I'm having a hard time swallowing the fact that film will be disappearing any time soon. I'm also having a hard time understanding that even film P&S will disappear either. Throw away cameras that probably require the same processing are also very hot items for the occasional family photoshoot. My reasoning is based on plain old dollars and cents. I'm not sure the majority of any public is ready for shelling out the dinero for digital cameras at today's prices. Consider that you can buy a 35mm P&S for $35 and a pretty decent one for under a $100. Also consider someone can break into SLR market for under $200 or less. In the case of P&S which is the real mass producer, I'm guessing that would be 5 to 6 times as much. Going on the Canon Rebel price about 4 times as much for SLR. I'm thinking the purchasers of digital cameras in general are a lot more serious about photography then the average person. What percentage of the total market does this cover? I realize prices will keep coming down, but will they ever really compete with film-based equipment on this level. Does or will the AVERAGE user actually even take enough photos to justify the price. Whether you print in your home or have prints made, processing still costs about the same. Based on this line of thought it might also be feasible to easily saturate your market if it does not really include a wide population base. I can't remember where, but I have seen it in print that others think the digital market may be overrated and easily saturated. The one thing they have going for them is I would bet the digital cameras won't last nearly as long and will have to soon be replaced. If not for that because they are soon be outdated. You would think these manufacturers would have done their homework in statistics, but you never know.
If any line would be discontinued I would expect it to be prolevel film SLR equipment as this market probably will switch to all digital very soon. This line of thinking would lean towards more film SLRs, but expect them to be of the *ist variety. Fortunately they will still all burn the same film that we also use in our better cameras. Although probased film lines may well disappear...ugh! A plus for film is the amount of R&D that is still going into film scanners as well. I'm actually surprised at the amount of enthusiasm on this list for this modern equipment. For some reason I always pictured the average Pentax user as a more conservative type of photographer that enjoyed the manual cameras without autofocus even. One last point, I've been considering going to the New England School of Photography in Boston, and according to the agenda on their website an awful lot of work is still being emphasized in the old fashioned darkroom. Why would they continue to teach this if it was obvious that digital is the future? Dave ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Stenquist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 1:08 PM Subject: Re: Nikon to stop selling film cameras in Japan... > On the Leica forum, someone reported that Nikon has denied the rumor. > > On Friday, November 14, 2003, at 09:17 AM, Rob Studdert wrote: > > > On 14 Nov 2003 at 12:11, Sylwester Pietrzyk wrote: > > > >> Well, it just happened: > > > > Is anyone really that surprised? > > > > Rob Studdert > > HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA > > Tel +61-2-9554-4110 > > UTC(GMT) +10 Hours > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ > > Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998 > > > >
