Larry Cloetta
Veteran
People who spend time on camera forums, myself included, live in a bubble, a tiny bubble.
“we will certainly see new film cameras in the future” Certainly?
“The reason is quite simple:
The collapse in demand for digital cameras. In 2018 it has fallen below 20 millions units (CIPA base). That is less than half of the number of sold film cameras in 2000.
The decline in digital camera sales will continue in the coming years, and a further fall below 15 million units p.a. is very likely”
True, and a cause of concern for manufacturers, no doubt. Digital cameras have become so competent, so capable of meeting every requirement of “normal” people that normal people, the people who used to buy cameras 50 years ago don’t need to buy a new one. And won’t. But that’s an infinitesimally small factor in the reason camera sales are falling. The overriding reason is “quite simple”: Phones. That’s the mass picture taking future. Cameras used to be the way everyone took photos. Because of that, there was a critical mass (many times over) of consumers which could support a camera and film producing infrastructure. That’s over.
With all due respect, one cannot make a logical leap from digital sales falling to “let’s go back to making film cameras.” GM just quit making sedans due to market shrinkage, they are scrambling to find a way forward to survive, but they are not considering going back to that thing with the horse, because it was popular once and people like horses.
But, if you spend your time in the bubble, talking to others who live in the same bubble, you are unlikely to fully comprehend what the future looks like. If you want to burrow even deeper into the bubble, and surround yourself with those who never leave the bubble, go to Photokina, or CES, where industry flacks will whisper sweet nothings into your ear. It’s their job, trying to keep a moribund industry afloat. The ultimate bubble. If the truth is unpleasant, no one has ever heard it at a trade show, except at the very end of an industry, and we’re not quite there yet.
If digital is at an impasse due to these factors, it’s not reasonable to jump from there to the conclusion that people are then going to want film cameras in such a significant number that a viable market for film cameras is going to spring from the earth like mushrooms after a rain. Because it won’t, because what people, not the people we hang around with here or at trade shows, those in the tiny bubble with us, but the actual mass of people who populate the earth, the mass of people who once wanted and needed cameras, what those people want now, and will be using going forward is a phone. Not a new Bessa.
As a related note, if you live in Brooklyn, or some other hipster enclave where there are people visible on the street with film cameras, you should realize that this is also a tiny bubble, and not representative of some larger trend about to change the photographic landscape and create a new dawn for film cameras, because it isn’t. Because it’s another tiny, If pleasant, bubble.
The figures for increases in film sales are real, but they are insignificant in the overall scheme of things as far as portending a new future is concerned.
The fact that film cameras which could be had 8 years ago for $40, now fetch upwards of $65; I’m not seeing that as much of a definitive sign from the heavens that some corporate entity is drooling over the possibility of riches to be gained from tooling up for production of new film cameras. Camera, singular? That’s possible, it’s the future, anything’s possible, if unlikely, but there’s certainly no certainly involved.
Here’s what the world outside our bubble looks like in reality: I live in one of the most photographed areas in the world, outside of Yellowstone National Park, and Grand Teton National Park. I go to the Parks all the time, to photograph, hike, or just relax. The parks have always been popular, but have gotten increasingly crowded over time. There are huge numbers of international tourists, from Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England, Australia, everywhere, whose numbers are now approaching a majority of visitors to these areas. July this year YNP had over one million visitors for the month, you are in a sea of people at the popular spots. They are almost all taking photos. I encounter thousands of photographers from all over the world, and all over the U.S. every year. It’s when I get out of the forum and trade show bubble. A few times every year I get up at 4 A.M. to drive to a somewhat secret spot to catch the sunrise on the mountains (a spot generally only visited by pro or advanced amateur photographers, even though there are so many of those that getting there before dawn is essential to get a good spot).
Over the last ten years, rubbing shoulders with this vast representative sample of people from all walks of life from all over the world, from professional photographers all the way down to average everyday people, all taking photographs, I have spent time with thousands upon thousands of them. In the last ten years out of all of those thousands, I have not seen one single other person taking pictures with a film camera. Not one. I
have been the only one. I get two different kinds of conversations. From the masses, I get “can you still get film for that?” From the pros and advanced amateurs I get, “I used to have one of those.”These are the people who once made the camera industry viable. The vast majority of this crowd, even in a known photographable area, is using phones, and it is a majority which grows larger every year. That’s what the future of photography seems to be if we look and listen to those outside our bubble.
