Film photography, a good business in the future ?

[sanking]

artistic photography was specifically the type of "business" I was referring to.

One artistic photography business based on film and hand made prints is http://www.fatali.com/gallery/

"Fatali is committed to making his photographs by hand using the "old" classic optical process, instead of "new" digital technologies which are often used for digital ink jet printing."

Sandy King

[BetterSense]

Are you arguing that Granny's basement is a better long term archive than storing digitally?

In the big picture, quite possibly. Of course, if you have the budget and the expertise (and ONLY as long as you have the budget...) then storing the data digitally on spinning hard disks in datacenters mirrored across the world, is a superior solution for digital data. But my grandma doesn't have the budget or expertise to maintain digital archives. Heck, my grandma's going to die soon. Given the human factors, the basement wins out in terms of "will the film be viewable in 100 years".

In 2003 they might have operated in terms of GB/sq ft, but I'm sure that has since become TB/sq ft,

And in the exact same time period, I am positive that the demand for storage increased by at least the same amount. Demand for data storage is hyperelastic. Today HD, next decade 2k, then 4k, 3D...

At 2GB/film

2GB per film!!?? I think you are several orders of magnitude off. The Red camera records in RedRaw10 (lousy 10bits per pixel, Bayer interpolated) at about 15MB per frame. That's 21 GB per MINUTE of shooting. 1 reel of film is 11 minutes long, so if the red camera is equal to 35mm film in terms of data density (laughable considering the resolution of modern color negative stocks and especially the extreme latitude compared to 10bit digital--4k is only a 15" print at 300dpi: we all know 35mm has more than that, and 10 bits is a lousy 1024 brightness values) let's just round to 200GB per reel. Given a shooting ratio of 10:1 (which is unrealistically conservative especially since "digital is free") then a 2-hour feature comes in at roughly 25TB. Now consider hard drives fail, so you have to mirror it. How much electricity does 20 hard drives consume? Given 10W hard drives and .15/kWh electricity, I would swag about $500 per year just for electricity, if its your own computer hardware and you administer it yourself.

[Jay DeFehr]

BS,

Your grandma probably doesn't have the budget or expertise to maintain film stock, either. There's a reason the Academy keeps their archive in climate controlled vaults.

Increasing demand for data storage does not make it less reliable.

You're right; I was way off. I was thinking about how much HD space a movie requires for viewing at home- not at all the same as the amount of information contained in the filmed footage. Your figures are off too, but not nearly as much as mine . Baraka, shot on 65mm with a 96 minute run time generated 30TB. If 65mm generates 3X the information of 35mm, that puts a 2 hour, high resolution 35mm color film at something like 13TB. A significant portion of the Academy's archive consists of short run B&W films, many on 16mm, so it's hard to estimate with any precision how many TB the entire collection represents, but it's likely to be on the order of petabytes, and require more physical space than the film stock. But, as I noted previously, digital data density is is going up while its storage cost is coming down. Film stock doesn't shrink, but the cost to store it continues to rise, and both trends are accelerating. I don't know how much electricity it takes to run 4 climate controlled vaults, but I'm guessing it's more than $500/year.

[cyrus]

Frankly if profitability of investment in a business was the sole or even primary consideration, we'd all be dry cleaners or dentists instead of photographets, digital or otherwise.

[Greg Lockrey]

One artistic photography business based on film and hand made prints is http://www.fatali.com/gallery/

"Fatali is committed to making his photographs by hand using the "old" classic optical process, instead of "new" digital technologies which are often used for digital ink jet printing."

Sandy King

For the money I would prefer to get one of your carbon prints. Fatali's images, I would have to see up close, but none of them tell me "can't be done digitally". Yours do. He chose to shoot transparency and print on Cibachrome. OK.... Back in the day Cibachrome was for the kitchen printer where temperature controls weren't that critical. If it's different today, I don't know since I haven't printed the stuff in about 30 years. I didn't care for the too warm color cast either. Transparencies had to be masked to get the most out of them too. How is that really different than shooting digital and bracketing the exposures and then combining them in HDR? I'm not into making any argument as to "what is better" because I do know the processes and merely pointing out if the image will look the same either way then telling me it's X-process or it's not Y-process is meaningless. Am I supposed to be talked into liking it more because of it? Frankly, film prints have shortcomings to color correctness and fidelity that a digital print would never be allowed to have. Vice verse black and white.

[Jay DeFehr]

Frankly if profitability of investment in a business was the sole or even primary consideration,..

.

cyrus,

Do much investing? If profitability is not your primary consideration, what is?

[tgtaylor]

My thinking is that if your business model is transmitting your images electronically for display on a monitor, then shooting and scanning film, if that floats your boat, is just as viable as shooting digitally. Current HD monitors are 1080P (or I) which is similar to 2K in cinematography and easily achieved by either medium.

If your business model is selling prints, then....well, what's the features and benefits of your prints? Why would I buy your print rather than someone elses? If you can answer that, then you'll probably make/increase sales and be sucessful.

Thomas

[Greg Lockrey]

Why would I buy your print rather than someone elses? If you can answer that, then you'll probably make/increase sales and be sucessful.

Thomas

Because you like the image????

[cyrus]

.

cyrus,

Do much investing? If profitability is not your primary consideration, what is?

Ummm... Art? Self-expression? All the stuff that makes a life worth living after you make money and pay bills?

Since when did we become investment bankers?

If you're doing photography because you like it, and happen to make money at it too, good for you. If you're doing this with a primary consideration of making a profit, Now THAT is a HARD way to turn a buck. I have nothing but respect for you but I respectfully suggest there are more profitable ways to spend the time and effort. Like I said, be a dentist, a plumber...

[Jay DeFehr]

cyrus,

I said I wouldn't invest in a business based on film-made photography, and you said profitability is not the primary consideration in investing in a business. Art and self expression are not very reliable considerations for investing in a business. Clearly, I do not confuse my photography with any kind of business, and if someone came to me to pitch their business plan based on their love of photography and self expression, I'd pass.