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Topic: The digital revolution

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 03-21-2011 07:23 PM

I'm not sure how long those will even last. I heard a while ago that Deluxe was thinking about going to a TES-type of setup. with a central depot with everything shipped out via UPS or USPS Media Mail.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-21-2011 10:07 PM

I doubt they would use Media Mail, that's too slow and it's un-trackable. But with UPS or FedEx being reasonably priced (for large shippers), something like 99.5% reliable, and trackable in almost real-time, there's no real need to have a bunch of locations. I'd think space would be the only factor causing a need for more than one or two locations.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 03-21-2011 10:22 PM

quote: Mike Blakesley
I doubt they would use Media Mail

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 03-22-2011 09:16 PM

If they need one location AND they use ups, then there is only one possibility: Louisville KY (where ups air sort is, nationwide.)

Likewise: Memphis for Fed Exp. Louis

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-22-2011 09:32 PM

Louisville would be the easiest logistically, but UPS can get from almost anywhere to almost anywhere else overnight.

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 03-23-2011 07:17 AM

Louisville would eliminate about 50% of the "lift." (Amount actually put into planes.) Louis

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 03-23-2011 11:38 AM

But the product still has to get to Louisville in the first place.

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Ron Funderburg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 814
From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 03-23-2011 01:49 PM

Technicolor already uses UPS for its delivery and pick-up of new film so I'm sure the logistics can copied, stolen or whatever by Deluxe.

In the 80's Denver had a film depo that had thousands of prints at it. Now I'm not sure you can get a film print for anything that isn't in General Release. OR can you? Maybe 70's but how long will that even last now?

Film is all but gone. Try to buy a new 35 MM professional quality camera for still photography you can’t do it they aren’t made anymore. Try to buy 35MM film it is hard to find even in photography Stores. Try to get 35MM film for still photography processed and real film paper prints made for them, go ahead tell me where you can get it done. As far as I can tell no where in Oklahoma, Kansas or Arkansas and probable no where else, if they do they process the negative and scan it into digital and do a thermal print from it with dye simulation.

Buy processing equipment for you home darkroom, not new you want. Hard to find chemicals, hard to find actual photo paper not the stuff for a printer or thermal paper the kind you expose and develop.

No newspaper uses film in any manner any more. The pictures are digital, the layout of the paper is digital and the printing plates come right out of special machines from the computers. Film is dead if not in the motion picture industry right now then in the near future.

Weather it is a good thing or a bad thing is a mutt point now. Digital will take over in the film industry no amount of sticking our heads in the sand and saying it won’t happen will keep it from happening.

As cars took over many people refused to believe that they would ever be a real mood of transportation. Even further back Stage Coach Operators said the train would never be a viable means of transportation. Look at the pony express a fast way to move communication from the east cost to west coast and the year they were in existence they road right next to the telegraph wire as it was being put up. The vary wire that put them out of business. In our own history of the late 80s the cell phone would never catch on. “Hello can you hear me now?”

It is important to note that our refusal to believe in something isn’t proof. Just ask the guy that didn’t believe in trains oh you can’t he stood on the tracks to proof his belief. If the screen counts for America posted in another thread are accurate then end is closer than we think.

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 03-23-2011 09:28 PM

Get real.

I can personally assure you that any large metropolitan area still has film available, along with development. Maybe not at the grocery store, but the wedding photogs still have their system. No, not all are digital.

Hollywood will provide whatever it is that the retail outlets (Cinemas) require. I'm surprised that AMC didn't get their way when they spent millions trying to launch 16mm again. Louis

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Tom Sauter
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 163
From: Buffalo, NY, USA
Registered: Sep 2000

posted 03-24-2011 05:49 AM

quote: Louis Bornwasser
I'm surprised that AMC didn't get their way when they spent millions trying to launch 16mm again.

I never knew that (and thank heavens it never happened) - but its a really good point. Demand -> Supply -> Cost will ultimately determine films' fate. This is what is driving the Digital Revolution.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-24-2011 07:07 AM

quote: Ron Funderburg
Try to buy a new 35 MM professional quality camera for still photography you can’t do it they aren’t made anymore. Try to buy 35MM film it is hard to find even in photography Stores. Try to get 35MM film for still photography processed and real film paper prints made for them, go ahead tell me where you can get it done.

This is pretty far off from reality. Nikon makes the F6 and Canon makes the EOS 1V. Both are professional quality 35mm cameras and they take the same lenses as their digital counterparts. Both companies have discontinued most of their other mid-market 35mm cameras, but there is a glut of used models on the market that can be had for reasonable prices, which sort of obviates the need for new productions.

