----- Original Message ----- From: "Godfrey DiGiorgi" Subject: Re: One less shelf
> > The trouble is that Tom's "common folks" are much more sensitive to > how much it costs than to anything else. And in that department, > digital capture to a print is a major savings now. Nearly any > inexpensive digital camera can make a 4x6 print better than most > photofinishers at this point. > > The result is that the game is over for mass market film > photofinishers. There's still a lot of business to be done there, > there are still a lot of film cameras in use and one-shots are still > selling, but the future is gone. It depends on your definition of mass market. If you mean factory photo labs, they are dead, or will be soon. If you mean minilabs in mass merchandisers stores such as what I used to work at, I suspect they will be gone when the demand for looking at pictures is gone. I don't imagine that is going to happen soon, I think there will always be a significant demand for cheap prints for the market to disappear. Overall, the market is getting smaller though, there is practically no demand for pro labs anymore, and film's eventual practical disappearance looks like it is right on schedule. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
