The Resurgence of Film

[._._z]

<i> digital cameras and mobile phones are pretty popular in all places where there is

electricity and some basic standard of living. </i><p>

 

How do you define "some basic standard of living"? And how popular is film-based

photography in areas without a basic standard living?

[davidfink_photography]

Many fine replies, and most (with the notable exception of Les) predictably reflect the conventional wisdom that digital spells the permanent demise of film shooting. And sooner rather than later.

 

Arguably, "resurgence" may be too sanguine a word for the viewpoint I continue to entertain. Perhaps "film's surprising backlash" would describe it better.

 

I still predict that there will be some who will inevitably discover, after they get over being enthralled by the hugely attractive benefits of digital capture, that there is a certain *je ne sais quoi* missing from the experience of an all-digital process. Scott seems to have alluded (unintentionally?) to precisely this in his reply further up the thread when he asserted, "the only advantage/arguement that film has is an artistic one and not a utilitarian one." Not an insignificant point, it seems to me!

 

Personally, having been exclusively digital for a number of years, I am delighted to have reached a point where I now regularly shoot my F100/FE2 side-by side with the S2 Pro. And for me, advancements in the quality and affordability of scanners was what prompted my move back to the inclusion of some film in my photography. That's what I meant earlier when I called film scanners a "bridge" between film and digital capture. Each medium has its own distinct pleasures and satisfactions from an artistic standpoint. Why should it not be possible and desirable to experience and incorporate both?

 

Obviously, only time will tell. And whether Kodak, Fujifilm, et al. are to be credited with enough prescience to anticipate a small film "backlash" trend such as I am predicting is speculative at best. But if either or both *were* to see it coming, then one clear way to leverage such a trend would be to spur the continued improvement of scanner technology well beyond what exists presently. Whether such improvements reside in labs or on personal desktops is, I guess, somewhat beside the point, though my personal preference would be the latter.

 

For those who are determined to pronounce film all but dead and buried, please note that I am not in any way denying the rapidly growing ascendancy of digital as the undisputed dominant force in mainstream photography. I'm merely arguing that film may continue to enjoy a surprisingly strong niche status in the market, with improvements in scanning technology allowing film and digital images to exist side by side on photographers' hard drives for years to come.

 

Best wishes,

 

David

[kns]

Personally, I would like to see the introduction of a scaled down version of ASFs dry film Digital Pic technology for home use, or some variation of the same. Coupled with a capable scanner I can see niche appeal for continued film use.

[carl smith]

K S, think the market would be way too small for that to even be worth bothering with.

[kns]

Carl, you may in fact be right. I simply don't know. That said, when is the market too small in dollar value? With respect to the ASF speculation the R&D is largely complete and as I understand it the technology is scalable. So, yes, someone (Kodak/ASF) will have to make a decision if the projected profits are sufficient.

 

I would suggest that the use of any such technology is a mix of need/utility and curiousity/personal preference (among other decision processes). As such, the digital and film buyers are not mutually exclusive groups. For me, I find it difficult to even guess at market size with the introduction of potentially interesting technology that may have wide (intellectual) appeal.

 

I believe that my first question on photo.net was whether film technology will continue to improve. To that the overall consensus was that quality has already asymptoted. If that's the case then clearly the impact on film sales will be negative in the long term. The same holds for scanner/software development. If on the other hand there is room for improvement on both fronts can a market be created in the face of mass adoption of the purely digital? Again, I know squat, but will remain somewhat optimistic that hybrid technologies will not be abandoned before being market tested.

[scott_eaton]

<I>"the only advantage/arguement that film has is an artistic one and not a utilitarian one." Not an insignificant point, it seems to me! </i><P>Very intentionally I may add, and I also appreciate and respect your logical approach to this discussion vs the typical emotional melodrama on this subject.<P>The *only* market where film is currently making a strong stand is the professional portrait market where it's too cumbersome for a photographer to proof large numbers of small prints, digital capture can't compete with dedicated MF rigs in terms of quality, and yet not quite pragmatic to shoot entirely digital and have the lab make prints for you. Trust me though, this will change as soon as 6-10 megapixel dSLRs start to make MF portraiture irrelevant at a reasonable cost level.<P>This leaves film's advantage clearly in the aethestic only arena, which is where it can make it's best justification. It is very, very difficult to get digital capture to emulate classic B/W films like Tri-X, or dymanic slide films like Velvia, and even more difficult to do so in larger formats. We'll all agree to that.<P>What irks me though, and also where I think we are having some misunderstanding, is that I don't believe a lot of the market should be shooting slide or conventional B/W in the first place and would do much better with a dSLR of good quality. Those photogs that know how to exploit the fine tonalities of Tri-X, or the rapid color saturation or Velvia are not the same individual who typically posts to photo.net asking 'how am I doing?'. If anything, the vast majority of images I'm seeing posted with conventional B/W and slide films are utterly dreadfull because the poster has bought into the hype without a clue what they are doing. I mean, show me the last image shot on TMY 400 you saw you'd post on your wall.<P>In terms of C-41 color print, we have the typical nasty array of consumer print films and papers that are far worse in terms of quality than last christmas's crop of $500 digicams and $100 ink-jet printers, and this all adds up to a very small market indeed that can justify film having a quantifiable advantage. A justified market mind you, but not one that has a guarantee of materials.

[henry_minsky1]

To a first approximation, I believe that it is the time savings that determine the mass market appeal of a technology. There is still some crossover between film and digital, because it is still faster to drop off a roll of film than to fool around with digital media.

 

To some extent, the quality of the images is important, but it is a real balance between that and convenience.

 

Thus, film scanning will always be at the end of the line in terms of time consumption. Amateurs like me have hard enough time finding time to take pictures, and have little left over to deal with processing.

 

The amount of data stored in a roll of 35mm film is still pretty large (figure about 500 MBytes). At the point at which that equivalent amount of data can be downloaded from a camera in less than five seconds from a camera, then 35mm film will be officially a dead media.

[carl smith]

Sadly, and particularly with kodak, that decision process could cost millions. Then they've gotta design the new unit and set up someplace to manufacture.

 

Whoops, suddenly they're probably spending more money than they want to on something that would very likely have minimal returns.

 

What can ya do? I'd say any major savior for film is doubtful now. I'm willing to let it die peacefully, as long as someone will buy me a Canon 1Ds that does 8fps. Never know when you need to take a lot of high res photos really fast. :)

[john_shriver]

Kodak already tried this: PhotoCD and the scanning stations (RFS?) that they made for it. Highest throughput film scanner in it's day. But it was not a major market success. The resolutions are now rather dated. There was a lot of bright engineering behind it, but the marketing was less successful. Part of the issue was pricing, their labs charged $1 a frame for orders less than 100 frames.

 

Part of the problem is that scanning color negative film requires all the "color balancing" work that goes into a color print. That's not something that's been 100% automated at any level of quality yet.