How do you think this will affect film?

SanDisk Shoot & Store cards

Pre-PMA 2004: SanDisk has today announced a new line of inexpensive

flash memory cards designed to allow users to save their pictures

indefinitely without using a computer for downloading, thus giving

millions of consumers a major incentive to switch from film to

digital photography and providing them with a durable, permanent way

to store a lifetime of images. With an initial suggested retail

price of $14.99 each-a breakthrough in the industry-the Shoot &

Store� cards are expected to allow people to order prints on a "cost-

of-use" basis that is equal to or less than that of traditional

analog film. And they won't have to worry about leaving expensive

flash memory cards with retail photo finishers.

Hmmmmmmmmmm, non-rewritable I suppose?

 

Talk about a freakin' marketing flop waiting to happen. The crash in CF memory card

prices has SanDisk and others scrambling to figure out how to keep milking us. This

appears to be one ill-conceived way of doing so. Notice they state that the cards start at

$14.99 but they decline to say how much memory one of these has. Probably 16 MB.

 

What a bunch of weirdos.

They're 32 MB.

 

And it's an excellent idea.

it's an excellent idea until SanDisk goes out of business in a few years - that's a life time all right.

How do they define permenant? I know of few permenant image storage devices. Pretty

much everything fails given enough time. CDs, DVDs and negs for that matter all fail over

time.

OH BOY what fun.

 

A 32MB card will hold a wopping 22 4MB images out of my Canon G3. At 14.99 that's way more expensive then film for a finished hard copy and something you know in 20 years you can have reprinted.

 

A roll of consumer grade Fuji color print film from the drug store in town 24exp is only $2.00 on sale (which is about every other week)1 hour developing at the same drug store on a Fuji Frontier machine is only $5.99 so for a grand total of $7.99 you can two more prints for half the price of the card and to have those files printed add .27 each for 5.94 more for a grand total of $20.93 which looks to me like almost 3 times as much as film and print.

 

ROFLMAO Could be the one thing that brings Kodachrome back LOL

 

Mark W.

 

take it away Jay!

So, other than the lower price and the retail/reseller channels through which Sandisk will distrbute the shoot & store cards (supermarkets, phramacies, etc...), what's the difference between a 32MB shoot&store card vs. an ordinary everyday media card??

If you're just doing 4x6 prints at Costco, it's expensive. If you're doing quality processing, it's not. It seems that some people think it's fine to use a Leica for 4x6 drugstore prints, at least that's what's implied in Mark W's post above.

 

I pay $14 for color processing with a contact sheet. I pay $4 for a roll of film. I spend about three minutes per image for scanning, or about 90 minutes for every shot on a roll of 36. Some people may not place any value on their time, but I do. I figure it's costing me $60 from start to finish on a 36 exposure roll to go from raw material to (unmodified) digital image. The Sandisk solution looks ultra-cheap.

 

I also don't think it matters if Sandisk goes out of business. All the CF card makers do pretty much what the others do. Someone will be doing this, and eventually it will be $4.

 

I'm still shooting mostly film, but I don't let that cloud my judgement.

"How do you think this will affect film?"

 

Haven't you heard, films already gone, nope can't get it, doesn't exist. It went away yesterday when we had the last film vs digital debate.

 

Man, this idea really seems lame. Why wouldn't a digital camera owner just by flash cards that they can use over and over. Wasn't that one of the reasons for "going digital." No more film cost albatros hanging around your neck.

 

"providing them with a durable, permanent way to store a lifetime of images." Do flashcards ever loose data or is it burned in for good? Seriously, I want to know. I remember back when zip disks first came out and touted as the newest coolest thing, I can't get one of mine to read all the files saved on them.

 

Last time I checked, a roll of color print from walmart and processing didn't cost 15 bucks.

A second thought we recentlly traveled to Europe along the way the two of us shot 85 rolls of film all 36exp except for 9 rolls shot 1/2 frame that equals approx. 3384 images take out say 20% that were total crap or blank or what ever not worth keeping. And you end up with our trip on approx. 2700 images to store these on these cards at 22 images per $14.99 the cost would be $1839.00 The cost of these cards will add up seriously for any serious amature photographer and when you add in the cost of .27 per print to make something you can see (not to mention that with this many images you wouldn't have enough time to do any post producting anything) The cost of the prints totals $729.00 added to the card cost = $2568.00 even though almost half of the film we shot was Velvia and Provia chromes our costs including processing was about 1/2 of this amount.

 

The math don't seam to work here guys.

 

Mark W.

I could fit four shots (RAW 10D) on one of these cards. That's really crappy.

 

If they were 1 gigabyte for $35 I'd still be hesitant.

I think the math doesn't work because you're not doing it right. I've pointed out what one roll costs if you do a quality job. It's easy to extrapolate from one roll.

 

I know what my lab bills are for color work, and digital is a lot cheaper.

Jeff do you think this is aimed at Leica shooters the target market for this is the consumer the point and shoot crowd the people who use the model I used to show how this is nuts.

