Digital burying "traditional" photo? Not so fast ...

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
news:1129757804.3b89f67b13378086d5b3933e4f040474@t eranews...
Just saw this at the drugstore photo counter as I went to pick up some
prints today: the Fujifilm counter mat pushing digital photography.

What struck me is that it said, in big type, that digital was "as fast,
easy and convenient" as regular film.

Not "faster, easier and more convenient". *As* fast, as easy.

Sounds like digital may not exactly be "selling itself". And judging by
the number of photo envelopes the technicians were looking through trying
to find my prints, a *lot* of folks still use regular old film.
Hard to tell from photo envelopes whether they are prints from film or
prints from digital. If it is a Fuji store they most likely do both. I
occassionally work in a digital only lab that is putting through several
thousand digital prints per day. A friend of mine works in a lab that does
both film and digital - they have seen a slight drop in the amount of film
they are printing, but their digital has increased significantly.
Essentially they are doing more prints than they ever have done. I have
also noticed at the lab I work at, that a significant number of customers
come in to print 200-500 prints at a time - and then you'll see them again
next month with a similar volume. The point is, despite the hype about
digital costing less, and it's big benefit being that you only print your
good photos, people are printing more photos than they ever have done. So
for Fuji digital makes good sense, because people shoot more and print more.

Discuss amongst yourselves.


--
... asked to comment on Michigan governor George Romney's remark that
the army had "brainwashed" him in Vietnam—-a remark which knocked Romney
out of the running for the Republican nomination—-McCarthy quipped,
"I think in that case a light rinse would have been sufficient."

(Eugene McCarthy, onetime candidate for POTUS)

In article ,
Frank Pittel wrote:

It could mean that digital camera sales are starting to slump. As to "fast,
easy
and convenient" you have to admit that there isn't much to using a disposible
camera
or one of the newer P&Ss. With a disposible you don't even have to load the
film and
for snap shot photography they do a good job.

In the end I'm not all that interested in the trends of "consumer grade"
photography.
I'm sure that I'm not alone in having much higher standards.

I was shooting a wedding on Saturday, almost every single person there
had a camera or was borrowing one. Lots of table cameras and lots of
digital P&S's. They really were a picture crowd. The nice thing is that
picture people seem to appreciate the work I put into doing the
photography more so than the luke warm people that are almost afraid to
pose.

--
LF Website @ http://members.verizon.net/~gregoryblank

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

On 10/24/2005 3:43 PM Gregory Blank spake thus:

In article ,
Frank Pittel wrote:

It could mean that digital camera sales are starting to slump. As to "fast,
easy
and convenient" you have to admit that there isn't much to using a disposible
camera
or one of the newer P&Ss. With a disposible you don't even have to load the
film and
for snap shot photography they do a good job.

In the end I'm not all that interested in the trends of "consumer grade"
photography.
I'm sure that I'm not alone in having much higher standards.

I was shooting a wedding on Saturday, almost every single person there
had a camera or was borrowing one. Lots of table cameras ...

Let me guess: these were all one-shot disposables, right? Film wins again.


--
.... asked to comment on Michigan governor George Romney's remark that
the army had "brainwashed" him in Vietnam—-a remark which knocked Romney
out of the running for the Republican nomination—-McCarthy quipped,
"I think in that case a light rinse would have been sufficient."

(Eugene McCarthy, onetime candidate for POTUS)

In article ,
Frank Pittel wrote:

David Nebenzahl wrote:
: On 10/19/2005 9:42 PM Frank Pittel spake thus:

: The mistake that you're making is in thinking that the two markets are
: joined at the hip.
: Aside from the general decline in film sales overall they are independent
: of each other.
: The sales volume and profitablity of one is independent of the other. As
: a result the survival
: of consumer grade film is largely independent of each other. Of course if
: Kodak goes out of
: business then it all goes away.

: Right--that's the point. Or it all goes away if Kodak decides to get out of
: the film business altogether(as opposed to the digital photo business). So
: the
: two markets *are* "joined at the hip" in this way.


The only reason Kodak would stop making film or film products is if it
becomes unprofitable to do so.
Since Kodak has publically anounced that thier film division was the cash cow
funding their research
in digital there's no reason to think that they will stop making film anytime
soon. Emulsions may be
discontinued but film will remain.

Digital v Film.

This argument will go on forever.
Only REAL photographers use film, casual snappers use disposables or
digitals. Is this the idea?

Kodak makes big profits on selling film and paper. It's digital division
doesn't seem to do much - look at Fuji - they went into digital in a big
way and sales soared - they were always going to lose out to Kodak for
film and paper so why not change?

The moment film becomes unprofitable, prices will rise and hasten the
switch to digital but there will a market for film for many years to
come - you can get anything if you're willing to pay the price.
Look at Betamax - pro newsreporters still use beta so Sony and Panasonic
will continue to sell it.