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I think this is a big issue. I haven't bought into digital because it's not cost-effective for me to spend 8 grand on a camera body that can shoot the same resolution imagery that I can shoot with a 20 year old Nikon. And to have two of them (one for backup) makes even less sense when they will be obsolete in 3 years. I have every negative I have ever shot going back to when I was 14 years old. Granted some of that stuff isn't worth printing, but I also have negatives that are over 60 years old that I can do everything from print to scan. Try doing that with digital imagery that is stored on a medium that might not work in a year or more, or when it craps out you have nothing to fall back on. I have pics of my grandparents and great grandparents that I can reprint if need be, or scan if I want to. If I had to shoot these pics on digital, I'd have to transfer over from one generation of storage to another every couple of years - and add to it all the new stuff I shoot. Properly processed and stored silver-based imagery will last longer than CDs and DVDs. Chris Telesca lookaround360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: Mark, Lately change seems to have accelerated and popular wisdom has not held up. Suddenly big corporations and industries are having to slough off units and greatly increase prices they never anticipated six months ago - Dow, GM, Kodak. I'm certain traditional B/W film will become an "alternative process" hobby or art medium sooner - if it isn't already. Certainly commercial color film makes little sense today. The only short-term hope perhaps may be scientific and cinema films. I'm a true believer in film photography and will devoutly continue with it to the end if only B/W is left. Spending the time learning quality color negative processing is a dead-end skill with little reward - and the economics of doing so would be insane! I don't think storage issues for digital media are as big a problem as feared by some. At least any more than typical family storage disciplines have always been. All those tapes and CD's will get ruined in the box in the basement just like the negs (color especially) and prints! Some guy will always be making a buck doing transfers from one medium to the next over the decades. Try that with film. Of course the grand kid stuck with the family flash cards three media generations down the road may just toss them out. AZ Build a 120/35mm Lookaround! The Lookaround Book. Now an E-book. http://www.panoramacamera.us-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [SPAM] RE: funeral From: Mark Blackwell <mblackwell1958@xxxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, August 08, 2008 4:45 pm To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> I wouldn't be so quick to call film gone. It will change, but all in all there may be some upsides to some of the changes. First of all digital will and for all practical purposes taken over the consumer market. That will end the days when any drugstore would be able to soup your film in a hurry. It will affect the development of new film cameras. You may already have seen the peak of film camera development even though technology will march on. Still I have been considering picking up a used Canon EOS 1V to use the rest of my life. Film still has a number of uses that at this point digital can not really match. We know a great deal about long term film storage, but not so much about how digital archiving will work in 40 years. The one good thing is that when you do find someone that will do your film for you, they are far more likely to know what they are doing than the teenager on a summer job trying to make college money. Every one has seen the type. They got 5 minutes training from a manager that couldn't tell the difference between a shutter speed and an f stop, and all of a sudden they are experts. Then they take the roll of Velvia you brought it to send out, and get it mixed up the with Kodak Portra 160VC, and film is film right so they just run them both through the C 41 chemistry. You also may have to return to the ways of photographers of old. Do your own. Local processing may not be readily available at all in many areas. Yet for the longest time photographers were expected to be able to do their own darkroom work. Like most of you out there I still do for all my black and white work. I can do color IF I REALLY REALLY had to, but I would sure like to avoid doing so. Though the big companies will cut back, I believe that for a long time to come smaller companies can take the demand out there for film and make a thriving business out of it. Would it be enough for a major multi national corporation to consider important? No but it would be profitable for much smaller companies and last I heard, you don't go broke making a small profit. --- On Fri, 8/8/08, lookaround360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <lookaround360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:From: lookaround360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <lookaround360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: RE: funeral To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students" <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Friday, August 8, 2008, 3:15 PM Emily, That is not a good omen for us film shooters. Do you suppose the Global economic down-turn will accelerate the demise of film? An up-to-date web page of working labs would be handy. Regular PDN readers on this list might know??? I'm doing my Portra 35mm at a local one-hour lab - develop only. I process my own B/W. AZ Build a 120/35mm Lookaround! The Lookaround Book. Now an E-book. http://www.panoramacamera.us |
