the short answer is that film is made in meter+ widths on machinery which
is then cut down to required sizes, including sheet film and 120 or 35mm.

often, the same machinery is used to run a series of batches of different
film stocks which are then cut down and processed and sold over the next 6
to 18 months or more out of frozen film stocks.

so if a film emulsion is available at all, it can be made available in any
standard film size (up to 8x10" anyway) and on whatever format (including
620 as an alternate to 120) you want. It used to be that a distributor
could order (minim. order around $10,000, and pay in advance) for formats
like 5x7" even if such formats were not otherwise available on the
standard Kodak catalog listings. At wholesale, that is a lot of film.

Film for Classics showed there was a larger market than Kodak and others
admitted for classic film formats like 620 and 127 etc. Now we have a
number of such specialty formats available from major distributors (like
B&H, Efke..) and mfgers.

I would bet that a film-only mfger freed from corp. pro-digital politics
would probably provide more formats, rather than less, simply because once
the film emulsions are produced, the cutting and packaging equipment is
also already there and paid for, so it might as well be used.

Before then, we will have to endure the trimming of marginal (if still
profitable) formats and emulsions from major mfgers like Kodak while they
first milk and then kill off their film based cash "cow" ;-)

The final point is that the migration of film production to overseas
(China's Lucky Film plants for Kodak etc.) further supports the idea of
lower cost film products in the future, as underlying costs will be low.
It will be hard to prevent direct exports from China etc. if they (kodak,
Lucky film, etc.) try to over-price their film for the USA market (a side
effect of world pricing info and Ebay etc. on arbitraging such price
differences to near zero).

So again, I think film costs are going down, and likely to stay down over
the long term...

p-) grins bobm

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* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
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