. . . continued from Hot News This time last year (March 2004) the same gear was going for about 25% more. This time next year (March 2006), you'll be lucky if the local shop offers you anything at all. The market for film camera equipment is shrinking by half every six months. That sounds like a shocking decline, but it's really been happening for the past three years in earnest. Digital is rolling full steam and the the top camera makers - especially the big three: Nikon, Canon & Konica Minolta - are now devoting 90% of all budgets and production facilities to digital. The same is true for the second tier makers - Pentax, Olympus, Sony & Kodak - and for the elite makers including Contax, Leica and Hasselblad, although the elite makers have been slower to retool and redesign. The medium format gang which includes Mamiya and Bronica most prominently, are just waking up to the digital game. As a matter of fact, Mamiya just introduced its first medium format digital model at PMA (February 2005), a hefty (4 pound) boat anchor that will sell for around $18,000 (yes - eighteen thousand dollars for 21 megapixels). Digital backs for medium format bodies have been available for a few years, but the industry has been slow to release fully integrated models. It's happening now.

The speed with which the top tier makers have retooled is an example of a worldwide industry wisely embracing new technologies and pushing the technological limits . . .

The speed with which the top tier makers have massively retooled away from 35mm film in favor of digital sensors is an example of a worldwide industry wisely embracing new technologies and pushing the technological limits of design and manufacturing in order to produce genuinely usable products which provide fabulous results. Consumers are reacting with tremendous approval.

I love my new Nikon D70. To get it, I traded in my Nikon F90X, a couple of Sigma lenses, my old Leica R4 with two Leitz and Elmarit lenses, along with my inaugural digital camera (a Nikon D5700). The gracious paeans at my favorite pro shop granted me the princely sum of $2,000 for the whole works and I was happy to get it (especially after checking selling prices on eBay). In return I grabbed the D70, and 18-70 Nikon zoom lens, a 1GB Lexar CF hi-speed CF card, extra battery, infrared remote, and a 70-300 Sigma digital lens. You read that right by the way - $2,000 in trade for a pile of stuff that originally cost me around $8,000. And I figure that I got away just in the nick of time. I'm telling you that by mid-summer, you'll be lucky to get a $1,000 in trade for the exact same pile of gear. Next year, you'll be lucky if you can get anyone to even consider a trade-in. Without buyers, who wants more used inventory?

Take the hint. If you've got film gear to trade, do it now. The stores are going to be turning off the trade-in tap real soon.

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