How much longer can photographic film hold on? [Archive] - AusPhotography:: Australia's Premier Photography Forum::

Kym

01-06-2011, 9:11am

My 2.2 cents worth inc GST...

Film is strong as a movie medium and will probably remain so for some time.

Film in still photography has become niche/enthusiast and will no doubt continue forever.
The tipping point was around 2004 ish when 6mp sensors started becoming pervasive and thus the quality of digital prints were better than film.

Digital advantages surpass film in the vast majority of photographic applications, and for the 99.999% of the consumer market digital is a complete win.
Note: The two formats are both analogue until the A/D conversion of the sensor data, so optics etc are common to both.
This does not mean there are not a few film niche applications and, of course the film enthusiast.

In the end it is not how you capture an image, but the end result that counts.

BTW: The primary digital advantages are:

Immediacy
Convenience
Low unit cost per image
High volume
Easy publishing / sharing
Must easier and more powerful post processing options than a darkroom

The number of images captured has increased vastly since digital technologies have become pervasive.

Digital has enabled many more people to enjoy photography,
and as a consequence the business/professional part of photography is going through a painful adjustment.

fillum

01-06-2011, 10:09am

I think that film that is easily self-processed (ie B&W) will continue for a long time. It seems for many shooting film the enjoyment is in the 'process' not just the results. If there are enough customers still willing to pay for film, someone, somewhere, will make it. Although it is likely that prices will rise as ( /if ?) the market recedes. There appears to me to be a slight swing back to film by enthusiast photographers who are now able to pick up formerly expensive film bodies relatively cheaply (particularly in the MF range).

I'm less confident about the long-term future of colour film.

Cheers.

Kym

01-06-2011, 11:06am

I'm less confident about the long-term future of colour film.

I think demand from the movie industry will keep colour film stocks being produced,
at least until digital cinema large screen projection advances to mainstream, which is still at least 10 years off (IMO)

ving

01-06-2011, 11:12am

digital medium format really isnt within reach of the typical user. 35mm will dwindle but not die for some time i think.

smallfooties

01-06-2011, 10:08pm

film is like the cockroach... people will find no use for their existence but even if a meteor would to hit earth tomorrow... the cockroach will probably be the only thing that survives...

PS: just a thought... doesn't have to make any sense! :lol:

sunny6teen

01-06-2011, 11:32pm

you have to be careful when saying 'film' as it's a bit vague. usually when people don't understand the difference, they simply mean 35mm...but it differs greatly to 120, sheet film etc....using both negatives and positives.
even as late as the 90s, 35mm was still considered as being a bit ordinary but ideal for journalists/amateurs. 35mm was convenient to carry around but not often used commercially.

digital surpassed 35mm negs many moons ago. I consider my 5dmkii to be on par (or marginally better) than my 645 loaded with 120 - but it's nowhere near the quality of 4x5 sheet film.
this is why much commercial work is still being done with large format cameras - albeit with digital backs for convenient processing.
I've yet to use digital medium format which may be what kills off large format in a commercial environment.

as previously mentioned, all film will have a niche market. amateurs and fine artists most likely as they don't have deadlines. time and cost is what's killing film - not image quality.
I was a darkroom technician during the 90s for the Guardian (UK). it took me a couple of hours per image :D ...suffice to say they switched to digital cameras in 1999. after that, editor submissions had to be digital.
hundreds of nearby commercial darkrooms died over the next few years. commercially, film is already dead. you missed the funeral ;)

digital still has its problems though. my personal hate is how it clips to pure white so immediately. film doesn't do this. sure, you can blow out the highlights but you get this graduation that digital sensor are yet to replicate.
i'm not too fussed about mandatory sharpening either. also...is canon/nikon writing this stuff down? :lol: get rid of video on slr's. stop bumping up the price of still cameras for the sake of inferior video. or are slr's the new point & shoot since the cameraphones improved?
okay...now I'm just ranting. you can be certain that the next upgrade will fail to resolve any of these issues but it'll probably have some crappy special effects function :(

Tannin

02-06-2011, 12:02am

A nice post, Tony. ;) Just one nit-pick: adding video doesn't really make much difference to the price at all. It's a bit like adding the fax function to a modem used to be back in dial-up days: the chip had to be able to do pretty much everything you needed for faxing anyway, so why not include that function? Same deal with video on an SLR: the incremental manufacturing cost is probably less than $1.00.

