Film: How much longer?

[sarah_fox]

I think it won't be long before people look at film the same way kids look at LP records. I'm not arguing as to superiority or inferiority of film, but in answer to the OP's' question, I think film will be gone by 2030, aside from unusual technical films (e.g. X-ray film). This will probably happen when movies are digitally recorded, no longer requiring 35mm film. I'm projecting (no pun) 20 years, but I really think it will be sooner -- perhaps 10 years.

 

The biggest irony will be that the antique camera buffs (like me) may eventually have to make their own film. The only reason odd-sized films are still available to them is because they are custom cut from commercial stock -- the same commercial stock that is used for cutting 35mm format, for instance.

 

Stray thoughts for the future:

 

How well would X-ray film would work in an old roll camera?

 

Will 35mm strip cutters be available to hobbyists? I imagine so, but I bet they'll cost a mint. Perhaps someone will sell bulk 35mm X-ray film.

 

Will color film be available? Doubtful.

 

Will photographic papers be available? I bet we'll have to make our own. However, he route of choice for most hobbyists will be to shoot/develop the film, scan it, and process it digitally.

 

And eventually, we won't even need X-ray film, because CT, MRI, and other digital imaging techniques will become smaller, more portable, cheaper, and more accessible. Then film cameras will be like the old cylindrical grammaphones and wire-type magnetic recorders. Time horizon? Probably 20 years.

[iliafarniev]

Well. It's like if you take a look at contemporary situation in Egypt. There is nobody there building piramides in old

good traditional way anymore. And nobody anywhere seems to be frustrated about it too much as far as we can see,

anyway.

 

But Wayne, what is you point exactly? Are you trying to clarify the future for film folks on the grounds of personal

compassion and future vision or suggest we all go digital asap in oder not to alow China to be a world leader in

number of gigital photos taken per resident per second or what?

 

There are people who go long ways to learn how to play violine conchertos these days and then they get there

somehow there are other people who pay good money for a privilege to come and hear all that although they also do

have a kitchen radios instoled and also already playing everything all the time. Some play guitars for their own joy

and entertainment actually.

 

Not to mention CD players, grand pianos, getto blasters and classic sculptures. Of which Italy seems to be full of.

Which in turn is only good for tourism. Unless it wasn't.

 

What's the point?

[Ian Rance]

When the film stops being made, that will be the time I take up a hobby other than photography. I will look back on it as a good hobby - one that allowed me to be creative and express my thoughts.

 

As they say, all good things must come to an end. I hope for purely selfish reasons that it is not soon though.

 

Ian

[michaelchristensen]

Is the sky falling again? .. I have no problem finding film when I want it. I'm more concerned as to if there will be gas for automobiles in the next 10 years than I am about finding film; and I'm more concerned with computer techology .. digital media not being backward compatible as markets squeeze one another for their niche. Will the D200 last 10 years .. don't know, but the same can be said for every computer, software, and supporting media ... digital is changing ..

 

Shoot what you like but don't expect any long term usability from anything we create in this "new world" .. the only common denominator in the technology equation is that costs increase while tools get marginally better.

[tri-x1]

Ilia:

 

My point is two years ago I was in the group that said film was still superior for any "serious" photography. And I would have bet money that film would still be used by a great many snapshooters five--even 10 years from now. But I think what we saw in China is emblematic of a worldwide paradigm shift that is occurring much faster than anyone anticipated.

 

One of my beliefs was that the switch to digital photography would be slow because you had to be fairly computer literate to get prints. That argument went away when I encountered my first digital print kiosk in Walgreens. Plug in your memory card, touch the pictures you want and pick up the prints a few minutes later. Finally there was the developing nations will keep film afloat argument and the China visit blew that out of the water.

 

The last bastion of the film defenders is the argument that negatives are forever but you might not be able to read your digital files a few years down the road. Given the fact that I can still read files created on a Commodore PET computer in the early '80s and the technology has advanced 100,000 percent since then, I'm not worried about being able to read my digital images 10 or 20 years from now.

 

But still hardly a week goes by without someone claiming film is making a comeback because camera prices on the auction have allegedly increased or because someone knows someone who plans to get a film camera. And the idea that film photography is stabilizing or making a comeback simply isn't valid. I'm not beating the drum for digital. I'm just saying I'm surprised because I didn't think it would happen this fast.

 

I own about 60 film cameras and I have no plans to sell any of them. But I keep them more because I appreciate them as examples of the Mechanical Age than because they will practical to use in the coming years.

