One thing that makes me reconsider digital photography is the costs. Apart from the fact that got frustrated by the quality of developing and scanning at Hema labs and other shops. I buy my film at macodirect, which is fast and quite cheap, I develop and scan my film at Hema for 35mm, and develop it at Fransen for mediumformat.

These are the costs of using film:

Ilford xp2super 400 is 39,45 per 10 rolls for 120 and 48,49 per 10 rolls for 35 mm.
36 frames on a roll of 35 mm, 12 frames on a roll of 120.

Per frame that means:

mediumformat (120): 0,33
35mm: 0,13

Development for 35 mm + scanning at Hema labs costs 7,95
Development at Fotofransen for mediumformat costs 6,65
(I scan mediumformat myself)

Per frame:

mediumformat (120): 0,55
35mm: 0,22

So total costs of film, per frame, just the film + development (and in the case of 35mm scanning):

mediumformat: 0,88
35 mm: 0,35


Then printing.

I use an epson R-2400 printer. I am using different papers, I am now using s-color glossy, which is a very nice, good quality, quick drying and not too expensive paper.
A pack of 50 sheets of A4 glossy s-color pro series is 17,33.

So the costs of paper is:
0,35 for an A4 print
0,17 for an A5 print

I mostly do A5 prints.

The biggest costs in printing is ink. A full set of ink for my printer costs 91 euro’s if I buy it cheap, while sometimes I buy a seperate cartridge for 15 euros. (There are 7 cartridges in a set). I am not sure how long ink will last. To give an idea: I have my printer now for a year, and I spent about 500 euros on cartridges.

I have seen studies where they estimate the costs of ink around 0,65 euro per A4 print, so that is 0,32 per A5 print. This is a black and white print, which I mostly do.

So ink + paper costs for an a print is 0,49 for an A5, which it would cost if I would print a digital photo.

To summarize: using film and then printing, the costs for an A5 print is:


mediumformat: 1,37 euro
35 mm: 0,84 euro


Of course, one could print at Hema or shops like that, but their quality sucks, especially for black and white. So in this equation, 0,84 for an A5 print from a 35 mm frame is not too bad. Hema print costs 0,45 euro for a 13x19 print, which is a bit smaller than A5.


Finallly, these are just the costs of film, development, scanning and printing, and does not include other costs, like equipment.

Tags: photography