More new film cameras coming down the pike, yeah, I don’t know. I love film, most of what I do is on film, so I’m hardly a hater. I don’t think it will disappear, so it looks good from that standpoint, even dry plate hasn’t disappeared. But, a new production body would either be affordable and lousy quality, or decent quality and hugely expensive. The best film bodies that will ever be made, those have already been made. And that’s why a used Contax 645 system costs what it does. Nobody will ever produce anything like that again. The future is unwritten, nothing is certain, but the bright future for film cameras, that’s right now.
Thanks for reading my screed, you hardy souls.
Phil_F_NM
Camera hacker
I understand fantasization, but that is all this is. It's up there with "what if aliens visited the earth today?"
What if Mercedes-Benz started making bespoke 300SL Gullwings off the 1959 pattern and sold them for the not-adjusted-for-inflation original price?
What if Rolex started giving away watches?
What if Coca Cola released it's true recipe free for public use?
What if I could fire up the boilers and take the battleship (which is a museum I currently work aboard) out for a cruise?
What if I found a mint condition Honus Wagner card?
What if Babe Ruth came back from the dead in prime condition? Who would draft him? Could he even play in today's league?
What is the point? Seriously.
EDIT: Thank you, Larry for writing the above comment. It's perfect here and also necessary.
Phil Forrest
What if Mercedes-Benz started making bespoke 300SL Gullwings off the 1959 pattern and sold them for the not-adjusted-for-inflation original price?
What if Rolex started giving away watches?
What if Coca Cola released it's true recipe free for public use?
What if I could fire up the boilers and take the battleship (which is a museum I currently work aboard) out for a cruise?
What if I found a mint condition Honus Wagner card?
What if Babe Ruth came back from the dead in prime condition? Who would draft him? Could he even play in today's league?
What is the point? Seriously.
EDIT: Thank you, Larry for writing the above comment. It's perfect here and also necessary.
Phil Forrest
colker
Well-known
People who spend time on camera forums, myself included, live in a bubble, a tiny bubble.
“we will certainly see new film cameras in the future” Certainly?
“The reason is quite simple:
The collapse in demand for digital cameras. In 2018 it has fallen below 20 millions units (CIPA base). That is less than half of the number of sold film cameras in 2000.
The decline in digital camera sales will continue in the coming years, and a further fall below 15 million units p.a. is very likely”
True, and a cause of concern for manufacturers, no doubt. Digital cameras have become so competent, so capable of meeting every requirement of “normal” people that normal people, the people who used to buy cameras 50 years ago don’t need to buy a new one. And won’t. But that’s an infinitesimally small factor in the reason camera sales are falling. The overriding reason is “quite simple”: Phones. That’s the mass picture taking future. Cameras used to be the way everyone took photos. Because of that, there was a critical mass (many times over) of consumers which could support a camera and film producing infrastructure. That’s over.
With all due respect, one cannot make a logical leap from digital sales falling to “let’s go back to making film cameras.” GM just quit making sedans due to market shrinkage, they are scrambling to find a way forward to survive, but they are not considering going back to that thing with the horse, because it was popular once and people like horses.
But, if you spend your time in the bubble, talking to others who live in the same bubble, you are unlikely to fully comprehend what the future looks like. If you want to burrow even deeper into the bubble, and surround yourself with those who never leave the bubble, go to Photokina, or CES, where industry flacks will whisper sweet nothings into your ear. It’s their job, trying to keep a moribund industry afloat. The ultimate bubble. If the truth is unpleasant, no one has ever heard it at a trade show, except at the very end of an industry, and we’re not quite there yet.
If digital is at an impasse due to these factors, it’s not reasonable to jump from there to the conclusion that people are then going to want film cameras in such a significant number that a viable market for film cameras is going to spring from the earth like mushrooms after a rain. Because it won’t, because what people, not the people we hang around with here or at trade shows, those in the tiny bubble with us, but the actual mass of people who populate the earth, the mass of people who once wanted and needed cameras, what those people want now, and will be using going forward is a phone. Not a new Bessa.
As a related note, if you live in Brooklyn, or some other hipster enclave where there are people visible on the street with film cameras, you should realize that this is also a tiny bubble, and not representative of some larger trend about to change the photographic landscape and create a new dawn for film cameras, because it isn’t. Because it’s another tiny, If pleasant, bubble.
The figures for increases in film sales are real, but they are insignificant in the overall scheme of things as far as portending a new future is concerned.
The fact that film cameras which could be had 8 years ago for $40, now fetch upwards of $65; I’m not seeing that as much of a definitive sign from the heavens that some corporate entity is drooling over the possibility of riches to be gained from tooling up for production of new film cameras. Camera, singular? That’s possible, it’s the future, anything’s possible, if unlikely, but there’s certainly no certainly involved.
