Film Vs. Digital...Future of Film Photography? Polaroid Insolvent!

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I would like to know your oppinions on the future of Film Photography and M Photography. I was reading the current issue of PDN (Photo District News). On page 18 of the December 2001 issue is a report on Polaroid. In the article PDN has stated:

"...It was just a matter of time before computer chips would capture and store images, and film would go the way of glass plates...We are all [Professional Photographers] in the midst of a transformation to digital imaging....for many photographers, this transformation resulted in a signifcant drop off in the use of professional Polaroid film [film], and of course OTHER FILMS TOO."

Does this concern other people also? I have two Hasselblads, five Hasselblad lenses, an M6 and three Leica M lenses. I am by now means trying to brag. My point is only that I have all of this equipment and I often worry about how long 35mm,120 and 4X5 film will be available. I once emailed John Sexton about this his reponse was:

"I don't have any real answers or advice about the future of "traditional" vs "digital" photography. I am reminded of the fact that not long after the turn of the 20th century many photographers where bemoaning the "death" of platinum and palladium printing as commercially viable products and procedures. Today, however, there are still many dedicated photographers using these materials based on their aesthetic desires and choices. I'm sure it will remain the same with "traditional" silver imaging.

Even John Sexton was unsure to some degree of the mainstream livelyhood of traditional silver film and paper. Is film on the way out? what are your thoughts?

-- Rob Schopke (schopke@attbi.com), December 28, 2001

Answers

Film will be around for a long time. There will be a slow decrease in the various emulsions, I'm sure. But I seriously doubt that it will disappear entirely.

-- Josh Root (rootj@att.net), December 28, 2001.

I promise, neither you nor I have anything to worry about during our lifetime. Just like Mr. Sexton said, there are still many photographers using materials and processes that are now well over 100 years old. I highly doubt that any living soul will ever wake up some day in a world with no film to load. What will happen, however, is the digital industry will continue to evolve, and commercial photographers will continually move toward digital imaging. But this is only because of certain monetary conveniences and a mad rush to get that bottom line image to the publisher right now. These are things that aren't typically a priority for hobbyists and artists. And many pros will still be using film cameras for hobby/art for probably forever. I think the "fixed image" is here to stay. It just won't be the only image.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), December 28, 2001.

While I agree that film will be around for a while, I'm not sure it will be easily available. If the alleged ease of use of digital image capture & processing doesn't kill it, environmental laws well almost may. (No matter how harmless b&w development chemicals are, film production wastes aren't.) Of course, silicon processing leaves us with at least the same amount of toxic waste--but all the IT industry has a 'clean' image in the public whereas we've all seen smoking chimneys over chemical factories, and politics is about image, not about improving anything.

I'm afraid silver-based imaging accessories will be like oil painting equipment withing 20 or 30 years: used by a small group of aficionados who create amazing art, but considered an esoteric and superfluous craft by the majority.

What I consider so abonimable about the change is the craze for digital created by popular photography periodicals and advertising. Weren't 1.3 Mp cameras the death of film just yesterday, and you'd better hurry to get one for your holiday snapshots? Oops, the 2.1 Mp version's out, and of course you need it now. Now if many digitalists weren't so brazenly arrogant! The next one to tell me I'm a dinosaur that should vanish instantly will learn that some reptiles are venomous.

-- Oliver Schrinner (piraya@hispavista.com), December 28, 2001.

I am positive about the future of our equipment. There are already digital backs available for most makes of 120 and 4x5 camera systems. I am also sure that we will have film for a long time yet. However, polaroid film is very important as proofing material and if it dissapeared soon we could be in serious trouble. Unless of course Fuji buys Polaroid.

-- sait (akkirman@clear.net.nz), December 28, 2001.

Oliver, how can I resist that? You're a dinosaur mate! Ouch! Ouch!

