Canon May Abandon Film Cameras
Friday May 26, 2006
It isn't the biggest surprise, but Canon is mulling the possibility of abandoning the film camera business. This follows just a few months after Nikon announced it will cease film camera production on all but two models. The increasing popularity of digital cameras, and dipping film camera sales, are slowly spelling the end of film.
Are you still a film holdout? Find out if it is time to go digital. A good way to dip your toes is by getting this digital camera with a retro film style.
Are you eagerly awaiting film's funeral? Show your contempt for old-fashioned 35mm cameras with this Death to Film tee-shirt.
Comments
That is sad. I am getting a lot of joy with my old fashioned 35-yr. old Minolta SLR which I took out of the mothballs just recently and have been shooting B&W pictures.
To
date digital cannot produce high quality tiff copies. Possibly the high priced commercial models are a better quality. The ordinary person has lower pics models.
I have HP 6.2 pics digital and Canon EOS Rebel II. The high quality tiff images from the Canon make much better print-outs than the jpeg digital images.
I am a working artist, cameras are a vital part of my painting business. I find both cameras an asset.
The 35mm provides a high quality ‘permanent’ image that can be maneuvered
by software into jpeg images for on-line posting. Jpeg images have another downside; once reduced in size cannot be increased again - pics are not replaces, just spread farther apart which results in fuzzy pictures.
Digital gives me the ability to finish a painting and post it immediately to my web site or to a commission customer.
With the Canon 35mm film camera, I have the cost to process film and or slides. Some galleries still ask for slides as do most art shows. Some galleries and shows are now accepting our home burned CDs of paintings.
I cannot see out-door photographers with expensive cmaeras and more expensive telescope lens getting results with digital to compare with firm. There will have to be one hell of a big improvement in digital. Photography and Fine Arts both require best image reproduction possible.
We need both Film and Digital cameras.
FFacer
I have two Leica rangefinders (M4-P and M-6) as well as the Canon digital SLR (EU designation: EOS 350D). For instant feedback and distribution to friends, digital is hard to beat: I can go to my son’s concert at school and send all the photos to his teacher, friends, and friends’ parents the next day. On the other hand, I have yet to see a digital photo that can compare in quality (resolution but also depth of color saturation) to what the Leicas can do. Also, when traveling, a Leica and one lens are far less trouble than a digital camera, battery charger, extra memory, computer interface, etc. There should always be room for both, just as the 35 mm SLR hasn’t spelled the end for 35mm rangefinders and medium format cameras … it will be a long time before digital cameras at popular prices can beat the physics and optics that make film cameras so ubiquitous.
Re: /tekescope lens. I have 300 telescope lens for the Canon 35mm camera that will bring a mountain 20 miles away into a 5 mile distance. Digital equivelant? Ain’t seennor heard of it yet!
Still think that we now have the best of Film and digital and using both for what they do best
FFacer
Digital may be great but I am sticking with film to the bitter end.B&w I process and print in the darkroom(a wonderful and peaceful place). Slide film I can scan or have scanned and then make prints.(As close to digital as I have gotten at this time). I thank Ilford for staying in business and supporting the traditional photographic world. Also sitting in front of the computer is a pain.
I believe that ditching film production is a severe lack of forsight.I recently had one of my photos published. I used my tried and true Canon SRL 35 mm for this picture. It was the only color photo out of many that printed with extreme clarity. The rest were from digital cameras.
The public is fickle and changes on a whim but a real photographer sees the beauty, art and creativity produced by the manual manipulation of a camera.
It is sad that the major companies of cameras can not see the market for the avid 35 mm photographer. It’s all about money I am sure.
We can not take the esthetic value and ability to create in their own way from an artist and all photographers are really artis to varying degree.
Typical Bottom Line thinking.
Expect to be gouged by the Nimrods at Canon and Nikon for the next Twenty Years on “Advanced Digital Technology” ie. the Ubiquitous and Crappy “Digital Zoom” they all love the Brag about.
Can we expect affordable digital cameras anytime soon, even in the 35 mm realm. Nah. Laugh it up Nikon, all the way to the bank. Let’s see how willing they are to share their “Outdated” camera Patents with interested parties !!
How short sighted Canon is. As a teacher of 5 years, photojournalist of 26 and wedding photographer, it is purley business. All they are doing, is thinking inside the box. I had to get a digital CANON, because of competition, professionally. Otherwise, I would still use print film. I guess Canon has no interest in up and coming photographer’s.
I can understand the devotion to film that some have, and if film is your preference, then just say, “I prefer film to digital.” There’s really no need to try to justify a preference. Using the “I can’t get the quality I need with digital” excuse is unnecessary, and doen’t bolster your argument. Too many of us know better than that now.
Here we go again, the naysayers of film will be beating up us on film dudes once again. Several people got it right here-who wants to sit in front of a camera all day “fixing” digital images and both have their place. If Nikon and Canon wanna jump the film ship that’s fine by me even though I find it sad. What it will do is make my older classic equipment more valuable and my gallery prints from film get higher prices. Which thank you very much digital dummies has already happened. The probable true scenario is that most 35mm film cameras will fade out as does the equivelent stock but I doubt Fuji and Ilford will abandon there medium and large format stocks any time soon. In fact, both companies have made improvements to both their 35 and medium format stocks within the past year. Finally…I have a simple test for you naysayers: take a 1980s Nikon FE2 and drop it on a concrete studio floor from waste level, then take a Nikon or Canon D whizbang and do the same. Now tell me which one works afterwards…I can ’cause I’ve done it and it’s the “chemical loaded” one…and hey it can even shoot without batteries? Imagine that?!?