Nut I don't like it either. In fact, I have so little interest in it that I haven't even bothered to learn which of my various cameras have the feature and which don't. I've never had the faintest interest in using it. If I wanted to make movies I'd get some hair oil, a a gold chain and a movie camera.

PhoTomD

02-06-2011, 12:21am

My Zenit (and I) says Thank You, Tony ;)

David Woods

02-06-2011, 1:56pm

Hi
I still only use film, as photography is my passion not my job, I have my own little dark room that has a Durst 138 Labarator, and love developing my own B&W film, I still shoot colour film mainly Velvia on the 35mm, and the 120, and on the 4x5 and 5x7 I shoot Velvia and Provia and Ilford, I bought my wife a kx for her birthday, and had a go with it, but to me, there was no real excitment in using the digital, I would rather still have the curiousity of waiting to develop the film, and see our they turned out, and then holding a 5x7 neg up after your developed it, digital just cannot give you that amazement.

I just wonder how many people now, have actually taken a picture with film, or developed their own film?

Regards
David

JM Tran

02-06-2011, 3:50pm

digital still has its problems though. my personal hate is how it clips to pure white so immediately. film doesn't do this. sure, you can blow out the highlights but you get this graduation that digital sensor are yet to replicate.

very good point that I have raised a few times in the past Tony.

Many ppl when switching over to digital found that their images were not as good originally, this being one of the problems - it is still easy to overblow whites on jpegs, but much harder to do with film - simply because film served as a safety net where one doesnt need to be spot on with their exposure to get good results.

Kym

02-06-2011, 4:06pm

I just wonder how many people now, have actually taken a picture with film, or developed their own film?

Last time I shot with film (slide) was around 2001. Last time I got wet with film circa 1981.

I'm totally amazed at what I can do with Digital, but then I'm an IT geek :p I'm also am immediate person, I want to see it now.

I LOVE my Digital cameras :party7:

I @ M

02-06-2011, 6:38pm

I just wonder how many people now, have actually taken a picture with film, or developed their own film?

Shoe boxes and a few photo albums full of 35mm photos shared between SWMBO and I in this household.
As for developing it, no, I have never done the full process but helping a friend of my fathers to develop B&W prints in his under house darkroom when I was a very young lad ( many many years ago ) was probably the point when I "discovered" photography.

The man who I assisted was one of the founding members of a camera club that is still going today and a current AP member is on the committee of that club.

David Woods

02-06-2011, 6:52pm

Shoe boxes and a few photo albums full of 35mm photos shared between SWMBO and I in this household.
As for developing it, no, I have never done the full process but helping a friend of my fathers to develop B&W prints in his under house darkroom when I was a very young lad ( many many years ago ) was probably the point when I "discovered" photography.

The man who I assisted was one of the founding members of a camera club that is still going today and a current AP member is on the committee of that club.

Just curious, does that person that was a founding member of a club, does he still use film, and would you have got involved in photography, if he hadn't shown you the workings of a dark room?

Regards
David

I @ M

02-06-2011, 7:05pm

David, re the founding member of the club, he was an older friend of my father ( my father passed away last year aged 87 ) so I highly doubt that he is still using film unless they have a Fuji quick print kiosk up there or down there. :D

As for becoming involved in photography and whether the dark room process started it or not I don't really know the answer.
I had seen and marvelled at his photos before I saw the development process but I think it was his images more than the darkroom that started my interest.
Certainly I was impressed by seeing images appear as if by magic on bits of paper sloshing around in smelly plastic trays and not so long after my first exposure to that ( pardon the pun ) I ended up with a camera, the rest is history but digital has basically over run film here since 2005.

fillum

02-06-2011, 7:20pm

I just wonder how many people now, have actually taken a picture with film, or developed their own film?I've been toying with the idea of shooting some b&w but haven't really summoned up the necessary enthusiasm. I was sorting through some stuff at the weekend and found a couple of exposed rolls of HP5+ so it looks like I need to go and dig the old tank out after all. Don't remember shooting them so no idea how old. Also found a couple of rolls of the Kodak b&w film that uses C-41 (colour) processing (one of them was still in the camera) so I'll need to take those to the chemist. :D

Cheers.

