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Kodak Kills Kodachrome
eldavojohn writes "Another sign that digital cameras are slowly phasing out analog comes with Kodak's announcement to discontinue Kodachrome film. This should come as no surprise as Polaroid film was phased out long ago. At least the analog photography industry knows how to change with the times."
But Mama don't take my Velvia away!
I don't care why you're posting AC
Another sign that digital cameras are slowly phasing out analog
this is not a sign of anything. the article is being used by the submitter in an attempt to prove a point that he wants to make. in fact, if you read the entire article the assertion of the summary is clearly not supported. this film is hard to develop and there is only one lab in the US that does so. it also is among the worst-selling film that Kodak makes:
Kodachrome accounted for less than 1 percent of the company's total sales of still-picture films
so the story here is that Kodak got rid of the bottom selling film of their line. companies do that all the time, and this has nothing to do with digital cameras. film is still sold pervasively and easy developed at dozens of establishments in most towns.
It is much, much easier to back up digital for 100 years than it is to back up film.
Film stock is extremely unstable. One of the major problems in preserving old motion pictures is that the reels of film fuse together. (In fact, most active film restoration projects involve carefully digitizing the movies for preservation). If you have carefully separated your negatives, and store them in a temperature and humidity controlled environment, you can slow down the deterioration, but not stop it altogether.
Prints from both digital and film sources are essentially identical - if you use the best technologies (pH neutral paper, etc) your prints from both medium will last about the same time. Unfortunately, of course, people tend to use the cheapest solution, not the best available solution - but that is a market choice, not a failing of the technology involved.
how on earth is this insightful. Your telling me your family doesn't have an album, no wedding pictures, baby pictures ? The fact is they are priceless. I personally have processed 20 rolls of film since last year. The reason being I'm documenting time. If I had a dime for everyone who had a digital camera, a HD full of pictures and not a single hard copy to show for it.
The reason digital camera's are taking over is because it caters to a basic human trait .. laziness !!! I predict there will be a backlash when in ten years when no one no longer has there pictures. I still have pictures my father took back in the 50's not to mention I still have his old camera.
Polaroid is trying to bring back the instant photo, in the form of a small digital camera/printer that can instantly print your digital photo. Sounds pretty cool actually! Polaroid Pogo
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
Historians in 250 years time will be very interested in your holiday snaps. It won't matter that they aren't well taken etc, they will still tell them a lot about life in the early 2000s.
Evade death? Beans! Sometimes photography is just a matter of seeing something you'd like to have a static reminder of. It's not always about leaving some kind of legacy. Usually it's just as simple as "Wow. That mountain scene is lovely. I'd like to see that when I get back to my office every day. " Freakin' cynic.
Seriously, I don't know what's made you so emo, and I was just going to mod you down, but honestly, even people's most banal pictures can become important. I was an Asian Studies major in college and seeing photos from Japan's Meiji and Taisho periods was amazing. These are just family pictures or whatever.
When I lived in Yokohama, the city was celebrating 150 years since the port was opened and had hundreds of photos up of the city throughout that time.
Just because you're having fun in philosophy 101 doesn't mean photos can't be important.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
And then when your basement floods/house burns down/fill in disaster you lose the one single physical copy your have. The advantage to digital photos are it is very cheap to make copies of them, and/or you can store them online so you will never truly "lose" your pictures. Plus I can fit 5,000 pictures in my pocket on a thumb drive without having to carry 500 lbs. of photo albums over to someone's house to look at them. Digital photos also do not degrade with the passage of time.
"But this one goes to 11!"
In other news, the Kodachrome Basin State Park is to beconcreted over to make way for the new Sandisk Extreme IV SDHC Mall. '"The majority of today's consumers have voiced their preference to experience the natural world with newer technology -- both DVD and Blu-Ray", said Mary Jane Vizigoth, president of Kodak's Film, Photofinishing And Other Stuff We're Trying To Get Rid Of Group. "While the Basin is a truly iconic Park that has served tourists very well for decades, the simple truth is that people have moved on and are no longer visiting it in sustainable volumes."
Seriously, this is a terrible shame, though hardly a surprise (here in the UK, we already have to post the exposed film to Kodak Switzerland, who forward it to the only lab in the world that can process the film, Dwayne's in Kansas). It's a bit like waking up one morning to hear that oil paints are no longer available, but acrylics should be an adequate substitute. Kodachrome is a truly unique film that works in a completely different way to any other emulsion, and gives a distinctive 'look' that no other film (let alone digital) can reproduce. Check out The Kodachrome Project to see why some of us will miss it so much.
A $200 digital point-and-shoot will typically produce more noise at ISO's of say, 800 and up than an equivalently priced film point-and-shoot.
The fact that the very best digitals are capable of extreme ISO settings is relevant only to the few who can afford them.
Beyond that, film vs. digital is a pointless discussion. On the one hand, some diehards refuse to see any value in digital, and, on the other, some folks always equate "digital" with "better". Both positions are wrong.
There remains a strong community of film users. Whether film is "better" is not the point. The point is they like film. People who are cellphone shooters and think everything about photography can be summed up in megapixels and resolution might not understand.
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By your definition, no physical medium is analogue. After all, they're all made up of molecules and atoms, and other sub-atomic particles. Electricity (and electric devices) couldn't be analogue, among other things, the electron count is discrete.