Demise of 120 film

[q.g._de_bakker]

Bret,<br><br><i>That argument presupposes someone else has a claim on your photographic output. For most, the desire (necessity?) for immediacy is self-imposed.</i><br><br>That argument presupposes that "most" buy $ 30K+ digibacks just for their own pleasure. ;-)<br><br>But yes, the immediacy may be self-imposed. That doesn't mean that it isn't something people rather have (They apparently do. And since it is self-imposed, i.e. noone else telling them what they must do, why shouldn't they just do what they want?), nor that people are not indeed switching to digital by the millions, turning the industry upside down.<br><br>That last bit is not something we can debate, and by offering clever, or 'brute force' arguments, can somehow interpret away. It's just something that is happening.<br>How we might feel about that will not change anything. Unless it is well understood that this upheaval is a given, the "i got the impression that a lot of people..." type of argument is no more but an expression of resentment, a mere denial of what it is in reaction to, and does not even begin to be something that makes sense.<br><br>So lets begin with seeing that indeed things are in turmoil, and film is in 'mortal' danger (and not just film: a few giant camera makers have been brought to their knees, or worse, by the same thing already).<br>Then keep our feelings about this, and our estimates of how the situation may progress apart. Acknowledge the fact that sometimes things happen, no matter whether we do like them to happen or not, and that this might be such an occassion that something does.<br><br>Myself? I am on the "i hope to be using film for the rest of my life" side.<br>But i do know how digital post-procesing (of scanned negs) already made my life a lot easier.<br>(Who said something about darkroom work being fun? The fumes must have gotten to him. ;-) No more being condemned to spend hours in that dank, damp and smelly dungeon called darkroom. Time that never failed to produce splitting headaches and itchy hands, despite precautions and ventilation. Dodging, burning, split grade printing, you name it, now it can be quick easy, and clean, no longer a threat to one's health. To people who (still) like that sort of thing i can only say: you haven't spent long enough in there, haven't served your time yet. ;-)) Anyway...<br>Though i like film, i can see where we are heading. And instead of joining one of the "These people are insane"-choirs found on both end of the argument, i'd rather see what's happening, plan my path for the future, and not miss the moment decisions need to be made, because i was running late for 'choir practice'.<br>Wherever the future may take photography, that's where i plan to be.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Enrico,<br><br><i>Film is not money. Time is money. I can have all the film in the world that I want however I cant buy time, and honestly, thats what we all dont have enough of. Why waste time stuffing around? That's what will cost you money.</i><br><br>All i can say is: RIGHT!<br><br>You figure out how that figures in this digital vs film thing. ;-)

[enrico__]

ok, I will go figure, but you'll have to wait a bit.. Im processing some E6 at the moment.. :o)

[q.g._de_bakker]

Enrico,<br><br>I'm sorry, but (and i'm sure you'll understand) i will not, cannot wait. <i>"Time is money. I can have all the film in the world that I want however I cant buy time, and honestly, thats what we all dont have enough of. Why waste time stuffing around? That's what will cost you money."</i><br><br>;-)

[bret_williams]

"That argument presupposes that "most" buy $ 30K+ digibacks just for their own pleasure. ;-)"

 

Well, I think we can agree that most of the globe are using ﾓfilmibacksﾔ for their own pleasure. ($30K+ digibacks are a miniscule part of the market and fairly irrelevant to this discussion, as started by John Wilson). ;-) Using my post as a launching pad, you state:

 

"But yes, the immediacy may be self-imposed. That doesn't mean that it isn't something people rather have (They apparently do. And since it is self-imposed, i.e. noone else telling them what they must do, why shouldn't they just do what they want?), nor that people are not indeed switching to digital by the millions, turning the industry upside down."

