No more home for Ektachrome

[n5jrn]

You can guess that fewer and fewer people are using film just based on threads here on RFF. "Who's buying the new Fuji?", "when will the Nex be here"?, "what about that new Olympus OM-D", "Leica M10, bring it on!"...etc. Even in this little "film friendly" community film use has dwindled down to very low levels.

I do not believe your observations necessarily support your conclusions. Most people here shoot both film and digital. Interest in new digital camera bodies and systems does not necessarily imply a lack of interest in film photography.

 

[Joop van Heijgen]

Hi Joop,

you are welcome!

Feel free to copy this summary and give it to other photographers, or post it in other forums.

Cheers, Jan

I did on the Leica forum:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica...re-kodak-colour-slide-film-2.html#post1997858

Greetings, Joop

 

[Thardy]

I do not believe your observations necessarily support your conclusions. Most people here shoot both film and digital. Interest in new digital camera bodies and systems does not necessarily imply a lack of interest in film photography.

Oh, how could I forget the hoopla over the NEW Canon and Nikon. This place is not film crazy like they are at APUG. Film is done as a mainstream media, sorry.

Edit... I didn't notice that this is the film sub forum. FWIW I still buy film and I'm sorry we're losing them so quickly.

 

[wblynch]

I fail to appreciate the importance of "mainstream".

The only mainstream in photography now is the iPhone. So, using that logic, if it isn't iPhone, it isn't relevant.

Going one step further...

Rangefinders have not ben mainstream since the 1960's. And I believe the only Digital Rangefinder made anywhere in the world is the Leica M8/M9.

So if it has to be "mainstream" you must be dismissing the Rangefinder Forum completely?

 

[Aristophanes]

I do not believe your observations necessarily support your conclusions. Most people here shoot both film and digital. Interest in new digital camera bodies and systems does not necessarily imply a lack of interest in film photography.

It does not necessarily increase the shots taken, to split the discipline between two mediums. Every shot taken on digital is one less tan on film (taking into account ratio based on digital's opportunity cost decline for each additional shot).

So for every customer lost to digital in the whole, those who split their time also chew into film sales.

The internet has a way of making markets look bigger than they actually are.

 

[Thardy]

I fail to appreciate the importance of "mainstream".

The only mainstream in photography now is the iPhone. So, using that logic, if it isn't iPhone, it isn't relevant.

Going one step further...

Rangefinders have not ben mainstream since the 1960's. And I believe the only Digital Rangefinder made anywhere in the world is the Leica M8/M9.

So if it has to be "mainstream" you must be dismissing the Rangefinder Forum completely?

Haven't you seen all the comments about the excellent iPhone camera by members on RFF? Heck, I use it much more than my Leica.

 

[HHPhoto]

I did on the Leica forum:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica...re-kodak-colour-slide-film-2.html#post1997858

Greetings, Joop

Well done, Joop.

It is up to us to keep this wonderful photographic medium slide film alive. Shooting it by ourselves, showing it to others, especially young photographers who don't know about it.

I've shot digital for a very long time. During the last two years, I am more and more coming back to film. Now about 90% of my shots are film again.
Digital has shown me how wonderful and unique film is. It can not be replaced by digital, especially not slide film.
Two different mediums with their own specific characteristics.

I want to live in a free world, a world where I have alternatives, where I can choose what I like.
I want to have the possibility to choose between film and digital depending on the job to be done.
For this choice film have to be available.
I don't want to live in a "digital only" world in which I am forced to use digital. I don't want to live in such a world of totalitarianism where others (the digital photo industry) decide what I have to use.

A photo world with both film and digital is by far the best photo world.
To keep that we should shoot film. I'll do it.

Cheers, Jan

 

[shadowfox]

Well, then answer me this. Once you get that OM-D, whether it's your first digital or not, will you not automatically be shooting a bit less film? Afterall there are just 24 hours in a day and the purchase of a new camera will not automatically make you have more time to take pictures. And is the allure of cameras such as the OM-D, the M9 or the X-Pro not that they offer a user experience similar to that of their film counterparts?
No matter which way you turn it, the digital camera will replace the film camera at least some of the time. And that means you'll be buying less film than before.

Not necessarily.
I shoot digital cameras 7 years before I started shooting film. In the past I kept upgrading my digital cameras (same amount of shooting) and with me adopting film, it's my digital shooting that got reduced from 100% to less than 50% now.

Since then my film consumption has been steady. When I got an E-M5 in the near future, I will use it more and my E-P2 less, it's not film that will get less usage.

But forget about that, because that is not even the point at all, the point is this:

Not a single individual can do more than just a drop in the sea regarding film consumption. To really make a significant impact, there has to be tens of thousands of people like myself, who used to shoot only digital, but later adopted film into their photography.

And I'm doing what I can to spread the message, why? because I think film is unique and offers a lot that digital does not.