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Kodak To Stop Selling Film Cameras In U.S.
MikeDataLink writes "Kodak has announced today that they are no longer going to sell or manufacture film based cameras in the USA or Europe (except for disposables) and instead concentrate on Digital cameras. It looks like consumers have spoken and film is finally going to go the way of the dinosaur."
I have a crystal ball, and I predict most replies to this story will wax romantic about how much better film is than digital.
I personally have never owned, and I have never known anyone who owned, a non-disposable Kodak camera. Not that I debate that they exist, but rather that we should all just keep this announcement in perspective. A film company announcing that it will stop selling cameras is like a shipping company saying it's going to stop selling ships. Much more note worthy is that they were trying to sell them in the first place.
This is what the financial blokes refer to as a false indicator, especially if anyone reads the decline of film into it. Kodak has never been good at selling cameras (well perhaps it the 50s and 60s for a bit). Getting out of that business is a good move for them regardless of the viability of the film market.
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Film is not going the way of the dinosaur...you guys always have to take it to a level. The creative market still has a use for film, and I know plenty of people for whom digital is not yet good enough...
Film still has the ability to store information that digital formats will take years to catch up to. For instance, my grandfather was in the OSS in WWII and had a collection of photographs he gave to me after he passed away. Going to the film (and even the prints), I am able to apply some image forensics pull out detail that would never be possible with digital images. There are street names, ID numbers on planes and names on nametags that I have been able to pull out to date photographs and identify individuals that has been a tremendous advantage in reconstructing his career with the Service. Through this analysis, I have been able to place him in places that history has labeled as occupied territory at time, identify other folks that he worked with etc....
Also, digital photography while convenient has archival issues just like traditional silver based photography and one has to wonder if we are going to have the same historical record 50, 60 or 100 years from now that we currently have.
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There are already too many kids that don't get the line "Shake it like a Polaroid picture" in Outkast's "Hey Ya."
C'mon Konak, Walgreens is sold out and I still need a hundred more for the bulet-time shot in my movie!
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This was to be expected - they have done a great job re-strategizing their business and producing film based cameras is probably not as profitable. Although I'll miss film eventually, when it's really gone - it has a certain look & feel that is very unique. There is also still a lot of resolution left in film that has never been tapped, based on the nano-sized film particles. I wonder if that is a pre-cursor to theatrical film...
I work with both analogue and the digital photo production and can definitely confirm that this is a string global trend. However, the only apparent reasons for people to switch to digital are price and comfort; most pictures people shoot with their jpeg cameras are quite ugly and pixelated..
The editor here reeks of technogeek bigotry. Kodak hasn't produced a really noteworthy film camera since the then omnipresent brownie, anyway.
They still make film, though, and that's what they do best. I don't see Kodak abandoning film anytime soon. Discontinuing classic films like Tri-X, Technical Pan or Kodachrome would only earn them a worldwide boycott from professional photographers. I think they learned their lesson when they discontinued Kodachrome 25 a while back.
It looks like consumers have spoken and film is finally going to go the way of the dinosaur."
How can you make this statement based on the actions of a company who hasn't been a market leader in non-disposable film cameras since the 1940's? I haven't seen a Kodak film camera (barring disposable cameras) since the "Kodak disk".
This is like saying the telephone is dead since AT&T will no longer make telephones.
I recently went on vacation, and my digital camera died right before I left. I picked up a couple of $9 27 exposure disposable cameras in the checkout line of the supermarket.
I took the pictures, came back and had them developed at the 1 hour booth in a CVS. It cost me $22.50 or so to get my 50ish pictures back.
Freaking expensive, plus half of the pictures didn't turn out, and had I had a digital camera I would have retaken them on the spot!
So everything that gets reported must be "human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!".
you can enlarge a 35mm print into a giant poster with no noticeable problems and no pixelation. as far as i know you can;t do that with digital yet, you actually have to have that high resolution. so, kodak is making a big mistake, because they will lose lots of customers who were using their film based products for things like posters etc.. just my two cents
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If they had announced that they won't be making film anymore this would be an interesting announcement. As it is, this is like Cheveron or Shell announcing that they aren't going to make automobiles anymore without mentioning if they are going to stop selling gasoline or not.