Pretty much every drugstore that I have seen lately sells at least a limited selection of 35mm film (CVS even carries Tri-X, though only in 24-exp. rolls, for some reason). Most have an on-site photo lab, too, and can make silver-halide prints from film or digital material. For those who want better than minilab quality work, there are enough commercial photo labs (many of which accept mail orders) to service the demand. Home processing of B&W is not a problem, either.

Large-format is also alive and well, with a wide variety of new-production cameras and lenses from various manufacturers.

I don't know the current state of printing technology, but, as of the mid-1990s, plates were made from Kodalith negatives. This may have changed, however.

I agree that demand for photographic and motion-picture film has probably peaked and will never be what it once was, but I would not write off film as a lost cause.

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Jeremy Weigel
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1062
From: Edmond, OK, USA
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 03-24-2011 09:15 AM

quote: Brad Miller
And for those not playing along at home, Deluxe/ETS film depots, which used to have thiry-something locations across the US are shutting down 15 more locations in the next 2 months, leaving only:
Buffalo
New York
Atlanta
Chicago
Dallas
Denver
Los Angeles
Seattle

Found out yesterday that the depot in Oklahoma City will close on May 20th.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-24-2011 11:30 AM

quote: Scott Norwood
Pretty much every drugstore that I have seen lately sells at least a limited selection of 35mm film (CVS even carries Tri-X, though only in 24-exp. rolls, for some reason). Most have an on-site photo lab, too, and can make silver-halide prints from film or digital material. For those who want better than minilab quality work, there are enough commercial photo labs (many of which accept mail orders) to service the demand. Home processing of B&W is not a problem, either.

Scott, you live in the Boston area which probably has a far greater demand for camera film processing than anywhere in Oklahoma. In the 1990s Lawton had at least a dozen or so places where you could get still camera film developed on site and prints made, often within an hour. Eckerd Drug and Wal-Mart had the last facilities in town. CVS bought out our Eckerd Drug location a couple years ago and removed the film processing lab. Wal-Mart got rid of theirs not long ago.

You can still buy certain rolls of film at Walgreens or CVS. But now it has to be mailed off for developing and print making.

Home processing for black & white photography can be done if you can get the necessary chemmicals and other supplies needed. I had a lot of fun working with B&W film, enlargers and prints back in art school. Working with photostat cameras wasn't nearly as much fun, but it's virtually unnecessary anymore. The graphics paste-up trade was replaced with scanners, Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXpress, InDesign and various color separation/imposition programs.

Large format photography is still alive and well in specialized areas of professional photography -like landscape and product photography. Digital is making more inroads on fashion and high end portrait photography. Film is all but dead in news and sports photography fields; digital allows photos to be uploaded to news wire services almost instantly. Can't do that with film. Outside of what NFL Films is doing everything else is digital/video.

quote: Louis Bornwasser
I can personally assure you that any large metropolitan area still has film available, along with development. Maybe not at the grocery store, but the wedding photogs still have their system.

Everyone I know doing wedding photography shoots digital. Not only that, most of them shoot their images in JPEG (instead of RAW) so they can fill the CF cards with as many images as possible. They're also covering the event using multiple camera bodies for covering different focal lengths and working as a backup in case one camera body fails.

Wedding photography gives me the heebie-jeebies. The lighting in most churches is very low and you often can't use flashes for what it does to video footage being shot as well as being a general disruption to the ceremony. Many wedding photographers have to use very fast prime lenses, like a 85mm f/1.2L and still crank up the camera gain. With the depth of field so narrow it's very easy to miss the focus on a critical shot. When the moment is gone there's no doing the shot over again.

quote: Scott Norwood
I agree that demand for photographic and motion-picture film has probably peaked and will never be what it once was, but I would not write off film as a lost cause.

I certainly hope film continues to be used in feature film production as long as possible. The image quality is very clearly better. Video cameras are improving, but they still don't cut it in terms of resolution or color quality as a replacement for film.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-24-2011 02:05 PM

Even our local pharmacy here in podunk-land still sells some 35mm film, so it's not like it has gone the way of the dinosaurs yet.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Wedding photography gives me the heebie-jeebies.

What I've noticed about wedding pics these days is, the photographers tend to take about one billion pictures in the hope of not missing any precious moments. This results in the photog being all over the place to the point of disrupting the services and festivities. When my niece got married last summer, I wanted to shove that camera down the photographer's throat -- they had a Catholic wedding and the photog was even all over the place snapping away during the consecration, which is the most solemn part of the mass. The fact that the priest didn't stop and tell the photographer to get out of there is a testament to the guy's patience (not to mention tolerance for idiots).

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-24-2011 02:42 PM

Back when I was in Catholic school, if someone did that either a nun would have beat him to death with a ruler or the priest would have ordered the floor to open and swallow him alive. [evil]

(if this is too close to discussing religion or politics, sorry)

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