When B&W is down to 10-20% of its origdinal (at the intro of digital) market, that means Ilford is essensially out of business. Kodak, and Agfa are out of the black and white market also. That is understandable, as they are each set up to produce more by themselves than the remaining market is total.
Guess what? Yep! All those little guys are going to be doing just as well as ever, or even increasing their sales. You folks who only buy from the big names are going to be out of luck.
The other end of the program is retailers. For decades now the mass marketers have been buying up, or running out of business, the hobby retailers. Then they drop the hobby stuff because it is not as profitable as the mainstream stuff. At that point you have only one choice if you live outside the big cities. Ya! Mail order. Even here in a university town it has gotten to that point.
Anyone who insists upon buying locally is in the same fix as someone who trys to buy a roll of 620 film at the local drug store (BTW, they are in exactly the same boat as camera shops). What is that fix? Why go to Wal-Mart and by a sub-$100 digital camera...
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Chris Stoddart wrote:
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Steve Jolly wrote:
Anyone else care to join me in uninformed speculation? :-)
I wouldn't dare after this. I'm afraid I am more with William Robb now; the digi-snappers are going to kill real photography.
For those of you who know your history, it feels to me like the 'tragedy of the commons' yet again. Pretty soon we'll all be driving the same car, all eating the same McBurgers and all shooting the same (digital) camera. Oh yes, it'll be a Canon guys, don't kid yourself otherwise.
Hey, instead of following the herd, how about breaking the mould? Go do something different from everyone else today? Personally I'm laying out plans for Mike Rignall's rotational camera http://www.diyphotographics.ik.com/ if you're interested :-)
Chris
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com/graywolf.html
