35mm - One Step Closer to the End

Anonymous Coward writes "A colleague of mine just pointed out that Nikon UK has posted a press release here indicating that they are all but ending production of their 35mm film cameras, medium- and large-format lenses and enlarging equipment. The F6 35mm SLR will remain in production and be available in Europe and America, and the all-mechanical FM10 will be available outside of Europe. A handful of manual lenses will remain in production as well. Film in general isn't going away any time soon as digital cameras cannot replace medium and large format cameras, but this is clear evidence that the resolution and popularity of the digital medium have surpassed that of the 35mm format. 35mm took another step into the grave."

Comments

35mm film users, take note

[winkydink]

Though it still blows me away. I mean you can get a fantastic 35mm film camera for less than 1/2 that of a digital. I don't know, maybe Nikon has a cheap D30 in the works or something, but barring that, the barrier to entry into the realm of SLR's is about to get a good deal more expensive.

i say good day sir

[caffeinemessiah]

I beg to differ. While camera manufacturers may stop selling their film SLRs, a lot of pros/semi-pros will stick to film. Here are some reasons, in brief:

1) Film STILL offers better resolution, although this won't last for long. I believe its close to 22 megapixels, although this is not for sure.
2) Some photographers just love the grain of B&W developed on Tri-X or T-Max film, which doesn't use the C-41 process used for Walmart shit.

There are more, but it's been a long day...

Anyway, I've been using my Canon EOS 10s film camera for years and will continue doing so, mainly because it inculcates a whole new ethic -- you can just snap away and hit the delete button when you find something ugly. Film forces you to think in artistic terms BEFORE you click, and there's a definite cost associated with clicking the shutter release. I believe it makes better photographers.

Why do people still use vinyl? Don't kid yourself -- 35mm film is not the floppy disk. It's not going to die anytime soon.

Re:i say good day sir

[proxima]

Do pro cameras force lossy compression as well?

No. Digital SLRs (pro cameras and higher end consumer cameras) can take pictures in "RAW" format. The exact structure of the file format varies (though some are trying to establish standards), but the file basically contains the data that the sensor receives. Post-processing is left for the computer, which allows a great deal of freedom.

The biggest problems with taking all your photos in this way are that they're large (very large, relative to JPEG), and you either must use proprietary camera software or plugins for software like Photoshop (I'm not too current on this, perhaps Photoshop supports more formats natively than before). The greater size means not only fewer images on your card but a longer time waiting for your camera to write them to disk, and more processing power for your computer to work with them.

My wife owns a Canon 20d, which takes absolutely awesome photos (it is also used by some photographers for various purposes). She shoots in high-quality JPEG because RAW just isn't enough of a benefit for her photos. Most software (I believe) is good about not layering on the JPEG compression with each save (just once per session). Still, I often wonder why these cameras don't include a non-RAW lossless format like LZW-compressed TIFF as an intermediate option (my first digital camera, a 1.3 MP Olympus point and shoot, could take TIFF). I suppose TIFF has most of the disadvantages of RAW with few of the advantages, but a choice would still be nice.

For more info about RAW image formats, see this Wikipedia entry.

Resolution

[Shimmer]

The resolution ... of the digital medium have surpassed that of the 35mm format

This just isn't true. I've switched to digital as well, but the resolution of 35mm film is roughly 24 megapixels. This is still 3x the resolution of the best consumer digicams.

Moreover, Moore's Law does not apply to the sensors used in digital cameras because they are essentially A/D converters. It will be very difficult to increase their resolution much further without introducing unacceptably high levels of noise.

Re:A sign of change

[ottothecow]

I'm not sure quite why you shouldnt trust zillions of reviews. If there were that many it woudl mean each person on earth has said more than several times that digital is comparable/better. Or maybe you should trust the professional photographers who have switched. The ones who no-longer have darkrooms in their studios and always sway their clients towards digital (and thats not because its less work for them, when you shoot digital, YOU do all of the post processing in photoshop rather than the pro lab you send it to). The time has come, cameras are outdoing film grain (especially at high speed). You may need a scanner of higher resolution than a camera to get a good scan but that is because the grain does not match up to pixels so you have to go higher resolution. It sounds pretty hard-core for Nikon to drop film this early but it will eventually get to the point where the only people who use 35mm are people who dont need the added features next years body would provide (they can still use new lenses, at least for a while) as they are changing the settings themselves and dont need a computer to do it for them.

