lightshot
Established
I honestly can't see film or film photography ever going away. Even if you started with film after using one of those nasty mass produced DSLR's (and what film camera wasn't produced for the masses as well?) photos taken with film have a quality that isn't matched by a DSLR. I know some will argue the point with me, but if you look at B&W photos online, the best ones - (to me) those with the best contrast were shot on film and developed at home.
When I shoot I use film for those shots that I want to take my time with and find the right light, setting, etc. for and digital for those shots I have to get quickly - like wedding photography. That fancy DSLR isn't better than my film cameras, but it does make the job easier for me and if it weren't for that DSLR and it's limitations I never would have found my way over to film.
That's why I don't see film going away. Even if only a fraction of DSLR users move over to film, that's still a substantial amount.
When I shoot I use film for those shots that I want to take my time with and find the right light, setting, etc. for and digital for those shots I have to get quickly - like wedding photography. That fancy DSLR isn't better than my film cameras, but it does make the job easier for me and if it weren't for that DSLR and it's limitations I never would have found my way over to film.
That's why I don't see film going away. Even if only a fraction of DSLR users move over to film, that's still a substantial amount.
Sjixxxy
Well-known
My larger concern is about what to buy that will allow me to produce work during and after the Zombie Apocalypse. I can't rely on the smart people who keep the power grids up not getting eaten, so longevity without refrigeration would be an essential feature of items to stock up on.
bmattock
Veteran
How much does it cost to make those things? Is the bar to entry into a small business producing those items high?
Commercially producing photographic film has a higher bar to entry. Whereas a small company can buy old vinyl presses and make LP records (and some have), so far none have purchased old coating, slitting, and spooling machines and made commercial quantities of photographic film. In fact, the smallest producers have been falling away of late.
There is no logical reason to believe that photographic film will be produced commercially indefinitely, and logic supports the opposite conclusion.
bmattock
Veteran
Film sales decline every year. That's a substantial amount. Sorry, film is doomed.
jack palmer
Well-known
Right wingnut scare tactics, film isn't doomed. Plastic is doomed.
bmattock
Veteran
I base my opinion on facts. Film sales decline year on year by double-digit amounts globally. Where are your facts?
Chris101
summicronia
We're all doomed.
bmattock
Veteran
Ultimately? Yes. I may not outlive B&W film, but if all goes well for me, I'll probably outlive commercial color print and slide film.
flip
良かったね！
Once you post something to the Internet, it has a life all its own and will likely outlive you, me, and film stock. I await the inevitable next wave: smellovision.
NDAv
Member
Nothing really to add here. Just want to say I started photography 5 years ago and I am thinking about buying my first film camera ever. After having done some learning to take photos, I feel confident enough to start using film and learning to process film does not seem so daunting.
That's the great thing about digital really: it has allowed talentless hacks such myself to be able to take a lot of photographs they probably should not be taking a lot of photographs.
That's the great thing about digital really: it has allowed talentless hacks such myself to be able to take a lot of photographs they probably should not be taking a lot of photographs.
sevo
Fokutorendaburando
Don't judge everything by consumer 35mm film - look at pro materials. There, the conversion has already completely happened, and whoever is using pro film does it on purpose rather than because the film still was in the camera ever since X-mas '03.
Kodak has reported growing sheet film sales for two years running.
ZDP-189
Small, fat bear
We all walk a long and forked road on the quest for our photographic Shangri-la
We all walk a long and forked road on the quest for our photographic Shangri-la
What will surpass digital? From a technical perspective, I would imagine real-time recording through multiple sensors in a fractal interpolated augmented 4D reality. Beyond that, neural interfacing and quantum computing.
However, back to the spirit of the question, I think many people today are walking the same path as I find myself on.
I got into photography as a child when I was given a Polaroid Land Camera for Christmas. It gave me immediate feedback and a pack of 10 instant prints cost a week's pocket money, so I made every frame count. I would wait for light, arrange the composition and deliver my image. I was willing to say, "no this would be a wasted shot" and walk away.
Later, as a teenager, my school offered photography classes. I learned about depth of field and spent as much time in the dark room as out on the campus, bulk loading, pushing, pulling, dodging and burning. 100 foot rolls of Ilford FP4 allowed me to experiment, but still I was shooting with consequence because of the time I'd spend under the red lamp.