Here’s what the world outside our bubble looks like in reality: I live in one of the most photographed areas in the world, outside of Yellowstone National Park, and Grand Teton National Park. I go to the Parks all the time, to photograph, hike, or just relax. The parks have always been popular, but have gotten increasingly crowded over time. There are huge numbers of international tourists, from Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England, Australia, everywhere, whose numbers are now approaching a majority of visitors to these areas. July this year YNP had over one million visitors for the month, you are in a sea of people at the popular spots. They are almost all taking photos. I encounter thousands of photographers from all over the world, and all over the U.S. every year. It’s when I get out of the forum and trade show bubble. A few times every year I get up at 4 A.M. to drive to a somewhat secret spot to catch the sunrise on the mountains (a spot generally only visited by pro or advanced amateur photographers, even though there are so many of those that getting there before dawn is essential to get a good spot).
Over the last ten years, rubbing shoulders with this vast representative sample of people from all walks of life from all over the world, from professional photographers all the way down to average everyday people, all taking photographs, I have spent time with thousands upon thousands of them. In the last ten years out of all of those thousands, I have not seen one single other person taking pictures with a film camera. Not one. I
These are the people who once made the camera industry viable. The vast majority of this crowd, even in a known photographable area, is using phones, and it is a majority which grows larger every year. That’s what the future of photography seems to be if we look and listen to those outside our bubble.
More new film cameras coming down the pike, yeah, I don’t know. I love film, most of what I do is on film, so I’m hardly a hater. I don’t think it will disappear, so it looks good from that standpoint, even dry plate hasn’t disappeared. But, a new production body would either be affordable and lousy quality, or decent quality and hugely expensive. The best film bodies that will ever be made, those have already been made. And that’s why a used Contax 645 system costs what it does. Nobody will ever produce anything like that again. The future is unwritten, nothing is certain, but the bright future for film cameras, that’s right now.
Thanks for reading my screed, you hardy souls.
All the logic and reason won´t dictate markets. Nostalgia is never explained by reason and yet nostalgia can drive the masses to buy things.
Internet bubbles and nostalgia drove the success of Fujifilm´s x line. Fuji bet on nostalgia and internet ambassadors. Fuji is not an upstart but a big corporation. The X cameras look like old slrs and RF.
I am not saying film will rule the earth again but the tiny bubbles are able to constitute a small market. I believe we are living an age of segmented thinking, segmented markets. If the tiny bubbles are made of young consumers big companies listen.
I agree we won´t see a new Contax 645 and probably won´t see a new Nikon SP. Only Leica keeps playing this kind of damm all costs let´s make the perfect old camera again.. Otoh, we could see a hybrid electronic, film, digital, mechanical camera. The tiny bubbles are saying: phones are not cameras.
EDIT: Tarantino insists on shooting film. It makes sense in a highly sophisticated context which he lives in. It does not make sense in other production centers which have moved entirely to digital. That is my point. There is not one single reason and logic driving decisions at the moment: there are segmented markets w/ different takes on things. Companies adapt to this situation.
gb hill
Veteran
We already have Voigtlander lenses at a fair price that can go heads with Nikon or Canon lenses. There are still a few Bessa cameras on the market. Buy a system & shoot. Quit daydreaming about the impossible & support Stephen over at CameraQuest. If it wasn’t for the entry level R system a few years ago & the great price I was able to get in at with my limited income I would of had to of settled for shooting my Fed.
colker
Well-known
Sorry but you are out of touch w/ what´s going on w/ young people in highly sophisticated markets.
colker
Well-known
The more the better.
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
There’s a difference between being sophisticated and imagining you’re sophisticated.
We used to call them Yuppies. It wasn’t a compliment.
Phil_F_NM
Camera hacker
Not at all, as a matter of fact. I am one of those young people in a very sophisticated market. There are cinematographers making full length features on cellphones here.
Fuji didn't bet on rangefinder, they bet on small form factor and ergonomics. They put fantastic sensors in very small, capable cameras that can also adapt a plethora of old lenses from numerous systems.
Look at journalists, they use point and shoots and phones these days. Yes, many still use DSLRs but none are using film. Some wedding photographers use film and charge a premium for that experience because it is no longer inexpensive to get consistent results in a decent amount of time.
Then where are all these new film consumers going to get their film processed? Not enough volume of sales for everyone to process their own. Noritsu, Agfa, Fuji, Kodak minilabs can be had FOR FREE just by showing up with a moving truck to get the toxic equipment out of the developer's new would-be bistro. Usually these once incredibly expensive pieces of equipment just end up in landfills or being torn apart to be recycled for steel and aluminum weight.