 

Yes, consumers will make their own choices, driven by things such as usefulness/fun of a product, the fact that the product or technology is new/wow factor, marketing, etc. And these choices often roil industries. I do not see that is being fairly denied by anyone regarding the introduction of digital technology. To suggest that I or others are arguing otherwise (without our explicit statement to that effect) simply creates a phantom punching bag to which the response can be made:

 

"How we might feel about that will not change anything. Unless it is well understood that this upheaval is a given, the "i got the impression that a lot of people..." type of argument is no more but an expression of resentment, a mere denial of what it is in reaction to, and does not even begin to be something that makes sense. So lets begin with seeing that indeed things are in turmoil, and film is in 'mortal' danger..."

 

Sounds great but is a response to a self-created straw-man argument. I am somewhat amazed that from my seemingly innocuous and obvious statement, you concluded that I needed to:

 

"Acknowledge the fact that sometimes things happen, no matter whether we do like them to happen or not, and that this might be such an occassion that something does."

 

Clearly, my post was simply used as a vehicle for some things you wanted to say. All in all, that is fine, since much of what you have to say is interesting or informative. But really no need to cast your statements as a "Response," as this is a discussion forum as opposed to a tennis match.

 

I hope and suspect that you will be able to use film for the rest of your life, and many others will be. I suspect I will use both, although I have yet to purchase or use a digital camera (other than as a favor to tourists who have asked me to take their picture with their camera).

 

As for overview statements about the future of the film industry, I leave that to others. I have other, and much greater concerns, than the longevity of film.

[ilkka_nissila]

Some people's illiteracy in math never ceases to amaze me. A 20% reduction in a year means, if continued, that in subsequent years the decline would be:

 

2004 1

2005 0.8

2006 0.64

2007 0.51

2008 0.41

2009 0.33

 

and so on. It does not mean that film has only a few years left, obviously.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Illka,<br><br>Your supposing that the decline is sales will be 20% of last year's sales.<br>True, like that, you can go on for ever, and never hit 0.<br>But there is no reason why we should assume that to be a realistic assumption. On the contrary!<br><br>So let's look at numbers, not percentages. If the drop in sales would be steady, i.e. the same amount less each year, a 20% drop in the first year would indeed mean 0 after year five.<br>That (same amount each year) is an assumption too, of course. And it too will not be accurate.<br>But it will be very much nearer to reality than your "20%-of-last-year's" thingy.<br><br>You see, percentages are funny things. And it's not a matter of understanding math, but of understanding the thing that 'math' is used, by some, to express.<br><br>How things like this works is that after an initial slow phase, pace suddenly picks up and keeps steady for a while, until it levels off to some minimum level. The hard thing to say is where, at what point in such a model, we are at the moment. The decline in film sales certainly has accelerated. But is its still gaining in pace, or is it already slowing down? Will the minimum, steady level be reached soon? And at what level will that 'minumum' be? Will it be enough to support the film making industry (if not, the minimum level will drop after a very short pause to 0. That is, if film manufacturers are assumed to hang on for a while, and not give in immediately. The ones that are depending on making and selling film will try to hang on. The ones that do not will not. So how are the current manufacturers positioned? Which one, if any, will fall in the one category, which one in the other?) And how long before a new thing turns things, including the 'steady level' upside down again?<br>Difficult...<br><br>Predictions always are difficult. But at the moment, there are no signs of things slowing down. Rather the contrary. So we will perhaps see next year's sales drop by a larger amount than 20%-of-last-year's. At present, your assumption (20%-of-last-year's-20%-of-last-year's etc.) seems to be a very unrealistic one.<br>So best forget about your presumed "illiteracy in math". ;-)

[ilkka_nissila]

Q.G., predictions are indeed difficult, but the model implied in saying that there was a 20% decline in a year is exponential decay. Otherwise people would say that film sales are down by X square meters per year or something similar, that would imply a linear model.

 

The majority of people will be using digital for the majority of their photography, that much is clear. But there is no doubt in my mind that the decline in film sales will slow and stall. Photography did not make painting or drawing completely extinct, neither did Microsoft Word make writing by hand completely disappear, although my hand-writing is terrible nowadays and only legible to me. People still ride horses, go to the countryside, eat fresh fruits instead of ready-made stuff, they like to go walking instead of using a car, etc.

