Film Photography Today - 'Ow Much???

[@Clive]

Inspired by some of the latest threads on here I went down to the basement and looked for my old film cameras. I had sold off virtually everything after sustaining a serious eye injury in 2006 that prevented me from seeing clearly through viewfinders. It took years to heal properly, but the upside was that I sold off the gear before it devalued when digital took over. Then I had another cull before moving abroad and I couldn't remember what I had left.

I didn't find the Olympus XA. That must have been sold, but I have a small Ricoh rangefinder 35mm, a Pentax ME-Super 35mm SLR and a Zeiss Ikonta 6x9 folding camera. I got the first two going after fitting new batteries and the Ikonta has a mechanical mechanism. So all are working.

Then I looked into buying film. €12 for a roll of 35mm x 24 colour film and the same for a roll of 120 film

Then the processing costs added twice as much. If I opted for printing and scanning the 8 images from a roll of film through the old Ikonta it would work out at around €4 per photo. 24 photos from the 35mm cameras would be €1.50 per photo or €1.10 without the scanning.

The price of some film cameras is also eye watering. Olympus XA compact camera from the 1970's are being snapped (sorry) up at over €100 within 24 hours of the ads being placed. Any Leica or Contax film camera is worth more now than back when film was readily and cheaply available. I used to have a Contax G2 outfit bought new from Germany in 2004. If I had kept it I would still get my money back today. The ordinary plastic cameras are scrap and medium priced late model SLR cameras aren't highly valued, but there are certain brands and models that still appear to be highly sought after. And there are some real oddities. Around 2002 I bought a nice Rank-Mamiya rangefinder for a fiver from Cash Convertors. That was what they were fetching back then. There are currently 2 on the freeads at over €100 each. Crazy!

 

[mikench]

I don’t live far from the former Ilford factory which was largely sold off for housing years ago leaving behind a tiny office which may itself have gone now. I always bought Ilford black and white film for reasons I cannot explain. I have a few rolls left which I’m sure are defunct. It’s a shame but that is progress I suppose. One day my Minolta and Cannon gear might be worth something. I doubt I will ever find out.

 

[@Clive]

Ilford film is still available. However, so is Kodak and you can buy Hoover domestic products and they both went bust a long time ago. So it may be different companies are making the products after purchasing the brand name.

Minolta was always under valued in the s/h market imo. When new £ for £ they were equal to Canon and Nikon in function and build quality, but never captured the public's interest. Canon kept changing their lense mounts and have complicated the s/h values. At least with Pentax and Nikon you could be reasonably sure that old lenses would fit on the newer cameras albeit without some of the modern auto functions.

 

[@Clive]

In 1960 this Zeiss Contarex would have set you back just under £4,000 in today's money. Like the ABU Suvaren reels of 40 years later, they cost more to make than they could sell them for and as a result stayed on the dealer's shelves until they were heavily discounted. By which time Zeiss cameras had gone bust and ABU had moved production to the far east.

There are over 1,000 parts in the camera and required over 4,000 operations were needed to assemble it. Nobody these days can repair them and there are no spare parts available. It was said of Zeiss engineers thst they couldn't see why one part would do when they could use six to do the same job. Fortunately for me this one still works and the seller had mis described it as the cheaper and much less rare Contaflex model. That would have only set you back the equivalent of two grand in 1958!