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), December 28, 2001.


remember during the advent of affordable personal computers, floppy disks and high-volume digital storage many have predicted about "paperless office" and similar things? heh...it never happened.

and also, remember the vinyl records? yeah, on the virge of death because of compact discs! only audiophiles and collectors actually buy vinyls nowadays...

so what happens to film now that digital image storage has become affordable? it's either going the first or the second scenario.

but i think it's more of the first scenario...because i think it's more rewarding to at my perfectly-exposed slides on the light table and a good loupe rather than staring at a gamma-corrected digital image on a computer monitor.

i must admit, though, that if the price digital SLR has dropped about $1,500...you'll find my Nikons on eBay or photo.net classifieds...and it's getting close...D30s are now $2,300 last time i checked!

...but no matter what happens, i'm not selling my M6!

-- Dexter Legaspi (dalegaspi@hotmail.com), December 28, 2001.


Will there be film around for me to use in the future? Let us look at the capture of the image not the entire workflow. This question was asked 25 years ago by motion picture cameramen as video nibbled at the edges and promises of a new revolution in making films was at hand. You can today use either technology, film...video for capture and both are alive and well and defined as to the audience and purpose of the project.

I know that the large selection of color and black & white films on the shelves today will narrow, the dizzing amount and variety of equipment for film will shrink; however, materials that create profitable revenue streams for companies will continue to be available.

Today it is difficult to find daily newsppapers that depend on film to illustrate their stories and the sale of digital cameras this past gift giving season far over took film cameras. However, some manufacturers are experiencing steady or slight growth in film camera sales the past two years. Yet I was unable to find FG7 (not expired) at several dealers and ID-11 was not available at another large international store. Demand will shape the market and the supplies we will use in the future.

I will continue to use my Leicas and Ilford film as long as I can, my digital camera is fun for some family events yet I still wouldnot depend on it to get even family happy snaps that are important or meaningful.

Does my ZIP disc contain images or my client list, I'll turn on the light box and find out.

Happy New Year and new age of mixed image making.

Steven

-- Steven Alexander (alexpix@worldnet.att.net), December 28, 2001.


Recently I acquired a magazine issue which was devoted to addressing the revolution in photographic technology. The leading editorial comments were:

"If we were to take seriously some of the current advertising and statisical overstatements we might well conclude that the end of *traditional photography* is close upon us; the advance of *new technology photography* photography cannot be stayed, and it is only a question of time before it completely ousts *traditional photography* , relegating it to an insignificant role. How far, in such a pronouncement, the wish is father to the thought remains to be seen. Certainly commercial considerations will play their part, for the industry lives by turnover, not by ideals and aesthetic considerations."

The lead article then included submitted insights on the issue with hopeful statements to the effect, *traditional photography* will diminish, but never completely disappear, to the practical statement that editorial demand for *new technology photograpy* images for the professional and decreasing costs to the amateur user will surely doom *traditional photography*. Then there was the prophetic, "... the younger generation will automatically take up *new technology photograpy* without ever having bothered with *traditional photography*. This puts an end to the problem: people use *new technology photograpy* because they do not know any better, and because anything else would be old-fashioned."

Everything in quotes above is verbatim from the magazine, except replace all occurrences of *traditional photography* with *black & white photography*, and all occurrences of *new technology photography* with *colour photography*. The magazine? Leica Fotografie, Issue #5, from 1964.

I guess all of us who have taken up B & W since about 1965 can join the dinosaur crowd. Digital - we'll have to wait 37 years to see.

-- Tod Hart (tghart@altavista.com), December 28, 2001.


My opinion from reading the newspapers and talking to dealers is that consumer level photography on a new or replacement basis is now almost entirely digital. Nobody is selling film point and shoots. Commercial photography is rapidly going digital. If you do not believe it, pick up a copy of PDN, which you have done, all digital. Film will be around but as said above, the selection will limit and availability will be in larger stores such as B & H. A limited group will always shoot chromes, but over time this group will shrink. We have just gotten to be a computer world and the digital camera and imaging is where the future is in general photography. I fear even I will eventually buy a digital camera.

-- Bob Haight (rhaigh5748@aol.com), December 28, 2001.

I think there's way too much angst over this topic.

I'm a lot more worried about whether I can produce some interesting images in the next year than whether I have to switch mediums.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), December 28, 2001.



