Although I appreciate the risks of underestimating the digital juggernaut, I question how quickly some of the digital innovations mentioned above will evolve. But I also suspect film's future has become predetermined even by existing digital technology.
Canon took two years to replace the 1Ds with the 1Ds Mark II, so let's charitably assume that pressure from Nikon and other sources will accelerate the next product cycle to eighteen months (putatively June 2006). Let's also charitably assume that this next generation camera (uncreatively call it the Mark III) supports RGB pixels at a similar pixel pitch as the current Mark II, resulting in a resolution of over 40Mp. Since this will clearly exceed the capabilities of any lens design cost-effectively manufactured in existing 35mm form-factor lens mounts, an entirely new lens family (based on a larger mount, hopefully in a more sensible 4:3 aspect ratio) will have to be developed. All this development will have to occur without compromising development efforts in the real money making franchises, namely the amateur and prosumer markets. I'm not saying this all can't be done (perhaps farming out some lens design tasks to third parties such as Zeiss), but I question whether Canon or Nikon is financially motivated to push such an expensive paradigm shift so quickly. June 2006 seems awfully soon, I suspect end of 2006 would be the earliest we would see a real, shipping camera.
My more immediate concern is that existing digital products are sufficiently good that commercial photographers are abandoning film in large numbers, and that chrome film will be the first casualty. I have been told that Fuji considers film to be a highly profitable legacy business and feels no particular pressure to discontinue it even in large format sizes. Kodak's digital product line has been struggling, and I question whether they can afford to pre-emptively discontinue film production. However, getting rid of chrome film may be a tempting compromise since the amateur market does not use it and the prosumer/professional market is migrating away from it. My totally uninformed guess is that Kodak will halt chrome film production in 12-18 months (maybe that will let them close another factory or two), and Fuji will continue chrome production for another year or two but eventually go with the flow and discontinue it too. One would think Kodak would hang onto B&W a bit longer (since they still have a leading franchise there, however truncated), but of course that would devolve at some point to a few boutique suppliers.
These transitions would be mostly driven by the impact of current digital products, rather than the prospect of a future gazillion megapixel digital camera.
Bookmarks