As far as growth, marketing, and sales efforts are concerned, you're right.
But film will be here for many, many years to come, it will just continue
to get pigeonholed to a niche market with the P&S's, disposables, die-hard
amatuers, and people who don't want to drop $$$ on all the goodies
necessary to do digital "right". That will keep the industry alive for a
long time and peacefully coexisting with digital.
The big question is how long will it take for the CCD to die or be
relegated to the low-end market and for CMOS and the Foveon X3/other
multi-layer sensors taking the high ground.
Skip
You are right of course, but the new high priced digital looks to be
roughly equivalent to 35mm. A couple of years should give us cheap
versions and expensive ones that start to rival medium format. Most
of us went to Oly OMs for their high quality with with originality in
the package. I can't imagine many continuing with them when they
know that the image produced is inferior to a new reasonably priced
digital camera. You will be able to add most of us to those who have
already made the plunge and are just upgrading.
When that happens the film available may be just the discount/drug
store varieties to go with the P&S's. Even that will get shaky if
someone decides to get serious about walk in digital processing for
people who do not want to mess with it themselves.
After spending the week end tediously scanning a couple of boxes of
slides, I have to say that the idea of a digital camera began to look
more attractive. I really need a new faster computer too. Argh.
--
Winsor Crosby
Long Beach, California
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