Re: The annual bout of depression...

At 15/04/2005, you wrote: 
David,

I think Kodak recently estimated a reduction of 30% in film sales this coming year compared to last year.


Interesting, John... the Canadian figure is projected at a drop of roughly 17% in film sales. Perhaps Canadians are slower taking to digital that our American cousins?

You know... we think the vacuum tube has been replaced by the transistor, but if you want vacuum tubes today, they are quite readily available. You just have to look in the right places... though those places are few.

As tube sales slumped under the onslaught of transistor technology, American and European tube makers sold their entire sets of production equipment to third world or eastern bloc countries. The tubes you buy today are the same as those made by GE and others in the 1960's, but come from Bulgaria, Lithuania, Indonesia and Russia. And their quality is pretty good. But the prices are much higher than you would expect, even allowing for 40+ years of inflation.

The same will happen with film.

1) development of new films will cease and less popular films will be discontinued.

2) as production levels drop and companies in the US, Europe and Japan find it no longer profitable to make, they will sell their factories which will be moved en bloc to countries with low labour/production costs.

But, yes.. we will be able to buy film for a very long time... though not necessarily under brand names we know, or at competitive prices.

I always felt that medical imaging would keep film makers going long after consumer film was no longer a viable option. After all, a single chest x-ray uses more square inches of film than many a 36 exp. roll! But recent progress in solid state sensing of x-rays for medical use is impressive. Industry insiders are forecasting that within 5 years, medical imaging will be in the midst of the same transition that consumers are just completing.

After that, film may **really** be in trouble!

Cheers!
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David Young,     | égalité, liberté,
Victoria, CANADA | fraternité et Beaujolais.

Personal Web-site at:
        http://www.horizon.bc.ca/~dnr
Leica Reflex Forum web-page:
        http://www.horizon.bc.ca/~dnr/lrflex.htm


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