The demise of analog Nikon?

Dirty Looks from the selling floor-

Uncle Bill said:

The sad thing is when you walk into a Henry's, the sales people so want to sell you a DSLR or a digital point and shoot,but....when you ask them what they play with on their own time. That same sales person will then wax lyrical on their Nikon FM2/Leica M3/Pentax what ever etc... usually a film camera.

Bill

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The items being pushed on the selling floor are known as "spiffs" in camera store parlance. Sales associates get special (and often sizable) bonuses for selling certain items. Since their base pay is often pretty low, salespeople are forced to play ball if for no other reason than to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. The fact that digital cameras become obsolete so quickly and cost so much- has changed the photo marketplace considerably, engendering a predatory type of selling environment that didn't exist in photography stores once staffed mainly by lovers of the medium. Even those kindred souls still at work in the neighborhood photo stores look about nervously for fear of being caught engaging in non-revenue generating conversations.
A $2000 plus digital camera will need to be replaced in two years while a sub $1000 analog camera will work flawlessly for 30 or 40 years. Nikon is probably thinking it was a mistake to build all those damn film cameras so well! Photography's former best customers have become a big PITA to retailers. As per usual- profit proceeds principles.

Of course camera stores themselves will become extinct- unable to compete with mass merchandise office super-stores who will offer the lowest priced digital imaging equipment and accessories.

The internet will/has become the prime medium to buy and sell analog photographic items and consumables. It's ironic that the same said digital revolution that has lead to "the demise of analog photography" has also brought with it what will probably turn out to be the most important means to keep traditional photography alive.

I wonder how many active and talented, but completely computer-less and computer illiterate, analog photographers there are in the world? Would ignorance be bliss? Hmmm......

Spiffs don't explain it...

As a camera salesman, I can tell you that spiffs do not explain why salespeople are "pushing" digital. A big spiff is $50, a more common one is 5 or 10 bucks. I can tell you that there are no digital camera spiffs over 15 bucks right now. The primary reason that they try selling you a digital camera is that everyone before you was asking for one and we now assume (rightly) that the next person walking through the door wants what everyone else does. I actually had someone ask for a film camera yesterday, it was the first time in 3 MONTHS that anyone had asked about buying a film camera. Let me tell you, I was more than a little rusty, but I got through OK. The fact of the matter is that film camera sales are a pittance compared to digital, and that is driven by consumer demand, not any sort of conspiracy on the part of retailers, salesmen, or camera companies. People by and large love their digital cameras, the comment "I'll never go back to film" is much more common than "I tried digital and I don't like it." When pressed, it turns out that most of the problems that people do have with digital is camera related, not format related. In other words, they will complain about battery life, shutter lag time, focus problems etc. All of those things can be solved with getting a better camera wether it is film or digital... Anyway, my point is that you can't "blame" salesmen, camera companies, or retailers for consumer preferences. Consumer demand forces the manufacturers to figure out a way to be profitable, they are unable to "foist" anything on the market for too long. To put this back on topic, prepare yourselves for an announcement after the first of the year from Nikon regarding the discontinuance of most of their film cameras. It's only a matter of time, you have to cut the slow sellers...

Isaac

Quinten said:

People buy a camera and a year later they have twice the pixels and buy a new one the next year.

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Pixel count isn't really going up; it has been pretty stagnant for sometime now. What is happening is that DSLRs are getting better software, better battery life, bigger LCDs and larger buffers. But the basic problems with them hasn't been solved - how to pack more pixels into a sensor with adding more noise.

Until they come up with a better algorithim to get rid of the noise problems inherant in high pixels on the same size chip, your going to see current pixel counts remain about the same, it has already been proved that in order to go higher, they will have to go to a larger chip, such as the full frame 35mm sized chip, which Canon and Nikon are both using in their higher end cameras, for the time being as Robert said, your developments are going to be in software, I think for a while 8 meg is going to be a top out point for what is considered a consumer camera.

