to lose by as is how games work. In a zero-sum game, however, what goes up must come down and the wins of team A equate to the losses. Before it’s all said and done, all the wins along with all of the losses sum to zero.

Within the world of film photographers, the way I think about it, is that there are the people who have been shooting film for a while (team A) and then those who have only most recently got into film along with those who have yet to get into but will at some point in the future (team B). Team A includes people who remember when the price of a Contax T2, or Hasselblad 500CM, or Mamiya 7, or any other camera that was just a fraction of their current price just a few years ago compared with today’s market value. And then there’s team B, those who have only known todays price point or will come to know it this way when they start shooting film. The main loss for team A is obviously the stark increase in prices for cameras. It can be frustrating, I know. As you may know from the article on my most recent medium format acquisition, the Fujifilm GA645, the price for that camera just a couple years ago was hundreds of dollars less than the going rate now. I found it particularly difficult to shell out hundreds of dollars more than someone did just two years for the same camera. Except not for the same camera but rather a camera two years closer to breaking.

The primary to benefit to team A is in fact, indirectly, the sudden and substantial jump in camera and film prices – it is a sign of increased interest in film photography as a whole. Prior to this increased interest, in the days of nice cameras being cheaper, one film stock after another were being discontinued. It seems strange to think of Kodak’s TMax 3200P or Ektachrome E100 as anything but new stocks but in reality, they are more or less re-releases of films Kodak made and discontinued years ago. The same thing happened with Fujifilm Neopan Acros. (The list could go on but I’ll cap it here.) Without the uptick in popularity, prices on film cameras would have likely have remained low but more and more film stocks would have likely been discontinued, leaving the market more and more bare. 

The Extinction of Film Photography

It is with a heavy heart that I come to terms with the finite nature of film photography. I would not at all be surprised if within my lifetime I see the end of new film production. It doesn’t take much to effort to come to the conclusion that with so few cameras being made today, the overwhelming majority of cameras in use were made decades ago. That fact coupled with fewer and fewer businesses equipped to repair older cameras, clearly spells out what will eventually be an end for vintage cameras being the norm.  

In addition, I would argue that much of the reason film photography started gaining traction again was in large part because it was so inexpensive. A Pentax K1000 was easily $50 or less and most Minolta models were under the $50 price point. In fact, my reintroduction to film photography after college was through the purchase of a Nikon F2 (from the guy who owned the film lab I mentioned above) for $100, equipped with a 50mm f/1.4. Today we live in a vastly different world. More and more photographers and people wanting to get into photography are considering getting into film and as such the prices for cameras will continue to grow. 

What Would Turn Things Around

I started this article talking about the zero-sum game because the film photography world needs more photographers to continue to grow and expand. The growing number of photographers, however, equates to higher and higher prices for both film and cameras. With so few manufacturers making new film cameras (and the cameras that are available are either very cheap or horribly expensive), photographers are relying more and more on decades old cameras which, with their finite stock, are getting further out of reach for people getting into film photography.  

As such, I would argue that the only thing that could truly turn things around is for more manufacturers to present new options for cameras and among those that currently make them, to offer less expensive options. I don’t know anyone that is willing to pay the money for a Nikon F6 or Leica M-A which cost more than $2,500 and $5,000, respectively. (If you do and/or have, more power to you.) Gone are the days of the newly made Nikon F100 or Canon Elan 7. If any would just make 35mm cameras (or even medium format cameras!) that fit somewhere between the plastic, gimmicky Lomography cameras which don’t even get put into the 35mm category on B&H’s website and the ultra-expensive, “I should have just bought a digital camera” Nikon and Leica options. That said, I don’t think that will ever happen. Though camera sells have been on the decline, investing in the production of a film camera doesn’t even seem to be a remote possibility. 

What do you think? Do you see any manufacturers staging the comeback of modern film cameras? 

James Madison's picture

Madison is a mathematician turned statistician based out of Columbus, OH. He fell back in love with film years ago while living in Charleston, SC and hasn't looked back since. In early 2019 he started a website about film photography.

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I worked in black-and-white darkrooms all my life, breathing in fixer acid‘s, and other unpleasant chemicals like selenium toner. Why would anyone want to do that unless they have a state of the art darkroom?

