Film is Dead?

Over the past few years the digital camera/imaging market has boomed dramatically. Almost every cell phone today has a digital camera, it's no wonder that the market has become so saturated with digital photography of some form or another. Hell, even professionals such as sports, stock, and photojournalist photographers completely rely on digital cameras to get their work quickly and efficiently. So obviously with such a market for things digital, it is no wonder that many would quickly jump to the conclusion that film is dead or dying.

Yet even with the growth of digital sales, there are still a heavy portion of income generated by the sale of film products.

I found some numbers from Kodak's SEC financial publication (publicly available document):

Net Sales From Continuing Operations, 9 months ended Sept 30
2005
Consumer Digital Imaging Group: $1,883,000,000
Film and Photofinishing Systems Group: $4,124,000,000
Graphic Communications Group: $2,048,000,000
Health Group: $1,955,000,000

2006
Consumer Digital Imaging Group: $1,766,000,000
Film and Photofinishing Systems Group: $3,143,000,000
Graphic Communications Group: $2,658,000,000
Health Group: $1,837,000,000

Earnings (loss) from continuing operations before interest, other income (charges), net and income taxes, 9 months ended Sept 30
2005
Consumer Digital Imaging Group: ($171,000,000) LOSS
Film and Photofinishing Systems Group: $489,000,000
Graphic Communications Group: ($69,000,000) LOSS
Health Group: $283,000,000

2006
Consumer Digital Imaging Group: ($149,000,000) LOSS
Film and Photofinishing Systems Group: $281,000,000
Graphic Communications Group: $84,000,000
Health Group: $192,000,000

When taking a look at the actual financial postings, it seems pretty clear that Kodak is still making quite good profits from film, even if the market for film has dwindled over the past five years due to digital photography.

Just the other day, Kodak published a survey among professional photographers and their use of film. Among their findings, over 75% of photographers surveyed claimed that they would continue to use film regardless of their usage of digital. Those in favor of film claimed their reasonings for digital included:

* film’s superiority in capturing more information on medium and large format films (48 percent);
* creating a traditional photographic look (48 percent);
* capturing shadow and highlighting details (45 percent);
* the wide exposure latitude of film (42 percent); and
* archival storage (38 percent).

Needless to say, there's definately still a market for Film. For me obviously I'm happy for the news.