The handwriting has been on the wall for professional photographers for the past decade. The message has been digital image capture will overtake film image capture. New press releases (Jan 31, '06) from Fujifilm and Kodak indicate that the handwriting is true. Fuji is restructuring its operation by cutting jobs in film production and sales and expanding its China (digital) production. Kodak announced that digital product sales now exceed film product sales. Digital is now king of the hill.  Photographers who are quickly losing the choice between film and digital will have to migrate to digital soon, if not already done. But migrating to digital means photographers will have to make some important choices.
To avoid a deluge of emails, I did not say film was dead. I am saying that film is dying at a faster rate than anyone anticipated even two years ago. Advances in digital sensor quality have overtaken the quality of 35mm and medium format films, but that is not the reason film is dying. The real reason lies in the quintessential nature of digital technology. It is FAST. Imaging results are instantly available and ready for post capture processing. Regardless of the fact that post capture processing can take more of a photographer's time than editing film, digital can knock days off a production schedule from initial capture to press or Web. In a high-speed publication world, saving time always wins. So photographers must consider how to manage their digital camera acquisitions.

If you are a photographer who uses Canon, Nikon, Hasselblad, or Mamiya digital camera equipment, you are most probably already on firm ground for the future. There is no sign that any of the four companies is about to fold up shop. But, if you have not migrated to digital yet, you better give your camera choice some serious thought. Purchasing a digital camera is like buying a film camera with all the film that you will need during the life of the camera built into it. Make a mistake and you could deteriorate the quality of your work. Worse than that, you might also be buying future trash, as I call it. Pick the wrong manufacturer and you might just end up owning a worthless asset.

Last year, Kodak hung users of its professional digital cameras out to dry when it discontinued it professional digital cameras. Selling or trading one of those discontinued models today is a disheartening experience for the owner. Konica Minolta has dropped out of the digital camera business and is selling its operations to Sony. Sony has indicated it will concentrate on low end SLR's for the growing consumer market. Professional Minolta users were hoping for a 10mp digital body in 2006, instead they got consumer-driven Sony. Three years ago, Olympus pulled in some professionals with its 5mp four-thirds sensor E1 camera. But its latest offerings are plastic consumer bodies with 8mp sensors that generate more noise than any pro can accept. Its long awaited professional camera update hasn't come yet, and when it does, if it is not soon, at least 10mp, and with a lower signal to noise ratio than its 5mp offering has, it is doomed in the professional ranks. Pentax, Panasonic, Samsung, and other companies are either making or planning to make digital SLRs, but they are aiming at the consumer market. As I wrote above, "If you are a photographer who uses Canon, Nikon, Hasselblad, or Mamiya digital camera equipment, you are most probably already on firm ground for the future." 

Photographers have an uncanny way of outsmarting themselves. I've been in the trade for forty years, and I learned that to be all too true. They usually do that by thinking they know more than they do or by making unwarranted assumptions, sort of like dreaming.  So don't dream that Sony or Panasonic is going to make professional level gear. Don't dream that Leica's 10mp SLR will come down from its over $7,000 price to match the Nikon D200 price of $1700.  Don't hope that Contax is coming back as a big time digital contender. Don't think that there is an easy and inexpensive way to go digital or stay up to date digitally. There isn't.  And don't expect the field of four professional level digital camera providers to grow to a larger number. It might happen, but if you wait to buy until it does, you will be in serious trouble when it comes to competing in the marketplace.

I don't use medium format at all. I use 3:2 aspect digital in the form of Nikon D2x and D200 cameras. The difference between the 12mp D2x and the 10mp D200 is undetectable unless you make very large reproductions or prints. I picked Nikon for three reasons. Nikon has served me well since 1966.  Nikon Professional Services has saved my butt enough to warrant my loyalty. I shoot with long lenses more than wide ones so the 1.5 magnification factor is a boon not a boondoggle for me.  I have a friend who switched to Canon from Nikon as soon as Canon marketed a full frame digital. He shoots wide and very wide angle most of the time so full frame has an advantage for him. You will note that both my friend and I made manufacturer choices based upon our real and current realities and not on hopes or dreams for the future. Business happens in the present tense. You can plan for the future but you can't predict it. Practical decisions ought be made on today's practical basis.

The moral of my story is this. Don't wait any longer. Get into professional level digital equipment now and make your selection of which system to buy based upon the reality of your own experience and needs not on the basis of the manufacturers' advertising. Today it is digital or die. Tomorrow it will be digital and the dead. Which state do you prefer?

Hi Dean,

I think you were not alone in your predicament. And I know that buying a digital SLR camera is a exercise that amounts to buying a soon to be obsolete instrument.  I bought a Nikon D200 last month because think it will be good for three years, and it is inexpensive enough to recover the  cost over that period of time.  The difference between the 10mp and 12mp cameras is not that much once you look at the print and not the math.  I like it enough that my D1x and D100 are about to become hand me downs to my son.  A back up D200 is next.