I believe there is presently a massive drop in the sale of digital cameras.
Cellphones/mobiles are taking over.

I’ve been using a Ricoh for 3 or 4 years, it’s cool, but I am considering getting a classic Rollei twin lens reflex as my next camera. My grandad used to have one, and I was recently at the Lee Miller exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, and it’s what she used. All I need now is a good 2 1/4’ film scanner.

The way I figure it, a 35 mm frame is the equivalent of 15 megapixels, and a Nikon film scanner will get all that, plus the film grain. So it’s still OK to use film.

a good 2 1/4” film scanner will set you back atleast £2000-4000. The only one you can get that’s cheap and usable is one like the Canoscan D2400UF that is a flatbed scanner that supports film up to 4x5”

I’ve been using an Epson something or other with a film attachment that works ok but has a tendancy of cropping 35mm and 6x7cm negatives and doesn’t seem to recognize some slides at the end of a strip or dense negatives. It likes underexposed ones better.

I’ve compared 35mm prints to prints from a 4.1mega pixel Nikon D2-H and the prints from the digital are BETTER than the 35mm ones.

I’ve scanned some 6x7cm negatives and that works well.

I’ve also shot some 6x7cm negatives from a Mamiya RZ67 pro II and scanned them to various resolutions with success.

Right now most professional photographers are shooting 50-100% digitally. Some are still shooting film since thier magazine requires it. But, even fashion photographers are using Leaf or other digital backs on medium format cameras. These are in the £17,000 (17megapx)-20,000 (22megapx) range.

The new Canon and Nikon pro cameras are in the 12.5 - 15 mega pixel range. But 4-5 mega pixel is good enough for most magazines.

I’ve recently submitted a portrait photo for Hannah Sandling to a magazine and they requested the image be under 2 mega bytes!!!

I shoot in RAW format (NEF) and so don’t most fashion pros. They usually have a photographer and a techy editor that cleans the images.

RAW formats let you adjust the exposure, white balance and lots more than you can do with compressed jpgs.

Also many of the ink jet paper companies like Kodak are saying some of thier papers will last 100 years.

No one has ever said a colour print will ever last. Only B&W prints were archivally processed (converting the silver to something more stable). Colour will always fade.

So the current technology with giclée prints and pigment based prints without the use of photo chemicals that could contaminate the paper these prints will be more stable than silver, dye or chemical based prints.

I also am finding that 400 ASA or higher black and white negatives (Ilford or Kodak films) scan a bit grainier than they would print directly from a negative to print. (see this review of an Epson scanner) This can be corrected in Photoshop.

I think the point that Frank was trying to make has nothing do with the format you choose to use—I don’t think he has anything against analog photography—but that we should push the developers of the technology to become more user friendly. Besides, it seems we’ve already had the analog photography v digital photography conv