sunny6teen

02-06-2011, 11:00pm

interestingly, I heard today that Canon's 5D series will be split into 2 in time for the mk3...a video camera and a stills camera. no idea if there's any truth to it (you know how reliable these rumours can be).

digital is amazing. how fast could I have learned photography with digital? ...and I don't miss having to jot down the details on the slide (glory to the exif data, I say).

the amateur photographer is the happiest photographer. they get to shoot whatver they want, however they want :)

fabian628

03-06-2011, 12:02am

Hi
I just wonder how many people now, have actually taken a picture with film, or developed their own film?

made this last week. enlargement made from 7 8x10's :)

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af352/Natural_Defence_Plant2/IMG_4257.jpg

arthurking83

03-06-2011, 6:30am

to answer the OP's actual question, I don't think that in our lifetime the sale of film will ever disappear completely, but I think that's it's very likely that the larger players in the industry, such as Kodak and Fuji will eventually have to cease production due to an unprofitable product.. that's for sure!
Those companies exist for one reason only.. to profit.
I doubt very much that Kodak produces film simply because of some inherent die hard photographic prejudice! They make it because it sells in the numbers where they still turn a profit.
Once that profit margin is completely eroded to record negative figures, they'll sell up the assets to the lowest bidder who will then take up the challenge of making some money from it.

Speaking of Kodak, I still believe that in Australia, Kodak will probably turn a profit over the next few years, merely from the fact that they're sitting on a billion dollar property ripe for residential redevelopment about 1 klm east of where I live.
I don't have any information on Kodak's financials, but my guess is that the majority of their income stream would now be derived from licensing the technology of their digital sensors, and the manufacture of them.

Going from the quoted figures in the article in the link, the film market seems to have dwindled to about 0.5% of what it once was, in a single decade.
The writing is on the wall for the large film manufacturers(as opposed to the film itself).

10 years... maybe less?? :confused013

geck

12-06-2011, 10:33pm

Firstly, fabian 628, that is an awesome image.

I don't think film will die completely for a long while yet, but I do believe it might parallel the rise, fall and rise again of vinyl. Sales and production has been dropping over the past decade, but I think it will eventually plateau and rise again as more and more newcomers to photography (re)discover it. I shoot both film and digital, and as much as I like the instant gratification of digital, the first box of Velvia slides I got back blew my mind to the point where I jimmied up a projector using my Nikkormat and 50mm lens, a tripod, a torch and a piece of A4 paper to put them on the wall. Same with the first lot of prints from a roll of HP5, then Dellta 3200, then Superia 1600.

As long as I can buy film I will - I even picked up a fairly ordinary 1950s rangefinder to run Delta 100 and Pan 50 in as a walking around camera, as well as having my phone cam on me too for digital/colour shots.

I think that as much as digital can be equal in colour/size/resolution/sharpness to film, it just lacks a certain je ne sais quoi - you can't beat true black and white grain, and I think that there is enough of a market for this that film won't die out just yet. Perhaps non-pro colour negative stock will go in a decade, but true black and white, positive and pro colour neg will be around for a long while yet - just look at Kodak introducing a new Portra recently...

conscuba

14-06-2011, 8:35pm

feel the same Geck. I have a canon 30d,but only use it for party/point n shoot type shots. anytime i feel arty , i reach for my film cameras.
planning on getting a projector soon.
and I love doing things teenagers know nothing about

squizzytaylor

14-06-2011, 9:13pm

I had a good chat with a friend in the North West of NSW about a year ago who owns a photo shop. As far as he is/was concerned the days of the shopfront with a Mini-lab were somewhat numbered. The issue as he saw it was twofold;
a) Home printing/department store photo services had eroded the film business to the point where it was already barely viable as a profit line to start with.
b) The Konica mini-labs (I am lead to believe over 80% of processors use these) are very power hungry and the chemicals used require heat and filtration from the machine to remain effective making the whole operation a sizable overhead. (I may have misquoted here, please correct me if I'm wrong).
Its a catch 22 but the more digital imaging increases, the more the film processing decreases therefore increases the price per print to cover the expense of running the mini-lab.
He does however still process his own b&w prints manually.

GT

Sam Emilio

17-06-2011, 1:45pm

I @ M

17-06-2011, 2:07pm

This is a discussion that has been going on for so long, but really, film will not die. We all know there's something 'special' about film, and with companies like Lomography (who've released two cameras in the last month) going strong there's not a chance film will die out in the foreseable future.

