Posted on 01/26/2003 8:51:58 PM PST by Lessismore
According to data compiled by the Camera and Imaging Products Association, digital cameras have finally moved ahead of traditional film cameras in the race for photography supremacy.
In 2002, 24.55 million digital cameras and 23.66 million film cameras were shipped, giving the lead to the binary brethren for the first time. The figures include products manufactured outside Japan.
Vast improvements in the quality of digital cameras and falling prices are clear pointers as to why sales are up, but there are social factors at work too.
According to the association, one factor influencing the market is that in Japan, ``young women in particular, who are buying compact cameras, have opted for digital models.''
The number of digital cameras shipped domestically previously exceeded that of film cameras in 2001, but last year, the total number shipped-including those going to overseas markets, such as Europe and the United States-was above that of film cameras for the first time.
The total number of cameras shipped to domestic and international markets in 2002 was 48.21 million, an increase of 13.8 percent from the previous year.
This favorable result featured a 66.4 percent increase in digital camera shipments.
The breakdown of this increase was a 35.6 percent increase in domestic market shipments, to 6.55 million, and an increase of 81.4 percent in international market shipments, to 18 million units.
In contrast, the number of film-based cameras shipped in 2002 declined by 14.3 percent from a year earlier.
Domestic numbers fell by 25.7 percent, to 2.24 million, while international shipments dropped by 12.9 percent, to 21.42 million.
In 2003, as a result of such factors as product diversification, the association is projecting an increase of 27.8 percent in shipments of digital cameras to 31.45 million.
The projected breakdown of this is a 17.4 percent increase in the domestic market and a 31.9 percent increase in international shipments.
On the other hand, the association projects a decrease of 15 percent in shipments of film cameras, to a total of 20.17 million.
The association's projection of total camera shipments during 2003 is for a year-on-year increase of 7.1 percent, to a total of 51.62 million units.
Good riddence. They are an arrogant PC company.
Kodak can't make up its revenue losses from photographic film, papers, and developing chemicals.
Why is it that nowadays DVD players all support playback of Kodak proprietary PictureCD format but they don't support anything useful like JPEGs on ISO CD's? Especially since all of the FAQ's I've seen on the subject indicate there is no software available to the general public to make PictureCD-compatible disks?
How are disposable cameras counted? Are they counted as one per film-pack sold, one for each film-pack sold with a "virgin" camera, or are they not figured in the totals?
Are there any reasonably-priced high-resolution cameras nowadays that can manage anything near the 'practical' speed of a 35mm? Most digitals I've seen have at least a quarter-second delay between clicking the shutter and taking the picture, if prefocused, and longer than that if not pre-focused. Further, most of them have a very long lag (many seconds) between consecutive pictures.
The only digital camera I've seen which didn't have an annoying lag between clicking the shutter and getting the picture was my Casio QV-770. That one only had 640x480 resolution [pitiful by today's standards] but had a mode in which it would take four pictures at 0.05-second intervals, starting about 0.15 seconds before the shutter button was pushed. Unfortunately, I know of no cameras today that offer anything remotely similar.
This is enough for "supremacy"? More sales, yes. Supremacy? Hardly.
Review: http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/cx4230.html
Photo Samples: http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/cx4230_samples.html
Unless your a photo journalist no one needs a 4.0 megapixel camera, even alot of 3.0 megapixles are over-kill for day-to-day photography, a good quality 2.0 seems to be better than a low end 3.0
I've been really impressed with the Fujifilm models (I own a FinePix 2400Z that I've had about 2 years )- they're reasonably priced, take good photos, and you get a lot of pics per set of batteries.
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