I think it's a given that film will not either disappear or become prohibitively expensive or hard to obtain until such time as digital offers the same level of convenience (vis-a-vis memory media and battery consumption)and image quality as film. At this juncture only those with large investments in certain camera brands--especially Leica-- anguish *this* much over the issue. Nikon, Canon and most all medium-format owners already can breathe a sigh of relief that digital bodies or backs will permit them to continue to use their multitudes of lenses (the most expensive part of photographic investment). Whether the other brands will eventually provide digital bodies (before their customers have entirely defected)remains to be seen. At present one can obtain adaptors to use Leica R lenses on Canon D30 and 1D bodies (albeit in stop-down mode with no auto diaphragm). I just bought a used Fuji S1 (no intention to drop 5K on a D1X when I know it'll be obsolete in 6 months)but mostly for e-mail use. I don't like messing with any kind of processing, so for me whether it's film or a memory card I'd still take it to someone to process. There's no huge advantage for me to digital.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), December 28, 2001.

Film will cease to be available in 2012, as will digital cameras. That year, after all, is the end of time according to the Aztec calendar.

Seriously, my bet is that film will be around for a long time. The economics may shift due to low-end digital taking over much of the consumer market, but 35mm, 120 and 4x5 formats all have healthy lives ahead. We may also see film availability from Kodak dwindle due to short-term greed driving the stock market (and, thus how American companies manage their businesses and product lines), but the need for film for both commercial, art, and hobby applications has a long curve ahead.

Consider, for example, that while digital has made inroads in news and certain segments of commercial photography (notably catalog production), many (most?) magazine editors still prefer transparencies. This is due mainly to the fact, I believe, that film fits nicely with the manual nature of pre-production work flow of magazines, while digital doesn't. That is true even though the ultimate production of most magazines is completely digital.

That might change, of course, when someone designs a 6x7cm Flash memory card with a built-in display panel that runs off body heat and static electricity. Additionally, high-end digital needs to drop in price by at least an order of magnitude, and become far more portable through a similar drop in power consumption, before it takes over more segments of the commercial market. In the interim, however, I'm not too worried.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), December 28, 2001.


I would love to say that digital will never supplant film but I have only to look at my own business to see that it is not true. We had requests a year ago from one of our good clients, Dell Computer. We've shot their executive photos for years and they wanted to change over to digital capture since most of their uses are for the web, but,,,,, they wanted high enough quality to be able to send "photo quality" 5x7's to magazines and advertising agencies for use in production. We bought an Olympus E-10 and found the quality very, very good. While we bought the camera ostensibly to service one client, by the end of the first year 50% of our requests were for digital capture. To retain margins we charge a digital use and archiving fee. It is a sensible solution when documenting large trade shows and events as well. I also wish I could say that only our low end clients request digital, but the truth is that the companies driving the shift are our blue chips, IBM, Motorola, Dell, Time Warner. The only clients who still DEMAND film are, oddly enough, the magazines and trade publications. I see a future where in two years every working photographer has changed over to 90% digital and only uses real film when a job requires a blow up over 11x14. In five years the professional transition will be complete. I'll be sad and nostalgic but I will try to stay in front of the curve to maintain my income in the business. That's as honest as I can be.

-- kirk r. tuck (kirktuck@kirktuck.com), December 28, 2001.

What Kirk says is very interesting. Obviously stock and assignment agencies find digital files very convenient to handle and deliver, but magazines and publishers are often more backward, in the sense that they have a culture of using film and are afraid of change. Grazia Neri was telling me a couple of weeks ago that Italian magazines are very slow to accept the use of digital files and prefer slide dupes (which they can feel free to lose or tread on) because that's what they know how to use.

Of course there are also issues of digital image theft, but that's inevitable when you can scan an image from a mag and reprint it from the scan or use it online.

Anyway, my impression is that the agencies and photographers are the ones who are pushing the use of digital (and I would count myself in on that, even though I still shoot slide), while the publishers are generally slow to adopt new technologies.

