RE: Mike Johnson's Sunday Message

[George Sinos]

Henry Chu said: "Dear Mike, I presume that consumers are intelligent in choosing what they think the best film format for them...." <remainder snipped>

Sorry Henry, but if my experience in retail is any indicator, a pretty big percentage of consumers don't have a clue as to what size film their camera uses. Now take this with a grain of salt, because my camera shop experience stems from the late sixties and early seventies when I was in high school and college. Back in those golden years we had 120, 220, 620, 828, 126, 35mm, 110 and several sizes of Polaroid film packs on the shelf simultaneously. For a while we even had film for those weird disc cameras. There were a few other odd sizes that I could order from the main warehouse.

Anyway there were a pretty large percentage of the customers that didn't know what size film they needed. They would either bring in the box from the last roll or refer to a note. Many would bring in the camera. We'd take out the exposed film and reload it for them.

I'm guessing there are still many folks out there in the same category. I may have already told this group the story about my cousin. A very intelligent woman in her early 40's. She (and the majority of my extended family) only uses "disposable" cameras. She was lamenting that sometimes she would get negatives back and other times she would get the film wound back in the little "cannister".

She didn't know there were two different film formats, and had never noticed any difference in the pictures. Now she remembers to make sure the package doesn't say APS or Advantix.

Well, one data point doesn't make a trend, but I think there are more people like my cousin than like the subscribers to PDML.

And a bonus question for you other old timers... How many remember the Bell & Howell Slide Cube Projectors?

See you later, gs

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