Re: [Leica] Re: Re: Leica's Development and Management

[dmorton@journalist.co.uk (David Morton)]

Arturo wrote:
>
> Amongst the reporters and photojournalists, are you seeing more digital
> cameras, and do you see the digital cameras outnumbering film cameras
> in the
> near future?

I realise the question wasn't addressed to me, but here in the UK the
answers are yes and yes. Some of the UK national papers have told
freelance snappers that if they don't have Digital/Powerbook/GSM phone by
the end of this year they won't get any more work. The rest are going to
follow very soon. You can pretty well count on film being utterly dead in
the UK nationals by the end of 1999.
 
> Last week, I saw Dirck Halstead on TV.  He said that he believes that
> for
> working pros, we are in the last days of using film.  If so, the F5
> could very
> well be Nikon's last pro-level film-based camera they produce.  Any
> thoughts?

Don't agree. Film is being wiped out for *press* use, where speed of
delivery is everything, but it isn't under serious threat yet for most (if
not all) other kinds of work.

For example the DCS520 is a damn fine press camera, but I wouldn't give it
house room for anything which needed a decent amount of resolution. The
DCS560 is much better in the resolution stakes, but it's slow and
*horribly* expensive (US$30,000). The film based EOS1n (on which the 520
and 560 are based) can out perform either of those cameras at a fraction
of the cost.

But I want a DCS620 when it ships :-)

David Morton                       |  "Times are bad. Children no
dmorton@journalist.co.uk           |  longer obey their parents and
David.Morton@openconsulting.co.uk  |  everyone is writing a book."
(+44) 171 917 6272                 |  Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)