A snapshot of the photography industry

[aam1234]

Eye-opening numbers. Click on the graphic to enlarge.

[zemlin]

"Trends in picture takin'" might be a more appropriate title, but interesting regardless.

[Preeb]

All they seem to refer to is camera phone vs. P&S. I really didn't see any mention of DSLR, yet they seem to equate the decline of film photography with the rise of camera phones, no other form of digital imagery. Film was sagging long before there was a decent camera phone, so I really don't see the relationship there.

Although I don't have any numbers to show it, it's my opinion that film owes much of its decline to the rise of the DSLR supplanting 35mm SLR's. In many cases DSLR has replaced film P&S cameras too, since those users could just put the DSLR on auto and jpeg and get instant photos with no more effort expended than with the P&S, and no film costs.

[scoundrel1728]

If I remember right, film photography was already in decline before the Canon D30 and the Nikon D1 came on the market. Each of these dSLR cameras cost USD3000-5000 for 3 megapixels. I also remember that the price of the Kodak DCS-560 and 660 dSLRs dropped by half from USD30K almost overnight. I also remember the flame wars between digital and film photographers on Digital Photography Review about that time. I went digital myself in June 1999, after researching the subject to death. I figured my payback time to be about 2000-3000 exposures, which I figured might take several years at the rate I had been taking pictures with film. Instead, I reached that mark about the time my one-year warranty ran out on my camera. My wife thought I was nuts until she sent in a roll of film and it cost her about one dollar per exposure, good, bad, or indifferent. Digital technology initially cost a lot more than film; but once you bought the equipment, the incremental cost of operation was a lot less. The instant feedback available from digital was (and remains) a big bonus also, and did in many of the major film manufacturers, including Polaroid, Agfa, Konica-Minolta, and, most recently, Kodak, or at least made them mere shadows of their former corporate selves. When the quality of the final images produced digitally became truly comparable to 35mm film, the popularity of 35mm still photography sank quickly.

[tomrit]

Originally Posted by Preeb

All they seem to refer to is camera phone vs. P&S. I really didn't see any mention of DSLR, yet they seem to equate the decline of film photography with the rise of camera phones, no other form of digital imagery. Film was sagging long before there was a decent camera phone, so I really don't see the relationship there.

Well, the film market that camera phones has decimated is the disposable cameras, they were the biggest film market to the general public left.

Digital first took over the professional photo market, then the advanced amateur market, then the snapshot market. Then camera phones took over the disposable film camera market, and the low end P&S digital market.

However, those fancy cel-phones are also killing sales of gps's, laptop computers, watches, and who knows what else...

But do not get too confused, they are talking about film only being 1% of the money spent by the 20 billion or so people snapping pictures. That means there is still a lot of film being shot. Freestyle Photo moves film by container loads. A half dozen or so other mail order dealers do almost as well.

Kodak, Fuji, and Ilford keep raising their film prices, but that may be because they are trying to support their money losing sides from film sales. I can not think of any other reason that explains the small film manufactures keeping their prices relatively stable while the big three keep going up and an up. Part of that may be because they are about the only ones still making color film, but their B&W film prices keep going up too.

[korman]

Originally Posted by tomrit

Digital first took over the professional photo market, then the advanced amateur market, then the snapshot market.

Actually if I remember those times correctly, the snapshot market went digital before the advanced amateurs came or a big section of the professional market. More accurate probably would be there was a small crowd of professional leaders, then came the snapshot crowd and with improving quality, digital became a viable and desirable option for most professionals and advanced amateurs. I remember having digital compact cameras for quite some time before consumer dSLR were introduced.

Originally Posted by tomrit

Kodak, Fuji, and Ilford keep raising their film prices, but that may be because they are trying to support their money losing sides from film sales. I can not think of any other reason that explains the small film manufactures keeping their prices relatively stable while the big three keep going up and an up.

A more likely reason is that with the smaller market the big manufacturers are loosing the benefits of the economy of scale. Their production facilities are simply oversized for today's demand. Smaller manufacturers have it easier. And don't forget, photography was just one consumer of film, probably only a minor to medium one. I guess printing houses, x-ray stations in hospitals or archiving on micro-fiches and cinema film distribution going digital hurt the big film manufacturers even worse than digital cameras for holiday snapshots.

Korman

[stef@apl]

Originally Posted by Preeb

All they seem to refer to is camera phone vs. P&S. I really didn't see any mention of DSLR, yet they seem to equate the decline of film photography with the rise of camera phones, no other form of digital imagery.

Numbers don't add up to 100%. They're only showing the percentage of cellphones and P&S cameras, and the remainder is everything else (primarily DSLRs, I assume).

[tomrit]

Originally Posted by korman

Actually if I remember those times correctly, the snapshot market went digital before the advanced amateurs came or a big section of the professional market. More accurate probably would be there was a small crowd of professional leaders, then came the snapshot crowd and with improving quality, digital became a viable and desirable option for most professionals and advanced amateurs. I remember having digital compact cameras for quite some time before consumer dSLR were introduced.

The digital market started with the Associated Press having Kodak design a digital SLR for their use. Then came several DSLR's mostly based on Nikon bodies, anyone remember the the Minolta RD-175 with its 3 sensors? The news media was the first to go digital. Then came a bunch of P&S that make camera phones look like professional cameras, I had a Nikon Coolpix 100 with it fabulous 640x480 image

Full res Coolpix 100 image

It was, however, quite a bit later that digital begin to move into the mainstream consumer market, and DSLR's only took off in the 2000's. I suppose it is hard to remember everyone saying, "No one would ever pay that much ($6000) for a camera". Ten years later I bought a new DSLR for $400 w lens. Heck, my P&S from 2002 cost twice that much.

[korman]

Originally Posted by tomrit

I suppose it is hard to remember everyone saying, "No one would ever pay that much ($6000) for a camera".

Given the brisk trade in Leicas and Nikon D4, that prophecy didn't come true on so many levels.

Korman

[O|||||||O]

"The popularity of mobile phones has decimated the film camera business, leading to a massive dive in analog photography."

Yeah - it's because of cell phones.

Don't get me wrong, I still shoot film almost exclusively, but saying that cell phones are to blame for it's decline is a bit of a joke. (And it's been more than decimated. "Decimated" would be a reduction of 10%.)