In this episode of the Fine Art Photography Podcast, the film photography market is surging, but is it really the return of analog, or is it a passing fad?
Full Episode Transcript
Film photography is experiencing a real surge, but is it sustainable?
Intro
Hey everybody, Keith Dotson here welcoming you back to another episode of the fine art photography podcast.
In this episode, I will be mentioning some brand names. None of these were paid sponsorships and none should be considered as endorsements.
If you’re a photographer — and if you consume media related to photography — you’ve no doubt seen a lot of buzz about the return of film photography. I saw a headline a few months ago that the demand in film actually impacted the silver market for the first time in years. It made me wonder, just how real is the rebound of analog film use in photography?
Old film cameras — at least those in good condition — are getting harder to find and are selling at higher and higher prices. Just a few years ago you could buy a vintage Hasselblad for $500 and now they can easily go for close to $1500, depending on the model.
Some retailers are once again selling point-and-shoot 35mm film cameras and some are even stocking film — if sporadically. Even as large manufacturers like Fujifilm are discontinuing traditional favorites, niche players like Cinestill, Film Photography Project, and even Japan Camera Hunter are introducing either new or repurposed film stocks.
Lomography offers several very distinctive color films with a lot of personality — films that make a very unique statement. Ilford just announced that they’ve expanded their affordable Kentmere brand of black and white film to medium format and Kodak expanded its popular Kodak Gold brand earlier this year.
A recently published article from Canada’s McGill University titled “Flying with Film,” says that film sales doubled between 2009 and 2019, after an all-time low.
Reasons that people are rejecting digital for film, or more likely supplementing digital with film photography, are as varied as the photographers themselves, but the authenticity of the film photography experience and the look of film photos is a reason that’s often cited.
Film cameras are easy to use, taking us back to the fundamentals, without a lot of deep camera menus and settings to decipher — with a film camera, it’s just aperture, shutter speed, and iso — and of course, the choice of which film to shoot.
Like many of you, I started photography in the before times — the era when everyone shot on film because that’s all we had available. I learned to use a darkroom in high school. But my skills didn’t really improve until digital photography came along. As a dad with a young family, the ease and affordability of digital helped me improve more quickly because I could burn through the frames without concern for cost. With digital I was able to shoot thousands of frames, experimenting, seeing what works and what doesn’t work. Since I worked as a graphic designer, I always had a Macintosh and Photoshop, so it was easy to open and manipulate digital files. They say you need 10,000 hours of practice to become excellent at something and digital helped me get through those valuable hours of failures and successes.
So, now in 2022, as a person who shoots primarily on digital cameras, I have to credit digital photography for my career. But even as a digital photographer, I still thoroughly enjoy the mechanical sensation of using a vintage film camera; The clunk of the shutter; The ratchet of the film advance lever; The joy of gazing through that big magnificent medium format viewfinder.
It just feels more visceral.
I’ve always enjoyed collecting old cameras and occasionally I will take one out to shoot a roll of film. This summer I pulled out a dusty old Pentax K1000 with the kit 50mm lens and loaded a 24 exposure roll of Tri-X into it and used it everywhere I went for about a week. It felt nostalgic, the camera dangling on a nylon strap off one shoulder. It also felt liberating — no huge camera bag; No extra lenses; No tedious camera trickery like focus stacking; Not even a tripod. I enjoyed it immensely and what’s more, the resulting photographs were good!
There’s no question that my Sony A7RIV with modern lenses is technically far superior to most film cameras, but I recently unpacked my old 1977 Hasselblad 500 CM and began shooting medium format again, and I’ve noticed that in some situations, film seems to actually hold the light better than an electronic sensor — as though the sunlight is actually captured in the film. Maybe I’m romanticizing — but sometimes film really does give a different and subjectively better look than digital. And I’m an artist so I’m allowed to romanticize!
I’ve been shooting Tri-X and TMAX, and I recently discovered Cinestill Double X, which is now my favorite. It’s a Kodak black and white cinema film that’s long been used by the motion picture industry, Cinestill recuts and repackages it for medium format and 35mm. When I get the scans back from the lab, I don’t have to adjust anything (except sometimes to straighten horizons — Oops) — the sharpness and contrast are incredible. There’s no fudging in Photoshop or Lightroom. No converting with Nik Silver Efx. I blow up the scanned frames on my screen and the sharpness, film grain, and contrast are just gorgeous.
I’ve even decided to start offering prints from some of the film shots in my portfolio.
