[Leica] The end of film

[lrzeitlin at aol.com]

The demise of film is an unfortunate but natural consequence of the 
evolution of photography. Remember all the photographic processes that 
have fallen by the wayside. The Daguerrotype, the Calotype, albumen 
prints, Tintypes, the wet collodion process, the gum bichromate 
process, and dozens of color processes. All  were replaced by gelatin 
silver on acetate film. And even film has a victim of evolution. Try to 
buy a roll of film for your grandmother's antique folding camera. I 
have a collection of old cameras that use 116, 127, 828, 126 and 620 
film. Even a couple of old disc cameras in a desk drawer. The fodder 
for these paperweights is either impossible to find or is available at 
absurd prices from specialty firms. Kodak still makes Super 8 mm film 
but you have to order massive quantities. B&H sells the stuff for $30 
for a 50 ft. roll. At four minutes of filming per roll, that's about $8 
a minute for a video of the kids playing with a new puppy. No wonder 
VCRs took over the market. The VCRs in turn lost out to video modes on 
P&S cameras and even upscale DSLRs.

Even digital photography is not immune to obsolescence. Remember the 2" 
Sony video disc and the Smart Media memory card? My old Leica Digilux 
camera used that card, all 128 MB of it. Now even the Compact Flash 
cards are feeling the heat. And all those pictures you burned into CDs 
and DVDs. Forgeddaboutit. Few new computers read them any more. As far 
as the archival quality of film that Brian writes about, at the rate 
that studios are converting to digital in a few years it is going to be 
hard to find a functioning 35 mm optical projector. Remember NASA can 
hardly read the instrumentation tapes from the Apollo program. Few tape 
drives have been preserved.

So live with it. Revere your old cameras as beautifully constructed 
paperweights. Antique sextants in an age of GPS. if you want to take 
your film Leicas out for old timers week, film will be available at 
increasingly high prices. There will be exceptions, of course. Most of 
us are digitized these days but Jim Schulman and Lluis will probably 
still shoot film as long as it is available. Still, as a money losing 
proposition Kodak's stockholders will probably demand that the firm 
that pioneered the medium abandon the market within a few years. In any 
event it will make only the film stocks demanded by the Hollywood 
studios. No Kodakchrome. The best strategy for film fans is to follow 
the advice of a Kodak engineer. Buy yourself a large freezer and stock 
it with all the film stock you are likely to want for the remainder of 
your life. Then hope that the power doesn't go out.

Larry Z