Granted, but the market was driven by the use of consumables. Without this consumables market there would be no demand for these cameras. It's like the old saying that "A chicken is an egg's way of creating another egg."
But Nikon, Canon, Hasselblad, Mamiya, etc., never made consumables, so I don't see how film cameras were different from the digital of today. It was two things that kept film cameras selling: More/better features and growing the number of users.
" Analogue ecological impact."
Don't we wish there were enough of us this would even matter?
Granted, but the market was driven by the use of consumables. Without this consumables market there would be no demand for these cameras. It's like the old saying that "A chicken is an egg's way of creating another egg."
My point is that digital photography is based on a business model which provides only a single source of profit. That is the endless sale of digital cameras with their negative impact on the environment. The impact is from their manufacture and the discarding of obsolete models.
The model for analog photography was based on a consumables market. Before digital cameras the main source of profit was from consumables film, papers and chemicals not from the sale of cameras. For the average person a single camera was used for years without any need to upgrade. The cash cow was the consumables which were bought routinely for these cameras not the cameras themselves. Modern films and papers contribute very little to harm the environment in terms of heavy metals and other pollutants. The same cannot be said concerning the manufacture of digital cameras.
Jerry, you are absolutely correct in your analysis of the two business models.
The failure of Kodak at present is due to the fact that they based their model on digital printers and digital printing which just did not take off.
PE
Kodak was a non-entity in digital when they tried to break into digital and they did it the wrong way, failing to see such things as facebook taking away from their adamantine model that Perez insisted would work. Trying to force the issue didn't work in the face of bad software and support.
Yes, they made other mistakes as well. I hope someone here remembers the comments I made in an interview on Inside Analog Photography.
PE
One of the resources that darkroom based photographers use a lot of is water. If you think fighting over oil and energy is bad, wait until we have poisoned our ground water to the extent that we can't drink it anymore. I'm not saying that photography is to blame for that, but it will be a more scarce resource in years to come
...
As far as digital photography is concerned, it isn't just the manufacture of cameras that we should worry about. Memory cards, camera batteries need recharging AND replacing, you need a computer to view the pictures and to 'process' them, and backup hard drives to store them. Don't forget the energy spent by servers in cloud based storage (conservatively, 4% of our nation's energy goes to data centers), and the energy spent by those who look at the pictures, and transmit them from one storage point to another to do so. If you want prints you need a printer, with consumables such as ink and paper. All of those items (except the paper) are made from materials that constitute a danger to the environment, (although I'm sure it isn't friendly to make inkjet paper either).
As you seem to be the face of Kodak on APUG, I just wondered if the PR department of Kodak have any say/influence in your response. Or are all your posts a response from you as an individual? If so, do you think they would want to be involved? I dont ask this with any negative meaning, as I think almost everything you post is based on sound reasoning.
John, the photographic industry has cleaned up its act years ago!!!!!
I was there! BTDT. You miss that salient point.
PE
Partial quote ...
What's worse is all of the nano technology involved with making digital equipment. It's one thing to use it to manufacture, along with all the nasty chemicals mentioned by others, but when those items are destroyed, the nano particles are released into the atmosphere, because there are no filters that are able to capture them. We breathe those particles, and our body's protective system cannot filter them, so they go straight into our lungs and into our blood stream. You cannot protect yourself, and the worst part is, nobody knows how it's going to affect the environment; there is no conclusive evidence. But it's called 'progress' and we must continue to feed those who can pay for the next greatest gadget, right? Keep that revenue stream alive and kicking, never mind what happens to the planet.
Bottom line: If you use the internet for anything, you are as guilty as anybody else. Most people in the modern world are severe polluters without even knowing it, because of the distance thing that PE is mentioning. It isn't easy to NOT have a big negative impact on the environment today.
I basically agree with what you are saying, but let me take a few quotes partially out of context:
Electronics in landfills has potential ground-water consequences. It is easy for a government to regulate the actual manufacturing plants (so long as they are based in a country that cares); not as easy to regulate the end-user. By coming up with more "benign" components at point of manufacture (as the film industry did years ago) we take the unreliable consumers (such as ourselves) out of the equation to a degree - so being careless when disposing of certain items becomes a smaller issue. Styrofoam fast-food boxes went through this, and plastic bags (opposed to paper) are going through this now.
As for Kodak and digital, my opinion is that they were fighting a losing battle by trying to compete with companies that were well established in consumer electronics. They could have been (and may still) be able to be successful in the market if they didn't try to jump in with both feet and do it so quickly.
On a tangent, and I'm not saying film fits the same roll, but in a way film reminds me of ink-jet printers as far as where the money is for the manufacturer
hi ron
im well aware that kodak was a gigantic polluter and has since cleaned up their act
( although their campus is a white elephant because of all the toxins )
what i was getting at was that since the first photographs made through chemical means
plenty of people have had health problems ( to say the least ) because of whatever process
or materials were used at the time ... and while analoggers want to always point the finger
and say how terrible electronic photography is, how the landfill is filled with
old cameras and printers and media involved with it, they forget the legacy of chemical photography
whether it is upfront-user based or back end, materials-based.
what i was getting at is both sides have a pretty bad record ...
When I was growing up "the dump" was nothing more than an area that was out of town a mile and EVERYTHING went in there. In fact in a few years it was leveled and subdivisions were built over top of it.
Now landfills are carefully managed and have layers of covering put over the soil, then the waste, depending on the type is put in there. Hazard type materials are place in separate places and managed as well. In fact I believe that some are used to generate heat to run generators.
When I was about 10, I used to go to the dump to shoot rats with a .22 rifle.
PE
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