Decline in Colour film demand

[anthony_brookes5]

I am off on holiday on Wednesday and called in to a local camera shop

to pick up some Neopan 400CN. The sales assistant told me that B&W

film sales this Christmas were up on last year but that Colour film

sales are well below last year. He also said that digital camera

sales are still increasing but not as fast as they expected. He said

he is finding it difficult to guess his orders as new models seem to

come out so fast.

[george_shihanian]

Should we be surprised by any of that?

[frederick_muller]

The big boom he's seeing is going to mature and cap out in a while. He's going to have to sell phones next if he wants to catch the next big wave, and I wonder if photo stores are going to do that.

 

I wonder how well digital cameras will hold their value by the way?

[monochrome11]

Frederick:

 

probably as well as a new car ;P

[graham_morriss2]

My local Jessops store has moved all its darkroom stuff upstairs and filled the empty space with a mobile phone section! I now have to ask for paper chemistry etc usally to be told we'll have to order it for you.

[pete1]

I think cell phone cameras will eventually take the place of all the point and shoot digitals. High end stuff will still come through photo shops. The problem with new models coming out so fast is that this drives the used market to almost zero. It also drives the new prices down but the idea of spending hundreds of dollars on what is a disposable camera doesn't sit well with me.

[deecy]

I love film images as well as anybody but it's time to face it: fifty

years from now camera film is going to be as scarce as buggy

whips.

Time marches on.

[kelly_flanigan1]

The Wall Street Journal had an article a week or 2 ago that said Cellphone-cameras are not outselling "regular digital cameras". This is interesting. Many folks here seem to poo-poo even P&S digitals that the masses use even. This recent Christmass; the cheapie off brand low end 2 to 3 megapixel digitals were at drug stores in the USA; at 35 to 80 bucks; and attracted many first time buyers to digital cameras.

[anthony_brookes5]

I read in the Financial Times that it is forecast that cellphone cameras will outsell digital cameras during 2005 so the Wall Street Journal may be quoting historic data. My wife just changed her mobile and there was only one phone on offer which could not take pictures. The assistant says they expect to see a 5 mega pixel phone this year.

[les_lammers]

I have a Pentax WR43 digi P&S its submersible and great to take with me when I am fishing etc. I don't care if it holds its value because I will probably use it until it has none.

 

None of us can possibly have any impact on the digital wave by using film. Tom Deecy is correct. That's life.

 

I just do not have a compelling reason to stop using film. It's a personal choice and if you like the images you are getting who cares if they are film or digital?

[._._z]

I don't remember any WSJ article saying that, but I do remember an article there 2

weeks ago in which is was noted that cellphone camera sales in Japan were going to

eclipse sub-$300 digital p&s models, and that most cellphones sold in Japan today

included cameras.

[reed_caster]

Les makes a good point. The thought that I might get a return on my camera investment has never occured to me. The quality of the image is all that matters. I'm not troubled by the digital movement. What Delacroix would think of Picasso. Evolution baby, it's all the rage.

[ben z]

I love the used market in digital cameras. I just yesterday saw a D60 in a camera store sell for $499, if I'd been there 10 minutes earlier it would've been my Digital R body.

[Eddie1664878514]

I asked our IT department last week about what should I do if I want to keep tens of thousands of big digial photo files for 20, 25 or longer years in order to ensure up to 100% (or at least as safe as B/W films holding in dry devises) that they will not be lost or distroyed or otherwise cannot be opened again.

 

If they were giving me correct answers, then it appears that we will need to take the time to take very very good care of the files and equipment and protect them from virus consistently non-stop during that period, and do a really time consuming full system update (include replacing old equipment, program, format, indexing, etc.) every 4 to 6 years, if not shorter.

 

With such care, they said digital files can easily out last any film on earth. But if you just don't take very good care of your vast digital library consistently throughout the whole period, even those important photos such as your wedding and the first year of your son will not last very long.

 

I think the digital industry should start to develop better systems or services to help those people who are not very good at handling computer to achieve better, easiler and cheaper digital manintainance.

