The thing about depreciating digital gear though is that even if it depreciates, it still does what it did when you bought it, at least until it fails. I have an old Canon 10D DSLR that is worthless now, but it still takes the same pictures, but of course, I don't use it! But if you have a digital back that gives you enough resolution for a large print and has plenty of dynamic range and whatnot, even if it is less valuable than a few years ago, it still takes good pictures, good enough for quality large prints.
And with film, well, what good is that gear going to do anyone when film is no longer available? And how well will the equipment hold value when that happens? Black and white will probably be available in some diminished form, but I think the future of color film is very grim indeed. Has anyone researched the matter using Google Trends? All film related search terms are in steady decline. Some of it rose briefly and was bolstered a bit by the hipster trend of lo-fi analog photography, using toy cameras, old TLRs and the like, but if you look at Google Trends for terms like "lomography", "holga camera", "120 film", and so on, you see that the trend is over. And something interesting that I noticed is that searches for "digital photography" are on the decline. And searches for everything film related are on the decline. But "photography" is pretty steady. "DSLR" is on the rise. What this means, I suspect, is that film is so thoroughly dead that the "digital" in "digital photography" is becoming redundant, and so is being dropped for economy, so the phrase "digital photography" is less used. If that isn't a bad sign for film, I don't know what is!
I'll be very surprised if we can get quality color film from the likes of Kodak or Fuji five years from now.
This is an interesting Google Trend query:
link
And things like "compact digital camera" are on the decline because of smartphones. But DSLRs are hot. Interestingly, "digital camera back", "medium format digital", and the like are all declining. I'd suspect that this is because the resolution of DSLRs is becoming adequate for most purposes. Casual photography is done with smartphones. Most more serious photography is done with DSLRs.
Yes, this is all sad commentary for the state of quality fine art photography. And actually, if you do some more Google Trends research, you'll find that everything art related is on the decline. Everything mobile computing and social media related is on the rise. What I find surprising is that almost everything music-related, aside from dubstep, has been steadily declining for years! How sad!
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