I agree, if you are interested in film you need to immerse yourself in the entire process. I spent many years in both black and white and color print darkrooms finishing my own work. It is half of the creative process. This is the only way to achieve the highest quality and real satisfaction from the film experience. Anything less is not worthy. For me however, I'm done with that after decades in film (been there, done that). Now I have moved on and enjoying the next evolution in images - digital.

Exactly: State of the art darkroom really means superior ventilation system. The university I attended in the 1980’s did not get that for students or staff until they moved into a brand new, a state of the art building.

Same here. Both of the University darkrooms (student media darkroom and a graphic arts darkroom for halftones) that I used had no ventilation at all. We simply left the door open when not in use. I think it was heated with a steam radiator (and had no air-conditioning), so no forced air even. It was the late 1960s and no one ever gave it a thought or complained. The leading local newspaper darkroom was no better and the same in the military after graduation.

My main point about film photography though is that if you don't do your own printing in a darkroom, you're not really into serious film photography. You can't have it both ways. (I apologize if that sounds like some sort of a purity test, but that's my opinion.)

I agree that silver printing is an art form. I mixed my own paper developers based on the Formulary 120 & 130 recipes, and sought after, ‘bromide drag’, which could be described as dragging the contrast range of a higher contrast negative (and paper) with a warmer developer. In the Kodak world, it would be a Selectol Soft and Dektol combination. Formulary was far superior. Literally pulling the silver halides into a more silvery looking print. Anyone who only used Dektol wasn’t really printing. A two bath printing system, with a water bath in the middle could combine to a six minute developing time. Six minutes per print with inadequate ventilation even before the fix, may have been acceptable 30 years ago, but is it worth it today? If I was making 16x20 prints, those are big trays that contain a lot chemistry you are hovering over, as you dip your hands in to carefully move a fibre print back and forth, when using a water bath. This is akin to painting with oils, as a lifetime, accumulative, exposure to the toxicity of respective art practices.

Exactly, that's what I mean when I say you must print your own to get the full experience of film. Prints processed in that manner are far superior to prints today. It's certainly counter to the whole concept of film to then scan the negative, manipulate in Photoshop and print on a printer.

You are quite correct about medium format or larger for prints (although 35mm Kodachrome worked well for photojournalists). With 35mm b&w, Tri-X was the standard. I usually developed it in Accufine and it made acceptable prints up to 11X14 with moderate grain that gave it an interesting textured look. In any case, if one wants the true film experience, darkroom skills are required or just forget it. Proper ventilation would be required today of course, but I think most of us survived it anyway.

..."[I]t offers you nothing you cannot live without..." Not true at all for many photographers. Photojournalists, for example, now send digital images to their editors the same day from Iraq, etc, which is a HUGE competitive advantage over film (plus, the risk of having film confiscated is gone). Same thing with sports photographers. A freelance film photographer today wouldn't stand a chance against digital in these fields (although yes, there are few exceptions). Economics and business concerns have always been the main drivers of new technologies in photography, and will continue to be. There's no going back to film for most of the industry. It's really the art realm of photography where film will continue to grow, and that's a relatively small niche. And one that I'm happy to inhabit :)

I actually think this is not what’s happening...entirely. I don’t think film is dying because of a lack of new photographers, I believe that it’s more a lack of investment in the art. Mor and more people in the millennial and gen z generation are starting to become interested in film. There are a ton of subreddit communities now around film, with more groups popping up everywhere on the internet. Many people still use film. The problem is that it’s nowhere near the amount that used to exist. The film industry will be much smaller, and will only continue to exist if we advocate for it. Just last week I got a reaction from a Kodak exec online. They liked the idea of certain films be brought back. But the thing is that we cannot get old stocks brought back if we write scary titles. You gotta stop with the doomsaying.

To note. There has been kickstarters for new film cameras. I’m surprised you’re not up to date on that either. There are a ton of new movements in the film photo industry, including ferrania’s successful kickstarter. That is what we need. More advocacy and awareness of the analog movements going on. Not sadness because the big companies aren’t making cameras. There are plenty of amazing analog film cameras available to shoot with. Want more? Back kickstarters. Or start a company that machines new components that are no longer obtainable for the repair of millions of models of minoltas, Pentax’s, canons, yashica’s, nikons, mamiya’s etc...