[gaius1]

I talk to more and more people who're going or have gone back to film for B&W. They all say the same thing, they like the "realness" of handling a negative and not a file, they think darkroom printing is more fun and easier than Photoshopping, they like that each print is unique. Colour's a whole 'nother story, white balance issues just make digital so much easier.

[brunom]

In the UK there as really excellent documentary series just started [ next on Fri 21 BBC2 9pm] where ,basically the work of two turn of the twentieth century cinematographer's which had been thought lost, yrn up in 3 metal bins in the basement of a shop being gutted in readiness for refurbishment.

 

These bins contained 800 [yes 800] short [c4-5 mins] films ,just stacked on top of each other inside the bins full of dust etc.

 

After 3 years of repairwork, to mainly the sprocket holes [it seemed] the one and a half million frames were transfered to a more stable medium, and the results were stunning!

 

What was so amazing was the subjects [mainly workers ] eagerness to be filmed. It appears the films were shot ,advertised [date and time taken] and the subjects paid to see themselves on film! How times have changed.

 

Can you imagine the state of bin loads of CDs etc ,left for getting on for nearly a century?

 

Digital is remarkable but has quite a way to go before it can be said to have reliably matched film in all areas, let alone bettered it.

 

Regards

 

Bruno

[brunom]

Apologies for the typos, buy it seems every day or so you cannot go back and tidy up your post after submitting it and before confirming it - bloody annoying!

 

Regards

 

Bruno

[Spearhead]

<i>it seems every day or so you cannot go back and tidy up your post after submitting it and before confirming it </i><p>

 

Probably an IE problem, it certainly hasn't been an issue today on photo.net as far as I can tell. Switch to Firefox. Otherwise, clean out your cache once a day.

[socke]

<i>I think the digital industry should start to develop better systems or services to help those people who are not very good at handling computer to achieve better, easiler and cheaper digital manintainance.</i><br><br>

What do you think, how many people archive their pictures in shoe boxes?<br><br>

[brunom]

Jeff

 

Thanks for the tip - seems to have worked!

 

Bruno

[steve_unsworth1]

Bruno, a couple I know went to the official event in Blackburn 'launching' the release of the films. From what they told me the quality of the films projected on a large screen was amazing. I watched the program on Friday and kept wanting to press the pause button. There were some absoutely stunning sequences.

[blakley]

It's not clear that cameraphone sales are a good indicator of how many people are using

them to take pictures, nor is it clear that cameraphones compete with cameras for sales. I

know several people who own cameraphones but don't use the built-in cameras (they got

the phones for other features), and several people who own & use cameraphones and also

digital cameras - but for different purposes and in different circumstances. I'd be wary of

naive comparisons based on numbers alone....

[._._z]

You probably live in the US, Bob. In Europe and Asia, there are multi-megapixel

cameras, and no charge for transferring images to one's computer or to other peoples'

phones. Those features are disabled by cellular companies in the US, which derive

revenue streams from such transfers (as well as charging for receiving calls), and higher

quality cameraphones have not made it ashore yet.

 

Wait.

[Brad_]

Also, working in the cellular telecom industry, I know who tightly managed manufacturing

costs are for both handsets and infrastructure. Functions don't get added unless there's a

demand and payoff. Even mere pennies count big time on costs.

[mike_elek]

The mobile phone marketplace in Europe and Asia are different from the U.S. marketplace. Users in Europe and Asia seem to change phones more frequently. Users in the U.S. don't seem to do that, and I believe also use their phones differently.

 

One example is that very few people in the U.S. use SMS, know what it is or even how to send a text message. That's not true in the Europe or Asia, where you see people "texting" each other fairly often.

 

U.S. users also view their phones a bit differently. There doesn't seem to be the same excitement when new models are released or when you buy a new phone.

 

It's a different market in the U.S., and I don't think people generally have bought into the idea that a mobile phone can also be their PDA, as well as their digital camera. Not all users, of course, but I think broadly this is true.