Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 09:23 PM 08/04/02 -0600, you wrote: >Why bother switching if what you are using works? It is the resulting >images that count, not the process(es) to make them. I plan on using Tri-X >for a long time as it works for me too. > >John Collier For pros, its just a matter of economics and the needs of the client. I doubt I would ever go digital for my personal work or "serious" work but the reality is that most of my stock and assignment clients are now willing to take digital. It "will do" and they don't have to deal with shipping, holding and returning original chrome. From an business/economic perspective, once your film and processing expenses reach the cost of a digital camera and the attendant computer gear it becomes a "no-brainer"... as my daughter says. At my last (and only) staff job as a newspaper photo editor we had a film-chemistry of $50,000.00 (and always rising) per year for 3 photographers. Once camera costs got down under $10,000 per unit we could supply each photographer with a camera and laptop for that $50,000. (we already had the lenses and computer/storage to handle the digital images as we had been scanning pix for a couple of years already) The BIG shock with professional grade digital cameras is the repair costs....especially the Kodak hybrids. I have seen repair bills range from a minimum of $1500.00 and as high as $15,000. ...THAT is a very expensive disposable camera. Alas, after 20 plus years I too am in the process of considering going digital for a majority of my day to day commercial work. My estimates are $15,000.00 in film and processing annually for the work that could be do digital so at current camera costs the price of the camera would be covered in 6 months. Of course, I hoping the accountants on the list will elaborate on the economics of this and the finer points I may be missing. Greg Locke St. John's, Newfoundland www.greglocke.com - ------------------------------------- PictureDesk International ...news pictures ONLINE! http://www.pdiphotos.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html