I was at the other end of this parade, shooting Velvia in the 90's with the great and giving "Nature Photography" magazine guys n' gals' monthly editorials, each blasting one format over the other and not a hint of gray, all black or white; a bad metaphor but it beats Trump or Clinton. "Digital will never compete with slide film." "Slide film is a dinosaur just waiting for the meteorite". Back and forth, forth and back.
I was with Rick Sammon on a great workshop in Costa Rica. He had a new DSLR (first time out) and he spent OUR late-night time "chimping" over a shot of a tiny frog we all were drooling to get on a slide. Later I walked by his room and could see him moving sliders on his laptop, "developing" the day's work. He remains one of the great workshop leaders and I haven't shot a slide film exposure since. Either.

I figured that film gear was seeing an end in production when digital was becoming the alternative. The D1 was the bomb. When film gear was being replaced for digital at camera shops I jumped at gearing up for bargains to be had. A local dealer and factory trained service guy in Nikon and Mamiya was going out of business because he couldn't compete with the internet. I purchased all his factory parts, bodies and lens parts, etc. I could afford. I had him assemble as many as possible. I walked away with 13 Nikon F2 bodies, 11 F3 bodies, 13 MD2 and 14 MD4 motor drives, 4 RB67 Pro- SD and 3 Pro -S bodies, 21 120 Pro-SD backs, 8 645 120 backs and a host of related accessories for less than 4 grand. Every camera was 100% new on the inside. I still have two freezers of various film stock including 5247 70mm stock for my six RB 70mm magazines. The only two new lenses added since then are a pair of NIB 100-200 RB zoom lenses with supports from a dealer in Japan for 120 dollars each delivered five years ago. Got spares for my spares for my spares. I'd hate to have to buy that gear today!! Richard Photo Lab does my processing and scanning.

I would like to challenge your premise that film cameras are getting more expensive. They are— on ebay. But in the real world they are dirt cheap. I have about 100 film cameras in my collection and added up, they cost me less than my Fuji Xpro3 digital body. In fact most of the cameras I have got at no cost. Start by asking relatives and neighbors if they have any film cameras: my neighbor gave me a new Pentax Spotmatic in the box that he bought when he was stationed overseas. He had no idea “they still made film” And was glad to put in the hands of someone who would use it.

If you compare the cost of a film camera in modern dollars to what it cost when it was new they are a fraction of their original price. Most vintage items appreciate in cost of over time— cameras are a rare exception. Forget about the overpriced and trendy T4 and the K1000– get something affordable and start buying film. That’s what will keep film alive.

Well about 7 years ago I bought used Nikon F2 with a 50mm lens for $60 now that camera costs two or three times more.
I bought a Yashica 124 TLR for $80 then last year sold it for $150 and a SX70 Polaroid.

So the cameras are not very expensive but more than they were 4 or 5 years ago.

I'm partial to film although I also shoot Nikon digital, GoPro and Dji aerial. Back in the day I felt lucky to be hiking in Africa with an FE2 and an F3HP, a variety of color films in one and TMax in the other, and no need to recharge any batteries. I wanted to mention my Exakta 66 with a Schneider Kreuznach lens which also went to Africa, and now seems to have shot up in value. My latest fascination is the Pentax 6x7 which has a much larger variety of lenses and prisms. I've learned a lot about how to maintain the lenses and the Pentaxes (one of them is a very early model). The Exakta has needed nothing in the 35 years I've had it. I still have my father's Voigtlander, new in 1954, still functioning. I think if you spend the time doing maintenance you can get many years out of a film camera, and I would encourage people to try it if they haven't yet. The shooters I run into at the lab are generally quite young.

I can still buy Kodak Gold 200 at a backwoods Walmart in Canada in 2021, I think we still have quite a few decades before it dies off completely. People love to hate on Lomography but we'd be way worse off if it wasn't for them pushing analog as hard as they do. That horrible Lomo Purple is keeping your preferred film stocks alive, it's not like the "regular" companies aren't looking at the sales from Lomo for insight.