On Tuesday, December 4, 2001, at 09:45 PM, William Robb wrote: > The big difference is, he isn't buying film anymore.
Know what's going to be the first casualty in the digital vs. film sales war? APS. 1) APS is a lousy format, comparatively. The neg is small, and for the most part the cameras are poor performers, accentuating the shortcomings of a smaller neg. Of course, cameras like the Nikon Pronea APS SLR took good pictures, but...uh, can you still get Proneas? 2) People who were drawn to APS will be drawn to digital. Look at the similarities: smaller camera, gadgety-ness, higher price tag than 35mm. The APS cartridge system is designed to seem high-tech, to appeal to cutting edge tech fans. 3) APS requires a separate set of masks and lenses to be printed at your local minilab, as well as a spooler/unspooler device to get the bloody film out of the cassettes and then back in again. Digital requires the appropriate card reader and some software for a modern minilab to make prints. APS is incompatible with older minilab machines (it's hard to get masks and lenses to fit machines from more than five years before APS was introduced), but more expensive to add on to a current machine than digital, unless the machine was factory-outfitted for APS. 4) APS has been a notorious sales flop. Kodak have done everything under the sun to try to up the numbers of APS film sales and processing. The local Shopper's Drug Mart only stocks Kodak single-use cameras that have APS film inside. What's the advantage to the consumer of an APS single-use camera? Nothing, unless you value bad pictures. What's the advantage to Kodak? Well, all those films have to be processed, boosting the figures for APS film sales and processing. Digital, on the other hand, appears to be thriving. Who wants to join my APS deadpool? Let's pick the date that Kodak announces it is no longer supporting the format. I pick 2005. -Aaron - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