I went back to film

[Deep Fried Geekboy]

I recently sold my (mind buggeringly expensive) Canon 1Ds and went back to all-manual film cameras. Not 35mm, though. In larger formats film still has huge advantages over digital in terms of quality and enlargability. The lack of battery dependence is also incredibly liberating. It is horribly expensive though. With the exception of my Panasonic LX1 digi, I now don't own a camera which isn't completely manual... a Linhof 4x5, a pair of Fuji 6x9 rangefinders, a Rollei SL66, a Noblex 6x12 and a Leica M4-P. The Leica is the only one that doesn't get used on a weekly basis... but the last time we had a huge power outage I was enormously grateful for it.

Pix here, here and here if anyone's interested.

I'm surprised

[AFCArchvile]

Nikon's the company that held onto its lens mount for all these years, and Canon seemed to be the more prominent one in the digital field (or at least more prominently marketing in the northeast US, with all the Digital Rebel commercials, and all the press/sports photogs with a Canon EOS 1D and some kind of big L-Glass lens). I would've expected Canon to throw in the towel on film camera production, but Nikon? The company that was (perhaps up to this point) still manufacturing the FM3A manual camera as new?

Yes, digital is faster, and the wave of the future, etc., etc., but there are some areas where film cameras still have an edge. In particular, range of sensitivity: you can load ISO 50 slide film, or ISO 1600 negative film (but of course it's a bit grainier as you go up in ISO). Battery life is much better, especially if it's a manual-drive camera; IMO there's nothing more annoying than your camera dying after its eighth picture of the day. And each frame uses a brand new area of film, instead of the same CCD sensor over and over again. Once a pixel goes out, it's either time to live with that dead pixel, or an expensive shipment to get it serviced.

This is a bit of a disappointment, since one of the big two players is deciding to bow out. There's still Canon, Pentax, Leica (at their price, you're better off getting a medium format kit), among others. Olympus backed out of film a while ago. There's still plenty of film being manufactured (though there seems to be rumors of Kodak stopping production soon; I use Fuji, so I don't mind that much), and there's still decent 35mm film scanners that cost less than a digital SLR body alone. And of course there's the search for a decent and inexpensive E-6 film lab in the US (E-6 is the slide film process; the drugstores and chain camera stores almost always handle only C-41, which is negative film).

My favorite has to be shooting with Velvia slide film. My friends all say "Slides? Didn't those go out in the 70's?" Then I show them the 4000 dpi scan that I took of the slide, and the 20 x 30 print made from the slide. Yes, digital could do it too, but the body alone would've been above $1300; I'd rather spend that on a lens.

Except Moore's law does not apply here

[melted]

Except Moore's law does not apply here in its original form. You still have to maintain pixel surface area to capture light. Barring something revolutionarry, I don't think we'll see much of an improvement over what's currently available on the high end.

FIlm is dead?

[littlebitsofpaper]

Lot of good stuff here but as a fine art and commercial photographer using both I'll let you know its all about the final product. I shoot all formats up to 4x5 and for me it comes down to what's convenient and what is going to work. The digital lets me work faster in the field and usually lets me get proofs to the client faster; it's also great in the studio to set up a shot I'll want to commit to 4x5. Some work simply lends itself to digital - weddings, sports, product stuff some portrait work. For the majority of the fine art work it's simply a choice - what do I feel like shooting today. I've made fine digital prints of 30 x 40 off a 4 megapixel G2 and a 6 megapixel 10D. I often go to 16x20 with 35mm - yeah it gets grainy but sometimes I like it like that. With digital I've shot a lot less 35mm film - but I also do all my own processing either way - film or digital. I love 4x5 prints - I love the tonal range and resolution. By the same I also have shown plenty of digital shots in galleries and seriously most of my buyers can't tell the difference between most film and digital the way I work it. That's the real point here - just a tool - I would be a far worse digital photographer if I didn't have an extensive background in the darkroom. It's the whole "what camera are you shooting" issue - great tools in the hands of an idiot still produce poor work ...