[Leica] The Future of Film

[msmall at aya.yale.edu (Marc James Small)]

Kodak is getting out of the B&W paper business;  the ending of its B&W film
and chemistry offerings is only a matter of time.

Many have commented on the reality that other companies will continue to
fill this market, perhaps for the long haul.  The problem with this is that
Kodak dominated the US market so thoroughly that AGFA and Ilford were often
hard to find in camera stores, though Fuzzy had bullied its way into the
door of many of these shops over the past ten years.

Given the explosion of digital in recent years, most local camera stores
have gone over to the Dark Side.  And, with Kodak out of the picture, they
are not going to fill the gap with Ilford, Agfa, Berger, or Forte products:
 they are just going to reduce their film offerings to consumer color
films.  They have seen the light and will simply concentrate on digital
cameras and accessories.

Within five years, only those living in a megalopolis will enjoy the
existence of a local store stocking any analog film materials.  For the
rest of us, it will be suppliers from some large city, ordered over the
Internet and delivered by mail.

I miss the days when I could get a large variety of developers and
chemicals and films and papers at a photo store two blocks from my office.
Now, it is all digital, and as Kodak recedes from the analog market, so
shall they.

(And I have had nothing but snarls and problems with B&H:  they fouled up
three orders in a row a decade back, and I swore that I would never again
do business with them.  But, now, I probably will have no choice ... and I
will hate myself for going back to drink from a polluted well.)

Marc

msmall@aya.yale.edu 
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!

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