Mark Roberts wrote: If my local stores are anything to go by, there won't be film available to load into them before long. Well, good film, at least. There'll *always* be Kodak Max 400.
Gosh, where do you live? I can buy any quantity of any film I want here in the Detroit area. That may be somewhat of a local phenomenon, because we do have a lot of big studios and pro shooters, who still shoot a lot of film. Yesterday I was at one of our best pro labs, Meteor in Troy, Michigan. I assumed their film business must be off due to all the digital switchover, so I asked them if they were still getting enough to make it worthwhile. "Getting enough? "the guy at the counter responded. "We can hardly keep up." He went on to say that their film processing volume is the highest it's been in three years. This is probably due to the surge in the economy and the resulting increase in spending on car advertising by the big three. And of course, it's probably a temporary blip. Film use will decrease, but it's not going away next month or even next year. Some of the pros around here tell me they'll continue to use it, because they think the film to digital scan process gives them more control and a better image. And for some jobs like billboards or even magazine spreads, you still can't get quite enough resolution with digital. I think our list is suffering from a bad case of *ist-dism. Remember digital cameras have been around for a long time, and no one here proclaimed film dead until just a few months ago when Pentax jumped in late. The *ist-d is only a pimple on the ass of the digital revolution. Things didn't change overnight. Yes, change they will, but probably not totally and certainly not this afternoon. Mark Roberts wrote: > "Rob Studdert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >On 9 Dec 2003 at 12:31, Tonghang Zhou wrote: > > > >> Dropped by a local photo store last weekend and saw people > >> flocking at the new Leicas, 23 hundred a piece on sale at 10% > >> off. Judging by the enthusiam at such shameful prices, it's > >> hard to believe film is dead. > > > >These cameras will most probably never have a film loaded :-) > > If my local stores are anything to go by, there won't be film available > to load into them before long. Well, good film, at least. There'll > *always* be Kodak Max 400. > > -- > Mark Roberts > Photography and writing > www.robertstech.com
