Where would film technology be now?

[AgX]

You know I'm just joking but seriously it was estimated in 2017 1.4 Trillion digital pictues were taken and only 80 million printed.
Or about 0.00005714285% printed, vs the rest seen with colored lights only or stillborn in the world of numerical abstraction.

-) the number of photos taken is hard to establish

-) in 2017 just 1 major finisher printed 2 billion photos

 

[Cholentpot]

You know I'm just joking but seriously it was estimated in 2017 1.4 Trillion digital pictues were taken and only 80 million printed.
Or about 0.00005714285% printed, vs the rest seen with colored lights only or stillborn in the world of numerical abstraction.

To be fair, of those trillion+ photos, most of them were not print worthy. I take photos of things with my phone that I would never have taken with a DSLR let alone film.

 

[jnk]

I'm curious to hear the opinions of some of the experts here...

Where might film technology be now if digital had not come along. Film was a big business, with big money to invest in R&D. Digital has come pretty far in resolution and high ISO performance. How far might film have come along? What other innovations might have been possible for film?

no different than today, but 2x more expensive

 

[gone]

I think film technology has been at a high standard for a long time. Many of the films work great once we figure them out, and they give us beautiful results. So I'm not sure that the technology had many places to go. Instant, POP, B&W, color, there was a lot of different ways to take a photograph at one time.

Some of these technologies stopped production before digital appeared though, so it didn't really change that much. It's not digital that has changed how photography works in this world, it's mating it to the internet that has done the trick. A digital camera isn't that much if you can't send the photos in an email or otherwise get them uploaded for others to see.

Before the internet, to see images we had to look at things in a book, go to where the work was, or hope that a magazine or TV spot might feature it.

 

[Helge]

I think film technology has been at a high standard for a long time. Many of the films work great once we figure them out, and they give us beautiful results. So I'm not sure that the technology had many places to go. Instant, POP, B&W, color, there was a lot of different ways to take a photograph at one time.

Some of these technologies stopped production before digital appeared though, so it didn't really change that much. It's not digital that has changed how photography works in this world, it's mating it to the internet that has done the trick. A digital camera isn't that much if you can't send the photos in an email or otherwise get them uploaded for others to see.

Before the internet, to see images we had to look at things in a book, go to where the work was, or hope that a magazine or TV spot might feature it.

As said earlier in this thread there was the two obvious and very desirable and realistically attainable advances of speed and speed.

Speed as in higher speed emulsions.
And speed as in highly automated and fast development and high quality scanning.

Both absolutely possible.

 

[jnk]

As said earlier in this thread there was the two obvious and very desirable and realistically attainable advances of speed and speed.

Speed as in higher speed emulsions.
And speed as in highly automated and fast development and high quality scanning.

Both absolutely possible.

you forgot speed which bank account is sucked dry when film costs 20-30USD a roll because need to recoup RD costs

 

[Helge]

you forgot speed which bank account is sucked dry when film costs 20-30USD a roll because need to recoup RD costs

There isn’t (and wasn’t) really much RnD to do. Just infrastructure and distribution changes.

 

[faberryman]

Maybe Kodak would have discontinued 35mm in favor of APS. Kodak was also trying to make the film smaller.

 

[Helge]

Maybe Kodak would have discontinued 35mm in favor of APS. Kodak was also trying to make the film smaller.z

Everything APS tried to do, apart from trying to sell sub half frame as an improvement, could have been done with fully compatible 135 compatible cassettes.

 

[MattKing]

Everything APS tried to do, apart from trying to sell sub half frame as an improvement, could have been done with fully compatible 135 compatible cassettes.

Except permit smaller cameras with film frames the same size as available digital sensors.
APS-C was intended to be a bridge between film and the coming digital world, and was assumed to have been useful for a fairly long time, because almost no one thought that the film to digital transition was going to be as swift as it turned out to be.

 

[Helge]

Except permit smaller cameras with film frames the same size as available digital sensors.
APS-C was intended to be a bridge between film and the coming digital world, and was assumed to have been useful for a fairly long time, because almost no one thought that the film to digital transition was going to be as swift as it turned out to be.

DISC was a better and more well considered format.

Half frame had of course been done.
Numerous times it was proved that the difference in camera size between half frame and full could be tiny or non existent.
A Pen F and an OM is practically the same size and weight.
The image quality difference is not as tiny though.

Also the only advantage of a common sensor size is being able to use the same lenses without thinking about it.
The rest of the workflow is so different it makes no sense.

Interchangeable lenses between formats and media (cine film, camera tube etc.) was also something that was well known before digital. Fun, and occasionally convenient but no big deal. And never an advantage to manufacturers.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Before digital cameras became popular Kodak had repeatedly brought out smaller film formats for reduce the silver usage per frame. That goal would have continued to be obtained.

 

[Helge]

Before digital cameras became popular Kodak had repeatedly brought out smaller film formats for reduce the silver usage per frame. That goal would have continued to be obtained.

They brought out formats that made convenient already used formats. 16mm - 110, Minox - DISC.
126 was kind of 135 with the dreaded by moms all over the world, loading of film issue fixed.
220 was 120 not designed for Brownies and folders.

 

[foc]

The only advantage of Disc film was that it made Kodak introduce Kodacolor HR, their first T grain colour film and it also continued on to VR1000, VR100, VR200 & VR400.

It also brought about the improvements in other brands, Fuji HR, Konica SR & 3M HR.

The quality of disc negatives/prints was not good and labs hated them as the film had to be loaded manually for processing and the same for printing. They could be a nightmare in lab production workflow.

I was glad to see the back of them when we stopped processing them in 1990. On the plus side, a lot of customers changed over to P&S 35mm cameras. We even rang a "trade in your disc camera and get a P&S 35mm camera for half price" and it was hugely successful.