Sam, you sound like an ardent film user and very happy to use confident language about the survival of film, I really, seriously had to google lomography to find out what you were talking about.
Do you think you could tell us how many cameras they have sold in the last year or so?
I am not so confident as to use phrases like "will not die" or "not a chance" but I do believe that film will continue to be produced in ever decreasing amounts for some time yet to serve those who wish to treasure it in much the same way that avid vintage car restorers / collectors love their hobby and remember "the good old days".

doigal

27-06-2011, 12:19am

I just wonder how many people now, have actually taken a picture with film, or developed their own film?

I shoot about 3 rolls of film a month on average and develop all myself, including C-41 and E-6. Apart from some really niche films (fortia) i havnt had any problems getting film.

If you think film is dying, try looking around a Japanese shop. Their film sections are bigger than most Ted's shops in Australia.

KeeFy

27-06-2011, 1:19am

B&W film has a proven 3 to 4 stop advantage over the standard dSLR bar the MF formats. Film is pretty much alive and i have quite a few friends who have started venturing into film. Also with the popularity of lomography increasing.... film will not die IMO

As for digital vs film for video. Digital is taking over film in that aspect. Many companies have ported over to digital and current sales of film cameras have definitely decreased (i've got friends who sell/repair professional video cams). Also with the introduction of 3D tvs and such... it's definitely moving away from film. Film for video will become a niche market in the future as well i reckon.

David Woods

28-06-2011, 3:10pm

I shoot about 3 rolls of film a month on average and develop all myself, including C-41 and E-6. Apart from some really niche films (fortia) i havnt had any problems getting film.

If you think film is dying, try looking around a Japanese shop. Their film sections are bigger than most Ted's shops in Australia.

Doigal

I never said film was dying????

doigal

02-07-2011, 5:20pm

sorry, i only skimmed the comments of the thread. didnt mean to be an attack on you!!

seriously, if you get the chance, go look at camera shops in japan. this was a corner of the film floor in bic camera
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2477/3845578176_af1d94de2e_z.jpg?zz=1 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/doigal/3845578176/)
What a camera store should look like (http://www.flickr.com/photos/doigal/3845578176/) by doigal (http://www.flickr.com/people/doigal/), on Flickr

David Woods

03-07-2011, 9:36am

We were going to go to Japan this year, but friends of ours are getting married at Hyderabad India, so we are now going to India, I am hoping to get to Nepal to photo the Himalayas. I just hope I take enough film, 10 rolls of 100 velvia, 5 rolls of 50 velvia, 5 rolls of T-Max 100 5 rolls of T-Max 400, that's all the 35mm I am taken, in the 120 5 rolls of of Velvia 50, 5 rolls of T-Max 100 5 rolls of T-Max 400 and a couple of rolls of 64

fabian628

03-07-2011, 10:39am

claytonchatham

21-08-2011, 3:45pm

It better live on. I still run a roll of 120 through my Mamiya 645 every wedding. It's my biggest money maker

TOM

28-08-2011, 10:21am

BTW: The primary digital advantages are:
Immediacy
Convenience
Low unit cost per image
High volume
Easy publishing / sharing
Must easier and more powerful post processing options than a darkroom

And this is the key to ag-x's longevity. I agree with everything Kym has said here, more or less. You'll notice that none of these things listed have anything to do with the quality of the end image, it's all about convenience. I shoot about 50/50 nowadays, but when quality and exclusivity is of the upmost importance, then it has to be film.

arthurking83

28-08-2011, 11:24am

.....
If you think film is dying, try looking around a Japanese shop. Their film sections are bigger than most Ted's shops in Australia.

That's all well and good, but the problem(as usual) is the context of the situation hasn't been taken into account.
It's all well and good to see that film is still as popular today as it was say .. even 5 years ago, and then post images to prove this, the reality is very different.
The distortion of perspective in the images and the fact that some Japanese stores have film section larger than the average Teds, is more of a reflection of the concentration of population rather than the fact that the demand is still what it used to be.
That is, I'm wondering how many floors these photographic stores used to devote to film sales only a few years back, and then compare them to what you now see.
Tokyo has a population alone that exceeds Australia's entire population, so to see a store stocking this much film is going to be normal.. because the store is going to cater to a customer base 100x larger than just about any other city in the world! I'd dare say that many NY photography stores will have a similar film range too. Massive population density and the higher living standards of the general population dictates this type of situation.

