Picture in my eye.

I was listening to a Marketplace story the other day on my way home from work, about what Kodak needs to do to survive in the coming digital world. The report focused on Kodak's adherence to film while the industry moves toward all-digital technology. Some good points were made, but I think the premise that Kodak must give up on film in order to survive is a faulty one.

One of the biggest reasons people have moved to digital photography is immediacy (another is convenience, which I'll get to in a moment) -- they snap a photo, and they see it a instant afterwards. The Polaroid format's saving grace is the immediacy of its images; why pay a dollar or more per picture if they're not available a minute or two after they're taken? Likewise, if digital cameras lacked the LCD screen and you had to download your pictures to a computer before you knew whether they were any good, the digital revolution would have stopped before it began.

And much has been made of the convenience of digital cameras, but in reality they're no more convenient thanks to digital technology than offices are paperless. Sure, there's no more paying for film and processing, waiting for the film to come back, etc. Instead, we have to contend with different connection procedures for every camera and computer, not to mention a proliferation of cords and memory cards. The expense of film and processing has been replaced by the expense of printer ink and "photo paper," not to mention the software to organize and manipulate our photos.

And digital photos are hard to hold, to flip through and pass around so everyone can see. You either have to have everyone crowd around your monitor for a slideshow (and there wouldn't be jokes about boring slideshows if we all enjoyed that sort of presentation, would there?) or take an hour or two to download and print all the images. As much as I love my digicam, I'd still love to be able to pull out a shoebox of all the shots I've taken with it, rather than having to remember the date I took a shot in order to find the folder it's stored in. (Yes, I could take full advantage of iPhoto's categorization function, but I haven't had time to go through my 1,000+ pix. Have you?)

My mother, who is an avid snapshot-taker but wouldn't consider herself even an amateur photographer, is a good example of Kodak's customer base. She takes pictures of her gardens sometimes, but the majority of shots are taken on vacations and holidays. She loves flipping through 3x5 or 4x6 snapshots, and gets duplicates of the ones she likes so she can give them to her kids and sisters, friends and family. She's all but stymied trying to get her digital photos off her camera, onto her computer and then out again as prints. Frankly, she'd be happiest if she could skip the computer step and just have a stack of prints to look at.

Kodak has this part figured out, to an extent. Its EasyShare Printer Dock allows users to download and print photos with just the printer, eliminating the hassle of the whole computer thing. OK, but it only works with Kodak cameras. And it still eliminates the need for film, the company's lifeblood. And you know, there's something just that much more tangible about a true photographic print on photo paper, isn't there?

My proposal is this: Hybrids. Film cameras with digital displays, your standard point-and-shoot or SLR film cameras with an LCD screen on the back that gives an immediate preview of what your photo will look like at the current camera settings. The screen satisfies the truly great part about digital cameras, the instant gratification of seeing your photo right after you took it, while the film produces the glossy prints in an envelope at the photo counter that everyone loves (and keep Kodak in business). For extra measure, the camera could store a digital copy of each photo so they can be shared online as well.

I know I'd buy a hybrid film-digital camera. I bet my mom would. Would you?

Posted by Andrew Huff at July 25, 2003 02:54 PM