Home   >   Technology   >   IT News   >   Article     

Is 35mm film dead?

By Bill Bennett
February 22 2003

Last year saw the dollar value of digital camera sales pass conventional still camera sales. Digital cameras have changed the way we think about and use photography, but the evidence suggests we're not yet ready to dump film. It looks as if consumers are using the two as complementary technologies, with each serving a different purpose.

Although the dollar value of digital camera sales is now higher than those of conventional cameras, in terms of actual units, traditional cameras outsell digital cameras by a large margin.

According to figures from GfK Marketing Services, Australians bought 1.34 million cameras in 2002, not counting disposable models. That's 7.2 per cent more than the 1.25 million cameras sold in 2001.

Of the total sold last year, only 350,000 cameras were digital. One million were conventional 35mm film models. So, Australians purchased almost three film cameras for each digital one - that's not exactly the kind of sales performance you'd expect from a dying product.

If disposable film cameras are included in the numbers, digital camera sales are just a drop in the ocean. A report by US-based Photo Marketing Association International says disposable camera sales grew by 10 per cent in 2002 and now account for one in five processed images.

But that's not the whole picture (pardon the pun). While conventional camera sales are holding up, the growth is mainly in digital; the new technology grabbing an increasing slice of the total. In 2002, digital camera sales grew by 50 per cent, albeit from a small base. During that period, overall sales of traditional cameras fell by 5 per cent. Interestingly, sales of mainstream 35mm cameras held steady. But this decline doesn't necessarily spell the end for film; some analysts point out the decline in conventional camera sales is more than offset by the growth in disposable film cameras.

GfK Marketing Services's analyst, Gwenno Hopkin, says she doesn't expect sales of digital cameras to go past those of 35mm cameras for at least two years. And it will be longer before digital accounts for more than half the total camera market measured by units. However, she says sales of film cameras have fallen in Asia. Western countries like Australia are slightly behind that trend.

At the same time, Hopkin says there's no sign, locally or internationally, of a fall in film sales. Her company tracks sales of film rolls to mass market outlets where she says volumes are rising quite rapidly. However, she adds this growth could be due to a shift away from pharmacy and photo-booth sales towards the bigger retailers.

Internationally, the big film manufacturers are seeing growth. Last year Kodak, which still earns the bulk of its revenue from non-digital photography, was the best-performing blue-chip stock on Wall Street. Analysts don't expect sales of still camera film to decline until 2004 at the earliest, and even then the decline will be extremely slow, less than 1 per cent each year. So, for the near future at least, it looks as if digital photography will complement film rather than replace it.

Jason Ross, senior analyst with Forrester Technographics, agrees. He says digital cameras are quickly gaining ground on film, but it is worth remembering there is a huge installed base of film cameras still in use. Eventually these will be replaced by digital cameras, but only gradually. Forrester's December 2002 survey found that 16 per cent of Australian homes now own a digital still camera and 14 per cent of people questioned are seriously considering buying one in 2003. Of these people, 59 per cent are new buyers, while 41 per cent are upgrading from an existing digital camera.

Although consumer digital cameras have been around for a decade, they have hit their stride only recently. Before the arrival of three and four megapixel cameras, digital images generally looked second-rate compared with the output of relatively low-cost analogue hardware. Even now, purists argue digital still doesn't match analogue picture quality, but for ordinary snapshot photographers, the advantages of digital outweigh the disadvantages. The ability to snap images of a family reunion and send them almost instantaneously to loved ones overseas is just one example of the power digital media offers.

While the figures indicate we are still using film cameras, our picture-taking habits are changing as more people buy digital cameras. For a start, we're taking more images. Many digital cameras have an LCD screen on the back so we can instantly review pictures taken to decide whether to keep the image or retake the shot. And memory is also increasing quickly, allowing us to take up to 100 snaps on one occasion.

As more households have both film and digital cameras, more of us have to decide whether we want to shoot with a digital camera or film camera, or both.

Ross says camera makers expect their products to be used differently to film cameras. They see people viewing images on screen (computer or television), posting them on websites, emailing them to friends and burning them to CD-ROM or DVDs for posterity. Although many consumers start by using digital cameras to replace film, creating their own prints at home with computers and colour printers.

Despite this more conservative approach, the move to digital is still a revolution in the way people think about and use photography.

However, there are roadblocks to faster digital camera acceptance.

Why? Digital cameras are significantly more expensive to buy.

