----- Original Message ----- From: "John Francis"
Subject: Re: Apples and Oranges (was Re: Why and How I switched to Canon (for those who care) long)
What is bogus is to lay the blame for the lowering of photographic standards at the feet of digital. Even before digital cameras showed up, it was getting increasingly difficult to find a lab that was capable of doing decent quality work - more and more were being put out of business by the minilabs.
Photographic standards have been being lowered since the Canon AE-1 hit the market and brought exposure automation to the table in a big way.
The minilab was an answer to a market desire to see their crappy badly exposed pictures faster (digital is another manifestation of that, IE: Chimping).
After that, it was cheap ass consumers not being willing to pay for quality that did the rest.
Don't lay the blame for something that was consumer driven at the feet of the lab industry, all it did was do what the marketplace told it to do.
The consumers didn't bother to think things through, and is now pissed off for his/her stupidity, and is blaming the mess on what they created, rather than placing the blame where it belongs.
Minilabs, when they first hit the market, were often a front for a full service lab, designed to take the weight of quick proofing off the service lab, to allow more resources to be dedicated to custom work.
They were never meant to be the end of the line, which is what they have been morphed into.
William Robb