 

I use digital capture for maybe 50% of what I do and >99% of my prints are made using at least a partially digital process. However I still think there are many things that can be done easier to achieve a certain classic look of a photograph, using a film based workflow. And I know that I'm not alone. For example, there was a recent query of the wedding photography forum about film/digital use. The answers were requested of wedding pros only, and they were distributed 50/50 and so I can be sure that even among people who can afford even a high-end digital camera setup, some people think film is a good choice for photography, not just me. I've got this feeling that the decline would stall around 5-10% of what it was before digital capture.

 

Medium format IMO is in trouble because 1) it's expensive to scan, 2) the huge files are time-consuming to process, 3) digital capture in 120 size is ridiculously expensive and only a few people can afford them. But prices of decent scanning equipment and digital backs will go down eventually and there will be a resurge of medium format users. That's what I believe although I recognize that digital capture in 35mm or smaller solves most of the problems where people would previously have chosen 120 over 35 mm film. This is to get smooth tones.

 

Look at books of photographs by fine art photographers. When they are predominantly digital and no new books based on film based material are published, then one can start to consider film in trouble. Till then, I use it like a fine wine.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Ilkka,<br><br>First my apologies for making a mess of your name (and for all other typos too). Sorry!<br><br>I think there is no model behind the 20% off thing. Just an observation that film sales have declined by that much in one year. That's one reason why i placed a ";-)" next to my "another four years to go" remark: knowing by how much sales have dropped compared to one previous year is hardly enough to base predictions on; neither "not exactly the end of film" nor "another four years to go".<br><br>I think the major question is not whether film sales, or rather demand, will level off at a minimum level, but whether that will be enough to sustain film production. The "usual comparison", painting, is not good enough: you and i can make paint in our kitchens, if we must. There's nothing to it. (Same applies to the other old fashioned things still 'possible' today that are often mentioned). Making the film we are using today is something else. It needs a minimum level of technical infrastructure, which in turn requires a minimum volume of sales to make it 'possible'. Should demand indeed drop below the necessary bottom level, we cannot expect to be able to buy the stuff anymore. It's as simple as that. Alas.<br>We can then, of course resort, to making our own dry plates, throwing us back to the technical level of the days of tinkering and pottering photographers at the end of the 19th century. But i wouldn't qualify that as a valid proof for the "see? I told you that modern things do not make old fashioned things obsolete"-type of argument. Would you?<br><br>Anyway, for now it's very much "wait and see". But signs are not good, and i fear the worst... Perhaps i shouldn't put it off any longer, and start saving up for my very first digital camera?<br><br>By the way, i think that books are a poor benchmark for how technology progresses. Most pictures appearing in books range from old to very old. ;-)<br>It takes a while for books to catch up. Look at magazines instead.

[nick_trop1]

This is anecdotal. Yes, film sales are down from what they were before there was another option. My local lab guy says "it's leveled off" and that his digital sales are mostly upgrades.

 

Looking at my family, most still use film. My father, 75, has no interest in computers, memory cards, etc. He's not a luddite, he doesn't see the point, and was a hobbiest in his day. He had the same camera - Canon QL III rangefinder, that he used for his entire adult life - from the 60's when he bought it on a business trip in Japan, until just a few years ago when the shutter jammed and the lightmeter went. He could probably get if fixed by at his age he ain't into photography so much. It's a great rangefinder he cherished, shot a lot of slide. Used one camera his whole life.

 

To those who point to the "time" argument. I respectfully disagree. I shoot a roll, I drop it off at a nearby lab. It's ready in an hour. I get 48 prints (doubles), color ready in an hour. If you wanted to make a simple set of doubles - 48 "frames" from digital capture, how long would it take you to do? Would you be tweaking those images in PS? This is especially true if you shot in Raw mode. Could you do it in an hour like a photo lab? Would it cost you $7.00 in ink and paper? Sure inkjet prints look good. But how long would it take you to make 48, 36, 72 using a PC/SW/ and an inkjet? How much expensive ink would you go through, and paper?

