Another friend who manages a chain of photo stores has told me that sales are now 90% digital, and the high end SLR's are just sitting on the shelf.
About a year back I reported that a sales guy in another store had told me that P&S were almost 100% digital, but film SLR's were still selling. I do not know if that is still true.
Locally, here in Boone, film choices are dying rapidly.
I guess it all depends upon exactly where you are located.
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Tom Reese wrote:
"I think it's a very far jump to reach that conclusion. I do not believe that Nikon will abandon the film SLR market. Compact cameras are an entirely different product for an entirely different market. The N5 is too good a camera and has too loyal a following to drop it from the lineup in the foreseeable future. I also believe that there are enough slide film shooters for Nikon to continue to manufacture and market 35mm film cameras.
I am concerned about Pentax though. Their marketing segment is significantly smaller than Canon and Nikon and dropping the MZ-S could be a very bad sign. They seem to be dropping a lot of their product line as inventories run out and it makes me wonder what their plans are."
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Graywolf,
Tom Reese, like many on the list, just don't understand BUSINESS.
He says the Nikon F5 is too good a camera and has too loyal a following to drop it from the lineup in the foreseeable future. He suggests in making that statement that Nikon should keep making something that is not selling, just to make people feel good. Go into your neighborhood camera store (where an F5 is stocked) and ask when they last sold one. The folks behind the counter will look at each other, scratch their heads and probably say that they don't remember when they last sold one. Nikon doesn't have the money to keep making things which are not selling.
He says that he believes that there are enough slide film shooters for Nikon to continue to manufacture and market 35mm film cameras. That's only a prudent position if people are BUYING new cameras. Maybe it's important to slide FILM manufacturers, but not to 35mm camera makers. If they're already shooting slide film, they've already got their cameras.
That word BUYING, that's the key. If people don't line up to buy them, I guess buggy whip makers should still be making them to make people feel better about the buggy whips they already bought.
No, not Nikon, not Canon, not Minolta, not Olympus and not Pentax, can afford to keep making things which are not selling. This year the industry expects that 95% of new cameras sold in the US will be digital. That means that the customers for 35mm cameras are in fact drying up. We camera makers should not keep making anything that people simply aren't buying, just to make current owners of that model FEEL GOOD about purchases they've already made. It's just business.
I've heard no Pentax company announcement or even a suggestion that we're stopping making any 35mm product. I have heard them say (Pentax US) that they intend to order fewer from the factory because we're selling fewer. Ordering fewer for sale because there are fewer sales. Whatta concept. It's just business.
The Nikon F5 is not in regular production. The F100 isn't either. I'll bet the next six month supply is already on warehouse shelves in Tokyo and Nikon is using those production lines to make D70's. Ask your dealer where the lines are these days for these F5 and F100 fine cameras. Ask your dealer where the lines are these days for ANY 35mm camera. Those lines don't exist anymore. It's sad, but they just don't exist. Very few customers are expressing any interest in 35mm cameras these days.
Tom suggests that our dropping the MZ-S would constitute a "very bad sign". If it happens, it'll happen because there are not enough sales of new cameras to keep production lines going. If that happens, it means that they'll have to increase the price (now that it'll cost more to make fewer), until it's much too expensive. I've not heard of the MZ-S being discontinued or, for that matter, of ANY of our 35mm cameras being dropped. I just see fewer and fewer come in. That number is getting smaller because we're ordering fewer and fewer, to address the current marketplace for fewer and fewer. It's just business.
When have I read of some PDMLer excitedly announce to the group that he's just bought a brand new MZ-S? Gee, I don't remember when. Has the market diminished for it? I'd say "yes".
With film going out of date in stores faster than it can be sold and new 35mm camera boxes requiring dusting in camera stores, there must be a message to camera makers...... it's just business. They have stockholders. Merchandise sitting on shelves for months and months is a bad thing.
Nothing personal here, it's just business.
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com/graywolf.html
