Re: [Leica] Is film a thing of the past? Will they be digging up Leicasurus Rangefinderus fossils in a few short yoears?

["Dan Post" <dwpost@email.msn.com>]

Brian,
Thanks for the posting; very interesting. I don't forsee having to hoard
bricks of film right now!
Dan'l

dwpost@msn.com
- -----Original Message-----
From: Brian C. Shaw, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong
<bcjshaw@hkucc.hku.hk>
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Date: Wednesday, June 24, 1998 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: [Leica] Is film a thing of the past? Will they be digging up
Leicasurus Rangefinderus fossils in a few short yoears?


>Dan,
>
>Here's part of an article (I summarize in parts) in yesterday's Technology
Post
>(South China Morning Post), quoting Mr Patrick Stewart, formerly Kodak's
general
>manager for greater China, now VP in charge of K's professional division:
>
>[He thinks there's still a good future for film:] "I think it's going to
have a
>long tail on it. The overall  colour reversal film market is pretty flat.
It's
>not in free-fall decline, it's just pretty flat. Digital imigaing is coming
up
>very fast, but it's additive. I think it will be a dual market for upwards
of 10
>years".
>
>[On scanners:] "Now that ther are more digital output options - the digital
LED
>printer, our LF Crt printer, where people see that they can scan images in
and
>get them out to very productive work flows, like a direct-output writer or
paper
>or some type of display material - scanners are taking off again".
>
>[On new film formulae:] K is concentrating on making its film more
scannable.
>"The challenges in transparencies is, how do we make an image that looks
good on
>a light box and yet has a dynamic range that works well in a digitised
form?
>That's going to take some technology, and we don't have that all right now.
That
>is the target, though".
>
>The future of photographic consumables lay not with how people made images,
but
>how they reproduced them.
>
>Leically,
>
>Dan Post wrote:
>
>> Donal-
>>
>>  ... I went to Wolf Camera, working only on weekends, and I have seen the
>> minilab volume
>> steadily increase there, as well.
>> To be fair, only one of our stores has the APS capable printer, a Fuji
>> SFA238. It is in out highest volume store, but even at that, where the
roll
>> count is about 250-300 a day, I have rarely seen more than 15-20 APS
rolls
>> come in for develope and print service and even fewer reprint orders.
>> We have to send the APS out from the other store to the Main Lab, and I
>> recall only about 4-5 rolls coming in for outlab service here last
weekend.
>
>
>