I've watched the retail and wholesale film industry being obliterated by the onward march of digital technology but from a completely left field avenue, that is the transportation of it. Watching the megalithic Kodak Melbourne operation transform from a city it itself, down to barely a speck on a street frontage is enough evidence for me to know that film is all but dead. Not completely dead, but at least 1/100th of what it once was.
There's always going to be a niche market for just about any aspect of life, but my instinct tells me that in the long term, companies like Fuji and Kodak will one day cease film production due to a lack of profitability, and let others with a leaner company structure cater to the ever dwindling market needs.

As for quality, there is no proof that either one of the two technologies is better than the other, other than the simple fact that digital technology is theoretically capable of infinitely better quality(for a given size of capture medium).
Any opinions of the quality differences between film and digital will be subject to biases and personal preferences ......

I believe that the only advantage that film has over digital is in the larger format arenas .. larger than MF and into the Large Format area. Digital is still too expensive to compete against LF.
Pentax has shown that price is now no longer a barrier to more efficient MF return on investment. where once upon a time the companies that had the stronghold on the MF digital capture market used command the market direction, they'll soon have to follow where it inevitably ends up.
One day soon that will mean cheaper prices in the MF digital marketplace too. It's only a matter of time before this domino effect hits the LF market too.

TOM

28-08-2011, 3:37pm

One day soon that will mean cheaper prices in the MF digital marketplace too. It's only a matter of time before this domino effect hits the LF market too

Arthur we haven't even a seen a full size (ie. 6x6 or 6x7) medium format cameras yet, let alone a large format! :)

When you consider that with film you get a larger dynamic range, better colours, a negative/positive piece of film, and more flexibility with the image (ie. scan into digital @ true 16 bit, wet printing, contact printing), no matter what sized piece of silver halide you have, there will always be a niche market. Ron Lowry in the States is starting to make and market his own ag-x products. If you stick to black and white, it's not even all that difficult (YMMMV). I tend to go through stages where I'll shoot a lot digital and no film, and vice versa. Film cameras are so cheap nowadays, why wouldn't I keep both on hand.

Kym

28-08-2011, 3:56pm

@Tom... http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/31/canon-develops-worlds-largest-cmos-sensor-shoots-60fps-video-i/ CMOS sensor measuring 202 x 205 mm... That's 7.95 x 8.07 inches :th3:

TOM

28-08-2011, 4:56pm

Unfortunately, the press release is more concerned with promoting Canon's engineering prowess than with product launch. Nevertheless, we're impressed.

Let's hope some day that a sensor this size can become viable companies to put into production, I for one would love to shoot with something like that.

Kym

28-08-2011, 5:30pm

The first digital photo was produced in 1957 when Russell Kirsch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Kirsch) made a 176×176 pixel digital image by scanning a photograph of his three-month-old son.
The first digital camera was a klunker in 1975 http://www.petapixel.com/2010/08/05/the-worlds-first-digital-camera-by-kodak-and-steve-sasson/
It took a while for Digital to go consumer

So give it 10 years (or maybe a bit more) and LF digital will be 'affordable' (i.e. <$20,000 for a LF digital camera)

arthurking83

28-08-2011, 6:22pm

T...

So give it 10 years (or maybe a bit more) and LF digital will be 'affordable' (i.e. <$20,000 for a LF digital camera)

Yeah! at the rate that digital technologies advance, I reckon we'll have sub $3k MF cameras available, and maybe not $20K LF sensors, but as the basic structure of the LF camera is different to the 35mm format system, it really shouldn't be expensive.. maybe $50K or something like that.

Digital LF systems are currently available, but not really a viable alternative to LF film, due to the glacial pace at which they scan the scene. Instead of using the typical digital sensor tech, they're basically flatbed scanners and due this technology are slow to scan the scene, basically do it a line at a time, so a dynamic scene is impossible to capture.
For 6x17 pano format there is the Seitz, but once again a scanning back system (albeit faster at 1sec for a full 6x17 image).
Great if your shots are all in the 1sec or slower range, which not all images are!

