Vance wrote:
This is an argument that will soon unfold it self.

FILM is not here to stay...It will dwindle down to a select few who choose to pursue it. Just Like I like to find Old records from time to time.

I really think people choose to neglet the reality of new technology as it pertains to PROFIT margins for major companies. I have equipment I cant even have serviced anymore. And to find the parts and components is just too costly. Everything runs it's course and becomes a part of history. Film will fade..Well it already has. there will always be a select few. LIKE GLASS blowers..who are also a dying breed.
Nothing last forever...This is the way of life.

I would also note, that digital has fewer linitations than may think. However, it is not the same as shooting on film. the trules are different and when you learn them the results will astound you.

You stil must be a photgrapher inoder to produce the images you want.

Digital will never change that.. (On that I am probaly wrong )...

LOL..Puff puff

Why are the digit heads so insecure about their technology that they have to tell film users at every single possible opportunity that film is going to disappear?

We don't use film because it makes it faster and easier to get bucks from a client, we use it because we like what it gives us. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

I keep hearing that digital can make "grain" in a black and white image that you can't "distinguish" from the real thing. Maybe so. But that's not the point - we want the grain, the image, to "really be there", in the fibers of the paper, not sprayed on top of the paper.

Do you not understand that there's a difference between a piece of furniture made with a thin veneer and one made of solid wood? Sure they may outwardly appear the same, but some people want the real thing.

There will always be people who value hand crafted photographs. That must be very disappointing to all the angry young digit heads who are so earnestly trying to convince us that film is dead.

ChrisCorbettPhotography wrote:

Why are the digit heads so insecure about their technology that they have to tell film users at every single possible opportunity that film is going to disappear?

We don't use film because it makes it faster and easier to get bucks from a client, we use it because we like what it gives us. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

I keep hearing that digital can make "grain" in a black and white image that you can't "distinguish" from the real thing. Maybe so. But that's not the point - we want the grain, the image, to "really be there", in the fibers of the paper, not sprayed on top of the paper.

Do you not understand that there's a difference between a piece of furniture made with a thin veneer and one made of solid wood? Sure they may outwardly appear the same, but some people want the real thing.

There will always be people who value hand crafted photographs. That must be very disappointing to all the angry young digit heads who are so earnestly trying to convince us that film is dead.

Denial, denial, denial......

Look, I'm 53 years old, started shooting at 18 for a newspaper, love the darkroom , but left daily shooting to go develop imaging systems, including assisting the early Kodak sensors.  I've extensive skills in the darkroom.  And I love film and all it's nuances.

But I predicted in 1998 that by 2010 the main imaging process would be digital.  I was wrong by more than half.  Most imaging is now digital.

So demand for film has dropped like a rock.  Kodak has discontinued most of it's film stock lines.  Cannon and Nikon are no longer making film cameras except for one high end and one low end model.  Agfa is hanging on barely, but the writing is on the wall.

Film is very expensive to manufacture, and requires large batch runs to obtain consistency.  It is perishable.

So soon film will die except for perhaps five available stocks from two or three companies.

It doesn't matter what artists want, the level of demand needed isn't there.  This isn't like paper or paints, which do not require the same level of technology and output to produce economically.

So emotions aside, film will either die or become too expensive a medium for most photographers.

Economics is the determining factor.