Dave

isaacc7 said:

People by and large love their digital cameras, the comment "I'll never go back to film" is much more common than "I tried digital and I don't like it." When pressed, it turns out that most of the problems that people do have with digital is camera related, not format related. In other words, they will complain about battery life, shutter lag time, focus problems etc. All of those things can be solved with getting a better camera wether it is film or digital...

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I think you are right; digital works for most people, because most people are not hyper-critical about sharpness, color depth; etc. Most people want what is easy.

One thing I have noticed, is that the pro's I know are using low end digital cameras, instead of the high end film cameras they used to use. I have a friend, who is a commercial photographer in Sydney, who before used Nikon F4, MF, LF, but now uses a cheap (relatively) 2 year old Nikon D100. Another, shoots a Canon D350. Cheap, consumer based camera. I'm sure this isn't always the case, but I'm will to bet that Nikon sold more F5s to pros then they do D2Xs (etc).

One of the reasons you don't see too many full size sensors, and why they are horribly expensive, is that they have an 90+% rejection rate.

What I see is the wannabee pro is buying the DX2 and the Canon D5, it is not the people making their living with a camera, the guys making the living seem to be buying as cheap as possible to maximize profit, but boy I know alot of people that everytime the new upper end camera comes out, they are the first in line to sell their kids to get one, very simular to what I have seen in the past with film cameras, I have seen more F5 and EOS 1V's in the hands of people who could barely work a point and shoot, that I care to remember!!

Just comes down to the old saying a good photographer will take good photographs no matter whats in their hands, and wannabee will always think it is the camera!

LOL

Dave

roteague said:

I think you are right; digital works for most people, because most people are not hyper-critical about sharpness, color depth; etc. Most people want what is easy.

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Yeah, I often times compare the current all in one digicams to 110 film. Often times the results are pretty nasty, but most of the time they're good enough for what they want to accomplish.


Isaac

I am constantly reminded of Herd Tarlick (WKRP in Cincinnati) fame.

"Tasteless sells"

It's a simple fact of life that digital cameras, from P&S to Pro, both new and used are outselling film by at least 10 to 1. I have been shooting film (35mm) for 60 years and don't own a digital camera. I am also confident that, should any of my current equipment fail, I can replace it in the used market. That being said, and given my age, I don't have to worry about the market 30 years hence. What does worry me is the film market. What new developments in film have we seen in the last 15 years? What about the availability of a wide variety of film, especially at local retailers? And assuming you don't do your own developing, what about the future of the high quality labs?

Mike.

blumesan said:

It's a simple fact of life that digital cameras, from P&S to Pro, both new and used are outselling film by at least 10 to 1. I have been shooting film (35mm) for 60 years and don't own a digital camera. I am also confident that, should any of my current equipment fail, I can replace it in the used market. That being said, and given my age, I don't have to worry about the market 30 years hence. What does worry me is the film market. What new developments in film have we seen in the last 15 years? What about the availability of a wide variety of film, especially at local retailers? And assuming you don't do your own developing, what about the future of the high quality labs?

Mike.

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I am not worried about it one bit, my local lab is committed to their film customers as well as their digital customers, as far as development in films, I have seen several new emulsions come to the market in the 20 years I have shot to make a living, so I am not worrried at all.

Dave

blumesan said:

What new developments in film have we seen in the last 15 years? What about the availability of a wide variety of film, especially at local retailers? And assuming you don't do your own developing, what about the future of the high quality labs?

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Actually, quite a lot. Fuji has updated all their films, in just the last 2 - 3 years, with a couple of new transparency films (Velvia 100F, 100). Kodak has a new version of Ektachrome (VS100) - I'm primarily a Fuji user so I am not aware of much Kodak does. Several new B&W films; like Efke and others. You probably won't be able to get them at the local corner camera store; at least not in the immediate future.

Same with pro labs. I highly recommend Calypso Imaging in Santa Clara - I use them for all my 4x5 tranparency processing.

You may have to work harder at finding the choices, but they are there. It it too easy to look at all the negative news, without realizing that the photography market is changing, so we have to change as well.

ann said:

can expect , what?
is there something left out from this sentence?

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Ann, I think he's being facetious.