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What is really tolling the death-knoll of film-based cameras for the general consumer is the entry of stores like Whalgreens, Costco and Walmart into the digital "development" market. When a digital camera required a computer and photo printer to produce photos you could hold, they didn't make financial sense for a lot of people. But now that you can "develop" a digital picture at the local drugstore for around twenty-five cents, digital cameras suddenly become economically competitive for the consumer taking snapshots.
The cake is a pie
Consumers may have spoken, but what they said was that they prefer to buy their film cameras from Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Minolta, Konica, Bronica, Hasseblad, Mamiya, Toyo, Linhoff, leica, Contax, Horseman, Sinar, Rollei, even Fuji....in fact anybody so long as they aren't called Kodak.
There are some fine art photographers that use film.
For instance, there is nothing to compare to a platinum or paladium contact print from an 8x10 or 11x14 film sheet. I know, it's a nitch area...but this can also be a selling point for a photographer.
For instance, purchasing a print that was made the old fashion way can make it worth more. Also, a platinum print will last forever as long as you take care of the paper it's printed on.
I know that digital is here to stay, but I've yet to see a camera that can last as long as a film camera. For example, a digital camera bought just 2 years ago is almost unsupported and is very outclassed by newer and cheaper cameras. Yet, I could pick up a Leica made 50 years ago and still run film through it! I know several photographers that have cameras passed down to them from their parents/grandparents. Who's going to pass down their Canon G5 20 years from now?
Also, with film, you can pick up an Ansel Adams negative made 80 years ago and make a print from it. How will archiving last that long for digital? CDROM? Isn't the lifespan of a CD only like 20 years at best? You'll have to keep updating your pictures to newer and newer media. They still haven't gotten around that yet.
Just things to think about...
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Remember that joe consumer doesn't care about that. Joe consumer just wants to take pictures of his kids birthday party.
You are right that it will be a long, long time before real photographers use digital. But I believe that we are only a few years before the bulk of consumer photography is digital.
The cake is a pie
Not a very interesting thread IMHO; I'm sure our readers in upstate NY will agree that Kodak booms and busts more than Boeing.
/.'ers but Photofinishing businesses are still doing quite well.
:))
Better managed and more conservative companies like Fuji (a WalMart partner) will gladly take on their market share.
Interestingly; digital film may play well for technologists like
On a side note if you can handle the smell take a tour of a photofinishing lab! They are a geeks dream! Very Cool! Chemistry, Mechanics and Computing all rolled into one Mad Scientist's Dream Lab!
2) Even if big guys like Nikon, Canon and Minolta announced that they would no longer manufacture film cameras, there would still be a huge quantity of cameras left to sell, *AND* you can bet that film manufacturers and developers would still be in business for a loooong time.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
According to some, to get the quality of 35mm analog film you'll need at least 10 megapixels on your digital camera.
You can buy such a camera, but be prepared to spend over 1,000 USD. I'm not so sure film is going to be disappearing any time soon.
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
Kodak is a film copany, almost any camera they make is disposible. The ONLY professional cameras Kodak make at the momment are digital anyway, and even those are Nikon camera bodies, that have had a Kodak CCD/CMOS chip slaped into them.
This is not really news unless Nikon, Pentax, Canon or Olympus decided that they were going to stop film camera production.
One reason for this I can think of: A digital camera is useless with-out a computer. Try useing a digital camera with-out a way to re-charge the batteries!
*for the record I am not Anti-Digital, I am the proud owner of a Canon G5.
The end of film had definately not come, nor will it for a very long time. I know several photographers who take pictures and develop them in their own dark rooms, as a hobby and art form. Artistic photographers will always like developing their own pics, and tweaking the chem, mix to produce that unique look. You could do this with a program/digicam, and there is also a place for that in the art world, but I think there are enough film buffs to keep the film industry alive for just a bit longer. -Kimpak
Such as GPS or EXIF data, which, if it had been available back then, would allow to you place your ancestor within a meter of wherever the photo was taken. Yep, studying those old negatives for hours really has us beat, today.
