Whats happening with the LF market?

I was just reading about advances in rapid, custom manufacturing and the new breed of computerized milling machines. In a few years we might be able to order a custom-made, one-off camera camera built to easily modified specs and programs. Perhaps someone will reverse engineer an Arca-Metric and combine it with some other nice bits to fashion their ultimate personalized camera... Excuse me while I download the latest diagrams from Sinar...

I can vouch for the 25-35 market, there's still a fair number of us moving up the format scale instead of going digital. I've lent out all my 35mm stuff since I never use it anymore. As was stated, we sit in front of a computer all day (even in the construction field) and have no desire to go home and do the same. I use a digital at work all the time, but really know nothing about its features (and have no interest to either).

Jim Chinn said:

I personally believe that when we are "forced" to create our own film and emulsions through very small custom mfgs, we will discover that the creative potential of designing emulsions and coatings has barely been touched.

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I think this may be true for B&W. Small companies that do not rely upon markets of scale will be able to offer very interesting products. Unfortunately, I suspect they will be far more costly.

I also believe that film in general is still a very fertile media that hasn't been fully penetrated (sorry I couldn't resist). The advent of digital may release it much like the camera did for painting a hundred thirty years ago.

mrcallow said:

I also believe that film in general is still a very fertile media that hasn't been fully penetrated (sorry I couldn't resist). The advent of digital may release it much like the camera did for painting a hundred thirty years ago.

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Very true. Once photography became the source for realistic representations of subjects, artists began to move away from figurative and realistic styles. I think this is especially true of the early 20th century. Cubism, Dadism, and early abstraction were all "liberated" from the mind of the artist in a large part due to photography.

For me, I grew up with 35mm system, I am still using it.
By luck, I found this community, I can't believe how it helped me with my photography. Now, I am thinking about move to large format in order to chase my dreams. I don't care if all my friends were using digi-cam. To me, the hands on experience and the joy of produce a fine print are what I'm going after.
Happy shooting to all apugers!

I'd like to know the demographics as well. In the US I knew more LF users under the age of 35 than over, and I lent out some of my pieces to fan the flames. Though I recently crossed that age divide, I think I can still safely speak for them. We sit behind monitors all day long, so playing with PS is nice, but reminds us of work. On the other hand, my other hobby/income, ham radio, was just the opposite. Practically nobody younger than me got into it except as part of an emergency management group of some sort. The accessability of LF due to eBay and the fact that you can hand someone a 4x5 slide and say - 'that's about a half a gig of data in analogue form there' as well as the chance to do something completely different... oh yeah, it's also a good way to meet women (as opposed to girls) in NYC as they'll break the ice.