As a young man, I shot automatic compact 135 and APS cameras purely as a record of holidays and special occasions. I could rarely create images I intended, because my technical input had been taken out of the loop. I shot less and less.
I got into digital early, with a Casio QV10. It ate AA batteries at the rate of a pair for 36 shots and so cost nearly as much to run as a film camera. As digital technology flourished, I bought better and better compact but the results never compared to pro film shot through good glass.
Finally I bought myself an EOS 400D DSLR and a Tamron 17-50/2.8 and rediscovered my love of photography. I could again enjoy creating images I wanted to share. I'd stalk my local port town and parks during golden hour taking candids and scenic shots. I got into portraiture. I quickly reached the limits of that camera's sensor and accumulated a bag full of L glass, finally upgrading to a full frame sensor to maximise my field of view and to reduce my depth of field.
I was still not able to deliver that professional look until I discovered the Strobist movement. This is a major focus of my learning right now.
At this point I began to get frustrated. I was up to my armpits in gear at home and would go on a shoot with a minimum of two lenses, strobes and Pocketwizards. People started asking me if I was a pro, purely on the basis of the heavy kit I was lugging. Truthfully, I did get some good images. I had some lucky accidents out of the vast volume of pictures I took and spent hours in Photoshop tweaking them, but surely the pros were doing things I wasn't. Something was wrong.
At this point, my Mother bought me a Canon P with a clean 50/1.4 lens on the advice of one of my buddies. I was quickly hooked. I spent a week just re-learning to judge light levels by eye. I re-realised that the camera's automatic functions were not always right and that I again found myself master of my own images. I was empowered.
I also began to enjoy the eccentricity of shooting film. Once I realised that it was not just a sensor, but an artistic medium, I started to enjoy the quirks of saturated Velvia 50 and grainy P3200 or the subtlety of Portra NC shot wide open at midday. I even got into APS and delight in capturing moody sunset images with Nexia 200 through a wide lens in my EOS IX.
I also started to enjoy street shooting. I have few good images to show, but I like the technical challenge and the art. It was great shooting wide lenses on my Canon P and then on a Bessa L I picked up off eBay. Print film’s latitude and the depth of field I got from the wide lenses could do things that would be considered challenging with a modern DSLR. The rangefinders were so much quieter and smaller too. This culminated in my purchase of a Hexar AF, the most capable camera I have ever used for this kind of photography.
The only problem with the Hexar was the size. It’s almost the size of a SLR but so wide that you have to wave the big thing in someone’s face to fill the frame. I needed something small.
I bought a Nikon 35Ti which was gorgeous but turned out to be defective so I returned it in part exchange for a TC-1. Aside from a limited maximum aperture of f/3.5, it does the job, but I still miss the flawed Nikon. Researching these cameras, I realised that they were part of a small exclusive club of luxury compacts that allowed a high degree of manual control, had pro-level optics and in the Nikon’s case, the best 3D matrix metering outside of an SLR.
Up until now, I had been buying film cameras on the cheap, but these cameras were selling second hand for more than my 400D was new. I missed several opportunities on eBay because my pricing was always a step behind the rising prices. On a recent trip to Tokyo, I found out why. I and a couple of other people speaking Cantonese were the only ones carrying DSLRs. Everyone else seemed to be without cameras, until a character or a marching band came out and then everyone would whip out a compact camera. The vast majority, but not all, has LCDs on the back. For the last year, I have read media articles, heard radio programmes and seen TV features on the film camera resurgence, but last week my photography guru returned from a trip to Tokyo with stories of magazines dedicated to the luxury compact camera trend and tales of Tokyo camera stores with soaring prices on film compacts. There is a definite craze going on.
The good news is my friends will no longer see me as crazy and eccentric. The bad news is that they’ll be competing with me on eBay. I’m easy to spot, by the way, if the bidder starts with a “Z” and ends with a “9” or vice-versa, it’s probably me.
The luxury compacts were never manufactured in huge numbers and being the best ever made, everyone’s after them, while owners are reluctant to sell. As the trend develops into a full-blown craze, I can foresee top-tech compacts beginning to rival M-series Leicas in value. All but the early buyers and moneyed collectors will have to make do with more common and lower specification cameras like Olympus Mju II’s and Nikon Lite-Touches. At least there are enough of these to support a longer-term trend.