Products at the bottom end of the digital market tend to take very poor quality pictures. Cheap novelty digital cameras have been built into phones, watches, key rings and credit card-sized packages. They often only take low-resolution 640 by 400-pixel images, which look fine on websites and in email, but compare poorly with pictures from disposable film cameras when printed. Image quality isn't just about resolution. Many digital cameras have poor lenses and handling. Moreover, the internal picture processing software in cameras is probably the most important specification as far as picture quality is concerned, but consumers have been trained to think in terms of resolution.

Responding to market demand, digital camera makers often prefer to add features, rather than focus on improving image quality. For example, one of the best low-cost consumer cameras is the BenQ DC1300. The camera's 1.3 megapixel resolution is good enough for family snapshots up to 75 by 125mm.

At $199, it's good value, even though it doesn't have an LCD display to view images and there are only a handful of pre-sets. On the other hand, it can capture short snatches of video and record sound.

But more consumers will buy the higher resolution 3 megapixel camera, such as the $749 Ricoh Caplio RR30. This is one of the few affordable digital models that can match film cameras when it comes to photographing moving objects. That's because it has a fast shutter speed. It's a great digital camera for people who want to move beyond family snaps, but the same money or less will buy a really good film camera from the same manufacturer. For example, the Ricoh KR-5 SV is a 35mm single-lens reflex that will give you much better pictures and costs about $500.

If you want to buy a digital camera that outperforms 35mm film, you have to spend big money. Canon says its EOS-1Ds is the first digital camera to match 35mm photography. It's a professional camera with 11.1 megapixel resolution and state-of-the-art features. A snip at $16,499.

The spending doesn't end with the camera. You can pick up good quality photo printers for a few hundred dollars, but the cost of ink cartridges and specialist ink-jet photo paper is considerably higher than you'll pay at a photo-processing booth. And the results might not be as satisfactory. Printer makers claim it costs about $1 for a homemade digital print, but that's only if every attempted print delivers the goods first time. Add in the cost of failures and the cost of prints is nearer $2.

Traditional film companies have rightly recognised this as an opportunity. One of the latest developments is a chain of photo booths that can quickly, cheaply and reliably turn digital images into high-quality prints. These are already big overseas and are now opening in Australia.

There's one other reason to think that film isn't about to pop its clogs just yet. Old technologies are remarkably resilient. It's now 20 years since the introduction of compact discs, yet specialist record companies continue to sell vinyl discs and club DJs still hit the turntables. Hollywood's first colour movies were made in the 1930s, yet some modern directors choose to shoot in black and white.

People are often reluctant to give up old media, even when the economic and technical arguments against them are overwhelming.

So, at the very least you can expect a sizeable community of diehard 35mm fans to go on splashing foul-smelling chemicals in darkrooms for decades to come. On that basis, 35mm isn't about to die, though it may be heading for retirement. There's plenty of life in the old technology yet.

digital goes to Hollywood

As far as some Hollywood moguls are concerned, the movie world can't go digital fast enough. It's a wish that has little to do with the creative success of computer-generated animated films like Shrek and everything to do with the everyday economics of making movies and distributing them to cinemas. Digital technology will save them a small fortune.

When a Hollywood studio shoots a typical movie, it uses about 30 kilometres of 35mm film costing around $200,000. But that's only the start. A finished movie then has to be transferred to six large rolls of celluloid for each cinema screen at a cost of around $25,000.

That was less of a problem in the past, but with the arrival of multi-screen complexes and the modern practice of having a new movie open in thousands of locations simultaneously, this has become a huge cost and a logistical nightmare.

To get around this, Hollywood director George Lucas shot last year's Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones movie using a digital camera. The camera would send each day's scenes directly to Lucas's computer editing suite. The technique is commonplace for smaller films and TV shows, but the last Star Wars adventure was the first big-budget movie to be created this way.

The next step involves distributing the film electronically. Only a handful of cinemas were equipped with digital projectors when Attack of the Clones was released, but by the time the next Star Wars instalment hits the screen, Lucas hopes to send the film to hundreds of cinemas at the touch of a button. There is, however, a snag. The projector units cost $300,000 each, so cinema owners are in no hurry to upgrade their hardware.

If this technology takes off - and with large studios pushing its adoption that looks like happening - cinemagoers should notice an improvement in movie quality. Not only is the first print of a digital movie as good as the 10,000th, but the film isn't likely to stretch or wear.


Your next digital camera will probably be your mobile phone. According to Strategy Analytics, a US-based research group, 10 million camera phones were sold in the first nine months of 2002. Japan and Korea accounted for 96 per cent of total sales. The group predicts that by next year, camera phones will outsell digital cameras.



More on technology

Techno fashion

Mail order

Health hazard

Write your own rules

A learning experience

Monkeying around with .Net

Multiple choice

Hutchison's big gamble