Sigh....

[Karalee]

Canon considers halt to film camera development

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Canon Inc. (7751.T) said on Thursday that it would consider halting development of new film cameras as it focuses resources on digital models, the latest sign of the rapidly fading role of film in photography.

A spokesman at Canon, the world's largest digital camera maker, said it would consider whether it needs to continue developing both compact and single lens reflex (SLR) film models because the markets for both are shrinking.

More in the accompanying link above.

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[Oldfireguy]

In your life time and maybe mine, you will see the end of film cameras, at least 35mm. Med/large format may last a bit longer.

[Bob_McBob]

Correction: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...archived=False

[Torus34]

With all of the magnificent 35mm cameras that have already been been made and are available on the used market, who needs further development? To what end?

[PopPicker]

......and all you need to do is find someone prepared to make film. With only, for intents and purposes, the big K and the big F making film these days and as each month passes seeing more types being discontinued, I'll put my hat in the ring and state by 2010 there will be virtually no film.

Not only that, but you'll have to start making your own chemicals to process what you have. As commercial chemical production for home use will have stopped. Count the active manufacturers today compared to 5 years ago.

The High St minilabs will no longer be able to develop film as their throughput will not be enough to keep the chemicals stable and therefore uneconomic. What will be left is a bunch of central labs like it used to be 30 years ago giving out very questionable quality.

People often play the vinyl record card and say that they are still available and experiencing a renaisance and there may well be a romantic attraction to film as there is to vinyl records.......... but you don't need chemicals to listen to an LP.


PP

[malachite]

The quality of film cameras today sucks anyway unless you're looking into pro level stuff and the only thing those do is take pictures faster. Film cameras do nothing but hold film, it's all about the lens.

Granted, an announcement like this will start to push film into the background like vinyl records. It'll become a niche thing in the years to come, especially the smaller formats but it won't go away for good.

It's not like you weren't buying all your film camera stuff on ebay anyway alrready

Michael............still shoots film and preferred the older stuff anyway