Re: filmscanners: real value?

[Berry Ives <yvesberia@earthlink.net>]

on 1/29/01 9:29 PM, Laurie Solomon at laurie@advancenet.net wrote:

> And, of course, we will have a paperless society, advanced artificial
> intelligence, and Dot Coms will rule the world replacing the traditional
> principles of economics and finance with new principles of finance and
> economics where producing a profitable product is unnecessary as long as you
> believe in vaporware. :-)    Color photography was suppose to completely
> eliminate black & white photography except as a anachronistic specialty,
> which accounts for the recent resurgence in black & white photography in
> advertising as well as the fine arts photography to mention a few
> applications that not only refused to die but actually came to life despite
> color photography and all the predictions of death and doom for B&W.  :-)
> In short, I think you are being much to optimistic about the futuristic
> predictions.  However, I do think that any sort of ten year projections or
> forecasts into the future are very risky and daring.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> [mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Berry Ives
> Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:15 PM
> To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value?
> 
> 
> on 1/29/01 2:21 PM, Michael Wilkinson at michael@infocus-photography.co.uk
> wrote:
>> If you really want good value for money allied to something which will
>> last a decade you have to look at what you want from the product.
>> ....buy it at the right price and you are set for
>> the next Decade
>> Make no mistake about it.
>> if a scanner is doing a good job now the chances are that only a real
>> expert will be able to see a difference in your final output in 10 years
>> time.
> Very daring of you to make a 10-yr forecast about anything digital.
> 
> Here's my forecast:  35mm film will be rarely used, except for very
> specialized applications, since digital will take over that market.  Digital
> SLRs will be as affordable as the Pentax XZ-5n.  The scanners will still be
> around, though, since there are so many old images on film.  But the ones we
> are buying today will definitely be in the landfill.
> 
> --Berry
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
Digital SLRs that have maybe half the required resolution now cost about
$3K.

If that technology progresses at anything like what CPUs have, I think 10
years is rather ample to eliminate, say, 90% of the 35mm film market.  That
said, I recently bought a Contax film camera and am about to buy a film
scanner.  (%~~/>   ~~~~~~~~........

-Berry