Been thinking of doing this for some time. A twitter conversation today about Kodak's dismal profit numbers pushed me over the edge and I'm finally taking action.
The thing is, I love shooting film. I know that I could go digital any day and it would not make a difference in the universe, but I would not be as happy. Unfortunately, any realistic look at the future includes film becoming ever more expensive and ever less available. So what's the solution? Hoard it and freeze it of course.
I gave some thought to what I might want to put away and it came down to this. 35mm film will likely be the very last thing to go and I figure we'll have pretty good notice before it does. If, when that time comes, I want to put some away, I can buy it by the 100 ft roll and easily put away a rest of my lifetime supply. Medium format is not quite that simple. I can't just buy it in bulk and roll my own when I need it. I've got to pay $4-5 a roll for it and put it aside now.
Depending on how soon medium format film becomes unavailable and on how long I live, it could easily take 100s of rolls to satisfy my needs. This is my humble beginning stash, ready to go in the extra freezer in the garage. Three rolls each of Tri-X, PanF and Delta 3200. From here on out, every time I order film, I'll order a few extra rolls to go in the stash.
Now, just to be clear, I'm not saying film is dying next week or next year, but it seems very possible that it will go in my lifetime...and for me, that's just not something I can let happen without preparing myself.
The problem with doing that is you may be hastening the demise of film because you're not going to buy fresh stock so much if you have a massive stash. It's a catch-22.
and erm. my stash is much more massive than that and it's barely on purpose, it's more of a hey I might only have a few rolls left of this stuff and then I accidentally order more. Then find I have a gazillion rolls anyway. Need to shoot more, really.
Posted by: Akki14 | January 27, 2011 at 09:09 AM