But for me, it’ll always be digital as a first choice because I just don’t have the confidence to rely solely on vintage gear which is prone to quirky behavior or even outright failure, or in my own skills with film. There are too many potential points of error for me to remove digital from my workflow completely. And I might shoot with my Sony in wet weather or snow, but there’s no way I’d do that with the Hasselblad.
And I haven’t even mentioned the escalating costs of film.
But YouTube and Instagram are filled with people who prefer film over digital. An article by the German news service Deutsche Welle said that 20 million photos are listed under the hashtag #filmisnotdead — and that was in late 2021, so it’s almost certainly very much an out of date number.
They attribute the popularity of film photography to young people, and quote the American film photography enthusiast Jason Kummerfeldt, known for his popular YouTube channel Grainy Days, as saying with analog photography you get a real image on a negative, rather than just ones and zeros on a memory card.
Nothing against Jason Kummerfeldt, but what about serious big name photographers?
Of course, many big name artists have always used film. Michael Kenna shoots with a Hasselblad medium format camera. Sally Mann is a large format shooter, as is Gregory Crewdson. Edward Burzynsky shoots on film and so does Andreas Gursky. Clyde Butcher was able to get vast prints from his large format negatives. Film director Wim Winders is an avid photographer and while he was working on the movie Paris Texas he shot some amazing landscapes of the American West using a medium format Makina Plaubel, but he’s also known for his Polaroid photographs and his panoramas made with a Fuji GX617.
So back to my initial question . . . how real is this film rebound?
According to a September 2022 article from PopPhoto, the silver market experienced a 19-percent increase in 2021, with three percent of that bump caused by the manufacture of photographic film. That article says a lot of that demand is for X-ray film — a surge of people getting medical care after putting it off because of the pandemic — but a portion of it is the resurging popularity of film in photography.
But according to that article, the film resurgence isn’t fully reflected in the 2021 stats, because those numbers were still suffering from the effects of the pandemic. For example, in 2021, Hollywood productions were still curtailed, and Hollywood is still a huge user of 35mm film. And the pandemic created a slump in the use of extremely popular instant films like Polaroid and Instax.
Don Franz, the editor of Photo Imaging News, claims that film labs are — quote — “starting and restarting film processing lines.” Franz attributes the additional demand for silver to instant films, single-use cameras, and silver-halide photo papers.
But PopPhoto says his optimism is overblown, claiming that their review of market stats indicates that those things really didn’t create that much additional demand. And while the three-percent bump in the market is noticeable, film sales are still way below where they were pre-digital.
The previously mentioned Deutsche Welle article quotes someone from Kodak as saying they are “excited and optimistic about the future of film,” and also said that eBay confirmed that there has been “high double-digit growth” in sales of analog photography gear in the past few years.
And Marketpace.org reported that The Darkroom, a California-based photo lab with online ordering, has seen a more than 20% annual increase in 35 mm film being processed since 2018.
So, I guess the question I’ve been asking myself is will the film resurgence sustain, or is it a trend that will eventually tail off once people tire of the look or maybe the price of film photography?
According to several articles I read, including one on PetaPixel, a variety of experts and at least one study have confirmed that the demand for analog photography shows no sign of abating. However, that study said that people are quite price sensitive, and would love to shoot more film if they could afford it. And the study identified a perception that major companies care more about profits than growing the analog market.
Having said that, it’s worth noting that the Eastman Kodak Co. announced in October that it was hiring more than 300 people to assist with meeting the rising demand for 35mm film.
And finally, that study identified a strong desire for companies to release new analog cameras. This is something I’ve been curious about. How hard would it be for Hasselblad, Canon, or Pentax to release new versions of their classic film cameras? Leica just re-released the M6 for the first time in what — 20 years? Leicas are obviously aimed at the luxury market, but perhaps if the M6 sells well, other camera makers will follow suit.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for this episode. Regardless of what you shoot, film or digital or both — have fun and keep shooting.
As always, links and sources can be in the show notes and a full transcript is available on my blog at I catch shadows dot com.
Thanks for listening. I’ll talk to you again real soon.
Sources and Links
Deutsche Welle. “Analog photography makes a comeback”
Marketplace.org. “Film photography has made a comeback. Can manufacturers keep up with demand?”
McGill University. Office for Science and Society. “Flying with Film.”
PetaPixel. “Study Confirms There is Still Demand for New Film Cameras”
This is exciting news Keith! Thanks for researching the info and sharing your insights.
It really is exciting. I can see the film ecosystem rebuilding over the next few years.