Film photography predictions for 2015

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tnabbott

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"Film is dead" is a statement, but "film is going to die out in 2015" is a prediction based on an opinion.

Recently, NBC news reported a large increase in vinyl record sales! Are they coming back? No, but the market increased. Same thing happened for film in mid year 2014, a mild surge in film sales.

Bottom line, film is NOT dead, it will not die out in 2015. It will get harder to purchase film and processing supplies and products will vanish. APUG members and subscribers will help keep it alive. Kodak is not giving up but they have been hurt by these changes as has Fuji.

PE

True enough. So I amend my initial post as follows: "In 2015 more people on APUG will come to what is apparently a very painful realization for them: Film is dying."
 

NJH

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Good grief. Everyone on this forum including myself is in fact dying slowly. However as long as I am alive for a while yet and have film and processing of it available to me of a quality I like I will be happy, anything beyond that is just idle speculation and nitpicking.
 

R.Gould

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True enough. So I amend my initial post as follows: "In 2015 more people on APUG will come to what is apparently a very painful realization for them: Film is dying."

From where I stand, on the other side of the pond, film appears to be in reasonably good health, is easy to find, even in an Island with no photo shops at all I can still get rolls of film from a local chemist, in B/W, color print and slide, I can phone orders to the UK, to a variety of analogue suppliers, who all report good sales, and indeed many are increasing their film and darkroom supplies, and we also have the best and most dependable maker of film and darkroom paper, who would, I am sure dissagree that film is dead or dying, so if, according to the above, it must be in the USA, certainly not in the UK or Europe, it may not be the market it once was, but is still here, still being taught in college, and from the amount of people I turn away due to my courses being over full I see no problems in my lifetime,
As to dying, we are all dying from the day we are born, there are only 2 certainies in life, death and taxes
 

Xmas

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This is an absurd statement. There are many journalists doing excellent work, and risking their lives to inform us. More than a few have paid the ultimate price in trying to keep the world informed.

Is Edward Snowden a 'blunt nib'?

note UK slang for writer to distinguish from photographer.

or

What Katy did

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Gun

Too many Jurnos write what their bosses want written.

Ditto PJs

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/20/penny-tweedie-obituary

Read 1984 again better title 'Tomorrow'

Noel
 

John von

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re:film predictions @ tnabbott

Wait someone pass me that silicon chip... Oh wait, is that a film camera?
I read the all the responses to the OP. All 16 pages of comments.
@tnabbott: The film is dead comments are pretty much the same as saying electrical cars are dead, long live cars running on gasoline! Cars were first built using electrical motors and not gasoline. The invention of the assembly line, which led to faster production of cars made with gasoline engines led to the decrease in electrical cars. Google it... But wait, the funny thing is guess what? Yup, electrical cars were still being made and now new companies are creating cars running on electric.Electric cars are not dead.
So why would I post that comment? And what does it have to do with Film Photography?
Well, film is not dead. You can say it is, and that is your opinion. However, looking at facts, film is resurfacing as a viable medium. Publishers who were not accepting film are now doing so. There are as we speak labs opening that cater to all film market. If film was dead, why would they open up a business catering to film processing? There are a lot of companies selling film and developing chemicals. If film was dead, they would be shutting down.
Oh wait, I know what you are going to say. Something like "I can't walk into Walmart and buy 120 film or chemicals." You can't walk into Walmart and buy Pro Photographer's gear, either. And that goes with Best Buy and other electronic retailers.
That's why there a companies like B&H, KEH, Adorama, freestyle etc... They cater to the professionals or the people who know what they want and need for their gear.
But based on your comments, tnabbott, film is dead.
What I do see is digital is easier. Someone can take a photo, not care about exposure, light source, background, etc and can edit everything out. Hell, they can even replace the background of photos. Film is nostalgic and will remain to be so. Do you even know how digital Cameras work? If you did you would realize that even though the 2000.00 plastic component in your hand reads camera, it does not record the image as viewed by the photographer. It is analyzed and recorded in 010101010 in code. It does not see the image. It analyzes the code from a on-board database. Film is an organic process.
What I do see is Digital cameras being massed produced. Very costly and a lot of digital photogs now keep saying "My camera is outdated." Even though they bought it 3 months ago. And the funny part is, Digital camera technology has not advanced much since the advent of the technology. Same processor being built. Mostly its I now have 36mp and I can shoot at 3200. But then I have to edit the one photo for 1 hour to get it to look right.
So the debate really should be centered around technology. I can't wait until someone walks up and says, "Wow, is that a pen?" and hands me the new tablet...
 

Pioneer

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Actually, I think it is digital that is dying. Not phones of course but the digital that has attempted to mimic the old film form factors that really made no sense. That is why the smartphone is eating the digital camera's lunch. People have started to realize that they don't need that digital monstrosity sitting in the closet. In fact, not only do they not need it, it doesn't even do what they want to do anymore. The newer models don't either.

What is it they want to do? They want to share. Just like the people who shot slides in the 50s, 60s and 70s so they could put on slide shows. But the smartphone has made it so much smoother. And you don't have to wait until you get back from Rome either. You can do it the moment you take the picture.

