Rochester is Kodak town. When people think of Kodak, they think about Kodak film. Film has always been necessary ingredient for the development of pictures. For the past fifty years, Kodak has depended on its sales of film for its profit. The introduction of a digital cameras, which do not require film, is causing a downfall in purchases of Kodak's film. Kodak's dilemma is figuring out what people will be buying in the future as the consumer weighs the merits of film-base photography versus the increasingly popular digital photography.
Cost is a major criteria for the consumer when purchasing any product. The cost of film is from three to six dollars. A disposable camera with film costs an average of ten dollars. A total of under fifteen dollars includes the purchasing of the camera and getting the film developed. A Samsung camera, seen in an advertiser, included features such as zoom, red-eye reduction, continuous shooting, and self-timer. This camera costs eighty dollars. A digital camera with the same features costs three-hundred dollars. Digital cameras range from one-hundred to over a thousand dollars. Digital cameras require a memory devise just like regular cameras need film. This devise is called a flash card. A thirty-two megabyte flash card cost around forty dollars. A digital camera requires not only a flash card, but also a computer and a printer. When printing out pictures, the photography paper used cost nearly a dollar a sheet. The more pictures a consumer takes will be less expensive in the long run if they choose to use a digital camera over a regular camera.
The quality is also important when choosing a camera. Film has better quality because it uses many more mega-pixels and has better quality colors. When enlarging a picture, film creates better resolution. Digital cameras vary in quality. Since a computer and a printer is needed for the printout of pictures, the quality of resolution is decreased because the computer and the printer’s resolution will affect the outcome of how the picture looks. Many digital cameras have a feature which will allow the consumer to change the resolution. If a person wants high resolution, then they will not be able to take as many pictures as the flash card can hold. Also, a high quality printer and certain photographic paper is needed for better resolution.
When purchasing a camera, consumers are mostly persuaded by the versatility. Both digital and film-based cameras offer zoom, a flash button, red-eye reduction, self-timer, and continuous shooting. Digital cameras also allow pictures to be taken inside without a flash. The user can control the amount of light that is let into the camera while taking a picture. When someone with a digital camera wonders why they took a certain picture, they can delete it. The little screen on a digital camera lets the user see exactly what the picture will look like, and it allows the consumer to review the pictures that they already took. Once the pictures are on the computer, they can be cropped, enlarged, shrunk, and formatted to the consumers desire. The pictures that are wanted can be printed out and the pictures that are not wanted can be deleted or saved on the computer or disk. Pictures can also be transferred to a CD. Cameras that include film can be transferred to a CD too, but it must be sent to a processing center in order to do so.
In the future, as costs of digital cameras decreases and quality improves, it would appear that consumers would be lured into digital photography. The quality of digital cameras may not be as high as film-based cameras, but there are far more options and features found on digital cameras. A company such as Kodak would be foolish to stake its future solely on film photography.
Digital Photography Versus Traditional Film
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