To fight back or not to fight back?

"I never know what's real or not."

 

Life is a reflection of the impurities of Paradise, Dennis.

"Life is a reflection of the impurities of Paradise, Dennis."

 

Well that certainly explains digital photography, Allen. ;>)

My Johnny Cash t-shirt sums up my sentiments very nicely...<br><br>

<center><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3554794-lg.jpg"></center>

Well, okay.........<div></div>

honest......<div></div>

Former World Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Willie Pastrano (http://www.ibhof.com/pastrano.htm), ready to fight back for Leica... ;>)<div></div>

you can't post url's like that Super Dude.

 

http://www.ibhof.com/pastrano.htm

For fight fans...

 

http://www.ibhof.com/pastrano.htm

"you can't post url's like that Super Dude."

 

I'm proud that I'm not a computer geek... ;>)

you spend enough time on one. are you sure?

Well it seems that the cat was thrown among the pigeons - maybe my pain management wasn't very effective when I posted the thread.

 

However, I'm always intrigued by those who feel that they have to come out and slag off at those who prefer to stick with film. The personalisation of comments often resorts to suggesting that there is some intelectual deficiency in those who continue / prefer to use more traditional image capture.

 

For those who suggested my thread indicated a negative and unrealistic attitude towards digi imaging, I suggest that you re-read my thread. My point was that of course "different courses for different horses" applies in this age of dual media imaging. We are indeed better off with 2 alternatives available.

 

For me there is little benefit in digital capture, but much benefit in digital post-processing. The benfits of digital capture to "snap shooters", sports journos etc etc are obvious.

 

But my point was that those companies most adversely affected did nothing to position their film offerings - camera makers and film manufacturers alike. They did and still do nothing to position the concept of "different horses for different courses".

 

As one respondent indicated companies like Leica that push traditional film equipment and use positioning statements like "when quality matters" to attract lovers of hand-made instruments, could / should have gone further and not have just ignored the film to digital shift. They are too product centric.

 

Anyway I'm regularly flattered (if not amazed) by family and friends who look at my prints and say things like: "Wow.... wish my camera could do that" only to go on about their newly acquired overpriced digi all singing and dancing camera. Their printed images (of course at the lower consumer equipment end) regularly have poor colour balance; weak image definition; low sharpness and details that disappear into fluffy blur. They feel sick when I show prints with lovely colour tones; superb subject sharpness and well resolved detail edge to edge. They feel even sicker when I show them my old and often forgotten Olympus XAII, which took those shots.

 

But as some respondents said this is the age where consumerism and a seemingly endless thirst for gadgets has crept into the photographic industry and has begun to swallow it up. Gone are the days when a quality SLR or rangefinder was a camera for life unless a compelling feature was developed in a new model some 25 years later.

 

Now new entrants have taken up snap-shot photography because the gadgets are "so cool"; fire away without the need to worry about film and processing costs and can just print their best images. But consumer lust for the "latest and greatest" hides the real cost of their photography - savings on film and processing are quickly eaten up by the costs of obsolescence as well as the higher equipment costs.

 

I was a bit intigued by the fact that so few respondents commented on film manufacturers' failure to better position their products and concentrated their responces on camera manufacturers.

 

Film makers' promotional marketing still concentrates on competing with other film makers' products and ignores their biggest competitors - digital imaging. One respondent sensibly pointed out that while Fuji and Kodak have their own digital products to promote, they should still push their legacy products more effectively in their own right.

 

My thread was not a discussion about the merits of film versus digital, but moreover how manufacturers with a higher dependence upon the film market are ineffective competitors.

 

Enjoy whatever you use and take more photos.

"newly acquired overpriced digi all singing and dancing camera.Their printed images (of

course at the lower consumer equipment end) regularly have

poor colour balance; weak image definition; low sharpness and details that disappear into

fluffy blur"

 

You can see all of those shortcomings (and more) on many of the images posted here

and produced with the most expensive of Leica lenses - so I think it would be fair to

conclude that it's the user rather than the medium that makes the biggest difference.

