Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/09/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi all, I?ve decided to quit lurking and chime in on the ongoing film vs. digital thread... This past Sunday, I stood for about 2 hours on the corner of 5th Ave and 34th St. - where the enormous protest march turned the corner to head back downtown. During this time, I would guess that about 20,000 people passed by ? a little less than half were carrying some sort of photo/video device. Although I was there as a small sign of support for the march, the parade of gear was much more interesting to me than the protest. Being a gear nut/collector/photographer (I was sporting my Yashica Electro35 GSN), I made an informal ?count? of the types of cameras I saw. - Almost every pro I saw (somewhere around 30) was carrying 2 or 3 Canon digital bodies. There were a smattering of Nikon shooters as well. - I counted about 15 Leicas around the necks of ? 2 or 3 pros, a few people who looked like artists/students, and a bunch of Europeans (tourists?). - The non-disposable film cameras I saw could be counted on my two hands, and were mostly super-cheap Nikon, Olympus or Canon ?student? rigs. - I saw 4 or 5 ?vintage shooters? like myself. A couple of old Nikons, an old Mamiya 6, and this ancient ?wise-man? type who had a Canonet hanging on his neck. Oh, and the ubiquitous ?Graflex-guys? were there as well, hawking $10 Polaroids to tourists. Everybody else had a digital point-and-shoot something-or-other. Many thousands. I?m 36 and basically raised in the digital age ? working on computers since 6th grade ? but old enough to remember when digital wasn?t around. I?ve chosen to shoot film exclusively until I reach a point that I can think of myself as a ?real? photographer. While I won?t go as far as to say that film will fade away completely ? like it or not, right or wrong, the economies of scale are way past the tipping point for film to go the way of glass plates. However, if Polaroid ? who has been uniquely and strongly affected by digital ? can turn itself around, come back from bankruptcy and keep producing film, then I hold out hope that Ilford, Agfa and the rest will figure out a similar strategy to keep film around for a long time to come. d -- Dave Bias 646.263.0264 me@davebias.org http://www.davebias.org 223 1st Avenue #1 - NYC, NY 10003 << strikingly-poignant-but-decontextualized-underground-song-lyric here >>