Digital Cameras May Delete History

Aug. 11, 2004 -- Click. Click. Click-click.

We have seen the future, and it is measured in megapixels. By the end of this year, the Consumer Electronics Association predicts one-third of American households will have at least one digital camera. By 2007, it says, half of all households will.

"Film is definitely going away," says Christopher Chute, an analyst of the digital-imaging market for the research firm IDC. Film, he says, "is starting its long-term decline as more and more people all over the world pick up digital cameras."

Last year, for the first time, Americans bought more digital cameras than film. Kodak is closing nine film-processing laboratories this month; it has had to lay off tens of thousands of workers as it transforms itself into a digital-photography company.

As prices drop, people are scarfing up new digital cameras. Market research shows people especially like their small size (no longer limited by the need to squeeze a film cartridge inside) and the instant pictures one can see on the screen on the back of most cameras.

The cameras are convenient, stylish, and — this is crucial — virtually every model allows you to delete a picture on the spot if it did not come out the way you wanted.

The Times of Your Life

To historians, that delete function may not be a good thing. It has done more than change photography. It has changed the way we record our lives.

People share their favorite shots by e-mail instead of saving them in albums. They are no longer getting together to share their baby pictures; they are posting them on the Web.

Perhaps more significant is that Chute, the market analyst, reports 35 percent of digital photographers never print any of their pictures. Those who do are very selective about what they do print.