Hello Jack, This was Snap Photo and Imaging - their digital side is going very strong, just film processing is way down.
Ignoring the walk in business that individuals have, I suspect the labs are at the mercy of their clientele. Snap does a large portion of the sports teams pictures - that is fed by around 10 bigger photo companies and then many smaller ones. My guess is that a lab will be doing the work those bigger outfits bring in. If one or more of them stay with film, then the lab will continue doing lots of film. When one of them converts to digital, then there is a big drop in the film processing. Only a few years ago (2), I know that several of the sports team outfits were still shooting film - I'm guessing that most of them have switched, which would in turn radically affect Snap's business. Other labs will follow suit as their clients switch. My hunch is that the film processing will consolidate to much fewer shops - still readily available. Then as demand continues to decrease, the prices will slowly rise for the processing. The low prices we have enjoyed are based on large quantities. As the prices continue to go up, many of the remaining film shooters will reluctantly switch to digital. At some point, there will reach an equilibrium where the quantity of film usage will stabilize (at a much higher price than today) and the film labs will have a set amount of business. I just don't know where that point is - I don't think we have reached it yet. -- Bruce Thursday, July 6, 2006, 2:25:33 PM, you wrote: JD> Bruce, JD> Because I use Sacramento film labs, I'm curious as to which lab you JD> questioned. JD> Awhile back (maybe two months ago) Cali-Color said their film scanning JD> and digital file printing were holding strong. Didn't ask about film JD> drop-off for processing. That, more than likely, is being done by JD> Mini-labs. JD> Thanks. JD> Jack JD> --- Bruce Dayton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> I just got back from my lab picking up some wedding proofs. This is >> a >> lab that has done most of it's work with professionals - team sports, >> weddings, portraits, etc. They do some retail business >> (individuals), but not much. >> >> While there, I talked with one of the longtime employees. I asked >> him how >> much volume they are doing now with film. He said that they are down >> to about 8 rolls of C-41 a day and they sold off their E6 and B&W >> processing equipment - not enough business. He doesn't know how much >> longer they will still do film - hardly worth the bother for them >> anymore. >> >> Not really trying to say anything about film versus digital - just >> giving an update on the state of things here in Sacramento, >> California. >> >> >> -- >> Best regards, >> Bruce >> >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> JD> __________________________________________________ JD> Do You Yahoo!? JD> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around JD> http://mail.yahoo.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
