Harman Technology Ltd – the makers of Ilford and Kentmere films, chemicals and papers – has announced a price rise to all its photographic products.

The price rise takes effect immediately, but the company says the increase is not a result of the lockdown because of the coronavirus.

The price rise will see Ilford and Kentmere films rise by around 6%, darkroom chemicals by 10%, photographic paper by 3% and the Harman-branded Simple Use Cameras by 10%. How this relates to prices at the retail end obviously differs from store to store. The prices are listed as taking effect next month.

The price rise comes a few weeks after the company’s factory in Mobberley, Cheshire, temporarily ceased film production after the UK government ordered non-essential business to close amid the coronavirus pandemic. Harman said the factory ran at extra capacity in the run-up to the shut down so that it would have as much stock as possible for the next few months.

An Ilford spokesperson told Kosmo Foto the price rise was their normal annual increase which would have usually happened earlier in the year, but that it had been delayed because of the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

As photographers spend more time indoors and less time shooting film, Harman has rolled out its Lockdown Sessions on its website, interviewing various figures from the analogue photography scene. You can read the first two already, the first with EMULSIVE’s EM and the second with 35mmc’s Hamish Gill.

The Ilford Photo site also features a list of labs and camera shops that are still able to send out film during the coronavirus lockdown. You can find that list here.

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