Jeff Spirer writes: : At 10:20 AM 5/29/2006, Charles Dias wrote: : >The biggest problem is that in this war we, consumers, are the real losers. : I don't agree with this at all. There's been a huge shift in where : the control lies, but that doesn't mean it's a loss. : : For example, I have a wider choice of paper for printing than was : ever available. I can print on watercolor paper, which previously : required the fairly unreliable and barely controllable and tedious : process of applying liquid light to watercolor paper. And it was a : lot more costly too. I can print color in my small home. I couldn't : do that before. I can print on Japanese rice paper. And I can print : 4x6 photos on-site, which is a huge advantage on the business : side. And I can manipulate photos, especially color photos, in ways : which were impossible or difficult in the darkroom. : : That Kodak and Fuji let Epson and Adobe and a bunch of smaller : companies take away their market is Kodak's and Fuji's problem, not mine. Competition and choice. Film, paper and chemical makers produce(d) a broad variety of materials, often comparably priced, which allowed photographers a wide selection of goodies to play with. This competition was pretty balanced and didn't seem to strive particularly hard for sole market dominance. I don't think dominance was actually possible although Kodak's method of buying and killing companies was certainly an attempt to do so, the producers who avoided this seemed to do a pretty decent job of keeping themselves afloat. In the time of film we saw a plethora of films, camera types (TLR, rangefinders, SLR's, P&S, finderless, framefinder) - we saw convenient formats (110,35mm & others) medium formats (645-617), large format 4x5 to banquets and beyond . There was something for everyone and as long as the film and papers kept rolling out we had a lot of choices available. We had system cameras, interchangeable prisms, bulk backs, motor drives, silent RF's .. all manner of toys to draw our attention, and they provided a high degree of versatility and a camera for every occasion. Market dominance erodes this - the leader at the end of the day may decide that removable prisms models will not have a huge customer uptake and drop them (are there any digitals with removable prisms?) - The old model of camera manufacturing meant a model could be kept in supply for a LONG time, so having a small but steady market was probably viable. Not so when models must be continually renewed to keep the churn going. Manual cameras will/have disappeared. specialty cameras are a luxury few if any can afford - where is the 48Mp b&w camera? why can't we have something like that - it's not 'special' in any way.. removing the Bayer array and modifying the software/firmware should be easy enough.. When the head goes on my 2 year old printer, why can't I buy another? Why is my product warranty voided when I use someone else's inks? Am I not permitted to experiment creatively? What happens when the manufacturer of my current printer decides to cease making cartridges to force me into buying a new model - practices like that were once illegal here.. What happens when they lose the race altogether and the dominant producer feels the masses will be satisfied with convenience over versatility and decides a happy balance is achieved at 4Mp.. and that only in phones? I may have to use bought proprietary software to get the images off my phone, many do, and what of the DRM stuff built into all the SD cards - I've lost control over what I can and cannot access when THOSE cards are used. Fortunately even my oldest film camera is still capable of making images without restrictions.. and I can take the processed film without any interpreter or additional hardware and see what it is at a glance. I can whack together an optical system to make a nice print from it that requires no input from any other party (as long as I can get paper). I guess I'm disappointed that the camera makers threw themselves into the digital arena so quickly, getting into bed with a larger, more fierce enemy without looking hard at the risks. Maybe they saw easy money - outsource the bulk of the work (electronics) and rake in the profits and it blinded them. They *could* have fought to keep their products viable, could have worked with the film companies, but then they weren't film makers so they figured those guys could fight it out alone. Of course it was the profits from film cameras which supported the initial plunge into digital.. but that money has probably long since gone. They could even have done what everyone asked for and modified existing designs, produced digital backs for existing models.. giving people the choice between film and digital - but they got greedy and wanted it all now they'll probably end up with nothing I really don't know, I'm just bewildered and fearful of where this will all end up. I fear Nokia will be the final winner k (I hate pressing 'ignore' on the spellchecker when DRM is highlighted!)
