On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 2:15 PM, Mark Roberts <[email protected]> wrote: > Bruce Dayton wrote: > >>Certainly a tell-tale sign of the future of film. Sounds like the >>cost to get color developed is only going to rise until doing it at >>home is the only viable option. >> >>I'm sure glad I sold my film gear when it still had some value. > > About two years ago I stopped in at one of the big box stores in a > major shopping mall in Pittsburgh and decided to have a look at the > photo lab. I chatted with the manager there and learned that their > daily volume for film processing was... about 5 rolls. "Sometimes 10 a > day on weekends". I'm sure the level has gone down since then. Before > long it won't even be worthwhile for them to use film processing as a > loss-leader to get customers in the door. Expect the cost of chemistry > to skyrocket then. > > None of the students in my classes has ever used a film camera. >
Film use is trending up overall among serious shooters, which is good for the pro labs, and since the lab market contracted I know we're seeing higher volumes at the major labs here in Toronto (I'm getting told that volumes are too high for 1 hour service on occasion of late). Consumer film use continues to drop massively and I expect the 1 hour labs to finally disappear over the next couple of years along with disposables (which are essentially the last remaining consumer film market). You'd be surprised how many people I see starting off with digital and shifting to film. A lot of them end up shooting MF or LF too. Out of the 40 or so regulars in my local photographer's drinking club, 2/3rds or so shoot film regularly, half or so shoot some MF, 1/4 shoot LF, and 1/4 (but not the same quarter) shoot primarily film, including 1 whose primary camera is a Speed Graphic. I'm in the last group myself (primarily film shooter). We've even got several people who shoot exclusively film, but the majority shoot a mix. Pure digital shooters are minority, -Adam -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