Add to the narrowness of your fantasy the fact that the motion picture industry has pulled out of the film market almost completely. NFL Films no longer shoot five miles of 16mm per weekend. They use Arri Alexas. When NFL went fully digital in 2014 Kodak no longer had the customer it relied upon for decades. NFL Films used to shoot more film in one week than all 35mm still users in the whole world combined.
So there is not the film to shoot either. The 35mm still market was always just a courtesy by big green and big yellow which the still camera manufacturers took advantage of. Without the motion picture industry demanding 70,000 feet of film per-production, there is simply no incentive to produce the film, then no incentive to produce cameras to shoot a few frames per week in the hands of some hipster.
Your logic is heavily skewed by your narrow view and mental mastur****** of the halcyon days of yore when photojournalists ruined their backs daily by carrying 40lbs of gear.
Phil Forrest
HHPhoto
Well-known
Dear Larry,
correct. Therefore I look at the real world outside forums to analyse the real situation. And not at forums.
Here at rff for years the mantra has been "film is dead" and "instant film will be the first film type that will completely die".
Well, just the opposite happened instead. All the armchair experts here have been wrong.
A very one-dimensional view which leads in the wrong direction. Because the phone usage has no influence on film camera usage. That are two completely different things and markets now.
The masses will use the phone. No doubt. That are currently about 3 billion people worldwide, and the number is increasing. Then we have the market of photography lovers and enthusiasts. That are about 2-5% of all photo making people. That is a relative small niche compared to phone use, but in total a big market nevertheless.
With instant film photography we have already a huge mass market. By the way a bigger market compared to even the most glorious film days!! The sales record in instant camera sales was in 2017 with more than 8 million instant cameras! In 2018 this number has been most probably even higher (data is not published yet). The numbers for instant camera sales have surpassed the sales of DSLRs and DSLMs!
The reality has already demonstrated in an impressive way that a film camera comeback is possible.
I don't expect the same huge strength with a standard film camera comeback. But it is also not necessary.
With increasing popularity of film and rising used camera prices we will see the point at which it makes sense for some manufacturers to introduce new film cameras again. Not as million unit p.a. sellers, but with the potential of five digit p.a. sales.
Such products are daily business for camera manufacturers. Cameras like the D3s, D4/s, D5, Df, several Fuji X-models etc. are performing in that sales volumes.
The camera manufacturers need additional profitable new niches. And in some years, film cameras will be that.
In some cases, we have the situation already now: In camera segments where the used prices are already on the level of former new prices like the Voigtländer Bessa III / Fuji GF670, Plaubel Makina, Mamiya 7 II, Pentax 67II, Contax 645.
Cheers, Jan
correct. Therefore I look at the real world outside forums to analyse the real situation. And not at forums.
Here at rff for years the mantra has been "film is dead" and "instant film will be the first film type that will completely die".
Well, just the opposite happened instead. All the armchair experts here have been wrong.
A very one-dimensional view which leads in the wrong direction. Because the phone usage has no influence on film camera usage. That are two completely different things and markets now.
The masses will use the phone. No doubt. That are currently about 3 billion people worldwide, and the number is increasing. Then we have the market of photography lovers and enthusiasts. That are about 2-5% of all photo making people. That is a relative small niche compared to phone use, but in total a big market nevertheless.
With instant film photography we have already a huge mass market. By the way a bigger market compared to even the most glorious film days!! The sales record in instant camera sales was in 2017 with more than 8 million instant cameras! In 2018 this number has been most probably even higher (data is not published yet). The numbers for instant camera sales have surpassed the sales of DSLRs and DSLMs!
The reality has already demonstrated in an impressive way that a film camera comeback is possible.
I don't expect the same huge strength with a standard film camera comeback. But it is also not necessary.
With increasing popularity of film and rising used camera prices we will see the point at which it makes sense for some manufacturers to introduce new film cameras again. Not as million unit p.a. sellers, but with the potential of five digit p.a. sales.
Such products are daily business for camera manufacturers. Cameras like the D3s, D4/s, D5, Df, several Fuji X-models etc. are performing in that sales volumes.
The camera manufacturers need additional profitable new niches. And in some years, film cameras will be that.
In some cases, we have the situation already now: In camera segments where the used prices are already on the level of former new prices like the Voigtländer Bessa III / Fuji GF670, Plaubel Makina, Mamiya 7 II, Pentax 67II, Contax 645.
Cheers, Jan
colker
Well-known
That´s what i have been trying to say but didn´t have access to data. We were used to think in terms of one horizon, one market and one kind of buyer. Everything else was outdated.
