anthony_valvo Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 We often get these questions about film and its possible demise. Well today I called the Slide Printer / Denver Digital. I've been using them for more than 20 years and never had a roll lost or damaged. I usually put a few rolls of E6 in the mail and have them back at my door step in a week. (NY to Denver and back). Anyway, I could not remember when I'd sent out the last batch, so I called over. Sure, enough they'd gone out about 4 days ago. While I had the rep. on the phone I asked about their E6 volume. She said they are doing more E6 then ever. Partly because so many labs have shut down and also because many are returning to film or just discovering it. The extra volume has allowed them to hold prices down as well. Nice to know. I also got a similar response from Modernage, in NYC, about six months ago. Hope that answers some questions. Oh - and my slides were in the mailbox when I got home. Anthony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gale Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 The best thing that ever happened to film was the invent of digital cameras. Thanks to digital cameras and their ease of use, many have got into photography who might not have ever ventured into the new hobby. Many of those have thus played the photography field, if you will, including film. New technologies have sure helped my photography habit. I have long since abandoned the dark room for no other reason than lack of time. Now a scanner, computer and photoshop help me keep my old cameras alive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benny_spinoza Posted January 29, 2008 Share Posted January 29, 2008 Their increase in business is probably most likely due to consolidation. This is to be expected, considering how digital cameras are becoming ubiquitous among general consumers and professionals. Someday, and perhaps it has already happened, film use will hit a bottom, and the strong labs would have survived. My only hope is that this "bottom" will still be profitable enough for Kodak and Fuji to continue making film, and to continue with film R&D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott_turner Posted January 30, 2008 Share Posted January 30, 2008 E6, like film in general, seems to be settling into a more comfortable niche as we're beginning to see a stabilized film market following the large changes of the last few years. Larger, well-known regional specialists like "The Slide Printer" in Denver will continue to do well, but that is in part a consequence of both local "1 hour" shops going away or dropping E6 processing, as well as smaller specialty shops falling by the wayside. I'm glad the big boys are still in business and doing well, and I don't miss the 1 hour guys (never used 'em), but I sure do miss the local E6 specialty guy I used to use. The world of film has changed drastically, but it's still around and seems to be consolidating quite nicely into a reasonably healthy specialty market. Scott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc_bergman1 Posted January 30, 2008 Share Posted January 30, 2008 I also think consolidation and their good rep allow them to maintain a healthy business. I do miss having an E6 specialty shop where I could drop off a weekends shooting on Monday morning and get the results back in the afternoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
douglas_vitello Posted January 30, 2008 Share Posted January 30, 2008 I love slide film and use it for 90% of my shooting so it pains me to report that I read today that Kodak film (consumer - not movie) sales were down another 17% in the last quarter.The numbers were not broken down slide vs print.Maybe a lot of these folks are shooting Fuji?I'll stay with FD and Kodak film until the bitter end, nonetheless.Just ordered a brick of Elitechrome 100.Just recieved a FD 200mm 2.8 (new type)from KEH that is nearly perfect and have a Canon 2 xb converter on order.May as well go down with my guns (F1's)blasting away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gale Posted January 30, 2008 Share Posted January 30, 2008 Douglas, Glad to hear from a fellow FD fan. I have been one for a long time. I love FD more now than back in the 80's and the 90's when Canon abandoned us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_castronovo Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 Interesting discussion. Our lab has been doing professional E6 processing since its inception 31 years ago and while we don't expect to see the volume returning to what it was in its heyday, we have seen a turnaround. We still have enough volume to offer a two hour service and we still see a fair amount of large format film including 8x10. Granted, it's difficult to say whether this is due to the fact that we're the last surviving pro lab in the area or not, but many shooters have told me that they have renewed appreciation for the ease of getting high quality without having to spend time behind the computer, and that's why many have returned to film or never left it. Plus, there's something comforting about images that 'live' in the tangible world. john castronovo tech photo & imaging fairfield, nj Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_castronovo Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 Sometimes it' hard to measure what's been lost till it's gone. We getting a lot of requests to make 35mm slides from both artwork and digital images for college admissions offices. Many people are shocked when they hear that colleges still want pages of slides instead of disks, but they get it when I explain that an admissions officer can hold up a page of 20 slides and see what the applicant is all about in seconds and be done before his digital counterpart could even load the CD in his computer let alone open the files. And of course, if anything really deserves a closer look, the high resolution version is as close as the loupe on the desk. Food for thought: for some applications film used to be so fast and easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
douglas_vitello Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 David,yeah I think part of why we cling (or return)to film and our ancient Canon FD hardware is because it has become part of our history as we age gracefully together!!!A lot of good memories tied up in those yellow or green boxes of film and well made simple to operate FD equipment. John,I sometimes wonder if you are correct and some people are returning to film because it was all so easy back in the day -shoot,drop off ,pick up a few days later,and view the glorious slides on a simple light table through a quality 4 - 5x loupe.No computer hardware upkeep(or printer/ink issues if prints are your thing),obsolete programs and hardware, insane software instructions that only a computer science major can figure out or remember, etc,etc.- it really does get old after a while,especially after one gets over the initial instant gratification aspect.Life is short so why spent half of it behind a computer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_larese1 Posted February 1, 2008 Share Posted February 1, 2008 Right on, John -- same applies to art directors at publications, too ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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