Film sales now 1/50th what they were in 2000

[adan]

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Oh Lord - I still have a functioning Smith-Corona in the basement, and floppy disks are long gone. I guess that means typewriters "outlived" word-processing software (oops - how am I writing this, then )

 

Don't get fixated on formats - DAT may be gone, but "digital" music is here to stay. PCMCIA cards may be gone, but "digital" photography is still around.

 

And as you say, the same applies for film. Formats come and go, but film photography as an overall category is not dependent on the survival of specific formats - fortunately.

__________________

 

Sorry, nomad, we cross-posted.

 

I guess I don't see "sensors as we know them now" as the digital heir to film - I see any form of capturing images digitally (or electronically) as the heir. CCDs or CMOSs (Heck, I might as well include vidicon tubes) may well disappear, and something will replace them, perhaps not even silicon.

 

Worrying about specific techniques or formats that come and go is too "not-seeing-the-forest-for-the-trees" for me.

 

Big picture: one can capture images (among other ways) by eye and hand with a pencil, pen or brush; or by a lens on chemical film; or by a lens on photoelectric stuff. No one of those techniques has yet outlived the others, and likely never will.

Edited June 3, 2011 by adan

[!Nomad64]

I'd respectfully point out that not all technologies are destined to outlive their closest descendant. Some do, some others don't. Paint didn't cease to exist because of the advent of photography, much less because the widespread adoption of Adobe Illustrator. The industry relies on Illustrator, the enthusiast might find more pleasant spending an afternoon after his canvas and colors in the open air rather than typing on his laptop.

Bicycles didn't fall into oblivion after the invention of motorcycles and are likely to outlive vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.

Mechanical typewriters were dismissed in favor of electric/electronic models and both have ultimately fallen out of use replaced by word processors. Still some of us are still keen to handwriting and some even cultivate calligraphy. Once more, niches are for the enthusiasts, not for the mass market and this makes them hard to die.

In any case digital is the future, but this doesn't necessarily involve that everyone will stick to it.

 

Cheers,

Bruno

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[earleygallery]

Andy,

 

if you read carefully what I wrote you'll understand that I didn't say that film is going to outlive digital. I said it's going to outlive digital sensors as we know them now. And I kept saying that it's going to be around for an undefined period.

And there's no evidence. I made it clear that this is a forecast. Only time will tell. Said forecast being based on what happened with vinyl and CD.

And similarly, I said that vinyl is going to outlive its digital heir meaning the CD. The iPod you mentioned is just one if not the main of the reasons why the CD is getting progressively discarded, i.e. ubiquitous music aptly named "liquid" by Linn, who saw it coming long time ago and started offering dedicated gear along with their traditional stuff.

 

Cheers,

Bruno

 

In the UK we now only have one High Street (i.e. Nationwide in every Shopping Mall) retailer of 'music' which is HMV, and the outlook for them isn't very healthy - they could be the next large retailer to disappear.

 

The main reason is that most people no longer buy CD's from shops. They download them from the internet, or the few that still prefer a physical product save money by buying online.

 

Meanwhile 'niche' record shops are thriving.

 

Film is not going to change dramatically in the future - the stuff we have works well enough, some would say the newer emulsions aren't as good.

 

Digital imaging is still relatively new technology. 10 years from now we will probably look at today's digital cameras and laugh at how basic and limited they were, they will look like the first ever motor cars, which were basically horse drawn carriages but with a motor intead of a horse (the horseless carriage). Most digital cameras are film cameras without film.

 

So yes, film will almost certainly outlive digital technology in its current form.

[pop]

Is the digital to analog conversion that is made before the record is pressed somehow better than the analog conversion made via the CD player when you listen? .

 

That's indeed the case.

 

Digital recordings have a much greater resolution than the resolution that can be recorded on a CD. Also, the D/A converter in an audio studio is bound to be of a higher quality than the one in a household CD player.

 

Hence, the music reproduced from a CD will have artifacts which the LP will not have. The artifacts introduced by the LP are much easier to ignore than the digital ones.

[AlanG]

Alan,

 

if we stick to the sheer technical facts and marketing logic neither film nor vinyl nor rangefinder cameras should be still around. Fact is that they are in spite of any logical argumentation.

 

I disagree. All kinds of things are still around and many "obsolete" things continue to be manufactured. There is nothing about technical facts or marketing logic that eliminates things. Either people keep buying them or they don't. (Kodachrome, carbro, dye transfer, etc.) People just like using all kinds of things for various reasons. And people ion my area still like traditional colonial style homes for some reason. You could ask why cedar roofing shingles are used at all. But outhouses are pretty much gone.

