Good news for Film

[Drew B.]

I was in a photo/art business today and the owner and I talked about film / digital photography usage. He stated that just 6-8 months ago, the ratio was 3-1 digital to film usage by his customers. Right now, it is narrowed to 2-1 digital, and he hopes it will continue. He also stated that, and maybe someone out there can varify this, when the Bill Clinton / Monica Lewinski affair was in its infancy and still secret, at that event when he was walking amoung the crowd hugging people, there was video being taken but many still photogs were taking pictures but only one at the event, had a film camera...the rest had digital slr's. Most D photogs went through their images that very night and erased most including the hug and kiss of the forementioned participants because they weren't important. Only the film guy had the negative sitting in his file! When the news broke, he supposedly made a bundle...!

 

[copake_ham]

I was in a photo/art business today and the owner and I talked about film / digital photography usage. He stated that just 6-8 months ago, the ratio was 3-1 digital to film usage by his customers. Right now, it is narrowed to 2-1 digital, and he hopes it will continue. He also stated that, and maybe someone out there can varify this, when the Bill Clinton / Monica Lewinski affair was in its infancy and still secret, at that event when he was walking amoung the crowd hugging people, there was video being taken but many still photogs were taking pictures but only one at the event, had a film camera...the rest had digital slr's. Most D photogs went through their images that very night and erased most including the hug and kiss of the forementioned participants because they weren't important. Only the film guy had the negative sitting in his file! When the news broke, he supposedly made a bundle...!

Huh?

I like film.

I like Bill Clinton.

But do you really believe this?

That "hug" would've been about 1997 or so. Film sales peaked in 1999!

C'mon, we need something better than this to call "good news" for film!

 

[DBP]

I have heard that story before. I'm not sure when the press started going digital, but I know they were very early adopters because time is critical for them and image quality is not.

 

[Drew B.]

Huh?
I like film. I like Bill Clinton. But do you really believe this?

hey one out of two aint bad... and this is what I was told...so don't kill the messenger!

 

[kjsphoto]

I also talked to the people at freestyle today and they say film sales are way up. A lot of High School teachers are contacting them and re-build DARKROOMS and buying supplies!

Drew it looks like there is a resurgence from what I have seen even while traveling I am seeing more and more film shooters…

 

[HerrBremerhaven]

I read the Clinton account written by that photographer. It might still be archived at the Dirk Halsted site, though it was a while ago. Apparantly the issue was that many of the photographers did not know who she was, so they did not take a photo in order to conserve film. A D-SLR would have likely been a Kodak body at the time, and near $16k to $20k, with only very few shooters having them. However, where you might be getting a different view of this story is that the original photographer wrote his artilce a few years later, and commented how if it had been the now common photojournalist with D-SLR, many news shooters might have deleted the image in order to save room on their memory cards, or save editing time later before sending in their images. The point I got from that is many shots can easily be overlooked or forgotten in the rush of news events. I think the Alberto Korda, and perhaps a few other early shots of Che Gueverra fall into that realm too.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
Dead Link Removed

 

[Jim Chinn]

I think the idea conveyed in other posts about the Clinton/Lewinsky image was that someone filling a memory card for a specific assignment would be likely pick out what was thought to be the relevant images for a particular assignment and delete the rest from the card or hard drive. A film shooter would be less likely to toss out negatives, thus having the future important frame filed away.

 

[BradS]

hmmm... reminder to self: must improve negative filing and storage system!

Fun story.

It's good to hear something positive now and again. There's been too much negativity of late.

Thanks.

 

[Black Dog]

Hooray for the Rebels! Boo to the Empire!

 

[Andy K]

I must improve my neg filing system too... got a neg of Tony Blair and Jenna Jameson somewhere...