 

I like prints. Here, have a set. You sure? Yep, keep them. Thanks! Like the pic? Take it. Like that one? I'll spend a few bucks and have it enlarged by a lab.

 

When I shot digital... Here's a typical scenario. Check the battery. It's half charged. Is the other one charged up? Did you ever "delay" going somewhere, waiting for batteries to charge for your camera? Be honest. And no, I never run out of film. Buy a bunch, different speeds keep it in the fridge.

 

Manual film camera:

 

1. WAY, way, way more durable

2. Way, way, way less expensive

3. LESS time consuming

4. More fun

5. Simple elegance (no drop down menus, submenus...) a few dials, that's it.

6. Quality AS GOOD as DSLRs, with higher resolution.

7. Wide angle lenses and capability (without spending a fortune). Have a Sigma 24/2.8. Rates 4.0 on the MTF scales on Photodo. Cost me $60. What's that a 50mm prime on a DSLR? God I hate the crop factor.

 

I know I posted a tad crazy initially but was only trying to stir the pot to liven up the debate. Apologies. I have tried both digital and film, and I think the advantages of digital are overstated, and the disadvantages of digital are overlooked.

 

Digital Disadvantages: cost of cameras, durability, the fact you need a PC, SW, inkjet printer and a measure of technical/computer proficiency, (uggh) drop-down menus, batteries, crop factor, TIME/EXPENSE TO MAKE PRINTS, lousy black and white, EVFs/LCDs (digicams), VERY limited ISO speeds (digicams), images always seem to need tweaking, easily blown highlights/poor latitude, planned obsolence, less fun (imo) "the tactile" factor...

 

Digital advantages: ability to set white balance for tungsten lighting indoors (solved with a cheap filter with film at the expense of an f-stop), immediacy (but I prefer delayed gratification)...

[smiling gecko]

...my, my, my..."cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war".

 

...and with them a skosh of trolling, vitriol (and i don't mean sulfuric acid), bile, and the

self-appointed arbiters of things photographic (digi & film) some with enlarged senses

omnisciency, importance, and certainity of knowing "the way" for all.

 

...wow, 'nuff said about all that friction and fracas. mea culpa, i just about slipped into it.

 

...i've only spent 32 years in darkrooms - first as as an amatuer, then professionally in a

number of commercial labs and studios, later for my own studio, and now just for the joy

of it...just can't get enough of developer, stop -especially that- and fixer aroma...oops

i almost forgot those toner baths...darn, guess i'll just have to keep at 'til i see "the way".

 

...i can still remember the very first time i saw a black & white image coming up in a tray at

one of the craft shops at fort polk, louisiana in the early '70's. pure majic.

 

..."one man's treasure is another man's trash"...manual transmission vs. automatic...side-

by-side vs, pump or auto...snaffle bit vs. a hackamore...artificial lure vs, live bait...cessna

vs, mooney...zoom vs. prime lens...cell vs. satellite phone...7.62mm vs 5.56mm...etc,etc.

 

... as a balance to it all, there has been some reasonable discussion and some very good

points expressed in this thread...many things expressed with more precision and clarity

than i would have done with my typical long-winded rambling, stumbling and futzing

around while i try to corral my thoughts.

 

...i only know what works for me, that is mainly film..aps, 35mm, 120, 127 , 4x5 and all

manner of polaroid material...oh, and i do have a p&s digi. chances are 120 film will be

be available for the duration of my life span - and i plan on being around for a long, long,

long time - i've got a lot to do yet.

 

...thanks to all for wading through this stream of consciousness.

 

...everyone: enjoy what works for you and lighten up on each other.

 

...ne vous inquitez pas a son sujet.

 

hasta la vista, adieu, dazvidanya,,fino al prossimo tempo, auf wiedersehen, and later yﾒall

 

kenneth

 

___________________________________

 

"...patience and shuffle the cards" miguel cervantes

"nothing can be learned" herman hesse

"everybody knows everything" jack kerouac

"some memories are realities and better than anything" willa cather

" doo-wacka doo, wacka doo" roger miller

"we have see the enemy and they is us !" pogo (walt kelly)

ﾓa manﾒs cartilage is his fateﾔ phillip roth

[michael_dimarzio]

I guess when all of the labs stop processing film, I'll buy one and press on.

