Two significant events happened recently. Canon announced that it had recently built its 100 millionth digital compact cameras. Earlier this year, industry trade body CIPA (the Camera and Imaging Products Association) announced that it could no longer producing figures for the number of film cameras sold, because they were so low. According to the organisation, just 529 cameras were made in February, the last month when statistics for film cameras will be made available.
The news follows other significant changes in the photographic market, such as Dixons Stores Group announcing it would no longer stock film cameras (in 2005), Kodak's 2006 announcement that digital revenue had outstripped film for the company, Nikon's 2006 cessation of all film camera manufacture save for the F6 flagship and Polaroid's withdrawal from the instant film business (http://www.thinkcamera.com/news/article/mps/uan/693).
The change from a film to a digital photographic model has happened relatively fast. Canon's first compact digital camera - the PowerShot 600 - was launched just 12 years ago, and sales of digital cameras really waited until the first years of the 21st Century to take off. Sales of film cameras, in contrast, were in decline even before the first PowerShot was launched. However, that decline got a lot steeper once digital began to provide a valid and inexpensive replacement to film.
Of course, sales of new film cameras do not express the true state of the film photographic market. Many film photographers are still using the cameras they bought years ago, or are snapping up second-hand bargains. The CIPA figures also only cover Japanese-built cameras, so does not include sales of Leica, Rollei, some Hasselblad and many large-format film cameras. Nevertheless, sales of film cameras - new and old - are now the exception, not the rule.
Film itself has seen similar downturns, with the original Agfa film brand being one of the most significant casualties. However, the big surviving names (Fuji, Ilford and Kodak) have all expressed a continuing commitment to traditional photographic processes and brands that have 'gone to the wall' often resurface under new management. Traditional photographic processes are still commonly used in art and academic circles, although change here seems inevitable.
Perhaps it's too early to mourn the passing of the film age, or perhaps it has already happened. But regardless, we suspect it won't take Canon another 12 years to reach the 200 million compact camera mark - and that's the sort of landmark we are unlikely to see in film photography again.
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