As to Polaroid, surely digital backs are the most convenient way of proofing a shot rather than looking at a polaroid? In terms of both convenience and cost, it seems to me polaroid is a poor competitor to digital, which is probably why its gone belly up.

Someone mentioned that film shooters would be making incredible works of art in twenty years time? I don't think the medium has anything to do with the quality of the image. Technical parameters are pretty irrelevant compared to the human/graphic/whatever content of your images.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), December 28, 2001.


I noticed in this month's Shutterbug the B&H ads had pages of digital cameras and only a few P&S 35mm cameras listed. They used to have several full pages of P&S cameras listed. I think the pros will mostly go high end digital in the near future, and that P&S customers will pick up the $200 digital cameras instead. Left in the middle are the ameteur enthusiasts like many of us, and someone will supply us will film and prcessing for quite some time, but maybe not indefinately. This may be an ad you'll see common 15 years from now "for sale, antique Leica 35mm equipment for display or digital conversion"

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), December 28, 2001.


I think that what many people say will probably happen. As someone who takes mainly slides and makes prints only occasionally, I am the sort of person who is currently at a disadvantage come the revolution, as there is so far no real substitute for film slides, but who knows what may happen in the future?

On a purely Leica note, I feel it inevitable that if Leica continues to exist then it will get a digital body of some sort. It may take a while, but there again most Leica users are not digital fiends and are happier with traditional materials and will only change when digital is really equivalent to 35mm in terms of quality and convenience and so on. The interesting thing about the sale of digital P&S is that the quality of "home snaps" is taking a nose dive in quality compared to the quality of conventional snaps. What once would have considered unacceptable, is now being touted as "excellent" - solely because it is "digital" and "new". This will continue for a while, but the serious amateurs I think will hold off until they can confidently replace film. I for one cannot afford a top notch Canon or Nikon digital camera even if I wanted one.

Whether the eventual Leica digital is more likely to be an M or an R is anybody's guess, but I think a digital R is certainly easier to see a reality as they could quite easily license (in principle) a version of one of the big Japanese digital cameras and modify accordingly. The M Leica is such as fetish object that to change it at all is more risky and would require a bigger investment. Still I suppose a fetish object is no use if there is no film for it, in which case r/f users may have to change the body type and size to keep the Leica r/f going.

A digital camera with Leica optics I think we will all see in due course, assuming the company continues to exist. The camera will not just be an M6 with a chip in it though. I think the camera will need a more thorough redesign. What might be even more likely is that Konica or VC, or someone else will beat Leica and produce a good digital M camera -- many Leicaphiles might find this difficult to resist I think.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), December 28, 2001.


Something no-one appears to have mentioned yet is the simple approach of using film for image capture, but digital for final delivery.

This is what I have been doing now for years. Shoot onto C41 film, loupe the negs for the keepers and then scan them in. Supply the results as JPEGs or TIFFs or QuickTime MOVs. Easy. None of my clients have ever seen my original film masters, and frankly never will!

Have saved myself $10Ks doing this by keeping off the "upgrade your pro digicam every year" merry-go-round. And you enjoy the advantages of both worlds: film's archival storage and high resolution + broad dynamic range; digital's ease of manipulation and delivery and replication.

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), December 28, 2001.


This question comes up every month or so on many of the photo related forums. When the day comes where all the major 35mm camera brands STOP OFFERING ANY quality film cameras for sale, that's when you can look forward to the demise of film within a decade or two. In the meantime, people are still buying tens of thousands of new film based camera every year, Nikon, Canon, etc are still coming out with new expensive models, and millions of dollars are being invested in upgading developing equipment, with chemical/digital hybrid systems like the Fuji Frontier becoming more popular.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), December 28, 2001.

The film /scanning combo is a good idea, but it's a case of horses for courses. My newspaper got rid of its darkrooms a couple of years ago and now well over 90 per cent of images shot are on digital. A fraction are still shot on film (then scanned) where high quality is needed. (A full-page cover shot for a feature section, for example).

