Photographic Business

Analysis of the photographic business and its changes throughout the last 25 years.

The Digital Revolution, also sometimes called the third industrial revolution, is the change from analog mechanical and electronic technology to digital technology that has taken place since about 1980 and continues to the present day. The digital information revolution has hit photography. Like their print counterparts before them, the industry's stalwarts are responding groggily.

Nowadays it's common to say that the analog photo is dying. As Megan E Mulligan has written for Forbes In the beginning of the 2000, "Yet while the world of film and digital will co-exist for years to come, there's no doubt that digital photography is gaining market share at the expense of film technology" (1). In the 2012 we all could see how dramatically have been changing the market: "Consumers and professionals ditched film first. Then health-care services, which used it for X-rays, shifted to digital scans. The final blow came with the film industry's switch to digital projection. IHS iSuppli, a supply-chain analysis firm, estimates filmmakers consumed 2.5m miles (4m kilometers) of film each year for the distribution of prints at its height. That was just a few years ago. By 2012 this plunged by two-thirds. In 2015 it will be next to nothing” (2).

The income of main photographic companies is decreasing. Kodak has announced the bankruptcy, Olympus has exposed "one of the biggest and longest-running loss-hiding arrangements in Japanese corporate history" (3), Fujifilm decided stop manufacturing of the films (4), and Nikon said it was leaving film-camera business (5).

However, these companies have made a huge contribution to the development of digital photography. We can easy get the historical information about this evolution in Wikipedia (6). The first recorded attempt at building a digital camera was in 1975 by Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak. In 1984 Canon demonstrates the first digital electronic still camera. In 1985 Pixar introduces digital imaging processor. In 1986 Kodak scientists invent the world's first megapixel sensor. In 1987 The popular Canon EOS system introduced, with new all-electronic lens mount But the first true digital camera that recorded images as a computerized file was likely the Fuji DS-1P of 1988, which recorded to a 16 MB internal memory card that used a battery to keep the data in memory. The first commercially available digital camera was the 1990 Dycam Model 1. It used a CCD image sensor, stored pictures digitally, and connected directly to a computer for download. In 1990, 1991 Eastman Kodak announces Photo CD as a digital image storage medium and brought to market the Kodak DCS-100, the beginning of a long line of professional Kodak DCS SLR cameras that were based in part on film bodies, often Nikons. In 1995 the first camera that offered the ability to record video clips may have been the Ricoh RDC-1. In 1997 the first megapixel cameras were marketed. 1999 saw the introduction of the Nikon D1, a 2.74 megapixel camera that was the first digital SLR developed entirely by a major manufacturer. In 2000 Camera phone introduced in Japan by Sharp/J-Phone. 2003 Four-Thirds standard for compact digital SLRs introduced with the Olympus E-1. 2004 Kodak ceases production of film cameras. 2005 Canon EOS 5D, first consumer full-frame digital SLR, with a CMOS sensor.  

The Value chain and agents involved in the photographic business.

From consumers, as well as industry players, photography is undergoing profound change as a result of the digital revolution. Starting with the basis of competition in the chemical photography market, we then look at the way in which the consumers’ evaluation of performance, thus the bases of competition, is changing with digital photography, and conclude by considering the reaction of industry players and the induced change in the photography value chain.

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