Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/10/28
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 08:19 PM 10/28/98 -0800, you wrote: >BOY ARE THEY IN FOR A HELL OF SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!! > >And David the truth of it is, as discovered by a leading daily here in >Canada who went all digital and dumped their darkroom staff, that the >digital cameras and attended equipment and results at the end of the first >year of operation without film, cost them more to operate than .....using >real film! Ted, Yepper. I'm discovering that right now. Not to mention the ONLY manufacturer of Viper hard drives that kept performance up on the digital cameras went belly up, and the hard drives weren't available any more, there are a lot of other costs. That has lead to price gouging. Each card (hard drive) at one dealer who has some stock left are $500. (Should be $329.) He has 26 in stock, sold 150 in the last two weeks. Once they're gone... Canon says they're making them now, but they're special order (read: good luck buddy with that $12,250 paper weight). So, how long would it take one photographer here to burn that much film? Four years! How much did it cost a friend of mine who dropped one of these cameras 2 feet onto carpet to fix? $2,500! After he got Kodak and Canon to quit arguing about who had to fix it. Pricing a digital camera today, the prices I've been quoted are $12,250 to $13,500. And that's without the batteries! ($650 for six - rechargeable). Digital for pros is still for the sturdy of wallet and heart. I just dropped my buying spree from 3 cameras and a bunch of lenses to 1 camera and batteries and one hard drive for 1999. (Already have a bunch of hard drives.) Film is not dead! Long live Leica! - -- Eric Welch St. Joseph, MO http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch "History never ends, 'cause it's too busy beginning." -- Bob Geldof