Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]It seems to me that it will be a very long time before film completely fades away from the photographic landscape. The fact remains that most people cannot afford the computing equipment and software that it takes to capture, store, and print photos from digital cameras. My sense is that there will always be a market for photographic products aimed at people who just want to take some snapshots, have them processed and get hard prints in return without any investment on thier part in either cameras or computer equipment. I suppose the real death of film as a commodity will come when one-use digital cameras with around 2 megapixel resolution and 36 exposure capacity can be produced and sold for a price lower than today's film-based products - around $8. The customer would simply turn it into the 1 hour stand for downloading and output via inkjet printers. A CD could even be offered as part of the 1 hour service. While I don't have statistics at hand, I recall that the one-use market represents the majority of film sales for Kodak and Fuji. I'd bet that this market is a pretty reliable indicator as to the future of film products. Also, don't forget that there is alot of film-related infrastructure out there that has to be fully depreciated before we will see an industry wide switch to digital. - --Jim - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html