 

Horses are still around in pretty high numbers in the US but don't contribute much in the way of transportation. I bet there are people who only write with quill pens. Are they better or worse than fountain pens? LPs are still around for some reason, but I don't think it has much to do with preserving the analog sound quality any more if digital recording technology is employed. Just as film is still around and is often scanned and not printed on traditional paper. And you can print digital files onto traditional paper too which would give you a digital sound recording to vinyl disk reproduction analogy.

 

Maybe people just get attached to various technologies, tools, and objects for whatever reason. I prefer carbon fiber bicycles over steel ones, but steel is nice too. In the bicycling world there is one side in Lycra and another in tweed but they both ride bikes. Digital and film photography are basically the same thing.

 

For all I know, finger painting in blood will outlive all other forms of art and will comprise the last artistic expression by the last human on earth. But what we do seem to know from this story is that film use has been in decline for the past 10 years and is expected to continue at about a 10-20% drop per year for a while. We'll probably just have to accept this and move on.

Edited June 3, 2011 by AlanG

[BobYIL]

Possibly most of us would be able to see when the sensors used in cameras begin to be expressed in gigapixels... As Dr. Eric Fossum -the inventor of CMOS image sensor who happens to contribute to such forums time to time- has pointed out, in 5 years we will be able to see pixel sizes less than a micron. With the parallel innovations expected on the image processing engines there is no doubt that in coming years we will observe some amazing developments. Fill factor is improving each year and through digital binning of sub-micron pixels much better SN ratios shall be achieved. There is no doubt about these.. but during all these the silver halide crystal will keep on staying to be what it is.. and most possibly will live on as a second but highly different alternative to record images.

[adan]

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Anyway - enough doom and gloom (or, rather, let's look doom and gloom in the face, spit in its eye, and realize it probably won't be that bad).

 

I'd guess film sales volume can fall another 95% (to 1 million rolls a year (5,000 per work day) in the US, probably at least 10x that globally) and still be viable as a product for largish-scale manufacture. I expect it will plateau well above that, anyway. (Of course, I kinda thought it would plateau at 10%, but didn't realize how big the original market was)

 

Purchases may become mostly on-line, and processing of color mostly mail-order (but K'chrome users have dealt with that for decades - enthusiasts, as Bruno says). B&W can always be done in the bathroom.

 

Format availability will shrink - but market forces apply. The things people use most (135, 120) will be the safest. 4x5 and 8x10 have fewer users, but are also simpler to package (and both come off the same thickness base rolls, so if a factory is making one, it isn't that hard to make the other.)

 

And you can always roll your own: Camera Collecting and Restoration

 

Emulsion varies will shrink - but so what? I shot for my first 10 years with nothing but Tri-X and Kodachrome. It's been nice the past couple of decades to have a zillion-and-one flavors out there - but I tended to only shoot two each for B&W and color anyway (fast and slow). Some people may lose particular favorites - but who really couldn't shoot Tri-X if HP5 went away (or vice versa)?

 

Unless what is left is just dismally bad, good pictures depend more on the eye than the emulsion.

 

And all of that is the worst-case scenario.

[SteveYork]

I don't totally buy into the analogy of film photography with "vinyl."

 

Vinyl records are a distribution medium, equating to newspapers, books, prints (or Facebook or flickr or CDs and .mp3s)

 

Film cameras are a recording medium, equating to mastering tape recorders (or digital sound recorders).

 

We can record digitally or in analog, and distribute digitally or in analog. Film pix on Facebook, digital pix in ink; analog recordings on mp3, digital masters on vinyl.

 

Don't confuse recording with distribution, though.

 

The analogy was vinyl versus 35mm film; not records versus cameras. Cameras would equate to the turn tables, and as noted, they are still around, and sales are up. The same will be true with film. Not everybody wants a computer to take their picture. And as people spend more time on computers at work, they'll probably want to get away from them for leisure activities (except for us geeks on the photo forums).

 

As far as commercial photography, that ship has most likely already sailed.

[wlaidlaw]

My personal feeling is that with film, we enjoy the whole process of taking a film image, where unless you have money to burn, you have to think before you pop the shutter on each image, more than a digital, where if you don't like the result, you can bin it instantly. Then there is the frisson of hope, when you get it back from the processors (I use Picto) and open up that envelope. Therefore I think it is maybe the process rather than the end result which is more important.

