to follow up just a bit - obviously the consumer market will go completely digital very soon. for more critical and fine art work, it will take longer for technology to find an equally compelling reason to move in that direction, but it will, at some point become equal to if not better than conventional film. i think there will always be a place in the profession for something akin to film, again a digital negative of some type, as a primary and archival storage medium - something that will not rely on any type of current technology to reproduce, and which will be as effective as film has always been in this area.
i also think of the analogy of digital audio. in my spare time, i run a small recording studio. i apprenticed at a recording studio way back in the 1970s while in college, and have always enjoyed doing that - my wife is a musician and we have actually made two CDs that are selling well. anyway, while there are still a few analog diehards out there, almost the entire recording industry has switched over to digital recording systems. no, it is not perfect yet, and you make certain sacrifices in audiophile level qualities, but the benefits are nothing short of staggering - 10 years ago, a recording device like i now own would have cost over $1 million - i bought mine for $2000 - it provides literally total control over every aspect of the sound, and does it at extremely high-quality. technology has given the average person the ability to make CD-quality recordings in their own homes at a price anyone can afford. digital photography will soon get there - it has the potential to create a camera the size of a point and shoot that will have the capability to render image quality surpassing that of today's large-format film-based cameras.
in the end, there will always be a certain percentage of artists who will continue the tradition of chemical photography because it is a valid, stable, and finely articulated medium. just as there are still lithographers, and people who bind books by hand, and any number of other similar pursuits. but it will be by choice, not because the digital medium is in any way inferior. it can only open new doors for us all to explore.
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