[philip_wilson]

While it is easy to predict an end of film I suspect that it will hang on longer than expected. I still like to play vinyl records and noticed that the music industry reported 20% growth in vinyl and 125 decline in CD sales a few months ago. Obviously we are not all going back to vinyl but digital distribution is replacing CDs while vinyl has found a niche. Indeed there are many more companies making turntables than ever before. I read recently that in Japan sales of film cameras (especially old ones is growing - albeit as a novelty). I suspect that the film industry will continue to shrink and that lower quality consumer films will disappear. Indeed one big player (e.g. Fuji or Kodak). The margins on film have stabilized and a quick look at Fuji suggest that they are better than on digital storage. If the world is left with a $300 - $1bn annual revenue film business and 1-2 big players plus 1-2 niche players we may get a reasonably enduring film industry. I suspect that this niche industry can run EBITDA margins of at least 20% which is much better than most digital businesses where components become standardized and modular and margins fall. Look at the technologies we have not abandoned e.g. horses,Vinyl records, wooden furniture, knitted and handwoven fabrics etc... I could go on but what we are really seing is a shift from a volume manufacturing business to a niche business. In the niche prices will rise, distribution will become much more limited and R&D will be small. thus I predict a situation where Film will be available in most popular types and formats, prices of film will rise and it will have to be bought by mail or in large cities only. The services business around film (labs etc) will continue to decline rapidly and again become a mail or large city activity only. I even predict that in the next decade Nikon or Canon will launch (probably a limited edition) film camera. After all the Nikon F6 shows that you can build a film camera from a digital one. after all panasonic (Technics) now has 3 vinyl record players in there line up

[keith selmes]

"I would be very surprised if you will be able to find film in many of the high volume general merchandise stores

two years from now."<BR><BR>When I began to take photography seriously, I began buying film via the internet,

because it was cheaper, and because there was much more choice. If shops stop selling film, it doesn't make any

real difference, the film I buy probably wouldn't be in the shops anyway.<BR>

[sfcole]

Wayne,

It is increasingly difficult to predict anything these days. According to your logic, no one would be knitting their own

sweaters or quilts, or hand-crafting crafting violins, or listening to radios, or riding bicycles, because these and many

other activities are technologically obsolete.

 

You can't judge the state of the hobby by what the average consumer is doing--you have to look at the fanatics like us

as well. And we don't simply do what is the the most convenient. We do what is artistically satisfying. Personally, I like

the look that film gets in many circumstances.

 

What's amazed me is not that film isn't totally dead, but that amateurs have been able to willingly ride the price deflation

created by the camera industry. Models less than a year old have fallen from $1200 to $700, and it seems that the

prices are falling steeper and quicker with each successive generation. I don't understand why anyone buys the latest

DSLRs when they come out. It can't go on.

[tri-x1]

A problem we face today is the business model for modern stores is, if something doesn't sell a ton then get it off the shelves. It's like weed spray. Weeds grow well into the fall but most of the spray is sold in the spring and by August good luck in finding it in the stores. It has been replaced by Halloween items.

 

Keith, like you, I bought most of my film off line for the past five years.

 

I think that's why Walmart, which a couple of years ago in our area had a film display probably 20 feet long and five shelves high fulled with Fuji and Kodak, now has a film area that is 1/8th the size and mostly disposable cameras.

[iliafarniev]

Thans Wayne. I understand better now.

 

I think the paradigm has been changing all the time ever, probably with constant speed. It is only human to be

surprized on seeing something they/we didn't expected.

 

Scott. I actually can't see why would you call us/them/film photographers a fanaticts. There are plenty of good

reasons to shot film today.

 

As a reality check, if I may suggest, go see prices for brand new Hasselblad 503 on B&H or Adorama. It is not going

down, film price ? - same, processing ? scanning ? bassically same, unless somewhat higher.

 

I would't expect film comming back big but it is not going away, folks...

[iliafarniev]

Well. Because it is necessary engredient of our civilisation and WE LOVE IT actually. Also those who dont shot it or

anything. This is a simple fact.

[patrick j dempsey]

Ok, well, maybe and maybe not. A friend who went to Photokina this year said that all the film vendors (except Ilford who wasn't there because of some screwup with their booth) reported either higher sales than last year or flat sales and were all very excited. Kodak has been putting out MANY new or improved products in the last year. He also said there was an auditorium and four different photographers were talking about the benefits of film as a medium side-by-side with digital. It's too bad you had to go to an obscure and hard to get to convention to see that kind of enthusiasm.

 

Yes Agfa and Polaroid are dead as film companies, but what does that mean? It means that in a free-market system they were no longer to maintain sales. Honestly, I don't think I've EVER bought Agfa film in my whole life and Polaroid has been in trouble for over a decade after selling terrible cameras with terrible results since the late 1970s. Polaroid has been failing since BEFORE digital because they put out a bad product. The people at Polaroid would like you to think that it's digital's fault because it makes them look like less of schmucks. Meanwhile, sales that were going to Agfa and Polaroid are now readjusting to Fuji and Ilford and Kodak and several smaller companies. So Nikon stopped making film cameras? Canon hasn't! In fact, they continue to maintain production on an entire FLEET of film cameras, from point and shoot APS to underwater cameras to professional EOS cameras. A search of their website for "35mm" shows 20 different 35mm film cameras. The Olympus website continues to show four whole families of film cameras from the pedestrian Trip 35 to the IS-5 a fixed-zoom-lens 35mm SLR similar in appearance to their early digital bridge cameras.

