Digital BW, The Print

Steve Kale writes:

> Collectively yes consumers are smart.

Not smart, cheap.  Price is the overwhelming factor in consumer choice,
as the size of the market grows.  Consumers chose VHS over Betamax, and
VHS over laser discs.  They chose disposable cameras over Leicas.  They
chose Yugos over BMWs.  These don't seem like smart people to me.

> As for backup, this has been discussed ad nausea - take a look through
> the archives. Whether it is digital or analogue one must take care of
> data. It is a lot easier to duplicate and hence "backup" digital data.
> That doesn't mean that people will do it and that those that do will
> make mistakes but it is easier to protect digital data.

It's not any harder or easier.  They work out to different versions of
the same thing.  However, protecting data on disk drives requires
explicit actions that the average consumer doesn't carry out.  And since
consumer digital photos are typically stored on disk drives (and nowhere
else), when the drive fails, the photos are lost.

I even lost a large number of photos myself once, when I had to format a
drive without being able to back it up.  Fortunately, they were scans,
so I can still rescan the original film.  Had they been digital, they
would have been lost forever.

> The digital revolution is making it easier for people to take photos, share
> photos, and store photos.

It's making it a lot easier to lose photos, too.

> Consumers are abandoning film in droves.

Consumers never cared much about film, anyway.  The average consumer
shot only about a roll a year, at most.

> So are pros - photojournalists, sports photographers, fashion
> photographers ...

The only pros who are abandoning film are those who need speed.  Not all
pros need speed.  There's no real advantage to digital if you don't
require speed.

> ... only fashion photographers still doing "editorial" work,
> the lowest form of fashion photography ...

Editorial work is the lowest form of fashion photography?  Who decreed
this, and when?

> The only guys left are the bleeding (or bleeting) "artists".

The HCBs and AAs of the world.  Real losers.

> Film is good but it is a dying product.  It has been largely abandoned by
> many commercial environments and is a gasping for breath in others.

Zzzz.

Why do so many people feel so compelled to go to extremes in so many
things?