Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/06/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Don: When you have a chance, I would like to see what the precise sales figures are. It is my understanding that digital is not even the majority of non-disposable sales. Excluding disposables in any event skews the numbers, because disposables are a huge business. They are the follow-on to Brownie film, 127, Polaroid, 8mm movie, 110, 126, Disc, and APS. As you may have surmised, the rank amateur recognizes no floor in the quality of what he shoots with. It is my feeling that the huge number of 1970s SLRs out there was driven by the fact that p/s cameras did not exist. 35mm was only the dominant amateur format for the last 25 years, and even then, what would be today's Wal-Mart crowd picks up on any new technology and goes right to the product that involves minimal effort. For right now that is digital. It may continue to be. But I think that you may see a small number of people go back to p/s or disposables. Outside of the supermarket set, the big functional challenge to film will come with the development of a 14MP camera that costs less than $500. But having spoken to an HP digital camera designer, the chances of this happening anytime soon are nil. Making 14MP chips is extraordinarily expensive and has an almost total failure rate; absent some massive breakthrough in chip technology, the chips alone will cost close to $1,000 apiece. This is far from mass-market. Dante On Wednesday, June 18, 2003, at 11:18 PM, Don Dory wrote: > The major photo retailers are working their a------ off to make getting > pictures from digital cameras easy. Why? Roll counts are dropping by > double digit percentages and if they can not replace lost business in > developing film with making pictures from digital files then they are > dead > meat. It is no secret in the industry that the profits were in > film(and > paper and chemistry) for the manufacturers and in processing film and > making > prints for the shops. > > Sometime in July you will be able to e-mail your digital files to major > retailers and pick up your pictures within four hours at literally your > choice of hundreds of locations. Polaroid has a neat little kiosk > that can > make 24 prints from your digital file in a couple of minutes. You can > find > someone's kiosk just about everywhere to make prints from your digital > files. > > Don't delude yourself that film will be around for a long time. Right > now > more than 90% of all cameras sold in the US are digital, excluding > disposables. I suspect that next year sometime you will start to > notice > that film is not at the check out line of your local grocery, and that > the > giant warehouse stores have moved a smaller selection of film to the > back > corner somewhere. I think that sometime next year you will see the > one hour > labs start to disappear from drug stores as the roll counts drop so > far that > they can not afford the square footage to a loss leader. We have in > fact > reached the critical trifecta of good enough quality, availability of > output > options, and marketing buzz where film is a walking dead product. > Yes, we > all will still be able to buy film, but just like buggy whips, way out > of > the way or mail order. > > To keep this on topic, Leica as a niche player with a fairly loyal > customer > base, will survive in some shape or another just as you can still buy > a > buggy for your horse to pull. However, if they can not develop or > rebadge a > digital highish end product then we will all seem to be collectors of > Colt > revolvers: still potent devices but largely irrelevant to anyone > outside the > club. > > This time 0.05 > > Don > dorysrus@mindspring.com > > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html > > ____________ Dante Stella http://www.dantestella.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html