Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/09

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: going digital WAS full time photogs NOW film and vacuum tubes
From: Robert Browne <rbrowne@iopener.net>
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 21:35:42 -0700

David Young wrote:

>For all those who worry about film being no longer available as digital
>takes over; just remember: they still make tubes!

and Slobodan Dimitrov replied:

>Yeah, in Russia or the Ukraine.

NOS vacuum tubes from the likes of Telefunken, Mullard, Amperex and others command
premium prices nowadays due to the recent renaissance in vacuum tube audio. The only
new tubes made come from Russia, China and Eastern Europe. The one exception is
Western Electric, who a few years ago started making the 300B tube again after noticing
that NOS 300B's were being sold in Japan for $500.00+ each. Of course, this was a
few years after they had thrown away all their remaining stock, thinking that it was 
useless junk.

Currently manufactured vacuum tubes are generally considered inferior to those made 
by the classic NOS manufacturers, many which were made with techniques and materials
not available or too expensive to implement today - which I believe is the point   
Slobodan was making. Just how good will the film be that may be available if Kodak,
Agfa, Ilford, Fuji et al, let it die? Let's hope it never happens, but you can be sure that 
your future choices will be limited compared to today.

Robert  

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