Poll: Should Camera Manufacturers Abandon Film?
Sunday June 4, 2006
Canon's announcement it might abandon film cameras caused quite a stir, with many readers responding with vehement opposition to ditching film.
What's your take? Vote in this new poll.
Poll:Do you think camera manufacturers should abandon film?
- Absolutely! Film is so dead.
- Sure. There aren't many uses for film these days.
- Maybe. I use digital most of the time, but film still has purpose.
- Probably not. There are still uses for film cameras.
- Absolutely not! Film is by far superior to digital.
Comments
Although DIGITAL is definately here to stay (until something else comes along in a few decades), FILM also still fill a few niches - especially some creative ones. Black & White photography has been growing again in popularity as many creative artists try to be different from the rest of the pack. Just because DIGITAL is now very popular doesn’t mean that there are no more uses for 35mm FILM. Many photographers still have very high quality SLR’s in their closets and it would be a shame if they were made completely obsolete by companies no longer producing film and/or paper. This won’t happen in my lifetime, of this I am sure, but it will probably get very expensive as film production becomes less cost prohibitive with declining demand.
Most artists are not influenced by what everyone else it using - artists usually prefer to be unique - therefore, film will remain a viable medium as long as the products remain available. Even if the big companies decide to eliminate film there will always be smaller specialty companies to fill the void.
I was a Radio and Night Club DJ in the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s so I am very familiar with what it is like to have my medium made nearly obsolete by digital. Vinyl can be superior to Compact Discs in many ways, and there are many musical tricks such as ’scratching’ that are not as easily acheived with CD’s. Just as there will always be some vinyl records produced in some genres of music, there will always be some film and related products available to fill the niche.
From,
Charles Roland
I hate to say it but I love my camera. I got alot of pix of the kids my husband and the pets. Film should stay. I got 2 cameras. I got a poloriod camera and a good camera that takes film. I love it better because if I use digital the way I take pix I’ll use up all of my space on my computer. FILM SHOULD STAY!
Film will continue to have it’s fans, no matter how dominant digital becomes. Unfortunately, camera manufacturers are businesses, and cannot survive in today’s market on nostalgia. They cannot ignore market trends if they want to continue to be a business. They cannot afford to continue to manufacture product lines that relatively few people are interested in. Warehouses full of unsold film cameras don’t make for a viable company. So unless Canon wants to end up like Minolta, an office products company only, it has to keep pace with the market. Right now the market is screaming digital.
The more film goes out of favor the better off I will be. I am a chemical photographer and the less that use film the better for me, less competition, cheaper cameras and many other things. Go Canon Go! Get everyone to think film is dead, and thanks from a real film photog.
Yes, digital is dominant, and will continue to be so, but there will be enough demand for film (particularly black and white film and larger formats) to make it viable. Maybe the big manufacturers will pull out, but there will always be an Ilford or Efke who can produce the goods. Perhaps the big change is that home development will once again become the norm for film photographers.
Meanwhile film photographers can take advantage of the good cheap equipment coming onto the market as others ‘go digital’.
It would have been really nice if the poll included some less biased responses, such as “No, I use film most of the time.” As such I had to accept having words put in my mouth that are not there, “film is far superior”. I don’t shoot film because I believe it’s superior, it’s just what I enjoy and choose to do.
Sure! I haven’t bought a new camera since 1986 and of my 35 cameras, only one other even has a meter in it. What do we need more new cameras for? Just keep making film.
It isn’t about quality, it’s about the magic of film, the whole process from end to end. Ilford has just filed its accounts for the year to 31 December 2005 and they show a £5 million retained profit on sales of £35 million. Balance sheet looks healthy (not surprising since they dumped all the old company’s debt when they bought the business from the Admistrators), so I think their stated objective to be ‘the last man standing’ in traditional b&w photography is unlikely to be tested any time soon.
I thought that is was film like video cameras. But yeah I like digital.
What will ultimately decide whether film cameras stay are market forces.
1. Are there enough people buying film cameras to warrant continued production, to warrant new models?
Nikon has ceased production of all but two models of film cameras because of declining film camera sales. The fact that Canon is contemplating ceasing development of new film cameras — not ceasing of sales of film cameras — is a reflection of the lop-sided sales of digital cameras. It is not whether how many people use film in cameras; but, whether ther are sufficient people buying new film cameras that will ultimately determine whether film cameras will continue to be marketed and, if so, how many different models, how many different manufacturers, and whether they will be SLR’s or point-and-shoot cameras or both.
2. The second factor will be the availablility of outlets that will process film. If the number of outlets in a given geographic area become too few, then this will accelerate the decline of film camera use in that area. There might be a sufficient number of places in large cities; but, not necessarily so in small and medium size communities. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that whether there are sufficient outlets will depend on the population size of a community.
Thanks for doing the poll on film vs. digital. I am a film fan and prefer black and white. I can see where digital has its place but I enjoy the challenge of film. It seems I am not alone. I believe many people will be upset if film is no longer available.
I recently had a 35mm photo published and it was the only picture in the magazine that the color was clear and true on. The rest were digital prints. Enough said as far as I am concerned.
Film,Film,Film - it must never die especially APS fim. I love my APS SLR film camera and the photos it produces are magnificent. A film print is superior over a digital print!! Please keep manufacturing APS print film.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/new/index.shtml
(a few excerpts from “today’s news” some time back
“Friday’s edition of The International Herald Tribune has a very
interesting discussion between three experts in Japanese equities regarding
the stock market, the global competitiveness of Japanese companies, and trends to watch. The follow is an excerpt relevant to the changing
photographic industry”
“The mistake that Pentax and other camera manufacturers made was in digital
cameras, which as a business are not like cameras but more like home electronics, with short product cycles. It’s not an efficient business for
camera manufacturers to be in”
..”the digital camera business falls in the same category. It’s a winner-take-all game where unless you become the winner, you lose all your profits in the process of competition. Japanese firms that have been in those types of businesses have all been destroyed.”
I hope it isn’t too late for at least THIS camera manufacturer.. Many others have already fallen - and it’s been their own fault.
When they should have been promoting their traditional products and marketing the strengths, they instead chose to promote effectively a competitors product - the digital camera
It’ll be interesting to see how and more importantly, IF any attempts to
re-market a product they abandoned and labelled as ‘old fashioned’ and ‘obsolete’ will be successful
I wish them luck and curse their initial greed and shortsightedness
k
I always wonder, when one talks ‘film’ - it seems the majority of people generally think 35mm. Larger formats exist people, and even though there are digital MF and LF backs, the quality is not even close to what film can produce.
Digital is a great tool, and one many real photographers could add to their toolbag but it seems a shame though that all the other tools are being discarded in favour of this new toy.
Look at the 4×5 EHS digital back - “Capture 137MB color images in as little as 66 seconds” Oh pulease! that’s a 6000×8000 pixel image. a 4000 ppi film scanner grabs that much from 1.5′ x 2″ of film, and taking the shot on film whether 35mm or 8×10 takes the same time, lets go with as little at 1/500th of a second