How much longer can photographic film hold on?

[arthurking83]

to answer the OP's actual question, I don't think that in our lifetime the sale of film will ever disappear completely, but I think that's it's very likely that the larger players in the industry, such as Kodak and Fuji will eventually have to cease production due to an unprofitable product.. that's for sure!
Those companies exist for one reason only.. to profit.
I doubt very much that Kodak produces film simply because of some inherent die hard photographic prejudice! They make it because it sells in the numbers where they still turn a profit.
Once that profit margin is completely eroded to record negative figures, they'll sell up the assets to the lowest bidder who will then take up the challenge of making some money from it.

Speaking of Kodak, I still believe that in Australia, Kodak will probably turn a profit over the next few years, merely from the fact that they're sitting on a billion dollar property ripe for residential redevelopment about 1 klm east of where I live.
I don't have any information on Kodak's financials, but my guess is that the majority of their income stream would now be derived from licensing the technology of their digital sensors, and the manufacture of them.

Going from the quoted figures in the article in the link, the film market seems to have dwindled to about 0.5% of what it once was, in a single decade.
The writing is on the wall for the large film manufacturers(as opposed to the film itself).

10 years... maybe less??

[geck]

Firstly, fabian 628, that is an awesome image.

I don't think film will die completely for a long while yet, but I do believe it might parallel the rise, fall and rise again of vinyl. Sales and production has been dropping over the past decade, but I think it will eventually plateau and rise again as more and more newcomers to photography (re)discover it. I shoot both film and digital, and as much as I like the instant gratification of digital, the first box of Velvia slides I got back blew my mind to the point where I jimmied up a projector using my Nikkormat and 50mm lens, a tripod, a torch and a piece of A4 paper to put them on the wall. Same with the first lot of prints from a roll of HP5, then Dellta 3200, then Superia 1600.

As long as I can buy film I will - I even picked up a fairly ordinary 1950s rangefinder to run Delta 100 and Pan 50 in as a walking around camera, as well as having my phone cam on me too for digital/colour shots.

I think that as much as digital can be equal in colour/size/resolution/sharpness to film, it just lacks a certain je ne sais quoi - you can't beat true black and white grain, and I think that there is enough of a market for this that film won't die out just yet. Perhaps non-pro colour negative stock will go in a decade, but true black and white, positive and pro colour neg will be around for a long while yet - just look at Kodak introducing a new Portra recently...

[conscuba]

feel the same Geck. I have a canon 30d,but only use it for party/point n shoot type shots. anytime i feel arty , i reach for my film cameras.
planning on getting a projector soon.
and I love doing things teenagers know nothing about

[squizzytaylor]

I had a good chat with a friend in the North West of NSW about a year ago who owns a photo shop. As far as he is/was concerned the days of the shopfront with a Mini-lab were somewhat numbered. The issue as he saw it was twofold;
a) Home printing/department store photo services had eroded the film business to the point where it was already barely viable as a profit line to start with.
b) The Konica mini-labs (I am lead to believe over 80% of processors use these) are very power hungry and the chemicals used require heat and filtration from the machine to remain effective making the whole operation a sizable overhead. (I may have misquoted here, please correct me if I'm wrong).
Its a catch 22 but the more digital imaging increases, the more the film processing decreases therefore increases the price per print to cover the expense of running the mini-lab.
He does however still process his own b&w prints manually.

GT

[Sam Emilio]

This is a discussion that has been going on for so long, but really, film will not die. We all know there's something 'special' about film, and with companies like Lomography (who've released two cameras in the last month) going strong there's not a chance film will die out in the foreseable future.

[I @ M]

This is a discussion that has been going on for so long, but really, film will not die. We all know there's something 'special' about film, and with companies like Lomography (who've released two cameras in the last month) going strong there's not a chance film will die out in the foreseable future.

Sam, you sound like an ardent film user and very happy to use confident language about the survival of film, I really, seriously had to google lomography to find out what you were talking about.
Do you think you could tell us how many cameras they have sold in the last year or so?
I am not so confident as to use phrases like "will not die" or "not a chance" but I do believe that film will continue to be produced in ever decreasing amounts for some time yet to serve those who wish to treasure it in much the same way that avid vintage car restorers / collectors love their hobby and remember "the good old days".

