The end of film?

[Michael Hiles]

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As far as I understand, the movie world continues to use film in big quantities, making production profitable. Perhaps that market will assure that film will be available for at least 35mm cameras. Whether still photographers can support the interesting niche films (this could include Ilford), too soon to tell.

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[Bavaricus]

Didn't the Jehovas Witnesses predict that the world would end in year 2000?

 

No they did NOT!

[stunsworth]

No they did NOT!

 

Corrrect, their first guess was 1914...

 

"Jehovah's Witnesses" - Dialogcentret.dk

[Guest stnami]

...it's more like this

Didn't the Jehovas Witnesses predict that they would end of knocking at your door and annoying the shit out of you by the year 2000?

 

No they did NOT!

[earleygallery]

No they did NOT!

 

Well, a friend of mine is a JW and I'm sure that's what he kept telling me, before 2000!

 

Point is predictions are mostly futile, things change - I keep hearing of photographers who have only ever used digital moving over to film to try 'real' photography, as well as ex film users becoming bored with their new digital gear and also getting back to basics.

 

A lot of pro's still use film too, its mostly the admen, paps, journo's and social photographers that have embraced digital, for obvious reasons.

 

Don't get me wrong, digital is exciting as a medium, but it will never fully replace film.

[Guest stnami]

James did he say anything about the door knocking? The digifilm thing works for me. carrying two cameras is not a pain. By the way James I picked up a R4A

[earleygallery]

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Yeah Imants, the door knocking is their calling, spreading the word, educating us poor lost souls - they have to do a certain amount of door knocking to get on, like a pilots flying hours.

 

Anyway, how's the R4A?

[Guest stnami]

No Leica a because: I like my wides, Aperture prioritity, easy to load etc

[Fotogo]

In Hunan Province, China, the famous Zhangjiajie National Forest Park attracts a bazillion or so tourists each year. I was one of them this past February 07. It is a very well organized and beautiful park. This was the shakedown outing for my M8.

 

I was pleasantly surprised to see numerous 'permanent' Kodak advertisements like this one in the photo below, posted along well troden pathways. The advertisement certainly solicits their potential film customers as well as digital cameras customers, not to mention the reminder for the well practiced smokers to take care!

 

One can easily find Kodak and Fuji film sold in shops here, just about everywhere. Kodak seems to dominate this market, at least from my perspective. It seems just about as easy to buy film as a digital camera here in China, at least in 2007.

 

[Guest stnami]

Kodak, Fuji and Coke advertise on Elephant bums in parts of Asia especially around temples

[Dikdik]

I use an M8 and M6 Classic, I love digital but am equally at home using film, particularly black & white.

 

My question is; given that apart from the niche rangefinder manufacturers, film cameras are no longer being produced in any great numbers. At what point will both Fuji and Kodak decide that the film market is no longer viable and stop production?

 

1 year, 5 years, 10 years from now?

 

 

Hello David,

 

this question is quite difficult to answer. I think it depends on the amount of films beeing used and therefore bought by photographers.

But why do we use films? This again depends on the purpose of what do you want to do with the fotos.

We -my wife and and me - are involved in nature photography since decades. We are not professionals. We sell some of our results sometimes but, photography is not our lifestock. We are still amateurs. We take all our material with the R-system. We use Fuji Velvias and sometimes Provias. The reason is very simple: the quality of slides in bigger magnifications is much more better than digitally taken material.

 

Enlarging slides you will see more details; enlarging digital fotos you will see at the end cubelike pics but no more details.

 

But conventional photography becomes more and more expensive. Digital photography is much more cheaper and easier!

In fact, one must buy an expensive digital SLR but the follow up is quite cheap. And we are living in a money-ruled world. Furthermore, the fee you can earn by selling fotos decreases since years.

 

So, from the commercial point of view digital photography is the way of choice. That is the reason why professionals all over the world have changed to digital cameras.

 

The outstanding quality of Leica lenses produces high quality and sometimes outstanding results -but in the commercial world of photography these results are more and more neglected.

At this time a 10 or even a 16 Megapics digital camera sensor has not the quality of a slide taken on a professional 50 or 100 ISO film. The camera sensor must contain 25 to 30 Megapics to get these high quality results. But when the technicians are able to produce sensors of that size, the film production in the 24x36 mm range will probably come to an end.

 

But there is an another aspect in digital photography, which is poorly recognized up to now.

When we take an analogous slide foto from nature (animals, landscape, people - what ever) it is a document. It shows the situation at the moment of time. This special moment is frozen on a thin leaf of cellulose triacetate.

 

In digital photography one has the possibility to change this document as much as you like. And therefore it is not a document anymore. The character has changed. It becomes a piece of photographic art.

With wide spreaded digital photography the character of a photo will change deeply and the documentation of moments of our time and life for future generations will vanish.

The manipulation of digital photographs cannot easily be detected - as examples show even at journals of an excellent reputation.

