>At 08:46 PM 3/14/98 +0000, Ian M. Stewart wrote:
>
>>Delete this if you've heard it before, but the fear I have is that digital
>>cameras, whether from Olympus or not, will replace the P&S and
>>holiday/family snap market to such an extent that film manufacture and
>>processing prices will rise and rise until only the wealthy amateurs and
>>serious glossy magazines will be able to use it. :-(
>
>I think it will come from the other end. Many high end photographers are
>starting to work with digital, but not the type of p&s digital that is
>common today. Digital darkroom is a reality - check out a photographer
>like Jan Faul, http://www.digitalnation.com/faulphoto, who is selling
>digital darkroom prints for $2500. (Digital darkroom here is shot on
>normal film, scanned on absurdly expensive scanners, then the darkroom work
>done in Photoshop, and digitally output onto high quality archival paper.)
>The point and shoot market won't be affected for some time because the
>dominant factor there is cost and convenience (film-in disposables dominate
>sales now anyway) and digital doesn't address that.
>
>But I would expect to see more and more pro work done with all-digital as
>the cost of the equipment comes down, since there are some real compelling
>reasons for them to go digital. These reasons don't yet exist at the low end.
>
>
>Jeff Spirer
>B&W Photos: http://www.pomegranates.com
>Color and B&W Photos: http://www.hyperreal.org/~jeffs/gallery.html
>Axiom/Material: http://www.hyperreal.org/axiom/
>
I would expect that unless there are major technological breakthroughs that
your description of the film based digital darkroom will continue. The
prospect of transporting and using a Nikon N90 on top of a digital box that
is bigger than the camera to make a digital image that will be usable for a
low resolution news photo is just too daunting.
What is likely to come along is a mass consumer service to make prints from
the P&S digital medium. Would not even have to wait an hour. Even if the
standard of image quality is not quite up to a discount store's current,
indifferent film processing quality and if the price point is competitive
with film processing, then Ian may be right. The people with computers
will be printing their own. Consumer film will go out the window and our
film may get very expensive indeed. What most people seem to want is a
camera that is like McDonald's - convenience over product. Look at the
decades of people buying Polaroids. Billions and billions of instant,
green pictures.
Winsor Crosby
Long Beach, California
mailto:wincros@xxxxxxxxxxx
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