Most of this sounds like developing and scanning for color film, certainly cause for concern...
Scanning is really nothing more than taking a photo of the already made photograph, a reproduction step. So with that said, a great variety of scanning needs and wants come into play. For example, I generally wet print my black and white images, due to method stability reasons and greater artistic flexibility, I use very little color film. So last night I wanted to make good on showing some photos from my new Nokton 35, I developed the film earlier this week. I simply used my DSLR in RAW and a macro lens on with a small light table. Even though I was only after a small file for web presentation, the D800 can often give my Nikon 9000ED a run for it's money, it works that well, especially if I place a piece of glass over the neg with a cardboard mask to hold back stray light.
This is just one example of "scanning", I have even used my iphone to quickly snap pics of chromes that really come out pretty good for web representations. There is all this talk of quality but let's focus on the real Achilles heel of color or even black and white film and that is the convenience or lack thereof in sharing the image. Most enthusiasts who pixel peep are after the highest quality they can get, so they might go the dedicated scanner or DSLR route while the Facebook crowd just wants it good enough to fill a average display, often an iPad or phone.
There is a lot of room for innovation here and yes, that also includes creating a network of labs that already handle print output from the likes of SD and CF cards. As a working pro who talks to a lot of people, perhaps an average of 2-3 everyday about photography, I can tell you from my experience that most people are not happy about the decline in labs or places to make a simple print from *any* medium, digital, film or otherwise.
So there needs to be some innovation here and centralized wet labs that are based on regional needs could easily serve the needs of customers that do not know where to go. People like to be able to count on things not changing too much, like the milk being in the same aisle of the grocery store. The same applies to how they deal with their images.
Maybe Alaris is onto this and is figuring out a way to meld at least middle of the road scanning services in addition to print products as it moves forward. In 2009 during a meeting at Kodak I was a part of, a former Photo.net admin brought up the lack of both a consumer version and network of scanners as the number one problem that film use faces. He is and was right.
This is exhausting stuff to a guy like me who really believes in film products offering an alternative to life in same-as-every-other-hack digital land. Some days I want to sign onto a place like this, try to get people fired up to be positive. Most days I go about my business of photography, use my darkroom and enjoy the fact that if all film production ceased tomorrow, I would be set for at least ten years from shutter click to matted print.
I am getting close to the latter...in fact I really have nothing more to add....except, what do you and other film doomsayers get out of leading the sky is falling crusade? Does it make you feel good about something in your lives to point a finger at someone and say their loved one is likely not going to survive cancer treatment?
I had mentioned a few posts back about how much better RFF is about not being down on film but it is starting to shift the other way and I just can't take it because if a day comes that I can not use my darkroom to make a *REAL* effing photograph, I am DONE with photography. Fortunately, Ilford Harman is doing very well with the entire process of black and white film all the way to the final print, their new MG Classic paper is fantastic, so let's not make it sound like ALL film is at risk when at least one player is continually in the black and is innovating to boost demand.
Looks like it is time to log out and leave it be...
