How much longer can photographic film hold on?
http://beta.news.yahoo.com/much-longer-photographic-film-hold-162516670.html
Hmm . . .
I think there will always be a niche market for film.
I do not think that digital will ever be able to fully replace film.
Take a 12 megabyte digital camera. Pretty much state of the art, right?
It’s been said by those who study these things, that a 35mm negative contains over 100,000 megabytes of information.
A good question, especially as I have about $5000-worth of Nikon equipment, now mostly paperweights. I LIKE film, but it is getting VERY hard to find the stuff - for instance, Kodak slide film has to be returned to Rochester NY from all over the world for processing now. I stopped taking slides maybe 20 years ago, but a pal of mine who is a total Luddite goes through this every time. He has bought up ALL the stock he could find in a main dealer in near-by Cambridge - around $2500-worth - and has installed a large refrigerator in his shed to keep it in.
There is something hard to define about a photographic image, but it is the elusiveness of it, based, as it is on the reaction of a thin layer of silver-particle soop on a backing, rather than the cold mechanism of a pixel. As a professional imagery analyst, it will be hard to admit that digital can be better, but it is certainly more easily manipulated in a programme.
However, Steve, the difference between the domestic digital camera and the professional electro-optical camera/sensor, as ever, is vast. A 12 Mb camera bears no comparison to the 10Gb of a military recce sensor, and that was five years ago. It’s hard to carry a one-foot square sensor in your pocket…
tac
The big reason film will hold on is resolution for large formats. Years ago in photography class, the instructor said that the reason that you can blow up negatives into humongous prints is that the resolution of the photograph is nearly at the molecule level. There’s no way to get that kind of resolution in digital format.
At the risk of taking this to a Film Vs. Digital debate, I’ll say this; For me, film is over. It has it’s place as Bob mentioned, but for the amateur and snap-shot photographers (which I would guess accounted for about 80% of film sales) digital is just so much simpler in all areas. No film cost / storage / transport issues, easy image manipulation and easy storage of archives are just a few of the reasons why I will never go back to film. At the other side of the argument are images like you find on Shorpy. There’s no way you could ever get the detail seen in these photos with a digital camera. For the sake of the art I hope that film, in some form, survives. Here’s a great example from Shorpy… Lo-Res preview
(http://www.shorpy.com/files/images/4a20382a.preview.jpg)
Info Page: http://www.shorpy.com/node/9955 Super Hi-Res: http://www.shorpy.com/node/9955?size=_original
I guess I’m still old fashioned. I still use and like my 35mm camera and mainly for the simple reason, I can run up to the corner to the CVS and in an hour have 24 real, solid, permanent images in my hand…(plus digital copies for a few bucks more)…for around 6 bucks… 
I like the digital for it’s convenience, simplicity and versatility, but like Jon said, it’s used mainly for snapshots.
The digital will run it’s course and film will re-surface.
Right now, vinyl records are on a comeback. There’s a couple of companies pressing them and they can’t keep up with demand.
Used record shops are popping up all over the place.
If the reviewers are to be believed: the really highend of the digi cameras (Hasselblad and …) are almost to the “can’t tell the difference” point in the professional picture quality department. At a slightly higher price than an EOS. 
All the rest I agree with Jon, it has never been better!
Well, let me say this, TV hasn’t yet made movie theaters vanish.
Forrest Scott Wood said:No, but it forced them to adapt. How many single screen theaters still exist running a regular film schedule? Only one near me. And the 10 screen place put the 5 screen place out of business in 2 years. Most movie goers are young people. Often they don't decide what movie to see until they arrive at the theater, thus the more choices the better.
Well, let me say this, TV hasn't yet made movie theaters vanish.
Look at record stores - All the big chains are gone and lots of shelf space in the big retailers (Walmart etc.) has been re-assigned to DVD’s and Games. As John pointed out there is some new interest in vinyl, but CD’s don’t sell well any more. Singles rule once again, but not on vinyl like the 45’s we used to buy. Now they are digital MP3 files delivered instantly over the internet.
Let’s face it. WE ARE OLD !!! {except you Shawn ! }
tac said:
A good question, especially as I have about $5000-worth of Nikon equipment, now mostly paperweights. I LIKE film, but it is getting VERY hard to find the stuff - for instance, Kodak slide film has to be returned to Rochester NY from all over the world for processing now. I stopped taking slides maybe 20 years ago, but a pal of mine who is a total Luddite goes through this every time. He has bought up ALL the stock he could find in a main dealer in near-by Cambridge - around $2500-worth - and has installed a large refrigerator in his shed to keep it in.There is something hard to define about a photographic image, but it is the elusiveness of it, based, as it is on the reaction of a thin layer of silver-particle soop on a backing, rather than the cold mechanism of a pixel. As a professional imagery analyst, it will be hard to admit that digital can be better, but it is certainly more easily manipulated in a programme.
However, Steve, the difference between the domestic digital camera and the professional electro-optical camera/sensor, as ever, is vast. A 12 Mb camera bears no comparison to the 10Gb of a military recce sensor, and that was five years ago. It’s hard to carry a one-foot square sensor in your pocket…
tac
Yabut…
how much information does an 8 X 10 film sheet hold? Ya gotta compare apples to apples.
Quote:No, but it's hard to carry a 4 x 5 SpeedGraphic in your pocket, also. A 18mp 35mm camera will not hold a candle to a 4" x 5" digital array any more than 35mm film could hold a candle to a 4" x 5" glass plate or negative. That's why the "serious" photographers of the day used 4" x 5", 8" x 10", etc. large format cameras to capture their images. And they had teams of people to help them carry all that stuff.
...t's hard to carry a one-foot square sensor in your pocket...
Having shot models in both 35mm film and 35mm digital, I’d never go back to film. The detail you see in the digital image is far sharper and more defined than you could get in film. Here’s the thing, though… Probably 99.9% of us will never use our digital cameras in an environment where that advantage actually manifests itself. You’ll never notice the difference on a 4x6 print or in the pages of a magazine. The resolution of the printed media isn’t crisp enough to demonstrate the difference. And you’re not posting 18mp worth of data on your Facebook albums. As much as I love to see 12, 14, 16mp point and shoot cameras, they don’t need that much resolution.
Film for still photography won’t die, but it’s going to be a very small niche market the way large-format black & white photography and darkrooms have gone. Film for the motion picture industry will probably hang on a while longer, at least for acquisition, though digital formats are fast making inroads there, too. Playback is just beginning to go digital, with movie theaters installing digital projection systems (and charging a premium for them). I’d imagine in the next 20 or 30 years, people will say “film?” in the same way we say “corded telephones?” today.
Later,
K
I have both Digital and Film cameras. It depends on what I’m shooting or trying to accomplish. My wife (who is an artist) only uses film. Film depends on the skill of the person taking the picture and working with the light, shadows etc for that “one shot” that is perfect. Yes, with digital, I can go in after the fact and manipulate the picture down to the pixel level if I want, but I don’t consider that as art. With film I have to let the artistic part of me be there at the moment of snapping the shutter knowing I can only do so much in the dark room. All really depends on your point of view. My 2 cents
BTW, kodachrome slide film is now kaput. The last shop that could process it no longer does so, because Kodak is no longer making the chemicals. I saw this in the news a couple months ago.