----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Owens" Subject: Re: Film is dead, no one will bring out a new 35mm film camera
> I'm not sure about this. We've been running a survey at the Wally World > where I work in the Photo Center. Since September 1,we've sold 1 P&S film > camera and 27 digital cameras. Probably close to 50% of our film processing > is from one time use cameras. Digital processing via our kiosk is > increasing daily. The scuttlebut I am hearing is that Nikon is getting out of film P&S cameras entirely. No biggie there, they don't make their own anyway, but that they will release on final high end film SLR (the F6), as they feel there will be enough demand for it to justify it. The really high end cameras such as the Nikon F series are, to a great extent, cachet cameras for amateur photographers, rather than tools for professionals anyway. Canon has, I believe, indicated that they are pretty much out of the film SLR business, I wouldn't expect another top end film EOS, although another Rebel may come down the pike at some point. Our processing numbers and camera sales numbers match yours pretty closely. I think we have a higher % of film to one time use at the moment, but the trend is definitely there. One thing though, we are not getting many more one time cameras in as compared to last year, according to our recycling figures, but we are processing a lot less film. William Robb