I don't think this has anything to do with the demise of film. It's about no longer producing products that aren't as profitable as they'd like. If they stopped making 35mm film, then we'd have something notable.
There is something interesting in the press release; Kodak indicates that they will
This looks like an indirect reference to plans for phasing out the production of APS films, which have never caught on to the degree that the industry had hoped.
This isnt "film going the way of the dinosaur", this is "Kodak, a film company which has never made popular or good non-disposable cameras, is giving up and focusing on what it's known for- FILM. (which it is also very good at making)"
Article is -1 troll. FUCK THIS ARTICLE.
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What you may not realize is that Kodak makes a great deal of royalties off of most CCDs manufactured. The have the patents on color filter gels that are placed down with photolithography over the CCDs (and CMOS?) that go into most digital cameras.
I suspect they make tons more on this than any profits from cameras they would make.
That's a bad comparison. You're comparing a $9.27 camera to a digital that costs probably 50 times as much, and the difference in quality and consistancy is to be expected. A fairer comparison would be to buy a $200 digital and a $100 Olympus Stylus Epic fixed lens point and shoot. I assure you, the quality of the Epic will be at least as high as the digital, and when your electronic wonder is thrown away in three years (now really, how long do you keep a computer these days as your primary machine?), your 35mm will keep chugging along for ten years or more, with no degredation in quality. And when comparing the costs of use, keep in mind that an 8x10 sheet of photo paper runs over a dollar a sheet, much more than silver based paper (my archival double weight fiber based black and white paper is around $0.50 a sheet), and people somehow forget the high cost of all those ink cartridges. I'm not saying that digital is worse than film (indeed, for extremely high volume work with relatively low printing resolution such as photojournalism digital is ideal), just that most people don't fully realize the hidden costs of "forced" upgrades and consumables when switching to digital. As a final note, film negatives (well, glass plates) from 150 years ago are still printable. How easy is it to print from 5 1/4 inch floppys? Those old magnetic tapes? Punch card machines? Preserving your pictures for future generations will become exponentially more difficult if digital ever completely replaces film.
Im not hugely clued up on the whole camera thing. But i know for a fact that a 200 dollar SLR camera is going to give far superior pictures than a similarly priced digital camera. The only inconveinience is getting the film developed.
.!
Until high quality digital cameras come down in price i think it will be a while before film dies....
and then there is the whole hollywood movies thing going on too
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Film is better than digital. It's got more warmth.
Even Paul Simon, when he wrote a whole damn song about Kodak film, admitted to using a Nikon camera.
Obviously he loved the film, didn't like the camera.
No big loss.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
I think you're full of crap.
quality: This is a technological question that technology will quickly answer. In the last 5 years, i've seen the first 1Mpixel cameras come out, and now you can hardly buy one, since they've been replaced by much larger pixel sizes. it's common to see 5 pixel digital cameras, and they will only get better.
price: what kind of printed picture are you talking about? you can take your digital media down to wal-mart and for $.26 you can get a print out on the same Kodak paper that your 35MM pictures come on. After that, you can store the images in a digital format of your choice, and print it out again. What happens to analog film after about 10 years?
Different Formats: i guess you don't know you can get different pixel depth cameras. Want a large format digital camera? have you tried looking at sony? Sony makes a Sony DSC-F828 digital camera that is 8 megapixels. That plus a wide-angle lens should allow you to take a "large format" picture. most cameras have different qualities built in, so you can scale the image down and store more on a media stick.
Basically, you sound like you are living in 1990 when digital media was unknown. what kind of research have you done?
read this and you'll have more of an understanding of the differences.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
It's cited advantages where:
1) the film stays in the the cartrigde
2) you can rewind a film that is not fully exposed and use it later again
3) there is some information stored on the magnetic strip (date, exposure, etc.)
4) smaller cameras
Note that the only advantage to consumers is that they don't have to store the film strips but the cartridge. Big deal. Oh yeah, and the film remembers the date.
Which are not really advantages if you consider:
1a) no slides
1b) it's harder to process the film or make prints yourself
2) you can do that easily with normal film right now
3) is totally unnecesary, because it only matters that the film is exposed correctly [1]
4) digital cameras anyone?