[doigal]

I just wonder how many people now, have actually taken a picture with film, or developed their own film?

I shoot about 3 rolls of film a month on average and develop all myself, including C-41 and E-6. Apart from some really niche films (fortia) i havnt had any problems getting film.

If you think film is dying, try looking around a Japanese shop. Their film sections are bigger than most Ted's shops in Australia.

[KeeFy]

B&W film has a proven 3 to 4 stop advantage over the standard dSLR bar the MF formats. Film is pretty much alive and i have quite a few friends who have started venturing into film. Also with the popularity of lomography increasing.... film will not die IMO

As for digital vs film for video. Digital is taking over film in that aspect. Many companies have ported over to digital and current sales of film cameras have definitely decreased (i've got friends who sell/repair professional video cams). Also with the introduction of 3D tvs and such... it's definitely moving away from film. Film for video will become a niche market in the future as well i reckon.

[David Woods]

I shoot about 3 rolls of film a month on average and develop all myself, including C-41 and E-6. Apart from some really niche films (fortia) i havnt had any problems getting film.

If you think film is dying, try looking around a Japanese shop. Their film sections are bigger than most Ted's shops in Australia.

Doigal

I never said film was dying????

[doigal]

sorry, i only skimmed the comments of the thread. didnt mean to be an attack on you!!

seriously, if you get the chance, go look at camera shops in japan. this was a corner of the film floor in bic camera

What a camera store should look like by doigal, on Flickr

[David Woods]

We were going to go to Japan this year, but friends of ours are getting married at Hyderabad India, so we are now going to India, I am hoping to get to Nepal to photo the Himalayas. I just hope I take enough film, 10 rolls of 100 velvia, 5 rolls of 50 velvia, 5 rolls of T-Max 100 5 rolls of T-Max 400, that's all the 35mm I am taken, in the 120 5 rolls of of Velvia 50, 5 rolls of T-Max 100 5 rolls of T-Max 400 and a couple of rolls of 64

[fabian628]

sorry, i only skimmed the comments of the thread. didnt mean to be an attack on you!!

seriously, if you get the chance, go look at camera shops in japan. this was a corner of the film floor in bic camera

What a camera store should look like by doigal, on Flickr

haha fuji land

[claytonchatham]

It better live on. I still run a roll of 120 through my Mamiya 645 every wedding. It's my biggest money maker

[TOM]

BTW: The primary digital advantages are:
Immediacy
Convenience
Low unit cost per image
High volume
Easy publishing / sharing
Must easier and more powerful post processing options than a darkroom

And this is the key to ag-x's longevity. I agree with everything Kym has said here, more or less. You'll notice that none of these things listed have anything to do with the quality of the end image, it's all about convenience. I shoot about 50/50 nowadays, but when quality and exclusivity is of the upmost importance, then it has to be film.

[arthurking83]

.....
If you think film is dying, try looking around a Japanese shop. Their film sections are bigger than most Ted's shops in Australia.

That's all well and good, but the problem(as usual) is the context of the situation hasn't been taken into account.
It's all well and good to see that film is still as popular today as it was say .. even 5 years ago, and then post images to prove this, the reality is very different.
The distortion of perspective in the images and the fact that some Japanese stores have film section larger than the average Teds, is more of a reflection of the concentration of population rather than the fact that the demand is still what it used to be.
That is, I'm wondering how many floors these photographic stores used to devote to film sales only a few years back, and then compare them to what you now see.
Tokyo has a population alone that exceeds Australia's entire population, so to see a store stocking this much film is going to be normal.. because the store is going to cater to a customer base 100x larger than just about any other city in the world! I'd dare say that many NY photography stores will have a similar film range too. Massive population density and the higher living standards of the general population dictates this type of situation.

I've watched the retail and wholesale film industry being obliterated by the onward march of digital technology but from a completely left field avenue, that is the transportation of it. Watching the megalithic Kodak Melbourne operation transform from a city it itself, down to barely a speck on a street frontage is enough evidence for me to know that film is all but dead. Not completely dead, but at least 1/100th of what it once was.
There's always going to be a niche market for just about any aspect of life, but my instinct tells me that in the long term, companies like Fuji and Kodak will one day cease film production due to a lack of profitability, and let others with a leaner company structure cater to the ever dwindling market needs.