 

BUT to use your numbers

 

My Pro Lab charges $8.00 for E6 Provia is approx. 5.50 per roll for a total of $13.00 that still way cheaper the the disk and printing. Unless you are figuring the only way to view your work is at 72dpi on a monitor which if it is you might as well sell off you Leica's as you are into WAY OVER KILL for your final use. a 2MB digital point and shot would do your image quality much faster.

 

And I shoot about 20-30 frames of digital almost every day along with 5-10 frames of film just screwing around driving truck all day. I shoot color B&W and chromes I (inkjet) print at home I have the Pro lab do work for me and soon I will have my own wet B&W darkroom finished.

 

And every way I look at this it's nuts.

 

BUT I have no problems with anyone doing this any more then driving a SUV to the grociery store to buy a gallon of milk. Cause it looks about as bright.

 

Sorry the image below couldn't be made small enough to fit here it is 5) 4mp images from Canon G3 stitched together shot vertical while my Dump truck was being filled. it ended up a very large file. But sure printed up beautifully.<div></div>

WOW that suprises me sure it's only 500 wide but it was a way huge file I tried 55% compression must have worked.

Jeff, but aren't you comparing apples to oranges? of course it's more expensive to get quality photo prints at a custom printer, but isn't also more expensive to get quality digital prints as well? or am I missing something?

I posted this news earlier, along with the new lab gear news under the title "science

marches on". The eventual outcome is the lack of need for a computer, card reader, or

printer to do digital prints for the family album.

 

This CF card idea may be a bit expensive on the onset, but remember the direction all this

digital stuff is moving in price... down, down, down as capacity is going up, up, up. Once

these are up and running and in mass distribution, I'd hazard a guess they'll drop in price

considerably. Plus, when making cost estimates per keeper, remember that with a digital

camera you select only the images you want to print when at the " Digital Kiosk". Such

prints are typically 29 cents each with club prices of 19 cents. Capacity of 32 or 64 meg

will fit 40 to 80 shots typically taken by P&S consumers shooting J-pegs, and make decent

prints up to 5X7. CF cards are solid state and these ones are locked type (like those used

for insurance and law enforcement photography), so the chance of failure is slim to none.

The archival issue will be determined if whether a reader is available to interface with a

computer. These are nothing more than a solid state (no moving parts to fail like a

Microdrive) harddrives.

 

Still prefer film. But keep things in proper perspective when evaluating the the general

consumer market who prints mostly 4X6 pix at WallMart.

The typical man in the street only shoots about 2 films a year. Why should he care about processing costs or cheap storage devices?

<i> My Pro Lab charges $8.00 for E6 Provia is approx. 5.50 per roll for a total of $13.00

that still way cheaper the the disk and printing. </i><p>

 

Your lab charges $8 for processing and prints, or just for processing? I suspect it's the

former, so you have to compare E6 printing to disk/printing. It's easy to lowball it by

looking at the el-cheapo printers, but you generally get what you pay for.

Since I assume most people have a computer, why isn't it cheaper to transfer flash memory data to very cheap CDs for permanent storage?

"Last time I checked, a roll of color print from walmart and processing didn't cost 15 bucks."

 

Well, you get what you pay for. Instead of buying a fancy new lens, try using a good lab if you want to see some real improvment in print quality.

Obviously these things are designed for the average snapshooter using a high-compression digi-P&S--not someone shooting RAW files on a high-res digicam--who are concerned by the high cost of memory and the need to transfer images to a computer or other storage device in order to re-use it. It's what those in the sales biz call "cashing an objection".

 

This alone won't have any specific effect on film. It's like a B.B shot in the flank of a 12-point buck--one that's already been mortally wounded by a 30-06 and is simply running on adrenaline until drops dead or bleeds out, whichever comes first.

Kevin,

 

I personally use a pro lab in town for my color stuff and I don't mind paying for quality for when I actually have to shoot color. Black and white I do myself, like it should be done. They do a great job and yes, it is more than the wally world stuff. But, for my wife and other family members, who could give a rat's *ss about quality, they want cheap prints that show whatever person there shooting in the middle of the frame with enough headroom to land a 747. For them, this scan disk is more expensive then buying a roll of film and getting it processed at the mart. If they drop the price and market the h*ll out of these things, then maybe it could gain a foothold, but, now correct me if I am wrong, one of the big reasons for "going digital" is to be able to shoot as much as you want onto reuseable "film." Doesn't this defeat the purpose?

Golf clubs for sale...

How long do flash memory cards retain stored images in or near a magnetic field?? They are everywhere, you know!

Digital does'nt matter.

first of all they said that digital will kill the record industry.

but actualyyou can find more turn tables now then ever before,

also digital might work for documention but film has personaiity.

differnt film can give differnt results and they can be controled better then digital. Plus analog whether its recording or live music is alwas better , and that goe's for photography also.

digital does have some atrabutes that film does'nt but it just doe'snt add up.I prefer organic.