Now consider the major disadvantage: A smaller film size (meaning inferior pictures) with a bigger price tag.
[1] I know, the exposure settings do have an impact on the development process, but only if the film is pushed. Photographers who do that certainly don't use APS.
Having said that I wasted $299 on a Nikon APS camera in 1997. I think I shot about a dozen APS films with it, after which it broke.
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B) no mention that Kodak was NEVER a major player in the Pro and semi pro camera market like Nikon, Minolta, and Cannon. They where a big player in the amature market but they havent made a good AND cheap point and click in years, at least in comparison to how good their brownie was.
Honestly it doesnt bother me in that Kodak is getting out of the film camera buisness. where it DOES bother me is that people not in the know about the photography world might take this as a sign that EVERYONE should get out of the film camera buisness which is bullshit.
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Girlfriend on film is just about the right combination.
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Though it is highly symbolic that the company that invented the Brownie will no longer produce cameras, i think the dinosaur comment is a bit premature, and overly dramatic.
1) Kodak is stopping production of film based cameras, not film. They never were heavy into point and shoot 35mm. A lot of competition there. I don't believe they ever manufactured a 35mm SLR. They created and defined Advantix, and I think the most dramatic change will be here, and saying that they're stopping their Advantix camera production spells the end of film is, well, exaggerating. Advantix will go away, not the way of the donosaur, but more the way of the Kodak Disc - a format designed for ease of use, but with image quality and film availability issues. I gave away my Advantix because getting decent low light film is impossible. At one time, the best you could get was 400 speed. Significantly, this was a Fuji emulsion, not Kodak.
All in all, this more spells the death-knell of Advantix, not film in general.
2) Kodak has just released a lot of new film emulsions, in color print, color slide, and B/W variations. Their R&D will probably slow, but it will be a long time before they stop completely. Fuji, Konica, Agfa, and I think Ilford as well have also all released new emulsions in the last year.
3) Many companies are releasing new film SLRs. Canon, part of the vanguard of Digital, just released an updated Rebel Ti (EOS 300), and even a model just under it, the Rebel K2 (not sure of foreign designation) and re-released the Rebel G to get the very low end of SLRs Kodak has released the F55 and F65, and F75 all very recently, while having a very big digital inventory. They're looking to supplement film for now.
4) Though digital cameras have many advantages over film ones and have converts every day, film still has advantages over the current crop of digital cameras, and will continue to do so for some time. These extend from image capture, to processing, to image storage, to print longevity. Film can not be replaced completely until it no longer has advantages in any of these areas.
5) Inertia. People have 35mm cameras, thousands invested in some. Theyr'e not just going away.
As for me, I suspect I will turn digital at some time. I'll buy a Digital SLR to replace one of the 35MM film SLRs that I currently own, and try to sell or give away my old one. Film will slowly change from being the mainstream to being a hobbyist format. It will never become a dinosaur, because there will always be people that feel it gives them something artistically that digital doesn't. The dwindling customer base will affect economies of scale. There will be no new emulsions because you can't justify the R&D, then some unpopular ones will be culled. But there will always be B/W 35mm film, and ther will always people who want to print their own.
Consumers have spoken, and Kodak digital cameras are going the way of the dinosaur. They use proprietary drivers instead of the standard USB Mass Storage protocol most other cameras are using. This means it's extremely difficult to use them under Linux or BSD, even with a current gphoto. And Mac users are too used to *REAL* plug and play to bother with installing drivers, particularly for devices that shouldn't need them.
On the other hand, most UMass based cameras just work. Period. Without installing one damned driver anywhere, I can use it on my FreeBSD machine, my friends PowerBook, and my mom's Wind98SE system.
Having to carry around the Kodak Install CD just so you can grab your photos anywhere other than your own computer, is just silly. It sucks when you're on vacation. It's just another thing you have to remember to pack. "Dear, don't forget the Kodak CD! Remember that Aunt Martha uses a Canon camera instead..."
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Since in the US decent digital cameras for personal use are accessible (price-wise) to Joe User, it seems reasonable.
