Beyond Phototips

Photography for the Serious Amateur.

Jul 1, 2006

Digital Takes Over Film for professionals too..

by Susheel Chandradhas

Where have all the dark rooms gone? Gone to graveyards, every one…

Yes, thats what is happening today… every one of the professional film developing and printing studios, especially the manual ones, have closed down… replaced by computerised labs that print your pictures, professional or not, with superb clarity and all-automatic adjustments.

Why would you need film today? “to preserve it in a museum” is the most likely answer…

Speaking to an owner of a manual developing and printing studio which was very popular among the professional photographers of Chennai not more than a year ago, he says that his business is at an all time low… His C-41 output is zero and E-6 is almost that. Why? Because all his clients, Chennai’s top photographers, have moved to Digital media.

In a city where a year ago some press photographers used to proudly make do with their trusty Pextax K-1000 and Canon AE-1, they can no longer survive with anything less than a Nikon D-100. Digital Reigns!

Now with Popular Photography (a significant publication in the United States) announcing that Film’s days are short and numbered, and Kodak significantly cutting down their production of film and film cameras, this is the death knell for photography as it is traditionally known.

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