So what is left?
 

Sirius Glass

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Actually, I think it is digital that is dying. Not phones of course but the digital that has attempted to mimic the old film form factors that really made no sense. That is why the smartphone is eating the digital camera's lunch. People have started to realize that they don't need that digital monstrosity sitting in the closet. In fact, not only do they not need it, it doesn't even do what they want to do anymore. The newer models don't either.

What is it they want to do? They want to share. Just like the people who shot slides in the 50s, 60s and 70s so they could put on slide shows. But the smartphone has made it so much smoother. And you don't have to wait until you get back from Rome either. You can do it the moment you take the picture.

So what is left?

DSLRs make great door stops, paper weights and boat anchors.
 
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I would like to post my pure, grade A, bonafide, triple-shock-guaranteed predictions for 2015. (come on magic 8-ball)

Film photography will still be based on exposing silver halide crystals.
Film photography will be primarily carried out with older cameras by older people in even older darkrooms.
Some of those older folk will pass and some younger folk will come along to replenish the film photographer stock.
Film photographers will still continue to carry their cameras either in bags, on straps or simply in their hands.

Oops, my magic 8-ball just slipped out of my hand and broke. That's all I got.
 

FILM Ferrania

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So trust me when I say to you that film is not dead. Nor, I think, will it be in another five seconds...

I've been reading this thread with much curiosity, and I feel like I must chime in...

I will preface my statement by saying that our "research" into the size of the analog film market has not been all that thorough or scientific. It's pieced together from US census data, published sales numbers (where they can be found), some anecdotal reports from the "big guys" and some insider knowledge.

Suffice to say that in our view, the "death" of film is greatly exaggerated.

As best we can estimate, the global market remains in the low single-digit billions of dollars per year and relatively stable, even showing some evidence of increasing over the last 5 years.

What IS true is that the market is a tiny fraction of its former size and the customer base is very diffuse. It's also very true that such a reduced market cannot support as many competing or even complementary businesses (from manufacturers down the chain to retailers) as it used to support, so many of these businesses are closing. And yes, it's often tough to find film and get it processed in the old way of walking into a local store.

As someone pointed out in this thread, these facts are true of MANY consumer items in our increasingly globalized and branded world.

But in the long-term view, the market is simply adjusting to new realities. Just like markets do. All the time and since the beginning of human existence. And soon, we all will know the size of the market moving forward and all this extremely destructive and negative debating will cease.


One final personal note that does not necessarily reflect the views of FILM Ferrania:
Going around and proclaiming that something is dead is just plain weird... Like, creepy weird.
 

lxdude

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Roger Cole

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It's particularly weird under the circumstances, like barging into a tiddlywinks forum and proclaiming not only that tiddlywinks are dead but you cannot source "tiddlies" any more and then, when provided with multiple links proving that tiddlies are, in fact, still readily available, accusing the forum of being in denial.

No one disputes that the market for film and traditional darkroom products is a tiny fraction of what it was before digital. No one disputes that there are fewer sources. But there ARE sources, and if you want to use it for artistic reasons or because you just enjoy it, the products are still readily available and easy to buy, at least in the US.

There's some kind of weird cross between Chicken Little and Eeyore here, without the gloomy charm of Eeyore.
 

MattKing

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What if it is a parrot?:munch:
 
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It's particularly weird under the circumstances, like barging into a tiddlywinks forum and proclaiming not only that tiddlywinks are dead but you cannot source "tiddlies" any more and then, when provided with multiple links proving that tiddlies are, in fact, still readily available, accusing the forum of being in denial.

No one disputes that the market for film and traditional darkroom products is a tiny fraction of what it was before digital. No one disputes that there are fewer sources. But there ARE sources, and if you want to use it for artistic reasons or because you just enjoy it, the products are still readily available and easy to buy, at least in the US.

There's some kind of weird cross between Chicken Little and Eeyore here, without the gloomy charm of Eeyore.

I am SOOOOOOO glad you did not refer to them as tiddies.
 

Roger Cole

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I am SOOOOOOO glad you did not refer to them as tiddies.

rofl.gif
 

Roger Cole

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Foma will continious to provide low cost film and papers on all formats and sizes.
This is all I need to know.

The film at least (haven't really checked out the papers) only seems significantly less expensive in the rebranded Freestyle Arista brand. From B&H I just checked out 400 speed 120 to keep the options less maddening and Foma branded Foma is actually thirty cents a roll MORE than HP5+. Only the Holga branded Foma is less and that not by much (twenty cents a roll.) Single rolls of 400 speed 120 vary from a low of $3.89 for the Holga branded Foma to a high of $4.95 for Delta 400.

I'm glad they're around, because I like options and I like to play with some (Arista branded) Foma myself, but I probably wouldn't if I had to pay very nearly as much for it as for Ilford or Kodak. The Arista branded Foma 400 from Freestyle is $3.19, still a full seventy cents a roll less than even the Holga branded film from B&H and proportionately even less than the offerings from Ilford and Kodak.
 
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