In most places of the World, though, digital cameras are very expensive (let's remember they're priced in dollars).
Even an El Cheapo is not really "cheapo", and let's remember that such lowest-price devices produce pictures with much lower quality than a simple analog film camera.
The day digital cameras will turn omnipresent will come, but neither Kodak or any company will commit suicide in the other markets around the World.
Next thing you know they'll stop selling flash cubes.
Ask me about my vow of silence!
I have a 4 mp digital camera and I can get prints out of it that look as good as any film camera.
There are a few keys to making good prints from digital:
Good software. To make a print from digital to printer requires scaling and interpolation of the digital data from the camera's resolution to the printer's native resolution (ie 720 dpi) and the paper dimensions. There are half a dozen interpolation algorithms I can think off the top of my head (ie, bicubic, lanczos etc) and the quality of your print *depends* on these. My personal favorite printing software is QImage which uses Lanczos, and feeds the data to a printer driver in managable chunks rather than a quick dump, among other things. Its way, way better than choosing the simple "print" from photoshop.
You also need a properly calibrated printer and print profiles for the specific paper and ink you're using. Any decent commercial service should have this done already, but sometimes the button-pushers at your one-hour photomat don't really know what they're doing.
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I am an advanced photo student who has not gone digital yet for the following reasons: 1. Cost - I've invested close to 2K in Nikon SLR hardware in the last four years and to duplicate such a setup in dSLR gear is EXTREMELY expensive (if I'm talking 35mm quality or better) 2. Quality - film is simply more deailed... i'll just use my negative scanner... 3. Archival: Good film negatives will last 5-10 decades... digital files are good only as long as you can read them. I would love to see a permenent 'negative'-like object for digital (platform independant & exceedingy durable. 4. B&W - to my knowledge, there is no dSLR that captures the 'metallic' aspect of good B&W negatives - and yes, I know that this is an effect of the silver emulsion... I just love it ...however, Kodak's PhD cameras were worthless anyway... just so long as they don't kill TMX-100 or Portra-200
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Why film beats digital
Regular 35mm film has an optical resolution and information depth similar to about a 25 MegaPixel digital camera [1].
A more important measure of film or CCD quality are light collecting power. In photogrpahs light == information. More light collecting power leads to higher resolutions, greater depth of focus, and increased shutter speeds.
Light collecting power allows photographs to be taken at a faster speed through the same lens. To collect the most light possible into a camera, and thus the most information, we usually set the shutter speed to the slowest speed we can without blurring the scene - this is usually 1/90th of a second (Some photoraphers can hold a camera still for 1/45th of a second, normally tripods can do about 1/10th of a second). Then we adjust the other parameters of the camera to match this maximum-information shutter speed. To use up extra light and convert it into information we can increase the depth of focus of the camera (making the hole the light goes through smaller). The more light collecting power the film has, the greater depth of focus the camera can have.
Light collecting power also affects the maximum resolution of film or CCDs. For examle a slide film at ISO25 can capture about 4 times the information of a film at ISO100. The ISO25 film trades light collecting power for more pixels, which can function because there is enough light to expose them. ISO100 film can take pictures faster, because there are fewer picture elements that need the light collecting power, so more of it can be used to increase depth of focus and increase shutter speed for less blurred photographs. ISO800 or 1600 films expose very easily, but are greatly lacking in the resolution of the final image.
So, more light collecting power leads to more ability to collect information, depth of focus, and shutter speed.
How digital can beat film:
Digital cameras have some unique potential which will allow them to beat 35mm film in the near future. Medium and large-ormat digital cameras could potentially rival medium and large format film eventually. One of the potential ways to greatly increase the power of digital cameras is to increase their light collecting ability. Many scenes are relitivly motionless down to about 1/10th of a second, however our hands are not steady enough to photograph them easily. It would be a relatively simple task (simpler than correlating stereoscopic views) for a digital camera to repeatedly sample a CCD durring a long 1/10th sec. shot and remove the blurring and add the sampled frames together. This would greatly increase the light collecting power of the digital camera over film cameras in many regular types of shots, greatly increasing its information collecting ability. This increase in information collecting ability could be traded for increased resolution (if we are near the limit of having enough light to expose CCD elements), increased depth of focus, or increased shutter rates (limited by the fastest possible sampling rate of the CCD).