Therefore my wife and me will continue to take conventional fotos as long as it is possible - and payable.

 

Best "analogous" regards from Germany to UK

 

dikdik

[frc]

I love film,

the high iso grain, motion blur and all the rest.

The MP rules for personal and documentary work.

But,...... almost ashamed to admit,

The recently bought jap DSLR,

I'm beginning to feel challenged by it.

 

Don't even think about replacing...........

 

But it's a thrill in itself........

[hamey]

Could'nt agree more, well done Wolfgang.

 

As long as there are people with this sort of attitude film will be with us for some time.

I love my Leica R's and Slide Film, been using them for over 30 years, AND AT THIS TIME HAVE NO INTENTION OF CHANGING.

 

 

If Slide Film becomes hard to get, and I am forced to go fully into Electronic imaging and to view my Electronic images on a TV or PC screen,

Then I will look at my options, but as I am 58 years old, time is limiting factor.

 

Cheers.

[martinb]

The outstanding quality of Leica lenses produces high quality and sometimes outstanding results -but in the commercial world of photography these results are more and more neglected.

At this time a 10 or even a 16 Megapics digital camera sensor has not the quality of a slide taken on a professional 50 or 100 ISO film. The camera sensor must contain 25 to 30 Megapics to get these high quality results. But when the technicians are able to produce sensors of that size, the film production in the 24x36 mm range will probably come to an end.

 

You're not entirely right here. Fine grained 35mm slide film is maybe comparable to 8-10mp DSLR's, but it's not even close to any digital back from 16mp and up. The M8, D2X, 5D and 1Ds Mark II are all superior too.

I'm thinking of starting to shoot film again though, because I still like the look of film and the dynamic range I get from negative film.

[David Wogan]

My original post was to do with the economics of film production, rather than the desire of photographers to continue using it.

 

With all of the major camera manufacturers now ceasing film camera production, surely the bean-counters at Fuji and Kodak will be revising their medium to long-term business cases for film production.

[plasticman]

My original post was to do with the economics of film production, rather than the desire of photographers to continue using it.

With all of the major camera manufacturers now ceasing film camera production, surely the bean-counters at Fuji and Kodak will be revising their medium to long-term business cases for film production.

 

There's actually a very interesting article in LFI 5/2006 refuting this type of argument - take a look at the back numbers if you get the chance. Plenty of film being sold, in fact - and even some discussion amongst the niche manufacturers of a revival.

[StS]

In my impression lots of people start digital now, are enticed to look deeper into photography and start to pick up some film photography as well.

 

Which is not the worst way to learn photography, a digital camera is a good teacher. After some thousand digital images I recognized I seldom check the result on the screen any more. But this might be due to the fact I started with film some decades any more. This might be also the point where one could move back to film then.

 

I haven't read the LFi article but would expect declining interest in standard 'amateur' films and increasing interest in films giving special results.

[PATB]

In my impression lots of people start digital now, are enticed to look deeper into photography and start to pick up some film photography as well.

 

That is exactly how I got my recent Leica addiction. Got a Nikon dSLR (D80) to take pics of the family last Christmas, got "hooked" into photography, took a basic class at a community center, now happily shooting an MP most of the time. I can get C-41 processing in a variety of places, even at Costco while shopping for groceries!

 

(incidentally, I was at Costco yesterday and I can't believe the number of rolls of film they develop there -- I guess film is not that dead yet )

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[Guest adlerw]

My original post was to do with the economics of film production, rather than the desire of photographers to continue using it.

 

With all of the major camera manufacturers now ceasing film camera production, surely the bean-counters at Fuji and Kodak will be revising their medium to long-term business cases for film production.

 

As I already wrote in the German forum: I am quite a bit tired of all those cries “The end of film is near, the end is near!”, where “film” always sounds similar to “world”. (By the way, there is a nice site dealing with failed doomsday predictions: "End of the World" predictions in our near future .)

 

Just to set people’s minds at rest: Nobody would argue that Super8 is a completely obsolete technic of making movies for at least 20 years. But this is my first hit today when I type “super 8 filme” into Google.de: Foto Erhardt - Super8-Filme. Super8 doesn’t matter to me or any person I know – but it is still there, it's still easily possible to do it in 2007, that’s my point! OK, the films are darn expensive but the prices have not changed that much since 1990.

 

I guess we will experience the same with 35mm films. Moreover, in Germany the prices have decreased considerably in the last 25 years: I paid 10 Deutsche Mark in 1982 for one Fujichrome RD 100/36 including E6 processing w/o framing. Today I pay 4 Euros for one Fuji Sensia III and the same processing service. How many years will it take to rise the film prices to only their purchasing power equivalent of the 1980’s? Quite a few, I think.

 

So don’t worry, use film as long as you want to, and be happy!

 

Regards, W.

[earleygallery]

.......it's even still possible to buy typewriter ribbons and carbon paper!!