 

To use the analogy others have used, with vinyl LP's I suspect it is the process of getting the LP out of its cover, wiping every spick of dust off, de-static-ing it, laying it carefully on the platter, powering the platter up (checking the speed is within 0.01% of course) and lowering your ultra expensive Goldfinger V2 cartridge onto the disk, that is more important than the ultimate sound. IMHO I was delighted to get rid of the horrible scratchy things, sell off my Thorens turntable/SME arm and move over to CD's, where with a really good CD player plus a top class DAC, I think the ultimate sound is every bit as good. It was poor CD players with flutter and jitter and cheap DAC's, which gave CD's a bad name. Unlike what the doom merchants told us, CD's seem to last forever. I have 1984 ones which are playing like new, which is more than you can say for an LP after a few plays.

 

Wilson

[!Nomad64]

For all I know, finger painting in blood will outlive all other forms of art and will comprise the last artistic expression by the last human on earth. But what we do seem to know from this story is that film use has been in decline for the past 10 years and is expected to continue at about a 10-20% drop per year for a while. We'll probably just have to accept this and move on.

 

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die..."

 

Cheers,

Bruno

[giordano]

The analogy was vinyl versus 35mm film; not records versus cameras. Cameras would equate to the turn tables, and as noted, they are still around, and sales are up.

 

Once again: a vinyl disc is NOT analogous to 35mm. Vinyl has never been a recording medium, only a means of presenting recordings made with some other medium - rather as a photographic print is a means of presenting an image captured on film.

[sblitz]

actually that is not entirely true .... in the very early days the recording was made live right onto a record. an impression of the record and the thousands of records were made by being pressed against the impression. tape was not used until after ww2 and even then a master disc was created, an impression made, etc.....the analogy is that both and essentially analog processes that digital has had to evolve to effective mimic by having enough 0s and 1s in a small space. the early cds were terrible and so too was the 1mp camera. both got better, a lot better. but the interesting thing, to me, is that new music is composed and performed to sound good through a digital process. i believe that photography is/will move in that direction a well. we still stop trying to make a great digital photo great because it has a film like look but because it embraces a digital look.

[giordano]

Aren't there inexpensive digital recorders and mixers that surpass what the old expensive tape ones could do? I think Nagra may still make a tape recorder or two but otherwise all their gear is digital.

 

Yes, my little Microtrack II digital recorder is a tiny fraction of the size, weight and price of the Nagras I used way back when, its audio specs are about equal overall, and the CF card records several times longer than a reel of tape. Digital mixers I don't know about, but editing digital recordings is vastly quicker and less stressful than dubbing or splicing tape, and you can do it on a PC, no need for an editing suite.

[earleygallery]

Yes, OK, we get that, but it is an example of 'outdated' technology which continues to thrive. Do a search for new turntables, you'd be amazed. I bought a new one last year, I have a decent CD player and hi fi, and records still sound better (I've also tried playing the same track on CD and LP to friends to see what they thought sounds best, the record wins every time).

[giordano]

actually that is not entirely true .... in the very early days the recording was made live right onto a record.

 

Live yes, but onto a wax disc. NEVER onto vinyl, which was only used as a distribution medium.

[AlanG]

Do a search for new turntables, you'd be amazed..

 

Do you think this one is decent?

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[AlanG]

I saw the movie "A Clockwork Orange" last night and it seems this is the turntable Malcolm McDowell's character had. Some of these are obviously art pieces. I used to own an Empire 698 like the one in the lower photo. The lid was tempered glass not plastic.

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Edited June 4, 2011 by AlanG

[pop]

Vinyl .. only a means of presenting recordings made with some other medium - rather as a photographic print is a means of presenting an image captured on film.

 

Not really. The music on the vinyl record is not audible. It takes an apparatus of not trivial quality to render the acoustical signal. That's different from an image which is visible on a print as soon as you light it.

[colin_d]

Once again: a vinyl disc is NOT analogous to 35mm. Vinyl has never been a recording medium, only a means of presenting recordings made with some other medium - rather as a photographic print is a means of presenting an image captured on film.

 

Vinyl is the final medium to hold the data, film is the final medium to hold the data, analogy seems sound to me. Just as the record player converts the data into music, so a print converts the data into an image.

Edited June 5, 2011 by colin_d

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[adan]

"film is the final medium to hold the data,"

 

For daguerrotypes, Polaroids, photograms, and projected slides, I suppose.

 

Otherwise, unless one hands raw negatives around with a loop for people to look at, the "final medium" for the vast majority of film photographs is not the actual photographer's film, but prints, or ink reproductions in publications or on packaging, or scans from film via several other steps) on the internet.

 

FIlm is the first, not the last, step in the process for most pictures. It is analogous to a musician's master studio tapes.

 

The artist retains her/his studio tapes - consumers get vinyl reproductions.

The artist retains her/his original negs and slides - consumers get reproductions as prints or whatever.