Granted if the cost is the same I'll go for better quality. However when the cost isn't the same I'll examine if quality is worth it. Todays $200 digital cameras are good enough. Not as good as a $200 35mm, but still good enough. They are likely better than the 110 camera I had as a kid (though 110 was a lot cheaper than $200) Now factor in the convience of digital: I can see the photo right away, and choose which ones to print. That makes the prints cheaper on a per picture taken basis, and likely on a per printed picture basis too.
No the quality isn't the same, but it turns out that digital has now reached the point where most people don't need more.
This is news? Ok, I suppose it is, but it was only a matter of time. Kodak's been laying people off left and right, they already stopped making slide projectors, are loosing contracts for mini-labs to Fuji everywhere, given the kiss-off to their valued dealers, and announced they will not be improving any of their film emulsions anymore. That's right: the Kodak film that's out now is the best it will ever be! Why on earth would they make film cameras anymore?
obviously if you're going to compare medium or large format, you should compare to the digital offerings available for those, which there are plenty of. Large format digital inserts use a type of light scanning, but theres a bunch of ways being experimented with.
Film doesn't necessarily have a higher "resolution" - you can't really talk about it in terms like that. Film has different grain size, certainly which limits how far you can blow an image up without the grain becoming too visible. Which is why there are large and medium format film cameras, and why there are now digital backs available for those too.
In the end it depends on what you want to do with your pictures. If you want to blow a 35 mm up to 8 x 10 and also blow a 5 mp up to 8 x 10, with the correct software you'll notice little difference on the final print between the two.
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We have a 4 megapixel camera. A minolta s404. We can make 4x6 and 5x7 which are quite sharp a detailed and colorfull. We've also made some 8x10s and that really pushing it with 4 or 5 megapiexels, and you can't crop much.
I sugest investing in a photo printer. They're cheap (except the ink) and the output is good. (I have an epson 1270).
I'm not a super digital fan boy, in fact 90% of what I do is film. But digital cameras can be fun fun and has its place.
A good rule of thumb is you want at least 200 dpi for you prints (300 is ideal) Note this has nothing to do with printer resolution. so a 4 megapixel image 2270 X 1700 at 300 dpi is 7 inches by almost 6. At 200 dpi 11 inch by 8.5.
If you read the article, only their film cameras are going away, not the film!!! Matter of fact new film is being developed.
I'll agree film is dead when I can get the same quality photo for LESS than what it costs me now to use my film cameras.
I'm curious though as to how many photographers are just consumer photographers who never look at their prints. Essentially, only take photos to take photos. They don't DO anything with them. They don't appreciate the beauty of the subject, its not framed. Its point, click, done, and never seen again.
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print your pictures on a kodak printstation
Odball parts and formats just don't have value. I looked at cameras in the past and stuck with basic 35mm manual cameras (the ancient ones with the screw on lens. The bayonett mounts were not standard then. (another format war) I still have them and use them. (I have Pentax and Yashika. the lenses fully interchange with no problems) I can use Kodak, Fuji or other film of my choice. I never delt with the pet rock of the month club that locked me into the manufacture for supplies. (Instamatic, Kodak Disk, Instant, Advantix, etc.)
In the digital world I got bit by my first digital that used a propritory battery. (SONY) I gave it away. I didn't do enough big shoots to justify buying 6 batteries at $40 a pop (Li-10 battery) and had enough big shoots (weddings, parties, and parades) that left me dead early in the game. My current camera uses CF (rant all you want, the camera has a large buffer so CF speed is not a issue.) CF is robust. It's the cheapest format and can be found anywhere. The camera uses standard AA batteries I carry 2 sets of Metal Hydride $10/set instead of $40 each and easly found. I take a package of disposables to my big events. I've never run out of batteries or memory. Downloading is no problem even without the camera software. The USB camera connects as a hard drive and the files are JPEG's. They are instantly usable at home or on the road. The memory card can be read at any kiosk or printer I have seen that supports removable media. (excluding of course the SONY memorystick printer)
Lessons learned.. Go with industry standard interfaces. Do not use anything that uses specialty supplies if possible. My last troublesome item is my printer. I can use most any paper, but ink is a problem. Due to this problem, I get my prints at Walgreens or Costco for 19 cents per 4X6 and less than $2.00 for an 8X10. HP does not make home printing a good value. You don't get many 8X10 prints out of the $60 HP78 color cartridge. Go elsewhere for value in printing photos. Don't forget to edit them first to kill red-eye and other problems.
