Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/01/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]B.D. This is actually an interesting area of thought. I am seeing a fairly large number of folk with perfectly good cameras at home spend fairly hefty sums to buy small digital P&S. As my friends are mostly in my age cohort the usefulness of a 2 to3" screen to enjoy group pictures of the children or grandchildren is pretty small. When asked about why, a frequent answer basically comes out as everyone has one. The analogy of glass plates is bogus as for amatuers, roll film was a tremendous improvement over plates of any kind, and for professionals the move to sheet film was a great convenience in weight saving and loss of fragility. The more appropriate commentary was the movement from large format to medium and small format in news reporting. It took from the thirties to possibly as late as the early 60's to move completely from 4X5 to 35mm in news gathering. This is an area where there were clear advantages to the smaller formats in almost every concievable way(weight, rapidity of shots, ability to record in lower light, unobtrusiveness, lens selection, and I could go on). Yes, there are some strong advantages to digital, some are green, some are feedback, some are smaller size, some are travel related for photo binging. But back to the issue of 24 exposure film taking too long to use, here in Atlanta you can buy a 12 exposure roll for less than a buck. Implications would be to shoot the party, drop off for one hour, and you have your pictures possibly quicker than using a Picture Mate. So, yes, I think that the 95-99 percent market penetration of digital cameras is largely a function of herd mentality. This thought is specifically related to the large number of amatuer users for whom pictures are snippets of their life, friends, places, funny expressions, embarassing moments. Instant feedback is one such retort, but Polaroid use is up substantially primarily because of instant pictures at parties. I would like to hear from some of the experts on marketing in our group. How and or why do people get motivated to spend goodly sums of money on essentially interchaneable items. Sneakers come to mind, watches, brands of yogurt, etc. Don don.dory@gmail.com On 1/13/06, B. D. Colen <bdcolen@comcast.net> wrote: > > Suggesting that people are primarily shooting digital because of the > 'herd' > mentality, is a bit like suggesting that people gave up glass plates and > moved on to film because of the 'herd' mentality. > > > On 1/13/06 10:42 AM, "Luis Miguel Casta?eda" <lmc@interlink.es> wrote: > > > > > On 13/01/2006, at 15:06, Don Dory wrote: > > > >> Luis, > >> No, the herd mentality has set in. [...] > >> For the heavy shooter obviously the economics change pretty quickly. > > > > well, I was joking in part, but your comment pointed some interesting > > facts. > > > > a) People don't want the best thing for them, they just want what > > their neighbourg already has. > > b) People don't ask caring your advice, they only want to hear what > > they are lusting for. > > c) If you dont know what to say, say new. > > > > Recently I was shooting polaroid for fun. It was the spectra film, > > well balancend color and quite sharp. Someone came around saying that > > polaroids looked fine but they are very expensive. After a bit of > > chat I knew that he bought a $300 digicam (his second one), $100 on > > gadgets, $200 on a little printer and upgraded his computer ($900) to > > have it all working. He spent $1500 before the first shot but he was > > pretending that he was shooting for free. I got my last polaroid for > > $1 on a eb*y auction plus $8 for shipping, paid about $10 for film, > > still $1481 on my pocket left to shot, so I will have nearly 1500 > > prints before getting where he was starting and without counting > > paper etc for the printer. So we have to define what's expensive. > > > > Obviously this tale can be reversed easily, and it should be, > > depending of needs. I wont shoot nothing else than digital if I was > > working for daily media. > > > > About heavy shooters... the old myth/fact that said that as more you > > shoot, you will become a better photog has settled well, but they > > forget that when you can preview instantly what you're doing it does > > not have sense to soot more. If there is no time to fix and > > understand the how and why no matter how many shoots you make, unless > > they have fun with it, nothing photographic in it. :) > > > > > > > > > > Saludos > > ----------------------------------------- > > http://imaginarymagnitude.net/blog/ > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Leica Users Group. > > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >