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Nicholas Calcott
February 4th, 2010
I just had a conversation with an aunt who used to own a consumer photography store – her business died with the rise of digital cameras, but she mentioned that some of her employees had entirely changed their focus from photography to film…
Perhaps the rise of the 5d and 7d cameras that also do hi-res film marks a turning point in the industry… The lines have been blurred between photography and film, allowing people like me to work in a medium that previously required tons of additional equipment and experience… And the drain of advertising from print to the internet has meant that still photography just doesn’t pay as much as it previously did. Film and video, though, continues to be a moneymaker, even on the internet. Photographers now have the tools to emigrate entirely to the moving image. Perhaps what we’re witnessing is the end of a golden age of photography; perhaps it marks the beginning of a renaissance for film and video. Buying a lens, recently, for my Canon, the clerk asked if I was a videographer. When I replied, “no,” he went on to explain that most of his high-end lenses were being sold to video guys because of the technical abilities of the 5d and because they have (what seems to photographers to be) unlimited budgets…
Or perhaps the tablet PCs which now look inevitably to be coming (whether or not the iPad succeeds) mean a light at the end of the tunnel…. when pictures on the internet will finally become worth something…
I just had a conversation with an aunt who used to own a consumer photography store – her business died with the rise of digital cameras, but she mentioned that some of her employees had entirely changed their focus from photography to film…
Perhaps the rise of the 5d and 7d cameras that also do hi-res film marks a turning point in the industry… The lines have been blurred between photography and film, allowing people like me to work in a medium that previously required tons of additional equipment and experience… And the drain of advertising from print to the internet has meant that still photography just doesn’t pay as much as it previously did. Film and video, though, continues to be a moneymaker, even on the internet. Photographers now have the tools to emigrate entirely to the moving image. Perhaps what we’re witnessing is the end of a golden age of photography; perhaps it marks the beginning of a renaissance for film and video. Buying a lens, recently, for my Canon, the clerk asked if I was a videographer. When I replied, “no,” he went on to explain that most of his high-end lenses were being sold to video guys because of the technical abilities of the 5d and because they have (what seems to photographers to be) unlimited budgets…
Or perhaps the tablet PCs which now look inevitably to be coming (whether or not the iPad succeeds) mean a light at the end of the tunnel…. when pictures on the internet will finally become worth something…