The demand is for immediacy, and digital is faster. Theoretically. In practice, processing neg film and scanning does not seem to be much slower. Another advantage of digital is that the high initial cost can be set against savings on buying film. Early on, the pros inexplicably lost images; that's improved, but it still seems easy to wipe a set of images by mistake. Insufficient memory is a problem. And the cameras are more power hungry than a politician.

Where the photojournos go, there will others follow? Or not? Not for wedding and many commercial users where quality, not immediacy is the over-riding concern. And not for amateurs, at least not straightaway, I feel. First, the cost has to come down - a lot. But it would be interesting to ask again in a year's time.

Cost savings would appear to be a double-edged sword. Anything with a computer built in seems to triple the purchase price. With a digital camera you will save on film - over the long term (though you have to be a very heavy user). However, the technology itself will become out of date and devalue very rapidly, even as the camera is being taken out of its nice shiny wrapper. And will today's storage media (flashcards, etc) still be the standard in two yars time, let alone 20 or 100?

Your Hasselblads and Leicas are mature products, superbly built; the quality of images solely dependent on the individual who uses them. Digital cameras are immature products. I suspect, at least for most individuals who don't bother about claiming depreciation on tax, you will lose more money by buying new digital cameras now, than by hanging on to your film cameras, which are already "outmode

-- David Killick (Dalex@inet.net.nz), December 28, 2001.


Don't forget that color photography in newspapers is a relatively recent phenomenon, which is driving digital as well. As someone has already pointed out, the immediacy of digital delivery is more important than image quality. Where would the NY Times be today if it were waiting on rolls of film to be airlifted from Mazar-e-Sharif?

It seems that the real threat to film (fewer film and camera choices, fewer places to have it processed) will be evident only when digital makes more inroads in the middle market--somewhere between the high- flying PJs and the weekend family snappers, both of whom are markets unto themselves.

Most of us in the middle really do fall somewhere in between, shooting casually often and semi-professionally when the opportunities arise. We partake of both ends of the spectrum, but camera makers don't see us a big market.

Another thing to think about is that not all camera buyers are wealthy folks in the First World, buying digital cameras, computers, scanners, printers, cartridges, glossy paper, and over-priced connecting cables--all to print vacation snaps! The demand for inexpensive C-41 duplicate prints worldwide is enormous. Look at where your grey-market Fuji film comes from.

The operators may not change their chemicals often enough or pay as much attention as we would like when they run the machines, but you can get one-hour prints just about anywhere on the planet. You can also buy a roll of Konica ASA 100 from a stall at every site ever visited by three camera-toting tourists.

Will digital dislodge all that anytime soon?

-- Preston Merchant (merchant@speakeasy.org), December 28, 2001.


"My opinion from reading the newspapers and talking to dealers is that consumer level photography on a new or replacement basis is now almost entirely digital. Nobody is selling film point and shoots. "

My own two bit opinion as follows :-)

Somehow, I don't think consumers drive photography too much-they are consumers of whatever is put out. 20 years ago everybody and his dog was buying SLRs. Then we all had to have that nifty P&S. 99% All these handy image production machines are gathering dust, because (outside of Japan) people take pictures only a few times a year, and that too as sparingly as using large format film (I exaggerate).

Photographic technology will evolve at the hands of professionals.

Hardly anyone here has mentioned Leicas. Surely what is to be feared is the loss of simplicity?

Digital cameras are notable for their user unfriendliness and ghastly ergonomics. The history of PC, video camera, and VCR camera design is marked by clunkiness. In fact design thinking today is far far removed from the near forgotten design ethos of the mechnical engineering heyday that prevailed before 1960.

I daresay no digital camera designer has ever used a Leica or appreciated its direct, no frills or distractions approach to image capture...

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), December 28, 2001.


This from the December 2001 PMA (Photomarketing Association) U.S. Consumer Photo Buying Report (to which most photo retailers in North America and much of Europe are part of). QUOTE "the number of U.S households with a digital camera remains less than the hopeful predictions of the late 1990s". The figure has stabilized at about 9.3 percent (whereas film cameras are in about 75 percent of households). They then go on to state that there is a much lower rate of first time buyers of low end digital cameras switching to a higher end camera - the reason they feel being that many owners quickly become frustrated with digital and return to silver halide. Don't count film out for quite a while...

