Kamera Digital News

Photo finish in the digital world

February 22nd, 2006

Photo finish in the digital world
By MELISSA LEE/For the Lincoln Journal Star

Not too long ago, customers would walk into Rockbrook Camera & Video and ask sales associate John Keller whether it was possible to develop film without a darkroom.

Today, the question takes a new form:  Can digital film be developed and printed without a computer?

The answer is still yes, but to Keller, this new query is a sign of an evolving photographic market.

“Film photography is finding a smaller and smaller niche,” he said. “Everything’s better and quicker with digital.”

Customers clearly agree. Drawn by the convenience and speed that digital cameras offer, they’ve seen to it that films and darkrooms are nearly things of the past.

For many photography businesses, it’s digital or bust.

Photo giant Kodak announced in 2004 that it would stop selling its film camera; Nikon has followed a similar path.

In Lincoln, too, business owners say they’ve had to adapt to digital or risk closing their doors as the film market dwindles.

“If you don’t embrace digital, you’re going to go out of business,” said Jeff White, general manager of The Photo Shoppe, which has locations at 301 N. Cotner Blvd. and 40th Street and Old Cheney Road.

White estimates he develops only half as much film as he did just a few years ago. Customers now demand digital prints, a demand he’s accommodated to keep thriving.

At Rockbrook, 70th Street and Pioneers Blvd., digital cameras now  outsell film cameras by a 300-to-1 margin, Keller said.

Rockbrook still offers professional film developing and printing but in the decade the store has been in Lincoln, it’s had to adapt to digital to stay afloat, he said.

Now, the business even offers a digital photography class, taught by Keller, that offers customers the chance to learn how to use high-tech digital equipment.

“We’re still successful,” he said.

Not all photography businesses have been so fortunate. Harman’s Camera Center, for example, closed in January 2004 after 30 years selling and processing film in downtown Lincoln.

At the time, owner Jim Harman blamed the closing partially on the rapid rise of digital photography.

It’s a trend that hasn’t always been friendly, according to University of Nebraska-Lincoln photojournalism lecturer Luis Peon-Casanova.

“We’re seeing a brutal change of technology,” he said. “It’s an amazing shift. Companies are re-inventing the way they do business.”

Today’s customers seek instant gratification, Peon-Casanova said, and digital photography offers them just that: They can shoot and re-shoot until they like the results, then get their prints the same afternoon.

In the past couple of years, the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at UNL has switched almost entirely to digital, Peon-Casanova said, and photographers at the student newspaper no longer need a darkroom.

Art students, though, continue to work with film.

White worries they may have increasing difficulty finding suppliers and developers.

“There’s so much competition. The small labs are closing up,” he said. “Digital has made the difference.”

Entry Filed under: World Digital Camera