Leicas M series bodies have also jumped in value, but not as much as the M-series and LTM lenses which are compatible with the micro four-thirds bodies and DSLRs with a converter. I think the Leicas are gorgeous, but the Nikon RFs and Canon RFs up to the Canon P are of comparable quality, but better value, such as the comparison of a mechanical Omega compared to a Patek Philippe.
The next big trend in enthusiast collecting might be medium and large format cameras, for the increase in resolution and narrower depth of field they offer. I have considered buying examples myself, but as friends own them and I am focussed on rangefinders and compacts, I have been putting it off. I like the quirky old bellows folders with build-in rangefinders, the tilt-shift-able monorail cameras, the convenient 645 rangefinders and the affordable 6x7 system cameras. There is a lot of variety here and enough depth of supply that everyone can play.
We have already seen some brands bring out film cameras. Nikon’s excellent rangefinder, late releases of film SLRs by Canon and Nikon and of course the Voigtländer Bessas are all good examples. I bet we see more surprise releases over the coming 5 years. Film isn’t dead yet.
We will also see ever-more camera bodies designed to be able to interface with legacy lenses. Rokkor, Pentax, and Vivitar Series 1 lenses were of high quality in the day and haven’t held value like Leica, Contax or even Nikon and Canon FD lenses. Some examples rightly remain legends. I sometimes shoot my Rokkor-X 58mm/1.2 on my EOS cameras. If the next generation of DSLRs and micro four-thirds cameras offer firmware or user-calibratable lens correction, it will be a great day for users with legacy collections.
[FONT="]In summary, I think we all walk a similar path with the same end goal: finding our own personal Shangri-la; our photographic niche in which we can express ourselves in an individual way. This may be with film cameras of various kinds, with digital cameras, hybrids, or chimeras.[/FONT]
We all walk a long and forked road on the quest for our photographic Shangri-la
What will surpass digital? From a technical perspective, I would imagine real-time recording through multiple sensors in a fractal interpolated augmented 4D reality. Beyond that, neural interfacing and quantum computing.
However, back to the spirit of the question, I think many people today are walking the same path as I find myself on.
I got into photography as a child when I was given a Polaroid Land Camera for Christmas. It gave me immediate feedback and a pack of 10 instant prints cost a week's pocket money, so I made every frame count. I would wait for light, arrange the composition and deliver my image. I was willing to say, "no this would be a wasted shot" and walk away.
Later, as a teenager, my school offered photography classes. I learned about depth of field and spent as much time in the dark room as out on the campus, bulk loading, pushing, pulling, dodging and burning. 100 foot rolls of Ilford FP4 allowed me to experiment, but still I was shooting with consequence because of the time I'd spend under the red lamp.
As a young man, I shot automatic compact 135 and APS cameras purely as a record of holidays and special occasions. I could rarely create images I intended, because my technical input had been taken out of the loop. I shot less and less.
I got into digital early, with a Casio QV10. It ate AA batteries at the rate of a pair for 36 shots and so cost nearly as much to run as a film camera. As digital technology flourished, I bought better and better compact but the results never compared to pro film shot through good glass.
Finally I bought myself an EOS 400D DSLR and a Tamron 17-50/2.8 and rediscovered my love of photography. I could again enjoy creating images I wanted to share. I'd stalk my local port town and parks during golden hour taking candids and scenic shots. I got into portraiture. I quickly reached the limits of that camera's sensor and accumulated a bag full of L glass, finally upgrading to a full frame sensor to maximise my field of view and to reduce my depth of field.
I was still not able to deliver that professional look until I discovered the Strobist movement. This is a major focus of my learning right now.
At this point I began to get frustrated. I was up to my armpits in gear at home and would go on a shoot with a minimum of two lenses, strobes and Pocketwizards. People started asking me if I was a pro, purely on the basis of the heavy kit I was lugging. Truthfully, I did get some good images. I had some lucky accidents out of the vast volume of pictures I took and spent hours in Photoshop tweaking them, but surely the pros were doing things I wasn't. Something was wrong.
