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Film is not going away. When radio became popular in the 1920s people knew that newspapers would evaporate, when FM radio became common in the 1960s everyone knew AM was doomed, and when TV became practical in the 1950s everyone knew movie theatres were history, too. The Internet was supposed to kill TV in the late 1990s, and will soon be killing your telephone in the 2000s with Skype that lets you phone people for free with your computer. Skype's been around for years, but I still use my phone. In every one of these cases the new media was a zillion times better and faster and more convenient than the old, yet today we still have movie theaters, TV, telephones, AM radio and newspapers. I know people who still master new vinyl records. Why is that? Experience shows us that every time a new, better, cheaper medium, like digital cameras, is invented that the older media survive continuing to do whatever they did best and get better at it, even if they sucked all along. Did you know AM radio went stereo in 1985? Probably not, but the radio in my 1988 Mercedes picks it up just fine, even on news stations on which only the jingles play in stereo. Although older media may no longer be as popular as before they remain commercially viable. Digital and film are completely different media, just as oils differ from watercolor, macrame, Prismacolor or bead art. Non-artists misguidedly waste their time comparing meaningless specs like resolution and bit depth when they really should just stand back and look at the images. Even awful media like LP vinyl records still have their followers. I know; I still get hate mail from these folks all the time for my previous sentence. Hello people: LPs sucked then, they still suck today, but people still use them and love them. I personally know people who still master vinyl LPs, and other people still buy them. My point isn't that vinyl records suck, it's that almost no one buys them anymore yet you can still get them brand new if you want and people still cut them. You still think I'm kidding? Pick up the May 31st, 2005 edition of the New York Times. I was amazed that they report that Kodak still makes Kodachrome - in SUPER 8mm MOVIE CARTRIDGES! You may be able to read the article here. Not only that, they still run a plant in Switzerland which will be processing it until at least 2007! That's December, 2007. The NY Times article was about people whining because Kodak may stop making Kodachrome in Super-8, in which case people will have to content themselves with Ektachrome and black-and-white which Kodak is still making with no end in sight, in Super-8. Kodachrome is in no danger in 16mm and 35mm sizes. Yes, you can still buy Tri-X, which was introduced in 1955, in Super-8, right here at Amazon. For those of you too young to remember Super-8, they were film cartridges that held 50 feet of film. Super-8 cameras and film were not sensitive to light: you needed to use 500 Watt movie lights indoors to get anything. The cartridges cost $10 to $15 each and cost just as much again to process. They only ran for 3-1/2 minutes (210 seconds) each, and you can't erase them. Compare this to a camcorder that shoots better images in any (or no) light and runs for at least two hours on a $3 tape, which you can erase and use again. (Want to transfer super 8mm to video? Try IVC (Burbank), Film Technology Company (Hollywood), Triage (Hollywood), ColorLab (NYC) and Cineric (NYC). They are professional, not cheap.) Personally I know of no one who shoots 8mm, yet you or I easily can order it up from Amazon. With this being the case I wouldn't worry about 35mm or other formats of still photography going away any time in my lifetime, and I have a lot of decades left. My point isn't that 8mm sucks. My point is that even though almost no one uses 8mm compared to the 1960s that you can still buy all you want. Because of this, don't ever worry that 35mm, 120 or 4 x 5" film will become unavailable in our lifetime. I get so many readers that professionals who shoot Super-8 on purpose for a deliberate look take offence to me poking fun of it as a limited-use medium. You can read more about Super-8 and the people who use it at onsuper8.org and filmshooting.com. As you can see there will always be a vibrant core who shoots probably any format you can imagine, so if Super-8 still thrives, 35 mm always will. Do know that most of what comes out of Hollywood, even if shot just for TV, is shot on the 35 mm film from which 35 mm still film evolved. Even if 35 mm still film evaporated, 35 mm cine film could be spooled into your still camera just as it was 100 years ago. Unlike many of the bad formats and media I've mentioned which still survive in spite of themselves, film images, especially in larger formats, have some real technical advantages over digital cameras. That's why Hollywood movies and commercials are still shot on film, even though for decades we could have been using video for a lot less money. Thus if the three people left on the planet who shoot super-8 in Kodachrome can still get film I doubt we'll ever have a problem in still formats. Remember that still films have always been discontinued as the market moves on; just no one in 1958 thought film was going away when Kodak discontinued Super-XX Pan, for instance. Even when film makers no longer make film in decades old sizes, others step in to make it, like Film for Classics, for ancient cameras. |
