Bob, No argument from me that film will be easy to find, it will be at the back of the store or behind the counter in all likelihood, perhaps even by special order only in many stores.
Did you read the article at <http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031223/D7VK80IO0.html> that kicked off this discussion? Disc film was discontinued in 1998! Come again? Who sold it? Where was it? I haven't seen a Disc film since the mid-80s. It reminds me of "The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy", when it was revealed both where Arthur Dent's municipal council and the Vogons placed their respective development plans for public perusal. It won't be easy, but film ~will~ be available somewhere and somehow for at least ten years after the last own-brand film camera from a film manufacturer is withdrawn from sale. You'd better believe that every other camera manufacture is watching Kodak and Fuji ~very~ closely, and not making any major new development in film cameras that isn't simply a spinoff or a parallel development of a digital camera, so that any project investment isn't a total loss if they miss the "ten year bell", i.e. if Kodak and Fuji kill their lines of film cameras without warning. A warning would be if "new" K or F film cameras started to be just minor tweaks or relabellings of existing ones, and no new shapes, chassis or features were forthcoming for a year or two. Don't rule out industrial espionage as a form of information exchange, either. Fuji only recently launched (with Hasselblad) a major new line of medium format cameras. I also believe that they have recently launched, or are soon to launch, a new version of the X-Pan (again jointly with Hasselblad). They will certainly want several years of sales from these cameras. Thus any non-film producing manufacturer can be confident that Fuji is in the ~camera~ business for a few more years, and will therefore be in the ~film~ business for a few more years plus ten. regards, Anthony Farr ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Walkden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Hi, > > no serious business is going to hang large parts of their future > income on that kind of fragile dependency or by sheltering under some > other company's umbrella. It would be impossible to plan for longer > than the very shortest term if they had to keep looking up to see if > Kodak & Fuji were still making cameras. > > It would be foolish to plan any business on the assumption that > consumer levels of film will still be around in 10 years. The mass > market will be all digital very soon. Even if Kodak and Fuji are still > making film, the mainstream retailers won't be selling it. Some film > will still be available, of course - I have no plans to sell all my film > cameras - but you'll have to go out of your way to get it. > > -- > Cheers, > Bob >
