I accidentally sent this formatted. Sorry. Here is the unformatted version.
The demise of silver-based photography is decades away -- if ever.
The majority of digital cameras seem to be owned by women. Why? Because
women feel uncomfortable (that's the polite way of putting it) loading film
and taking it in to be processed. Of the many of the millions of digital
photos taken every day, how many do you think will ever be printed?
I have an Olympus D-620L which I use for Web photos and other purposes for
which it's well-suited. My IS-30 and OM-4Ti provide flexibility and features
that no current digital camera can match. Until someone produces a
super-high resolution digital SLR that can take all my Olympus lenses, or I
have a pressing personal or business need for such a camera, I'm not going
to even _think_ about buying one.
(B&H currently has 135-36 400-speed Fuji Superia made in Indonesia for
$2/roll. If you intend to print all your pictures -- and I usually do --
that's pretty cheap. With $7 one-hour processing at Costco, that's a grand
total of 25 cents/shot. Assuming premium paper, that's much cheaper than
digital.)
Do you think NatGeo photographers are going to give up Kodachrome? (Well...
Ektachrome.) Not likely -- especially when digital cameras are even more
"fragile" than film cameras. (There's no such thing as an "all-mechanical"
digital camera.)
Why has no one pointed out that digital photography is, psychologically, a
"throw-away" medium? The incremental cost of an image is close to zero, thus
encouraging people to snap away without thought or regard. (Not that this
doesn't occur with film-based photography, of course, but it's inherent in
digital photography.) The reason that photographers tend to take "better"
pictures with large-format cameras isn't just the bigger negative -- it's
that the cameras are harder to use and the film costs much more per shot,
thus encouraging careful thought before the shutter is released.
Large-format B&W photography as a means of personal/aesthetic expression
will be around "indefinitely." Digital just ain't the same, nor is it likely
to become so. On the other hand, large-format commercial color photography
is rapidly switching over to digital because it's much cheaper and more
convenient.
Three-strip Technicolor is one of the great photographic processes (of any
kind). Some Technicolor films (such as "Scaramouche") are so razor-sharp and
vivid they make conventional films look positively pallid by comparison.
But color-negative motion-picture film has dramatically improved in the past
20 years. Modern films have extremely high resolution, no visible grain, and
considerably more-accurate (if not as "exciting") color rendition than
Technicolor. They also combine a long tonal scale with high saturation,
something Technicolor could not achieve. If you don't believe me, watch "Wag
the Dog," "McHale's Navy," or the final installment of "The Black Adder"
(all on DVD, of course). You won't believe your eyes.
It isn't clear what effect digital video will have on movies. I haven't seen
"Episode II" (and don't intend to), but there are already complaints that
current digital video just doesn't have the resolution to match the best
film.
There's also an aesthetic problem -- digital video simply doesn't look like
film. Film looks "softer" and more "abstract." Video (analog or digital),
regardless of its resolution, has a hard-edged "reality" that looks too
"real" to be a movie. Who wants to watch TV in a movie theater?
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