[colin_thomas5]

Not that it matters, but here goes...

 

So the mass market says:

 

"I want my pictures NOW"

 

I can wait, its called patience. If you can wait 9 months for a child to be born, or 6 minutes for your egg to boil, I think you can wait 1hr to a few days for your films to come in.

 

"I need auto-everything"

 

I don't, Ive taken the time to learn an all manual camera, when I was a kid, so I have little sympathy for those who say "but its too hard", or "it cramps my creative ability" or "its not convinient enough". My god, how did anyone cope before? They didnt, nothing happened before 1990.

 

Ive got a system and cameras with film that I like to use, and don't feel the need to change anything with respect to that. Wow, can you believe someone in this day and age has come out and actually said they don't want to change just this one little part of something they love to do? What a curmudgeon! What a caveman! (he's probably some sort of subversive type). I don't understand why most people need everything instantly, neither do I understand why people need to talk on the cellphone while driving, at the bank, grocery store, at the theatre, museum, resturaunt, restroom (give me a break people).

 

When or If the time comes when I can no longer find film, I will not reward the very industry that is responsible for its demise. This is the same industry that produced less and less quality/reliable/durable film slrs before dslrs came along.

 

I also do not feel like buying a digital "equivalent" to my camera that will 1.) have questionable durability/life span compared to what I'm already happy with 2.) questionable reliablility compared to what I'm already happy with 3.) high cost compared to what I am already happy with 4.)obsolete 2 years later (if its still working by then) and require an upgrade.

 

There are alternative ways, and I imagine I will persue those means. If Talbot and his contemporaries could do it in the 1840's, it can be done now. "But its not convinient, too hard, I'll have to wait".

 

So excuse me feeling some animosity to the market that constantly tells us: "what you already have is unsatisfactory".

 

This is what it is.

[david_henderson]

In large measure the rates of decline in film sales so far seen are demand led. At a certain point the volume/volume forecasts will get so low that the decline becomes supplier and/or channel led and the rate of decline will increase as it becomes more difficult to buy and process. I do not think that we can rely on a levelling off of a decline in film usage, or a view that the market outside the USA is more primitive and doesn't have the money to switch to digital. If anything I see the trend increasing in pace as supply falters as well as demand.

 

All of which says that we can all forecast and prognosticate all we like but as users we're not in control and manufacturers/distribution channels are apt to follow each other with some speed. If and when the day comes when its hard to get your preferred film types or have them processed conveniently then we're all going to have to decide what to do. Personally I'll be looking for the digital cameras that offer the biggest/best/most detailed viewfinders/screens which allow me to best match the sensation of medium format. I'm 100% 120/220 now but I expect to get over it.

[mahmud_javid]

I was quite amused at a previous comment that people in third world countries will not be able to afford digital cameras and will continue using film. Typical first world prejudice! Well here is the situation in Pakistan, specifically Rawalpindi-Islamabad area which has a population greater than some European countries:

 

1. ALL the wedding photographers have started using digital SLRs. When I questioned a wedding photographer from a rather remote area, he said that clients ask "...why are you using such an old camera...' when they try and use their film cameras.

 

2. NO ONE is using 120 film, so all you can find is old stock, and that too is not being re-ordered.

 

3. There is NOT A SINGLE lab which will do classic black and white printing for you.

 

4. ALL the labs have either switched or are switching to digital processing. There is NOT A SINGLE lab which is using enlargers for printing.

 

5. Owners of film cameras are rushing to buy digital point and shoots, and sales of film cameras are non-existent.

 

6. Even Fuji here does not stock their own 120 film! You get a funny look when you ask for it, but they can still get it on special order!!!

 

I think film will die a quicker death in the third world and survive on life support in the first world!

 

Cheers,

 

Javid