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), December 28, 2001.

Mani suggests that digital cameras are not user friendly or simple to use. I don't agree. I've owned a Nikon F5 and spent time tracking down custom function numbers and other equally arcane settings. I find the Olympus E-10, the Canon G-2 and even the Canon D30 to be as convenient and almost as fast. A previous poster feels that the success of digital will depend on people outside the first world having access to c-41 prints and that conversion is already happening as all manufacturers of mini-lab equipment are introducing and agressively pricing mini-lab machines that will take a compact flash card directly and handle the images just like film and for the same basic cost. For the lab, especially outside Camelot, a total switch to digital would obviate the need toprocess film and the water + filtration and treatment required. I give film five years for amateurs and one year for pros. Further, I would say that while film will continue to be available for 20 or more years as the quantity and demand decline the costs will soar. Who will be willing to pay $30 or $40 a roll when digital will be as good and infinitely cheaper. I just found out that several of the larger machine manufacturers are switching the output of the machines to a high speed/high quality inkjet process that will be indistinguishable from optical C-41 prints. You may already be using inkjet materials while sneering about the quality of "available technologies". Kodak is one of those manufacturers.

Just trying to keep it all in perspective.

Kirk

-- kirk tuck (kirktuck@kirktuck.com), December 28, 2001.


Kirk, you say "I've owned a Nikon F5 and spent time tracking down custom function numbers and other equally arcane settings. I find the Olympus E-10, the Canon G-2 and even the Canon D30 to be as convenient and almost as fast. "

I think that just illustrates my point. An F5 is not as simple to use, or as handy as an M6, or as carryable even if it is blazingly fast. I'd love to see a small light digital camera, with no shutter lag, dead easy scrolling through pictures, and just aperture, shutter, and ISO controls (ok, maybe white balance as well).

And by the way, since digital chips are much smaller than the image circle of 35 mm lenses, how come no digital camera optical viewfinder shows you what's outside the frame, ala Leica M? That way you would have the best of both the rangefinder and the SLR worlds.

I think the absence of a little design detail like that just illustrates that today's design thinking is just not inspired along the lines of usability and ergonomics. We should all be demanding that digital cameras be more usable than just the F5.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), December 28, 2001.


Jeepers Creepers Mani, if I put my E-10 on program and use the autofocus I just bring it up to my eye and push the shutter button with the M6 I have to read the meter, set the shutter, set the aperture, focus the lens and then shoot. From where I'm sitting that's three more steps for the M6. As far as pocketable, consider one of the new Olympus digitals. I still have a bunch of M series and R series cameras, but I, for one, am not in serious denial about the relative differences between analog and digital cameras.

-- kirk tuck (kirktuck@kirktuck.com), December 28, 2001.

Do I sound like I'm in serious denial, Kirk? :-)

I'll go with your recommendation (happily) when that little Olympus has near zero shutter lag, and write time lag. Or when that E-10 is as little as the Olympus.

Hopefully that day is but a year or two away, or possibly even less...

I can see that professionals now have a handful of perfectly usable digital cameras to choose from, but my points are that 1. the cameras have not reached perfection in terms of what they can be in terms of handling and that's not the area in which the most development is happening and 2. little details, such as the example I gave of the extra area you could view in SLR mode, being absent, simply point to the fact that the design thinking is not totally focused on usability yet.

That's not a fault of digital cameras, its a sign of what design smarts are in our times-sort of control and menu oriented rather than shooting oriented. The existence of a D1x here or an E-10 there does not disprove the basic point.

No digital (or modern SLR) approaches the kind of elegance (for our times and technologies) as the Leica M did in its heyday (the mechanical 1950s).That's my point. They could be better still.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), December 28, 2001.


