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Well that and there is almost no market for new film cameras.
I'd argue there is for Medium/Large format, but that's a whole different ballgame compared to consumer SLRs. Last time I looked the digital back for a Hasselblad was ~$30k.
I'm not surprised; in SLRs at least, Canon was never the dominant film camera company with the biggest customer base. Their SLR business did not catch up to and pass Nikon until the digital era. Canon's decision to put the AF motor in the lens helped them in verticals that use huge telephotos (sports, mostly). But their film cameras lagged Nikon in the sophistication of their AF, their automated exposure control, and…
Well that and there is almost no market for new film cameras.
Developing B&W prints is as close to magic as I've experienced. For those who don't know, B&W paper isn't sensitive to red light, so once you've exposed the paper, you can put it in the developer and actually watch the image appear. Plus there's something about the smell of a darkroom. The hot lamps of the enlargers create a smell that mixes with the smell of the fixer and the stop bath that's unmistakable.
Would I want to do any of this if I were shooting weddings? Definitely not. If I'm taking my camera for a walk and want to see what I've captured, absolutely!
The other thing that's a damned shame is the way the manufacturing has changed. I've long been a Pentax man, and the old Super-Takumar and Super-Multi-Coated (as distinct from the later SMC) lenses are a pleasure to use[0].
Everything about the way they fall to hand is perfect, and the machining is immaculate. The focus ring is scalloped and knurled, and it's metal. They must have cost a fortune to make. The SMC, K, M, and I'd assume the A series lenses have a lot more plastic on the outside of the lenses, but the feel of the focusing helix is still beyond reproach. Modern lenses, by comparison, are made so that they can be driven by the autofocus mechanisms, and the feel of the ring in manual mode is terrible.
That isn't to say that the modern lenses are optically worse; I'm sure the situation is quite the opposite. Nonetheless, something has been lost. Again all of this is moot for most people looking for the most productivity out of their tools, or for the people shooting casually. The small group of people in the middle, they'll miss it.
Honestly, it's like CD (or any other digital medium) vs records. Records are quantitatively worse by any measure, but for the sheer pleasure of the experience, they can't be matched. If I want to sit down and actually listen to music, part of the enjoyment is the smell of the record and its sleeve, and the tangible process of putting the needle on the record.
[0] Super Takumar and SMC Takumars here: http://blog.prairierimimages.com/2011/08/old-glass-asahipent... The Super-Multi-Coated Takumars are essentially identical from the outside.
"The model in question is the EOS-1V, which, incidentally, the company actually stopped making a full eight years ago. Since it has simply been selling out the rest of its stock, which, it seems, has finally depleted." That says a lot about how few they have been selling.
Well, Canon has done zero marketing for this model and focused solely on digital cameras, so I would even wager nobody knew it was still being sold!
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And in the scheme of things there is almost no market for medium / large format cameras (digital or otherwise).
Of course there is a market. Look at used cameras, they sell at very high prices. There is no "mass market", but there is definitely one with quite a few people willing to pay premium for high end film cameras.
Put another way, if over night Canon had won 100% market share of all film cameras it would not be noticeable in the next quarterly earnings report.
This is not very surprising news - very recently I was wondering who still sells film cameras. Digital has surpassed film in almost every way. It is however quite scary to see technology completely go away which was so common not long ago, sometimes even completely lost as technology. You can’t buy proper Polaroid film any more, many other important film materials are completely gone as well.
As someone who shot and developed a lot of film (I was a photo editor at a daily college paper..) I won’t miss it. Though printing black and white pictures was kinda fun, they often had dust and getting the exporsure and contrast right was tedious. I don’t miss film. Though there were a lot less pictures taken and shared before everyone had a camera on their phone. A different time in a lot of ways.
At one point I was probably spending 10s of hours a week doing B&W darkroom work so I have a certain nostalgia for it. I also spent lots of time playing with developer chemistry, etc. But, no, I don't really miss it. It was an enjoyable hobby but it was also a pain to the degree that it was a process you had to go through in order to arrive at the final photograph. And color slides were just always a finicky and fair…
When I was a kid in the 80s color slides sessions with a projector were awesome. Since we don't really use projectors anymore and our screen sizes are somewhat limited, I think we have lost something by moving to digital.
I don't understand why Google / MS / Amazon etc don't buy either of Nikon or Canon? It'd give them credibility and they'd immediately improve the DSLRs. Imagine a decent Nikon with the Google Photos processing? Decent wifi? Regular updates?
What credibility are Nikon or Canon missing? Both companies have a level of brand recognition unrivaled in the Photography world...? Only in recent years has Sony and maybe Fujifilm developed more respect due to some of their advancements where Nikon and Canon have lacked. Their DSLR's are market leaders still. Again, only in recent years have Mirrorless cameras have started to catch up with the DSLRs Nikon and Canon…