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I guess you haven't seen this yet, then, have you?
Yes, I realize it's not very practical for sports or photojournalism, but this is only going to get better and cheaper. Everyone who's bought a decent digital camera will tell you the same thing: for 90% of my work, digital does the same thing as film, only it's a shitload cheaper, a shitload easier, and offers some fantastic additional benefits. Think of media storage for instance -- storing slides or negs is a bitch, whether you're a pro dealing with cataloging thousands of images for business, or you're an amateur with a dozen shoe-boxes of holiday and travel shots. Digital makes this so easy it hurts.
Now, you can certainly argue the merits of film technology not requiring as much continued investment, but the fact is, the pro-sumer line of cameras that are out now rival film in all characteristics save one: tonal range. The room for new technological growth is still there, but at this point the 35mm evolution to digital is complete.
People that argue about resolution are missing the bigger picture: if I want to do anything with an image, whether digital or analog, the first thing I'm going to do is get it into my computer. That's easier when the format I'm shooting in is already digital. Also, if I'm scanning a slide, even on a *nice* scanner, you're not going to see any improvement over the 5 meg files I get out of my digital body. What you *will* see is lots of dust, which means a few hours Photoshopping. Most of the time, a sub $20k scanner's extra pixels are just interpolation, anyway. There's plenty of software that can do that with low-res images already.
In terms of maturity -- have you seen the long-exposure capabilities of Canon's digital line? Holy-freakin-shit! Even an EOS D60, which is now outdated, can produce 4-minute exposures with no noise. Nothing. Turn the night into day.
Then there's the added benefits for learning photographers. If you want to get good, you shoot your ass off. For the first couple of years, you toss out 35/36 shots. As you get better, you'll slowly lower that, but the fact is, developing that much film is expensive. And as a learning tool, if I'm going to figure out that a blown shot at f/8 would have been perfect at f/11, I need to know right after I've taken the shot. Not a week later when I finally get my film back. And that's only useful when I've recorded the exposure for every shot. Have you ever tried this? After a single roll you'll never want to do it again.
With digital, you get instant feedback as to what you're technically doing right or wrong. Hell, nice pro-sumer digitals offer color histograms of your shots. I can confidently say that with the right teacher, a digital camera will allow an amateur to develop the technical skills of a pro in under a year (now, the artistic skills may never come, but that's another issue entirely).
When you get into bigger boxes (8x10's and the like) you're talking about thousands of dollars of investment for good glass and equipment (and good luck with your processing costs -- you can always buy an enlarger!). Medium format equipment can run you several times more if you want the "35mm experience" like the fancy Mamiya 645's. Frankly, I don't see any advantage to traditional film unless you: 1) Already know what you're doing, and 2) Are currently making a living off of it. And even then I'd recommend it, unless you 3) Have already spent a huge chunk on medium or large-format, and are too unsophisticated to figure out how to "work the eBay".
Kodak's film cameras suck, and always (more or less) have. they make very good film, paper, and associated supplies, but their actual cameras are plain awful. this is pretty commonly accepted by professionals in most areas (i can't say all; i hear they have some film-based forensic cameras that are good if you need that sort of thing). their digital cameras, while not the best available, are pretty good. this is just kodak realizing that they can make more money by selling something they do well than something they do poorly.
what would be real news is if Kodak were to stop producing film.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
And no doubt a few other reasons....
(I've recently just gone back to using film as I wasn't happy with my digital but my concession to technology is doing my own developing, scanning the output and printing off just what i need burning the rest onto DVD's for achiving.)
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.