At this point, my Mother bought me a Canon P with a clean 50/1.4 lens on the advice of one of my buddies. I was quickly hooked. I spent a week just re-learning to judge light levels by eye. I re-realised that the camera's automatic functions were not always right and that I again found myself master of my own images. I was empowered.
I also began to enjoy the eccentricity of shooting film. Once I realised that it was not just a sensor, but an artistic medium, I started to enjoy the quirks of saturated Velvia 50 and grainy P3200 or the subtlety of Portra NC shot wide open at midday. I even got into APS and delight in capturing moody sunset images with Nexia 200 through a wide lens in my EOS IX.
I also started to enjoy street shooting. I have few good images to show, but I like the technical challenge and the art. It was great shooting wide lenses on my Canon P and then on a Bessa L I picked up off eBay. Print film’s latitude and the depth of field I got from the wide lenses could do things that would be considered challenging with a modern DSLR. The rangefinders were so much quieter and smaller too. This culminated in my purchase of a Hexar AF, the most capable camera I have ever used for this kind of photography.
The only problem with the Hexar was the size. It’s almost the size of a SLR but so wide that you have to wave the big thing in someone’s face to fill the frame. I needed something small.
I bought a Nikon 35Ti which was gorgeous but turned out to be defective so I returned it in part exchange for a TC-1. Aside from a limited maximum aperture of f/3.5, it does the job, but I still miss the flawed Nikon. Researching these cameras, I realised that they were part of a small exclusive club of luxury compacts that allowed a high degree of manual control, had pro-level optics and in the Nikon’s case, the best 3D matrix metering outside of an SLR.
Up until now, I had been buying film cameras on the cheap, but these cameras were selling second hand for more than my 400D was new. I missed several opportunities on eBay because my pricing was always a step behind the rising prices. On a recent trip to Tokyo, I found out why. I and a couple of other people speaking Cantonese were the only ones carrying DSLRs. Everyone else seemed to be without cameras, until a character or a marching band came out and then everyone would whip out a compact camera. The vast majority, but not all, has LCDs on the back. For the last year, I have read media articles, heard radio programmes and seen TV features on the film camera resurgence, but last week my photography guru returned from a trip to Tokyo with stories of magazines dedicated to the luxury compact camera trend and tales of Tokyo camera stores with soaring prices on film compacts. There is a definite craze going on.
The good news is my friends will no longer see me as crazy and eccentric. The bad news is that they’ll be competing with me on eBay. I’m easy to spot, by the way, if the bidder starts with a “Z” and ends with a “9” or vice-versa, it’s probably me.
The luxury compacts were never manufactured in huge numbers and being the best ever made, everyone’s after them, while owners are reluctant to sell. As the trend develops into a full-blown craze, I can foresee top-tech compacts beginning to rival M-series Leicas in value. All but the early buyers and moneyed collectors will have to make do with more common and lower specification cameras like Olympus Mju II’s and Nikon Lite-Touches. At least there are enough of these to support a longer-term trend.
Leicas M series bodies have also jumped in value, but not as much as the M-series and LTM lenses which are compatible with the micro four-thirds bodies and DSLRs with a converter. I think the Leicas are gorgeous, but the Nikon RFs and Canon RFs up to the Canon P are of comparable quality, but better value, such as the comparison of a mechanical Omega compared to a Patek Philippe.
The next big trend in enthusiast collecting might be medium and large format cameras, for the increase in resolution and narrower depth of field they offer. I have considered buying examples myself, but as friends own them and I am focussed on rangefinders and compacts, I have been putting it off. I like the quirky old bellows folders with build-in rangefinders, the tilt-shift-able monorail cameras, the convenient 645 rangefinders and the affordable 6x7 system cameras. There is a lot of variety here and enough depth of supply that everyone can play.
We have already seen some brands bring out film cameras. Nikon’s excellent rangefinder, late releases of film SLRs by Canon and Nikon and of course the Voigtländer Bessas are all good examples. I bet we see more surprise releases over the coming 5 years. Film isn’t dead yet.