It's always going to be the user more than anything. What I find strange is the number of colleges that still require a photography course or two for students in numerous fields, and still teach photography as a film based subject with the requirement that the students shoot and process their own B&W film. Aren't educational institutions supposed to be cutting edge? Nearby Florida International University has the darkrooms open and available 24/7. They stay busy.

 

Getting back to the origins of this thread, yes, it is a bit strange that some major players like Kodak are giving up the market so easily, but if the market is there there will be companies offering supplies. There was a time when people moaned and carried on about major American producers of pro level cameras and optics abandoning the market to the Japanese. Remember names like Wollensack, Graflex, Bell & Howell, Bausch & Lomb, Busch, Kodak? We still have cameras and lenses available.

Al, I certainly agree with your observation about education. I suppose that today students would get some benefit from simultaneous exposure to film and digital imaging since the choice remains available; but even film users benefit from learning about digital imaging just as those studying accounting today need to learn about IT. The other critical elements in photography such as light etc remain common to both.

 

Just as in rudimentary math, if you don't really understand the basic components, relying upon a calculator can lead to horrible mistakes since you don't fully understand the process that brings about the final result.

 

I was interested in your comment about "giving up to the Japanese" and the brands that disappeared. You must have seen a great deal accross the decades of greatest change (I arrived in this world after most of that) especially as a professional user of imaging tools.

 

However I am lucky to recall in my childhood the family Bell & Howell 16mm movie projector and camera my dad had. Today we have many many hours of beautiful film images of our young lives on 16mm film to enjoy on a big screen (very necessary when you're one of 10) or now on DVD.

 

Digital imaging technology has added to our enjoyment of these. It must have been an enormous benefit to your access to so many years of shooting, which we members of photo.net now get to see in an instant.

It seems to me digital is actually forcing more folks into the 'darkroom', into actually making the prints and starting to concern themselves with the finished product. Previously it was the professional in their darkroom or the local photostore lab that magically created the finished product.

 

So while digital vs. film may be a debate over quality of finished product (and that debate has raged between people and their favorite cameras/film/paper for decades), I expect the future will show greater demand for higher-quality products. Japan Inc. is mass-making 6/8/10mp cameras because the general public wants better quality and is demanding a better camera than the 3mp point-and-shoot they bought 2 years ago (and likely few of these consumers were ever interested in the high quality film cameras). Improvments are also evident in the consumer-grade printers and papers, all designed to help any photographer make better prints - all without investing in a special room with various chemical baths that they have to be concerned with the issues of storage, mixing and disposal.

 

Will film be more difficult to work in the years to come from the end-user perspective? Sure. We've seen that with large format systems that through the years got supplmented with more convienent equipment to use, and their supplies dwindled or disappeared.

 

Will professionals have to spend $$$ to replace all their equipment? Sure. But ask any business leader who has run a company for 10/20/35-years how they survived and I am confident you will hear "change" and "capital investment"; if you want to succeed you need to keep on top of or be out front in your market. An Adobe Photoshop professional can be as much an expert as any darkroom specialist - different tools being used to make outstanding and original results (truly there is no philosophical difference between making changes in the darkroom vs. on a computer).

 

Will film die? Probably, and probably not in our lifetimes.

 

Is it worth spending this much time talking/writing about? Probably not, because the market is going to steam roll most everyone, forcing the digital solution upon us (at some level) whether it's wanted or not. You can hold out on film, but don't expect major leaps in technology as the R&D $$$ will move away from it. In the end, the convience of digital (in all aspects: review/edit/print/transfer/storage) will simply be too seductive for society as a whole to want to stop.

 

Me, I'll continue to use my M, but I'll be learning and preparing for my Digilux 3/4/5 (if Leica survives) when the time comes to move onward.