There is a HUGE fundamental difference between film and (current) digital cameras that causes the digital cameras to have much shorter useful lives ( go obsolete faster than film cameras ).
With film cameras the image quality isnt determined much at all by the camera ( especially if used manually). The image quality is determined almost entirely by the film, processing and lens. With a (current) digital camera however, the image quality is primarily determined by the camera (sensor) and to a lesser extent the lens (at this point). When you acknowledge the above it is quite obvious that a film camera is not going to go obsolete as fast as a (current) digital camera camera because bigger and better sensors in the future digital cameras will greatly improve the picture quality while using older film camera does not degrade the picture quality if you use newer films and processes and lenses greater resolution than the best and latest film (not necessarily new ones) .... That said, once the sensors get as good or better than the lenses, then the digital cameras will have much longer useful lives, but we are not there yet IMHO. Regarding the film cameras, digital is about to make the 35mm film format dead shortly but it isnt going to make the larger formats go away because there is only so much detail rendered by a 35mm format lens. Larger digital formats will need to be developed to match the quality of larger film formats before the larger film formats go away or become obsolete.... JCO