We will also see ever-more camera bodies designed to be able to interface with legacy lenses. Rokkor, Pentax, and Vivitar Series 1 lenses were of high quality in the day and haven’t held value like Leica, Contax or even Nikon and Canon FD lenses. Some examples rightly remain legends. I sometimes shoot my Rokkor-X 58mm/1.2 on my EOS cameras. If the next generation of DSLRs and micro four-thirds cameras offer firmware or user-calibratable lens correction, it will be a great day for users with legacy collections.
[FONT="]In summary, I think we all walk a similar path with the same end goal: finding our own personal Shangri-la; our photographic niche in which we can express ourselves in an individual way. This may be with film cameras of various kinds, with digital cameras, hybrids, or chimeras.[/FONT]
c.poulton
Well-known
I believe that in the near future the still image will be dead and moving content will be king. This is already begun with both Canon and Nikon introducing video capabilities into their still camera ranges.
Of course the still image will still be there, what I mean is that the method of capturing the still image will change - instead of capturing one still image at a time, we will 'grab' the image off HD video.
Will this change the 'nature' of the still image? Yes I believe that it will. Not sure how exactly but shooting a video stream is completely different from shooting a still.
Film and still digital shooting will still be around for a very long time, just as people still paint and draw, but for the masses the whole concept of a 'still' camera will disappear.
It will be interesting to see if the Leica M10 has HD video capability when it is released in a few years time?
Of course the still image will still be there, what I mean is that the method of capturing the still image will change - instead of capturing one still image at a time, we will 'grab' the image off HD video.
Will this change the 'nature' of the still image? Yes I believe that it will. Not sure how exactly but shooting a video stream is completely different from shooting a still.
Film and still digital shooting will still be around for a very long time, just as people still paint and draw, but for the masses the whole concept of a 'still' camera will disappear.
It will be interesting to see if the Leica M10 has HD video capability when it is released in a few years time?
bmattock
Veteran
Scale trumps everything. Consumer film sales, weak as they are, outsell pro film sales by orders of magnitude. When consumer film sales stop, so will professional film sales. Not because of complete lack of demand, but because it will no longer be economical to make it and sell at a price that others will pay.
Pickett Wilson
Veteran
Kodak says the biggest percentage of their film sales now is sheet film. I suspect that's because larger format has the least competition from digital. Fuji discontinued all of it's Process sheet film over a year ago.
jack palmer
Well-known
Why ask someone else for facts when you don't provide any for your absurd statement? Film sales may be down, and any one who shoots film doesn't need FACTs to verify that, but film is doomed? A little dramatic. It'll be around long after I'm gone.
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Pickett Wilson
Veteran
Kodak's film sales have declined by double digits year over year for quite a while. It's no secret. You can read their annual reports.
Al Kaplan
Veteran
With fewer players competing for market share ? Those remaining will be in a much more viable situation.
Go back half a entury and most any "camera shop", including quite a few "drug stores" (and this was before the big chains took over THAT market) not only carried a large variety of film but a basic assortment of chemicals and and paper as well. The B&W film selection might have included Kodak, Ansco, DuPont, , Gavaert, Perutz, Agfa, Adox, Ferrania, all in several speeds, ortho film was still readily available and B&W infrared was easy to find. Agfa marketed films from ASA 20 IFF to ASA 1000 Record. At least in Verichrome Pan and Kodacolor you could easily pick up a roll of film in 116, 616, 118, 122, 127, 120, 620, 828, etc. at the corner drug store.
In 2009 we're pretty much down to 35mm and 120 roll film, but from the standpoint of dealers and manufacturers that can be a good thing. The neighborhood camera shop is long gone but with a credit card and 800 numbers and on-line ordering, together with Fed-Ex and overnight service from the Post Office, you no longer have to schedule that drive into town to pick up what you need for the weekend's shoot.
Go back half a entury and most any "camera shop", including quite a few "drug stores" (and this was before the big chains took over THAT market) not only carried a large variety of film but a basic assortment of chemicals and and paper as well. The B&W film selection might have included Kodak, Ansco, DuPont, , Gavaert, Perutz, Agfa, Adox, Ferrania, all in several speeds, ortho film was still readily available and B&W infrared was easy to find. Agfa marketed films from ASA 20 IFF to ASA 1000 Record. At least in Verichrome Pan and Kodacolor you could easily pick up a roll of film in 116, 616, 118, 122, 127, 120, 620, 828, etc. at the corner drug store.
