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[OM] the demise of film

Subject: [OM] the demise of film
From: "William Sommerwerck" <williams@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 16:24:52 -0700
The demise of silver-based photography is decades away -- if ever.

The majority of digital cameras seem to be owned by women. Why? Because women 
feel uncomfortable (that's the polite way of putting it) loading film and 
taking it in to be processed. Of the many of the millions of digital photos 
taken every day, how many do you think will ever be printed?

I have an Olympus D-620L which I use for Web photos and other purposes for 
which it's well-suited. My IS-30 and OM-4Ti provide flexibility and features 
that no current digital camera can match. Until someone produces a super-high 
resolution digital SLR that can take all my Olympus lenses, or I have a 
pressing personal or business need for such a camera, I'm not going to even 
_think_ about buying one.

(B&H currently has 135-36 400-speed Fuji Superia made in Indonesia for $2/roll. 
If you intend to print all your pictures -- and I usually do -- that's pretty 
cheap. With $7 one-hour processing at Costco, that's a grand total of 25 
cents/shot. Assuming premium paper, that's much cheaper than digital.)

Do you think NatGeo photographers are going to give up Kodachrome? (Well... 
Ektachrome.) Not likely -- especially when digital cameras are even more 
"fragile" than film cameras. (There's no such thing as an "all-mechanical" 
digital camera.)

Why has no one pointed out that digital photography is, psychologically, a 
"throw-away" medium? The incremental cost of an image is close to zero, thus 
encouraging people to snap away without thought or regard. (Not that this 
doesn't occur with film-based photography, of course, but it's inherent in 
digital photography.) The reason that photographers tend to take "better" 
pictures with large-format cameras isn't just the bigger negative -- it's that 
the cameras are harder to use and the film costs much more per shot, thus 
encouraging careful thought before the shutter is released.

Large-format B&W photography as a means of personal/aesthetic expression will 
be around "indefinitely." Digital just ain't the same, nor is it likely to 
become so. On the other hand, large-format commercial color photography is 
rapidly switching over to digital because it's much cheaper and more convenient.

Three-strip Technicolor is one of the great photographic processes (of any 
kind). Some Technicolor films (such as "Scaramouche") are so razor-sharp and 
vivid they make conventional films look positively pallid by comparison.

But color-negative motion-picture film has dramatically improved in the past 20 
years. Modern films have extremely high resolution, no visible grain, and 
considerably more-accurate (if not as "exciting") color rendition than 
Technicolor. They also combine a long tonal scale with high saturation, 
something Technicolor could not achieve. If you don't believe me, watch "Wag 
the Dog," "McHale's Navy," or the final installment of "The Black Adder" (all 
on DVD, of course). You won't believe your eyes.

It isn't clear what effect digital video will have on movies. I haven't seen 
"Episode II" (and don't intend to), but there are already complaints that 
current digital video just doesn't have the resolution to match the best film.

There's also an aesthetic problem -- digital video simply doesn't look like 
film. Film looks "softer" and more "abstract." Video (analog or digital), 
regardless of its resolution, has a hard-edged "reality" that looks too "real" 
to be a movie. Who wants to watch TV in a movie theater?
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