Is film dead?

[Rei]

Agfa-gevaert a company from Belgium and I think the biggest supplier of film in the world, did anounce it would stop manufacturing.

edit: don't know if they allready stopped, but they will in the near future.

This has more to do with Agfa's parent company filing bankruptcy in 2005. They were supposed to restructure the company back in late 2006, early 2007, but that never happened. As part of the restructuring, they were supposed to spin off all their factories and shutter most of them.

Now, it looks like they are just trying to piece out the company and sell it to other companies.

Besides, Fuji is easily the biggest supplier of film in the world, and they are very profitable.

 

[Chibbi]

I stand corrected, sir.

However, I still do think that in 100 years film will be extinct.

 

[Monkeyboy]

No practice ever dies completely - look at this site, people still practice traditional straight razor shaving. But in general, analog media of any sort is on its way out. I've never bought a roll of film in my life and I seriously doubt I ever will.

 

[kand]

Think about this:

It is still very possible to produce Daguerreotypes, the very first form of photography. This involved mercury vapors, mirrors as the "substrate," and silver halide. daguerreotypes are so fragile that even a brush of the finger would cause the image to vanish.

Considering this fact, more than 100 years after daguerreotypes faded from popularity, why would you think 35mm film is on it's way out, only around 10 years after its fade from popularity?

I think film will be around long after I am dead, and I'm only 20.

 

[Rei]

No practice ever dies completely - look at this site, people still practice traditional straight razor shaving. But in general, analog media of any sort is on its way out. I've never bought a roll of film in my life and I seriously doubt I ever will.

Realize that we are talking about two distinct media, capture media and display media. Any time a photo ends up on paper, it becomes analog.

Silver gelatin printing is used by professionals and minilabs (walmarts of the world) over inkjet and the different 'dye' process printers. I don't see that process fading anytime soon.

The other day a family member pulled out a 30 year old photo album, and the polaroid, and other novelty process prints had not aged well, but the silver prints were still just fine.

I imagine the same thing will happen 30 years from now when people compare their silver prints to their inkjet prints in their photo albums, because the lifespan of the silver prints is limited to the lifespan of the paper that it is printed on, and the inkjet and dye methods are limited to the resin's ability to hold to the paper.