Is film photography finished?

[KenMiller]

Not to beat a dead horse, but considering its relevance from a different perspective...

I was catching up on some reading this evening and happened across a WSJ article from a couple weeks ago about Kodak.

By the end of this year, the number of Kodak employees will be roughly 28,000. That's down from nearly 80,000 employees at the end of 2001.

The overwhelming majority of those layoffs has been in the film manufacturing and processing areas.

In 1984 they had 145,000 employees.

[BT Technologies]

Not to beat a dead horse??

[KenMiller]

You're gonna get **** for that one!

[richwood]

Originally Posted by KenMiller

Took me a minute to figure out O/T was likely "Off Topic."

I misunderstood the intent of your original question Brian. I thought you were asking, in essence, if there were any "practical" value to 35mm film cameras. There will always be advocates for nostalgic reasons.

I think it's clear that if you have an application at ISO 50 or less there may still be a practical advantage to film but even that is likely to disappear soon (in the 35mm format).

There might continue to be a practical application in circumstances where battery power is a problem. My experience in those circumstances though is that proper storage of film is an even bigger problem.

Interestingly, I was in a local camera store in a mall a couple days ago and saw a guy trying to buy 8mm movie film - not even Super8 - he specifically wanted plain old 8mm! I think I last used an 8mm Bolex circa 1975 for some frame-by-frame animation.

Which is a great segway for claiming that motion photography leads still photography regarding technology and it appears that film is rapidly falling by the wayside in that application.

Ken;

Interesting. After reading your post I did a google search and original format 8mm film is still available. Amazing what can be turned up via an internet search.

I agree though that digital took over from home movie film more rapidly and more thoroughly than it has in still photography, at least at the amateur level and certainly for the TV studios and reporters. One huge advantage is that virtually all digital movie cameras include sound recording and very few amateur level film cameras ever did so far as I know.

richwood

[spit]

id like to sale my pentax ME and accessories, i held off when i got my canon DSLR because of no special reasons- i realized after a couple a years the pentax will just sit in storage now- i made the mistake of waiting because they had more value before-right now id rather just get rid of it and pick up a used XTi

[optwebman]

A few years ago there was a movement to capture film and film cameras and it lasted several months. This was the time when you could still get a great price for your used equipment. ebay was flying, OPT could not keep film cameras new and used in stock and the older the better as collectors went and then suddenly it all stopped. It was over in a flash so to speak and then the prices went right down the drain. I knew some people that just donated their cameras to the schools on equipment that sold a few months earlier for 400 to 500 dollars. As I've read these post I do believe that SLR film cameras someday again will be worth their weight in gold but using film to capture deep space object I have to say so long.

OPTwebman