"RichA" wrote in message
...
On May 6, 9:04 pm, Me wrote:
An interesting interview on Radio New Zealand this morning, with Robert
Burley:
Toronto-based photographer whose book The Disappearance of Darkness:
Photography at the End of the Analogue Era chronicles the rapid speed at
which film and the huge factories that produced it have almost vanished.
Link to MP3
file:http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn...ure_guest_-_ro...

Film is destined for a small but enthusiastic audience of geeky niche
players, just like vinyl. Now, vinyl though still a fraction of sales
of CD's and electronic downloads is growing, but represents only about
a $70M market in the U.S. Can the film producers (who would also have
to offer processing or production of chemicals to do it) make a
business of film, whats left of it and can they survive while film
continues to fall further?
Film is where vinyl was around 1985, still dying before its slow rise
again.

Fair analogy, however at least with a vinyl record you have something that
is scarcely less convenient than a CD or download.

Film on the other hand : -

Is expensive to buy and process. The marginal cost of digital is nil.
The results can't be seen at the time of filming (other than in hyper
expensive 70mm movie cameras which video at the same time), but takes a
while to come back - digital can be viewed immediately and distributed for
free.
Is limited to tens of shots per reel. You can get thousands on a micro SD
card.
IIRC the resolution of 35mm film is about 12Mp (the same as my phone).
Current digital resolutions exceed this in a smaller form factor, so in
future film cameras will be seen a big and cumbersome.

There might be a bit of nostalgia for vinyl records and even some misplaces
preference for valve amps, but I doubt many other than Kodak will mourn the
passing of wet film.