[nolan_ross]

I think it makes since to use whatever it is you enjoy. Maybe digital or film, vinyl (my favorite), tube radios, CD's or whatever. I don't see it makes any difference as long as it works out for you..I am finished with film but that's because there are no labs around so I shoot digital (I like it fine). I figure film will pretty much vanish due to lack of supporting labs (I don't know when of course). I suppose it will always be around in some fashion as it seems things always hang on somehow. I wish I could afford a tube amp for my turntable..That would really be fun and enjoyable for me..There available but pricey.

[Spearhead]

<i>A friend who went to Photokina this year said that all the film vendors (except Ilford who wasn't there because of some screwup with their booth) reported either higher sales than last year or flat sales</i><P>People can say whatever they want in a booth at a trade show. There's no legal responsibilities attached. Kodak's Q3 film sales were down 18% from the prior quarter. The last two quarters of Fuji's business show a 30% drop in film sales from the prior two quarters.<p>These numbers aren't hard to find, but I guess it's easier to report what a bystander heard from a salesperson at a trade show.

[jerry_gardner1]

"I bet that crystal ball will show that when film is gone, the oldest processes such as tintypes will continue."

 

Even that is doubtful as it's very difficult for individuals to get the chemicals requires owing to the belief that anyone buying chemicals is either a terrorist making a bomb or a drug dealer making meth.

[jerry_gardner1]

"And eventually, we won't even need X-ray film"

 

You're way behind the times. Digital X-ray has superseded film X-rays almost everywhere except perhaps in little backwoods clinics.

[jack_welsh]

"I bet that crystal ball will show that when film is gone, the oldest processes such as tintypes will continue."

 

"Even that is doubtful as it's very difficult for individuals to get the chemicals requires owing to the belief that anyone buying chemicals is either a terrorist making a bomb or a drug dealer making meth."

 

I don't know about that. For someone who does the old processes, I can still get the chemicals to make carbon prints or any other process. Maybe I have to sign a form for some, but, I can still get them.

The photo industry is largely driven by the modern "Brownie" users with their digital P&S cameras who just want to email a picture of the kids to the grandparents. Also, pros who couldn't afford a digital back for their Hasselblads. Sold them to buy a DSLR, even though the quality was less. And, my favorite, the pros in the photomags who were given an $8,000 Canon, so that they could say in the mag, that they switched to digital. The serious amateur film photographers were caught in the middle.

[iliafarniev]

... less of schmucks, yes, maybe, but we look at this film thing from so many different angles that it's not easy to

agree on anything and will never be and that's the guarantee for whole thing to roll on, which is only good.

 

Somebody get little depressed and nervous about lokal super market, somebody want to have fun film way and

another like digital better. Some may like unsurpassed imaging quolity of 10 years overdue exp. dato material

seating in

the fridge waiting for a time is right.

 

Do your have any idea of budgets for advertisment industry in US and EU alone? Or should we take Japan with? Or

whole intertainment one? It's second next to Deffence and closing fast since Internet went public and wars are

getting

shorter and shorter. Unless it is already number one everywhere.

 

If in 5 months time last idiot will figure out that all those thousands of cell phone shots he loaded up by one press for

his mums money

never gets to be seen by anybody and start to feel like it is not so interesting anymore we will start to add on film,

open

up all the labs again and agfa will annonce innaguration of brand new plants all over the world. Shelves will be long

again.

 

If does not going to happend in 5 months we will keep it going d way for a while yet...

 

It's bussines, yo. Trade. Money must go around. Like Wayne sayd, now it's seasone for hallowin, now for

weedkillers. Maybe hallowin is better then weedkiller or otherwise but thereis no end to it.

 

Besides. In digital cams nothing is mooving after you shot. Maybe you get to zoom a little but it's about it...

[tomscott]

Film: How much longer? "Till I say otherwise! End of story.

[constance_cook]

Just throw all your cameras away. Curtis has said "end of story." And whoever he is, that has to be the last word.

 

After all, film and developing won't be available and that dSLR you just bought is already obsolete and however you store your images, they won't get updated or they will be corrupted.

 

So just go get another hobby/career.

 

Conni

[tomscott]

People were photographing with "film" long before kodak, fuji, agfa or ilford came along. I already know that I can

process my own film, how far fetched is it that I can produce my own film if it ever comes to that? What do you think

Louis DaGuerre, or William Henry Talbot would say to this question?

[tomscott]

Constance, all I am trying to say is that I will shoot with film until I decide otherwise, not some manufacturing company.

[nolan_ross]

I have an obsolete digital camera. It's going to become a lot more obsolete before I am finished with it. It's a D200 and I plan on buying a new one after the D600 is obsolete. Nikon will have to get a new CEO to figure out the name for that one.

[iliafarniev]

Something tells me old Lou wouldn't disaprove this drift at all.

[benjaminoliverhicks]

I'm with Curtis on this one. It's not like chemicals will stop being produced.