In early 2016 Toru Takahashi, Director, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Fujifilm's Optical Device & Electronic Imaging Products gave a major presentation about Fuji digital cameras and the overall photography market, etc.
He included some stats like the demand for photographic film(all formats) peaked in the year 2000. Sixteen years later it had shrunk to less than 1%.
In the glory years of film Kodak used to sell billions of rolls worldwide. That shrunk to a couple million before Kodak had to sell off a lot of patents and fire most of the company staff before filing for bankruptcy. Kodak is now a tiny mirror of its former self.
The uptick in film interest is welcome news but this is still a tiny portion of image creation worldwide. The news of a new Ektachrome is interesting but remember that the percentage of slide film use (pre digital) was much smaller than print film. It's strange to read about excited film camera owners saying "wow, I can dust off my old Nikons and shoot Ektachrome again" like there is no other slide film currently available? Back in the day many slide film users preferred to shoot Fujichrome.
Film will continue to get more expensive each year. The base of enthusiasts will probably pay the price. But any current increase of film use by some small segment of the photography world might not sustainable long term. Is this a real trend or some kind of hipster fashion? Who knows? But there is going to be increased pressure on traditional camera manufacturers like Fuji. Fancy phones are killing off general film and cheaper digital camera demand. The manufacturer focus might zero in on fancier digital cameras with higher prices. If budgets get crunchy we might see the day when Fuji stops making film? It might never happen or it could end in 5-20 years? Niche market companies like Agfa might hang in there longer. Black and white, which is easier to produce, might last longer than color film.
Is there any realistic demand for new film camera development? I doubt it. Most film users are currently shooting with cameras made years or decades ago. One of the advantages for film shooters is how cheap used cameras are. Is there real money being spent on developing new scanning technology like there is with digital cameras? It's interesting that some of the popular scanners that film users deploy are also old, even old enough that you need an ancient computer OS like Windows XP to operate them.
I really hope film survives. Film use helps keep these old cameras alive. If film production really collapsed then camera repair businesses will also rapidly decline which would be a shame.
I have two 4x5 cameras, a 6x7 MF system and several 35mm film bodies. I really do not use them anymore, but this spring I would like to head out with my Busch Pressman D 4x5 and old 135 Dagor lens from the early 20th Century and see what I can come up with...
Jan 17, 2017 at 04:16 PM
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