Last days of photographic film are coming into focus

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - At Image City Photography Gallery, GaryThompson delights in pointing out qualities of light, contrast andclarity in one of his best-selling prints - a winter sunset view ofYosemite National Park's El Capitan peak shot with a hefty Pentaxfilm camera he bought in 1999 for $1,700.

His wife, Phyllis, a latecomer to fine-art photography after theyretired from teaching in the 1990s, favors a Hasselblad X-Pan forpanoramic landscapes, such as a time-lapse shot of a harbor in NovaScotia.

Of 11 partners and resident artists at the private gallery inRochester - the western New York city where George Eastmantransformed photography from an arcane hobby into a mass commoditywith his $1 Brownie in 1900 - the Thompsons are the only ones leftwho haven't switched to filmless digital cameras.

But that time may be near.

"I like the color we get in film, the natural light," saysPhyllis Thompson, 70, who married her high-school sweetheart 50years ago. "But digital cameras are getting much better all thetime, and there will come a time when we probably won't be able toget film anymore. And then we'll have to change."

At the turn of the 21st century, American shutterbugs were buyingclose to a billion rolls of film per year. This year, they might buya mere 20 million, plus 31 million single-use cameras - the beach-resort staple vacationers turn to in a pinch, according to the PhotoMarketing Association.

Eastman Kodak Co. marketed the world's first flexible roll filmin 1888. By 1999, more than 800 million rolls were sold in theUnited States alone. The next year marked the apex for combined U.S.sales of rolls of film (upward of 786 million) and single-usecameras (162 million).

Equally startling has been the plunge in film camera sales overthe last decade. Domestic purchases have tumbled from 19.7 millioncameras in 2000 to 280,000 in 2009 and might dip below 100,000 thisyear, says Yukihiko Matsumoto, the Jackson, Mich.-basedassociation's chief researcher.

For InfoTrends imaging analyst Ed Lee, film's fade-out is movingsharply into focus: "If I extrapolate the trend for film sales andretirements of film cameras, it looks like film will be mostly gonein the U.S. by the end of the decade."

Just who are the die-hards, holdouts and hangers-on?

Among those who still rely on film - at least part of the time -are advanced amateurs and a smattering of professionals whospecialize in nature, travel, scientific, documentary, museum, fineart and forensic photography, market surveys show.

Regular point-and-shoot adherents who haven't made the switchtend to be poorer or older - 55 and up.

But there's also a swelling band of new devotees who grew up inthe digital age and may have gotten hooked from spending a magicalhour in the darkroom during a high school or college class.

Others are simply drawn to its strengths over digital and areeven venturing into retro-photo careers.

"In everything from wedding to portrait to commercialphotography, young professionals are finding digital so prevalentthat they're looking for a sense of differentiation," says KayceBaker, a marketing director at Fujifilm North America. "Thatartistic look is something their high-end clients want to see."

Kodak remains the world's biggest film manufacturer, with Japan'sFuji right on its tail. But the consumer and professional films theymake have dwindled to a precious few dozen film stocks in a handfulof formats, becoming one more factor in the mammoth drop-off in filmprocessing.

Scott's Photo in Rochester stopped daily processing of colorprint film because fewer than one in 20 customers are dropping offfilm. A decade ago, "we could process 300 rolls on a good day, andnow we see maybe eight or 10 rolls on the few days we actuallyprocess," owner Scott Sims says.

In a rich irony, film's newest fans - not unlike musicaficionados who swear by vinyl records - are being drawn togethervia the rise of the Internet.

"The technology that enabled the demise of film is actuallyhelping to keep it relevant with specific types of users," says IDCanalyst Chris Chute.

Kodak will churn out a variety of films as long as there'ssufficient demand for each of them, says Scott DiSabato, itsmarketing manager for professional film. It has even launched fournew types since 2007.

Analysts foresee Kodak offloading its still-profitable filmdivision sometime in the next half-dozen years as it battles tocomplete a long and painful digital transformation.

While digital has largely closed the image-quality gap, DiSabatosays a top-line film camera using large-format film "is stillunsurpassed" in recording high-resolution images.

"The beauty with film is a lot of wonderful properties areinherent and don't require work afterward" whereas digital caninvolve heavy computer manipulation to get the same effect, DiSabatosays.

"In the extreme, they call it 'stomped on,'" he said. "But a lotof photographers want to be photographers, not computer technicians.And some prized film capabilities - grain, color hues, skin-tonereproduction - can't quite be duplicated no matter how much stompinggoes on."

Gary Thompson, who's been exhibiting his best photos for 32years, captured his Yosemite picture on medium-format slide film -which is 4 1/2 times bigger than 35 mm film - during one of manyweeks-long photo jaunts with his wife.

In the digitally scanned, 24- by 30-inch print, the shadow from adipping sun has climbed halfway up El Capitan. The wooded, black-and-white foreground with its lacy snow patterns stands in starkcontrast to the golden glow on the granite cliff face under a bluesky.

"I don't know if I could have gotten this print that large withthat kind of detail" using a digital camera without "shootingseveral images and blending them together in Photoshop," he says."What attracts me to shoot in almost all instances is the quality oflight and there's something about film and working with it and theway it records that I just like."

Thompson feels acutely that he's reaching the end of an era.

"As people's film cameras break down, rather than purchasinganother one, they move to digital," he says. "Eventually, we'llprobably be doing that. There's a certain nostalgia involved,particularly when I'm working with one of my big husky cameras. Thatwill be sad. But hey, when it happens, I'll adjust."