In 2009 we're pretty much down to 35mm and 120 roll film, but from the standpoint of dealers and manufacturers that can be a good thing. The neighborhood camera shop is long gone but with a credit card and 800 numbers and on-line ordering, together with Fed-Ex and overnight service from the Post Office, you no longer have to schedule that drive into town to pick up what you need for the weekend's shoot.
wgerrard
Veteran
The visibility of a commercial product is linked rather closely to demand for that product, to state the obvious.. The demand curve for film points down. Nothing is on the horizon to reverse that trend. Meanwhile, the technical virtues of digital will continue to increase while the cost of "behind the leading edge" products continues to decrease. I.e., you'll always pay at least a few thousand bucks for the best DSLR, but this year's $200 buys a better p&s than last year's $200.
Technical attributes, idiosyncratic tastes, image quality, archivability, whatever, play no significant role in the buying decisions of almost everyone who wants to take pictures. While folks around here may talk on occasion about the "art" of "making photographs" most people just want to "take pictures". They want to point and shoot with the expectation that the camera will do whatever is needed to produce a good picture. They don't want to learn about exposure, depth of field, focus, etc. (I know someone who can't take a picture to save his life, and keeps asking "Why did the camera cut off their heads?")
I also know several folks who seldom dump their digital p&s images onto a computer. They'll take a batch of pictures, then browse through them on the LCD screen. That leads me to think that when most people "chimp', they are not looking for ways to improve the picture. They're just looking at the picture, and that might be the only time they will look at it.
The bottom line, I think, is that the things almost everyone wants from a camera or any other picture-taking device are provided by digital, not film. To use film, you need to value film's attributes more than the attributes of digital, many of which have nothing to do with actual image quality.
I side, then, with the camp that sees film dying a long, slow death, probably over a few decades. (Caveat: If Kodak or Fuji lost a major film manufacturing facility in a fire, I'm not so sure they'd see the profit in rebuilding it.)
Technical attributes, idiosyncratic tastes, image quality, archivability, whatever, play no significant role in the buying decisions of almost everyone who wants to take pictures. While folks around here may talk on occasion about the "art" of "making photographs" most people just want to "take pictures". They want to point and shoot with the expectation that the camera will do whatever is needed to produce a good picture. They don't want to learn about exposure, depth of field, focus, etc. (I know someone who can't take a picture to save his life, and keeps asking "Why did the camera cut off their heads?")
I also know several folks who seldom dump their digital p&s images onto a computer. They'll take a batch of pictures, then browse through them on the LCD screen. That leads me to think that when most people "chimp', they are not looking for ways to improve the picture. They're just looking at the picture, and that might be the only time they will look at it.
The bottom line, I think, is that the things almost everyone wants from a camera or any other picture-taking device are provided by digital, not film. To use film, you need to value film's attributes more than the attributes of digital, many of which have nothing to do with actual image quality.
I side, then, with the camp that sees film dying a long, slow death, probably over a few decades. (Caveat: If Kodak or Fuji lost a major film manufacturing facility in a fire, I'm not so sure they'd see the profit in rebuilding it.)
Al Kaplan
Veteran
The problem with long term digital storage isn't so much the storage but access and retrieval. Will your great-grandchildren know what those silvery discs (or whatever they're using a few years down the road) are? Do they contain music? Images? Movies? Inventory data from your business? Or maybe they really are just pretty coasters.
If they figure out that there is information of some sort on them how are they supposed to get that information? Will that DVD or CD (or XYZ?) player still work? Does Radio Shack still supply cords with the correct fittings? Or will they be like car chargers for cell phones where every damn phone has its own unique plug and the cord cost almost as much as the phone?
At least you can hold a negative up to the light, see that picture on it, and then worry about how to reverse the tones.
If they figure out that there is information of some sort on them how are they supposed to get that information? Will that DVD or CD (or XYZ?) player still work? Does Radio Shack still supply cords with the correct fittings? Or will they be like car chargers for cell phones where every damn phone has its own unique plug and the cord cost almost as much as the phone?
At least you can hold a negative up to the light, see that picture on it, and then worry about how to reverse the tones.