My approach to photography has been a bit schizophrenic of late. On the one hand I love the simplicity and craftsmanship of film based cameras so I own a Leica M6, a complete old Nikon SP rangefinder system, and a Canon EOS SLR system. On the other hand I have always been curious about new technologies so I have also owned/used a Canon D 30, Canon G1 (sold), and recently an Olympus D40 zoom. My conclusions: Digital is a rapidly evolving technology that offers several distinct advantages over film. The biggest advantage is that you see the image that you have created immediately which then allows you to shoot again or to fine tune your approach. After awhile you can sit down on a bench and review the images on site, deleting the ones you don't like and keeping the others. When you get home you can load them into your computer, "process" them, and have beautiful archival prints in the time it would have taken you to drive to your photo lab to drop off the film. The immediacy (if there is such a word) and creative control this process allows is very appealing and FUN. The downside to digital is that it is a rapidly evolving technology. 3 months ago 4 MP cameras were top of the line, now 5 MP, etc. Whereas, you can still use your 50 year old Leica M3 to make wonderful images today, and you can "upgrade" it by choosing to use a new film emulsion, the digital evolution curve is still steep. On the professional level (as with Kirk Tuck) the economics certainly will drive a fairly rapid transition to digital as the upfront cost of a new camera every year is not a big deal compared to the profits generated by the work and the time/money savings of filmless photography. Same is true of photojournalism where digital also obviates the need to find a lab in Kabul and then smuggle the images out in time for the next edition. All you need is a digital camera and a satellite (sp?) phone.

I have found the consumer level digital cameras to be very frustrating for everything except very static subjects. I call it the "indecisive" moment. The focus/shutter lag times on these cameras are all pretty much in excess of one second. I find them nearly impossible to use for spontaneous people photography and have gone back to my Leica for this purpose. The pro level SLR digitals do not seem to have as much of a problem.

I think that when a camera like a D30 can capture a 20 MB image and sells for $500 instead of $2,000, and when a Coolpix 5000 sells for $200 instead of $1,000 we will see digital dominate the consumer market and film will then occupy a small niche occupied by people who enjoy using film cameras for personal, artistic or aesthetic reasons. How many emulsions will remain available, and how hard it will be to develop film, remains to be seen. I agree with Kirk that this process is likely to play out on the consumer level within 5 years.

I see absolutely no reason why Leica could not develop a rangefinder focused M mount camera that would use digital capture instead of film. The aesthetic "feel" as well as the optics of Leica photography could be preserved with such a body. The main impediment to this is the incredibly short product cycle associated with digital at this time with sensors evolving so rapidly that a camera becomes essentially obsolete in 6 months or so. It's one thing to pay $2,000 for a Leica body that is likely to be usable 50 years from now. It is quite another to pay that for a body that will be obsolete within a year. Moreover, given how few Leica owners there are out there, Leica would not be able to sell enough bodies in such a short product cycle to turn a profit. The best hope for those of us with a large investment in Leica glass may be if another manufacturer decides to bring out a digital M mount body, just as Konica did for film cameras.

-- Steve Rosenblum (stevierose@yahoo.com), December 29, 2001.


I owned an Oly E-10 for a while and ended up hating digital. Not that camera--which was OK for a soulless piece of high-tech junk--but the digital medium itself. I process digitally because it affords me control I would not have in the traditional darkroom; but, for now anyway, film cameras are it for me.

-- Peter Hughes (ravenart@pacbell.net), December 29, 2001.

Film will be here to stay. I have a digital Kodak DC3200 camera for fun but that's it. I would probably not use it for any serious photography which I would be doing. Actually despite the predictions of doomsday for film, I think that there is still a large market for those who enjoy being in the darkroom and actually inserting a real piece of film into the camera rather than using CCD sensors which can never duplicate the subtlety and artistry of film stocks.

-- Alfie Wang (leica_phile@hotmail.com), December 29, 2001.

The current younger generation is growing up daily exposure to computers, cell phones, note books, etc. Give them a choice between conventional and digital imaging: how do you think they'll do their school yearbooks in the very near future? We can't escape the digital wave, on the other hand as long as there is demand, some manufacturer will be earning a living by producing what you or I want to use.