As for quality, there is no proof that either one of the two technologies is better than the other, other than the simple fact that digital technology is theoretically capable of infinitely better quality(for a given size of capture medium).
Any opinions of the quality differences between film and digital will be subject to biases and personal preferences ......

I believe that the only advantage that film has over digital is in the larger format arenas .. larger than MF and into the Large Format area. Digital is still too expensive to compete against LF.
Pentax has shown that price is now no longer a barrier to more efficient MF return on investment. where once upon a time the companies that had the stronghold on the MF digital capture market used command the market direction, they'll soon have to follow where it inevitably ends up.
One day soon that will mean cheaper prices in the MF digital marketplace too. It's only a matter of time before this domino effect hits the LF market too.

[TOM]

One day soon that will mean cheaper prices in the MF digital marketplace too. It's only a matter of time before this domino effect hits the LF market too

Arthur we haven't even a seen a full size (ie. 6x6 or 6x7) medium format cameras yet, let alone a large format!

When you consider that with film you get a larger dynamic range, better colours, a negative/positive piece of film, and more flexibility with the image (ie. scan into digital @ true 16 bit, wet printing, contact printing), no matter what sized piece of silver halide you have, there will always be a niche market. Ron Lowry in the States is starting to make and market his own ag-x products. If you stick to black and white, it's not even all that difficult (YMMMV). I tend to go through stages where I'll shoot a lot digital and no film, and vice versa. Film cameras are so cheap nowadays, why wouldn't I keep both on hand.

[Kym]

@Tom... http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/31/c...60fps-video-i/ CMOS sensor measuring 202 x 205 mm... That's 7.95 x 8.07 inches

[TOM]

Unfortunately, the press release is more concerned with promoting Canon's engineering prowess than with product launch. Nevertheless, we're impressed.

Let's hope some day that a sensor this size can become viable companies to put into production, I for one would love to shoot with something like that.

[Kym]

The first digital photo was produced in 1957 when Russell Kirsch made a 176×176 pixel digital image by scanning a photograph of his three-month-old son.
The first digital camera was a klunker in 1975 http://www.petapixel.com/2010/08/05/...-steve-sasson/
It took a while for Digital to go consumer

So give it 10 years (or maybe a bit more) and LF digital will be 'affordable' (i.e. <$20,000 for a LF digital camera)

[arthurking83]

T...

So give it 10 years (or maybe a bit more) and LF digital will be 'affordable' (i.e. <$20,000 for a LF digital camera)

Yeah! at the rate that digital technologies advance, I reckon we'll have sub $3k MF cameras available, and maybe not $20K LF sensors, but as the basic structure of the LF camera is different to the 35mm format system, it really shouldn't be expensive.. maybe $50K or something like that.

Digital LF systems are currently available, but not really a viable alternative to LF film, due to the glacial pace at which they scan the scene. Instead of using the typical digital sensor tech, they're basically flatbed scanners and due this technology are slow to scan the scene, basically do it a line at a time, so a dynamic scene is impossible to capture.
For 6x17 pano format there is the Seitz, but once again a scanning back system (albeit faster at 1sec for a full 6x17 image).
Great if your shots are all in the 1sec or slower range, which not all images are!

From my very basic recollection of digital sensor technology, the biggest obstacle is the size of the silicon wafer to begin with. It's something like 300mm round, so to cut out a square single piece sensor not only is it going to be massively expensive, as you only get one piece per die, but you also get a lot of wastage too.
Some brilliantly minded mathematician will know.. what's the largest single rectangular cutout possible from a 300mm diameter circle? (I suspect 202x205mm! )
Unless something changes, I don't think that 8x10 format is possible in digital single shot sensor capture(only in scan back technology).
If they can increase the capture rate of scan back technologies(the bandwidth), there's no reason not to use this technology.
Even tho you would naturally use longer exposure times in large format due to the smaller working apertures, the whole premise of digital is that it also opens up new opportunities, such as has happened in recent times with the explosion of usable ISO values to insane levels such as 12500 and beyond. There's no reason not to want similar performances in LF capture too.