Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/01/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]My local camera shop owner often tried to make this argument when selling cameras to soccer moms. The problem that he ren into is that it takes many of them 3 or 4 months to finish a roll. During that time, no pictures. With digital, you can see the pictures instantly on the LCD. Goodby film, whatever the cost. On the other hand, living here in a town with a large university, he has noticed that the film use by the college students has actually gone up. They have figured out that they can buy a very good film camera and an assortment of lenses for a fraction of the cost of an equivalent digital system and have LOTS left to pay for film. They are also a lot more savvy than the average consumer when it comes to scaanning film to CD and having the best of both worlds. Maybe film isn't quite dead yeat. As an aside,I think that the death of current NEW film cameras is due in part to the fact that there is so much good used equipment out there going for pennies on the dollar. A lot of pros, for valid financial and practical reasons, have gone digital and dumped a huge amount of film equipment onto an already shrinking market. Many of the cameras sold in the 80's and early 90's essentially had all of the technology that the newest cameras have, so even before the emergence of digital there was no compelling reason to trade up for a new camera and the 35mm SLR market was already declining. Digital just accelerated some pre-existing trends. Allen --- Original Message --- From: Don Dory <don.dory@gmail.com> To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org> Subject: Re: [Leica] OT: Hasselbald XPAN II >Luis, >No, the herd mentality has set in. Most camera purchasers want a digital >camera and would not even consider a film camera. Consider that you can ge= >t >a new film Rebel or N55 or Minolta 50 with a modest zoom lens for under $20= >0 >virtually anywhere. Digital SLR's start around $699 with equivalent lens. >In the P&S market a 35-150 zoom model can be had for less than $100 if a to= >p >tier brand is not required or just over $100 if you want a Nikon, Olympus, >Canon. The digital equivalent would start at $399 and be much larger or >much more expensive if about the same size. > >I still hold with my argument of several years ago. For the person who >shoots the typical 100 to 250 pictures a year, an analoge camera would be >less expensive. $100 for the camera. $20 for 12 rolls of film, and $90 to >process it. Rounded off to $200 the first year and about $100 each year th= >e >camera remains operational which would probably be about five years. >Contrast that to $300 for a good 5MP camera, $20 for a reasonable memory >card, and say an average of $1 for four prints. After the first year it is >$200 for the analogue and $345 for the digital. After the second year it i= >s >$300 for the analogue and $365 for the digital. So, after three years of >ownership assuming the analogue user shoots and has 240 prints and the >digital shooter shoots thousands but has 100 prints a year, the digital >photographer has finally spent less money assuming that the camera still >works. > >For the heavy shooter obviously the economics change pretty quickly. > >Don >don.dory@gmail.com > > >On 1/13/06, Luis Miguel Casta=F1eda <lmc@interlink.es> wrote: >> >> On 13/01/2006, at 0:01, mehrdad wrote: >> >> > i think the trend is to be done with film cameras >> >> sure, profit is higher if they can convince you to change everything >> every few years :) >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >> > >_______________________________________________ >Leica Users Group. >See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information