[Alex645]

Instant film has had a big come back, tons of new items for sale at B&H and readily available locally here in Vancouver:

Instant Film

Instant Film Cameras

Phil.

In general, I've seen the decline end in 2010 and a slow increase in film usage and interest. I am surprised that no one is currently producing a SLR that is compatible with digital lenses.

[Ontarian50]

1994: A Nikon N90 is used to build the first DSLR: the Kodak DCS 420 (2MP).

I'm not sure why someone would call the DCS 420 the first DSLR, as it came after the DCS 200 (with which I took my very first digital photo after being handed one at a trade show).

The DCS 200 was built on the Nikon F801s platform, but even that came after the original Kodak DCS (later re-named the DCS 100) which was built on a Nikon F3 body, where the hard drive was in a separate unit. All three cameras used a 1.5MP 2.5x crop sensor (so a 20mm lens was a "normal").

Basically DCS 100 = separate hard drive; DCS 200 = built in hard drive. DCS 420 = removable hard drive.

[pathdoc]

In general, I've seen the decline end in 2010 and a slow increase in film usage and interest. I am surprised that no one is currently producing a SLR that is compatible with digital lenses.

The question as always is: which platform do you pick?

Pentax is the obvious answer for us here, given its legendary back-compatibility and to some degree forward compatibility too (e.g. the P series will handle DA lens apertures in program; the Super Program will do so in shutter priority as well), BUT the vast majority of Pentax DSLR lenses are APS-C and many (especially the zooms) do not play well with 35mm film in terms of image circle.

Nikon is perhaps the best contender, as its F mount has remained standard for a very long time and they have AFAIK always had a full-frame digital evolutionary path for a putative film camera to fall back on (I think your answer there might be "The Nikon F6").

The last generation of Canon film bodies will handle the current crop of Canon lenses, but (BY DESIGN) cannot mount the old manual glass.

I don't see Sony going back to film at all soon, but at least they have a good full-frame lens lineup. Try to build a Sony film camera and sooner or later the Name Which Must Not Be Spoken (Minolta) rears its ugly head.

Olympus got out of the full-frame game in the film era to adopt its own 4:3 standard, so again you have issues there with a changed aspect ratio.

[bm75]

I asked myself the question and my answer was the year 2006, last time I shoot a roll of TMax ,developed and printed myself at home with my gear. From then few rolls of color negatives and some digital compact cameras. Then DSLR.I miss my Pentacon Six BW negatives and, of course Velvia color slides. But digital is also fun.

[skierd]

FILM is dead, long live film! Capitalization intentional, we'll never see big FILM they way we had it in the 80's and 90's. The mortal wound to the film industry was the Kodak DCS in the 90's and the release of the Nikon D1 in 1999, and I'd agree that it's end as a commercial format was either when art directors stopped taking negatives or slides for submissions as a general whole or the death of Kodachrome in 2009. The equipment and processes needed to make film and develop film on a massive scale requires lots of consumers using the medium and that consumer base is gone for good. Most professionals shoot digital, clients expect digital, the medium is digital in many cases. FILM is dead and it died in the first decade of the 2000's.

Film as an artistic format however definitely still exists, and may never die so long as the chemistry is made to make the film and there's enough interest and consumers to support smaller scale manufacturing like we're seeing from Ilford, Ferrania (eventually), Agfa, and Kodak Alaris. FujiFilm will almost certainly end it's not-instant film production by the end of the decade as the machinery wears out or becomes economically unsustainable. Local labs are all but extinct too, and I imagine that by the end of the decade very few people outside of major metro areas or near where the current mail-order labs are located will be able to have same-day film developing done unless they do it themselves. Maybe as a side benefit we'll see E-6 processing come down in cost since it all has to be sent out anyway...

[twilhelm]

2006. The camera companies had put everything they had into digital, and for the first time, IMO, digital was good enough to be acceptable instead of scanned film.

Of course, some of us never stopped shooting film... But the digital era took the helm.

[redrockcoulee]

I too would think around 2006. For me around 2009 or 10 I started shooting more film and less digital. This fall my wife and I took a tin type workshop and plan on shooting that ourselves starting next summer.

It seemed to me that around 2006 the future for film was less secure than today, second hand film camera were chespest and there was little respect for film from those who switched to digital than there is today.

The film era is definitely over. A film resurgence is happening however it will not change the fact that film is no longer dominant. Not all doom and gloom and i got my Hasselblad just as prices started to rise and have access to pretty much all the film's I would have used 20 years ago and a few new ones.

[pakinjapan]

I stop shooting film around year 2000. The last set of photo I took via Pentax film, Z-1p was the demolition of Seattle KingDome. I remember, Digital cameras were there already but film was still common. I have to downside my suitcase before leave Seattle so I sold all of my gears on eBay soon after that and never get a real camera until I come back to photography again more than 10 years later. Everything had already gone full digital by then.

I guess, to me: My film era was ended with the sale of my Z-1p.

[bschriver11]

I would define it as the day i bought my first digital camera.

[Alex645]

The question as always is: which platform do you pick?

Pentax seems the most logical because of how they've kept film lenses relevant with digital bodies. So why not the reverse?

And yes, Nikon would be a popular second choice. I own and use both systems, so either would be great.

I just can't wait till April 1 next year to see the release of both the Nikon F7 and either a Pentax LX2 or MZ-S2.

[leekil]

Or maybe the MZ-Ss (with no AA filter).

[Lord Lucan]

This fall my wife and I took a tin type workshop and plan on shooting that ourselves starting next summer.

So we are talking about the end of the film era, but the tintype is not even dead yet! Call me old-fashioned, but I'm sticking to Daguerreotypes myself; when the tin runs out I'll be the one who's laughing

[pathdoc]

I just can't wait till April 1 next year to see the release of both the Nikon F7 and either a Pentax LX2 or MZ-S2.

S4a - go meterless or go home! (Only this time, we will incorporate a hotshoe... or at the very least, a slip-on shoe with an integral PC port cable.)

[baro-nite]

So we are talking about the end of the film era, but the tintype is not even dead yet! Call me old-fashioned, but I'm sticking to Daguerreotypes myself; when the tin runs out I'll be the one who's laughing

I did see someone shooting wet plate earlier this year. His truck was his camper/darkroom.

I'm wondering whether I'll live to see the end of the selfie era.

[dConvert]

I can't really see that happening too soon. Medium format, at least, is more affordable to get into with film than digitally. Not to mention large format, which digital is unlikely to match in the near future (in terms of sensor size, let alone affordability).

There have been scanning backs available for LF cameras for quite a few years. With the right subjects the results can be very impressive (or very quirky!). They are outside my budget but so is a new DSLR.