-- Hans Berkhout (berkhout@cadvision.com), December 29, 2001.

I think that it just depends on what you want. I can see digital taking over a lot of the commericial work. After all, you can't really tell the difference on a computer screen [where all magazines and newspapers are heading; although Dixon's work might be an exception].

For me, although not an equipment nerd, I think that digital has a long way to go. I have a digital camera at work. I use it to record scientific information. It works well for that. The body, alone, cost 3 x an M6. Even though I spend most of my time doing image analysis on a computer, I can't get prints from it that approach the ol'time silver stuff. It came with a Nikon zoom [a kit so to speak], but I have not been tempted to try it with that lens [haven't even opened the lens box]. I think that it is more than 5 megapixels, but the prints, while they work well for micrographs, just aren't the same.

Hey, let's admit it, my ground source heat pump will heat the house, but I light up the Earth Stove just because I like it; it is now 6 F and I like it. Some of us will remain Dino's forever. ;o)))

Art

-- Art (AKarr90975@aol.com), December 29, 2001.


Videotape has been around for - what? - about 40 years. It killed home movies, but 60% percent of what you can see on TV still starts as film.

I expect as the total market for film decreases, manufacturers will cut back a little of the number of emulsions available, which will keep the unit costs for the remaining films reasonable for a time - not necessarily a bad thing.

When I first got into photography (early 70s) each manufacturer had about 4 color slide and less than 4 color negative emulsions, including the pro lines (e.g. Kodak - Kodacolor II, Vericolor VPS, Kodachrome II, Kodachrome A (tungsten) Kodachrome X, Ektachrome X, High Speed Ektachrome). Now Kodak has: 3 Gold films, 4 Max films, at least 6-7 pro color neg films (100, 160VC, 160NC, 200, 400, 800, 1000), 2 Kodachromes, Ektachrome 64, 100N, E100s, E100SW, 100VS, E200, and 400, plus Select-color Ektachrome 100, 100 Extra-color, 200, etc..

Would it really hurt to pare down that catalog a little?

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), December 30, 2001.


Digital is here to stay and the megapixel arms race is on already. When the conflict tops out at about 10 Meagpixels (according to Michael Reichman of www.luminous-landscape.com - a great site) then things will probably settle down or stablize and then we will be back to the 1970s, 1980s and 1990's as SLRs competed for feature over feature, F stop over F stop, shutter speed over shutter speed and automattin ove automation.

Now here's the other view. I see both mediums coexisting for quite a long time. With very high-res film scanners now available at less than half that of a "paultry" 5 megapixel Digital SLR body (D1x and EOS-1D, both GREAT cameras) , I think there's still a lot to be said for film. We may in fact see less darkroom print developing, and maybe the pro labs will concentrate more on negative and slide processing plus high-res digital scanning (above 4,000 dpi) for the price that Alberstons's or Krogers' charges for 1 hour processing. today.

But then there's the art of the capture process itself. Just like virtual reality pilotless jet fighters will probably cause us to lose hundreds of 'planes (and tens of billions of dollars) because its much easier to digitally "bug out" than stay the course and survive at all costs, digital everything lets us fool around with reality too easily. I'm not sure that's such a good thing all the time.

I for one am not ever selling my M6 or its lenses. They are incredible masterpieces and I've yet to see anything from a digital camera (save perhaps for the top of the line D1x, EOS-1D, D30 and several others) that can emulate the quality of the Leica system. By the way, I also have a Hasselblad X-Pan, and it too produces some very, very fine images.

One other point. The auto-focus, auto-everything cameras many of which have '"gone digital" seem to remove from the artists or technician the creativity that is her's or his alone. In the end I think we will have a very diverse world of photography. Some of us or our children will want to stay chemical and film, others will gravitate toward all-digital. Others, still, like me will probably stay in the middle with high control, great optics, film and high-res film scanning and print output.

I used to like my friends' slide shows by the way, what ever happened to those sessions?? I know, time marches on!!

Hope this helps!

Phil Allsopp

-- Phil Allsopp (pallsopp42@attbi.com), January 01, 2002.


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