From my very basic recollection of digital sensor technology, the biggest obstacle is the size of the silicon wafer to begin with. It's something like 300mm round, so to cut out a square single piece sensor not only is it going to be massively expensive, as you only get one piece per die, but you also get a lot of wastage too.
Some brilliantly minded mathematician will know.. what's the largest single rectangular cutout possible from a 300mm diameter circle? (I suspect 202x205mm! :D)
Unless something changes, I don't think that 8x10 format is possible in digital single shot sensor capture(only in scan back technology).
If they can increase the capture rate of scan back technologies(the bandwidth), there's no reason not to use this technology.
Even tho you would naturally use longer exposure times in large format due to the smaller working apertures, the whole premise of digital is that it also opens up new opportunities, such as has happened in recent times with the explosion of usable ISO values to insane levels such as 12500 and beyond. There's no reason not to want similar performances in LF capture too.

steffoto

27-09-2011, 3:03pm

I shoot almost exclusively large format colour film. While I suspect one day a large format sensor will certainly be available - it could quite likely require me to carry a car battery around to power it!

And anyway - if it's anywhere near $20K then I'd have to shoot over 3500 keepers on it before it was cheaper than my current film process. A process that produces 120 Megapixel images on my scanner that are streets ahead of anything I have ever seen from a digital camera of any description. The detail and warmth of a well scanned 4x5 negative is just extraordinary. And they usually require only about 40 seconds of post-production after the scan.

I reckon film will be around for a very long time. The choice of available films will definitely diminish (it already had!) - but I still expect to be able to source sheet film. At least in B+W. The bigger concern is sourcing colour chemistry!

I also think that it can be easier to learn and improve your photography by shooting film. Digital cameras can sometimes do too much "thinking" for their user - potentially by-passing the creative and analytical processes that lead to great images. It can be a bit too tempting to do 5 shot brackets or to tone-map HDR a bad exposure with a digital. When each image is costing $5-$8 you tend to think about what you are doing!

On one level digital has resulted in a lot more photographs being made. But the total number of really good artisitc and striking images is about the same as it was. The convenience and low price of being able to make more images more quickly does not always lead to better photography.

All that said - I love my 7D! For many uses it is the best camera I have. But for serious images. Where I am trying to think like an artist. The ones I hike for hours to make. I want them on film. Big film. The bigger the better. :)

DavCal

02-04-2012, 10:45pm

Hi Kym,
I shoot both, more digital than film for the reasons you list but may I suggest that film does one one advantage over digital, one that seldom gets a mention? Namely, that at least with film you have something tangible, something physical that you can actually hold. Our digital images may be only a crash away from oblivion. Yes we can, and should do backups but I still sometimes find it reassuring to have a tranny, BW neg to go to if something happens to my digital hardware. But you are right, the convenience and versatility of digital will always win out over film.

Cheers,

David.

Kym

03-04-2012, 8:03am

@DavCal ... I print my photos :D

NoSideshow

18-04-2012, 6:05pm

I @ M

18-04-2012, 6:51pm

It will last forever.
In November last year, the Smithsonian entered into a contract with a New York archiving company to protect all their precious images in their servers.
Guess what technology they are using? Colour and BW slide Film. Yes...that's right.

Of course it will last forever when you have people like the Smithsonian Institute able to afford the cost of producing rolls of film just for themselves ------

Kym

18-04-2012, 6:55pm

It will last forever.
In November last year, the Smithsonian entered into a contract with a New York archiving company to protect all their precious images in their servers.
Guess what technology they are using? Colour and BW slide Film. Yes...that's right.

Film as a niche product? Sure almost forever.

As mainstream consumer and pro imaging? It's dead.

ricktas

18-04-2012, 8:04pm

Film and digital can go hand in hand. What pi..annoys me are the purists from both sides, who think that for some reason, they are better because of the path they have chosen.

The film purists bemoan the level of PP that happens with digital, but they forget the processing that went into high quality film photos, where un-sharp mask, saturation changes, even hand painting, was-is used. Then you get the digital purists who proudly proclaim, "I don't edit my photos', like doing so makes them out to be better than everyone else.

I would say, stop being holier-than-thou, cause you aren't and get on with learning to be a better photographer, dark room processor, digital processor.

Film will be around for ages, so will digital. Live with it!