Film fading fast

Local labs increasing focus on digital photography

Film or no film - that's the question that has been revolutionizing photography for the last decade.

Every year, more people choose the latter, causing a huge shift in the way photo labs and camera stores do business. Earlier this month, Nikon announced plans to discontinue almost all of its film cameras to focus on digital models.

Local photo businesses aren't exempt from the change, either.

"Our roll count has drastically gone down," said Kelley Hatfield, manager of Burch's One Hour Photo Digital in the Blue Cow building on U.S. 93. "It's just amazing."

"As far as a camera store goes, they're phasing out an awful lot of what we do," agreed Joel Brann, part owner of Photo Video Plus in Kalispell.

Instead of rolls of film, people can bring in memory cards to have photos printed. To accommodate these photographers, photo labs must have the right equipment to meet the growing digital demand.

"The labs that are staying in business really have had to adjust," Brann said. "If they haven't adjusted by now, they're probably going to go out of business."

Brann and others in the industry have adjusted by following the rapidly changing trends in photography. This has included watching the demand for slide film decrease dramatically.

"I would guess slides are down 80 percent probably," Brann said.

Sometimes the quickly shifting industry affects stores' big purchases. About seven years ago, Brann and his partner Paul Menssen bought machines to develop prints and write negatives to a CD. Then, it was brand-new technology.

"All the equipment is basically out of date now," Brann said.

Vendors also have to offer more digital cameras. Photo Video Plus sells about 30 digital cameras for every film camera, Brann said.

In December, they sold only four or five film cameras the whole month, Brann said, bringing the ratio closer to 40 to 1.

Most people have switched to digital for the sake of convenience, Brann said. Instead of developing an entire roll of film, photographers can choose which pictures, if any, they want to print.

"People are perceiving that digital is the way to go," he said.

The problem for photo labs is that at-home printing technology is increasing as rapidly as the cameras.

"We thought it was kind of scary at first because you see advertisements for printing your pictures at home," Hatfield said. "But people found out quickly that it's way more expensive to print them at home than to go to a photo lab."

This is because ink cartridges and special photo paper are so expensive, she said.

"It's so easy to just come here," she said.

Brann believes the benefit in bringing photos to a lab is in the quality.

"We can make a better print than you can at home," he said.

Hatfield agrees that quality is much better when customers bring their memory cards to a lab. Labs use the same printer for digital prints that they use when printing rolls of film, so the quality is identical.

"Customers are just amazed," she said. "They say, 'Wow, it's a real picture.'"

Those "real" pictures may still differ in quality from film photos, as people continue to debate whether film cameras take better pictures than digital.

Technique plays a large factor in this, Menssen said.

You can toss any image into a computer and fix it, he said, but an underexposed or overexposed digital shot will still look poor.

"The digital shot that was exposed well and then printed well looks very nice," he said.

"I think it's easier to take better pictures with digital," said Burch's owner Bob Burch. "I guess my take is that with a good quality camera, I've seen some pretty magnificent images.

"I think (digital) is a good thing from a picture-taking standpoint."

Brann disagrees.

"Film is still better in my opinion," he said. "There will be people who debate that."

Regardless of how good the shots are, there are more of them, thanks to digital cameras.

"The neat thing about it, the good thing, is there are more photographs being taken now than there were with just film," Brann said.

More photographs doesn't necessarily mean more prints, however. Because people can choose which photos they want printed, they are more likely to pick only a few pictures or simply store those pictures on their computers.

This is a trend that will continue with the increased popularity of camera phones. Conversation is no longer the sole function of a mobile phone. Now they can be used to listen to music, surf the Internet and yes, take pictures.

"I assume that that'll be a pretty big player shortly," Menssen said.

Right now, camera phones aren't making much impact on business, he said, because the images they produce are of such a low resolution that they don't print well.

Hatfield agrees.

"I haven't seen a good picture yet," she said.

This will not long be the case, though. Phones with chips of five megapixels or greater - enough to easily print a high-quality 8.5-by-11 inch photo on a home printer - are available outside the United States.

"We are not necessarily taking away from the ordinary digital camera but making picture-taking an experience that more people will do," said Camilla Gragg, communications manager with Nokia. "More people have cell phones in their hands than they have digital cameras.

"It's kind of opening it up to a broader audience. You might not have your camera with you, but you are probably going to have your cell phone."

Camera phone users tend to take "random" or "spur of the moment" pictures, according to a study released by Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. Inc. in September 2005.

All those random moments add up, and nearly half of the 400 camera-phone photographers surveyed wished they'd printed those pictures. The study also said that people who did print them took almost twice the number of photos as camera phone owners who didn't print their pictures.

Even with digital's incessant increase, photo labs haven't quite lived out their usefulness.

"We expect film to be around for a while," Menssen said. "(But) at some point people won't be processing film anymore. I don't know if that's two or three years away or 10 years away, but it will happen."

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.