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.
