jlw
Rangefinder camera pedant
June 16, 2025
WINDSOR, Ontario -- Weyerhauser Corp. broke ground today on a fifth new finishing mill in its Windsor complex, part of an effort by paper producers to keep pace with spiraling worldwide demand for black-and-white photographic paper -- a product nearly written off as extinct as little as 20 years ago.
Photo industry observers say the supply of black-and-white printing materials has increased by more than 1,100 percent in the past two years, but still falls well short of demand.
"Demand for black-and-white products has been building for nearly a decade, but the manufacturers were caught flat-footed," said industry analyst Eton Eritas of Bogasz Capital Partners. "All the big players thought this was a dead product category. Now they're scrambling to get back in the game."
Eritas attributed some of the resurgence of black-and-white to the more traditional tastes of photo consumers in fast-growing, newly prosperous markets such as Iraq and North Korea. But other observers credited a combination of factors for the revival of the category, once thought doomed when consumers began to embrace digital imaging technologies.
"Pictures are all about memories, and people want their memories to last, " said sociology professor Gareth Tweep of Lyndhurst University. "As we all remember, the big solar flare eruption of 2017 erased billions of digital photos. Then there was the discovery that oxygen emissions from the new fuel-cell cars are causing the rapid fading of color photo and inkjet dyes.
"Pictures were literally fading away before people's eyes. They got tired of finding that their own treasured family pictures were completely gone -- while the old black-and-white album pictures of great-grandma's family were still doing just fine. They just got fed up."
Computer-industry columnist Rajeev Pundit said another factor was the outbreak two years ago of the PixMuncher virus, which infects digital image files and spreads via camera phones and memory cards. As many as 85 percent of all current digital imaging devices are suspected of harboring the virus, which alters the pixel structure of digital images in a way that causes the pixel values to become randomized over time. Last year's bankruptcy of the once-dominant Corbis stock photo agency was blamed on an infestation of PixMuncher, which obliterated the agency's entire 1.1-billion-file collection of digital files.
Despite the 86-percent decline in digital imaging product sales over the past three years, some industry-watchers still feel the segment still has a chance to fend off the black-and-white onslaught.
"Digital still has its place," said Kepbert Herbler, publisher of 'Popular Imaging and Digital Gadget' magazine. "I mean, not EVERY picture has to last for days or weeks or months or whatever. And a lot of people really like the look of pixels, banding, and compression noise -- it gives a whole retro, 2001-type look. We think that digital will remain strong in what we call the 'disposable' photography market -- pictures that you feel like you have to take, but don't really want to keep."
In related photo industry news, Leica Camera A.G. said Tuesday it plans to open its fourth new assembly plant, a $34 million facility in Schenectady, N.Y., by early this summer. Leica CEO Gerhard Putz said that with the added capacity, buyers of Leica's M9 camera should be able to obtain delivery in as little as three to four months, compared to the current 9-to-12-month waiting list. National Photo Dealers' Association president Biff Truckle warned that if Leica can't increase supplies of the popular camera immediately, it risks losing sales to the Carl Zeiss Foundation's new Contax V and VI models, as well as the industry's current best-selling models, the Canon 8c and the Nikon SP-4b.
WINDSOR, Ontario -- Weyerhauser Corp. broke ground today on a fifth new finishing mill in its Windsor complex, part of an effort by paper producers to keep pace with spiraling worldwide demand for black-and-white photographic paper -- a product nearly written off as extinct as little as 20 years ago.
Photo industry observers say the supply of black-and-white printing materials has increased by more than 1,100 percent in the past two years, but still falls well short of demand.
"Demand for black-and-white products has been building for nearly a decade, but the manufacturers were caught flat-footed," said industry analyst Eton Eritas of Bogasz Capital Partners. "All the big players thought this was a dead product category. Now they're scrambling to get back in the game."
Eritas attributed some of the resurgence of black-and-white to the more traditional tastes of photo consumers in fast-growing, newly prosperous markets such as Iraq and North Korea. But other observers credited a combination of factors for the revival of the category, once thought doomed when consumers began to embrace digital imaging technologies.
"Pictures are all about memories, and people want their memories to last, " said sociology professor Gareth Tweep of Lyndhurst University. "As we all remember, the big solar flare eruption of 2017 erased billions of digital photos. Then there was the discovery that oxygen emissions from the new fuel-cell cars are causing the rapid fading of color photo and inkjet dyes.
"Pictures were literally fading away before people's eyes. They got tired of finding that their own treasured family pictures were completely gone -- while the old black-and-white album pictures of great-grandma's family were still doing just fine. They just got fed up."
Computer-industry columnist Rajeev Pundit said another factor was the outbreak two years ago of the PixMuncher virus, which infects digital image files and spreads via camera phones and memory cards. As many as 85 percent of all current digital imaging devices are suspected of harboring the virus, which alters the pixel structure of digital images in a way that causes the pixel values to become randomized over time. Last year's bankruptcy of the once-dominant Corbis stock photo agency was blamed on an infestation of PixMuncher, which obliterated the agency's entire 1.1-billion-file collection of digital files.
Despite the 86-percent decline in digital imaging product sales over the past three years, some industry-watchers still feel the segment still has a chance to fend off the black-and-white onslaught.
"Digital still has its place," said Kepbert Herbler, publisher of 'Popular Imaging and Digital Gadget' magazine. "I mean, not EVERY picture has to last for days or weeks or months or whatever. And a lot of people really like the look of pixels, banding, and compression noise -- it gives a whole retro, 2001-type look. We think that digital will remain strong in what we call the 'disposable' photography market -- pictures that you feel like you have to take, but don't really want to keep."
In related photo industry news, Leica Camera A.G. said Tuesday it plans to open its fourth new assembly plant, a $34 million facility in Schenectady, N.Y., by early this summer. Leica CEO Gerhard Putz said that with the added capacity, buyers of Leica's M9 camera should be able to obtain delivery in as little as three to four months, compared to the current 9-to-12-month waiting list. National Photo Dealers' Association president Biff Truckle warned that if Leica can't increase supplies of the popular camera immediately, it risks losing sales to the Carl Zeiss Foundation's new Contax V and VI models, as well as the industry's current best-selling models, the Canon 8c and the Nikon SP-4b.
