LFF statistics

[Maretzo]

Is digital already dying?

[Dan Fromm]

There are others??

You're teasing, aren't you?

There's an LF site in Germany. I haven't bookmarked it and visit it rarely 'cause my German is so weak. Ich war ein jahr in Deutschland aber ich kann nicht Deutsch. If you're not acquainted with it, Otzi, you should look for it.

There is also a French site, of which our Emmanuel is one of the leading lights. http://www.galerie-photo.info/forum/ In my opinion, galerie-photo.info is superior to largeformatphotography.info and its forums are superior too. The site is at a higher level and much more actively maintained. The forums are more literate, more literary, and on the whole more enjoyable. At least, to my taste.

Don't take my comments as criticisms of Q-T, whom I respect highly. He's a lone worker, the French have a team.

More seriously, Kirk, I have the impression, not supported by any data, that photo.net's and apug.org's LF sections are in decline. This forum may be attracting refugees ...

Cheers,

Dan

[Kirk Gittings]

Might be worth isolating the For Sale forum if you can, and then recrunching the numbers for posts and new threads to see what weight of the overall growth that forum is carrying. I'm guessing it's pretty hefty.

Thanks Amy, I can't do it that way as far as I can tell. I can't separate out individual forums from the numbers. Nor can I do:

Can you look for "dead" or inactive registrants (those active in 2007 but absent in 2009) in your data, make an assumption that they have moved on (though hardly likely to something better!), and subtract them from the new registrations since 2007 to determine actual increase? It's the old births minus deaths equation.

[Daniel Grenier]

The gloom & doom explanation of this surge in LFF traffic:

Film is too expensive to go out & shoot. Gas is too expensive to just drive around. Trips are too expensive to take. Restaurants, plays, movies, books.... all too expensive. We're all staying put, not going out, blankly staring at the damn computer all day (LFF, of course) hoping for better days..... SIGH....

[BrianShaw]

Hey... I have an idea... this study would make a nice little VC article, don't you think?

[Capocheny]

I'm not terribly surprised given that this is "THE BEST" forum for large format photography.

... the best among english-speaking LF photography forums, of course

Hi Emmanuel,

Fair enough.

My fluency in either French or German is pretty much non-existent! :>0

Cheers

[Brian Sims]

Isn't there some hidden growth in the numbers? Didn't we still have the busy "off topic" category in 2007? Then again, the growth in numbers is not all that surprising. The "How old are we?" surveys suggest that we are in a growing demographic. I was just talking with a friend about how strange it is that there is a strong impulse to create art and craft as young children, then it disappears or is stiffled in teens and younger adults, and then resurfaces in middle age. Perhaps as teens and young adults we are so busy "creating" ourselves and our families that it diverts our creative impulse, and once that is well under way, we refocus our creativity on photography, woodworking, needlework, you name the artisitic pursuit....

[adrian tyler]

if you look at the evidence there is a growth in all apects of photography, more images in circluation and more people taking photos more photobooks etc... than ever before.

this site is certainly a very good resource, independently of the format you shoot so it's not surprising that people are discovering it, i learned large format photography here quickly and efficiently and i'm very grateful to everyone involved.

many people can't justify lab costs of shooting sheet film but the information here serves well on any format, including digital, so i would expect continued growth.

[verney]

Interesting. I think it was about a year ago that I had a telephone conversation with Keith Canham. He mentioned that Kodak, Ilford, and Fuji reps had each told him at that time that LF film sales were increasing again. This would be consistent with the statistics that you described.

There was propably a very dramatic drop in film sales when pros were turning to digital and dumping their equipment and film caches to the market. I exploited one such case and I still have some left. Surplus film must now be either used or unusable and film sales are going up again.

[Gary L. Quay]

Is digital already dying?

Probably not for the majority of snapshooters and pros on tight deadlines, but the art market for film is thriving.

Interestingly enough, a friend of mine who badgered me for 5 years about switching to digital is now proud owner of a 60-year old canon rangefinder. He lost most of the photos of his family, his beloved daughter specifically, to the ever-shrinking jpeg.

--Gary