Digital created a different environment. Now there are layers of technology. Now we have segments. Buyers go from one layer to another: they use an iPhone, a film camera, watch Netflix and go to the movies all in one day. We also have less globalized habits: certain countries living different habits and access to different technologies.
colker
Well-known
It´s like you say but it´s also like i say. It´s a post industrial economy w/ so much money available to consumerism that film AND digital co exist.
I know of those iPhone movies. What´s even more radical is Tarantino shooting on 70mm. He does it because he can.
People are using film again because we can. That´s a different mindset from the 60s, 70s and 80s when you had to be up to date w/ technology. Technology was the mind set. You either got w/ the times or you you could not sell anything.
We have a very different market where you can sell anything. You sell technology and anti technology. People are bored. There is nowhere to go. Everything is the same. You just find ways to reinvent the mindscape. Film technology is just another way. No one is writing a new chapter of humanity w/ the film renaissance... it´s just something else to buy. People want more not less.
colker
Well-known
It´s not a moral issue. Calling people yuppies was a moral issue: right x wrong.
Yuppies thought they were affluent. They didn´t have virtual reality. Digital and virtual changed things. Radically.
Seems likely if there were to be a resurgence of interest in new film cameras, that Voigtlander would still be producing them. After all they have been a company catering to small niches for a long time. Yet they seem to be putting resources into lenses for digitals, instead of film cameras.
colker
Well-known
If there wasn´t a resurgence of interest in film you would not see the release of new emulsions and the rising prices for film cameras on eBay nor so many action on the blogosphere.
Cosina is just one company.
markjwyatt
Well-known
Segwaying from what @Larry_Cloeta asaid, then the response from colker- I went to Spain with my family in August. In April I bought my first serious camera in over a decade- a Fujifilm XT-2. From April-August I shot a lot, started roaming the photo forums, and started rediscovering film again also.
To the point. In Spain I saw a lot of people with cameras. I was still high on new-photography adrenaline, so I looked for Fujifilm digitals (any) and film cameras. I saw tons of Canon digitals, lots of Nikon digitals, some olympus and Sony and Panasonic digitals, and basically 2 film cameras! I saw one group I could confirm had a Fujifilm XT-2 (I think I may have seen another, but it may have been the same group another time)!.
It was too the point that of the hundreds of cameras I saw I was able to photograph "most" of the ones I was interested in.
Photographer Photographed Photographer Photographing Photographed by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr
Rare Fuji XT-2 Sighting Madrid by Mark Wyatt, on Flickr
I also photographed a drone photographer photographing a photographer (me) photographing a drone photographer.
HHPhoto
Well-known
No, because they stopped production some years ago before the film resurgence started. Bad timing.
Leica did it better: They hold on tight and are now benefitting from the film resurgence by increasing demand for their film based M models.
And that they introduced the Leica Sofort instax instant film camera was a very clever move: Because it is by far their best selling camera model. With much higher sales compared to their digital cameras. And with mostly young customers. People who cannot afford a digital Leica.
Cheers, Jan
colker
Well-known
There is a new economy going on alongside the old big corporation. Consumers have a deeper understanding of their power and are able to turn themselves into suppliers! The upstarts or jumpstarts on line from companies that produce anything is something new. We mixed politics and capitalism.
Leica has a different business model from Nikon and Canon so was able to bet on tradition while the others didn´t deal well w/ it. Tradition was something you could not sell. Now you can.
It’s possible that both film and digital will change in ways we can’t predict. The nostalgia market is one thing, but in order for something to thrive ... it has to constantly evolve. Digital camera sales and cell phone sales are down, but compared to film camera sales there is no comparison. There’s still money to be made in all three segments. It’s a good time to be into photography when it comes to equipment choices.
markjwyatt
Well-known
3D Printing offers new opportunities for camera manufacture (metallic and plastic). We have lenses, since even digital needs these. Film transport is not rocket science. Shutters are the most difficult item, and potentially could be produced through 3D printing (focal plane shutter slats, maybe even leaf shutters).
With 3D printing, each camera could be customized (I want red rubber coating on a larger grip, please).
With 3D printing, each camera could be customized (I want red rubber coating on a larger grip, please).
Bad timing or they know something you might not know about their own business? I would imagine the Sofort sells because it has a Leica logo, instax is hot, and it’s a cheap Leica. But as tool, it may be one of the worse ways to spend $300. And really... are you trying to compare the sales volume of a $300 camera vs a $5000 - $7000 camera as an indication of anything?
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