Say Cheese!

It was just a few years ago when I bought my first digital camera, a Casio that really struggled to come up with a picture worthy of more than just acting as a webpage thumbnail. Now digital camera commonplace. The Japan Camera Industry Association recently released a report showing that digital cameras with 3 million plus pixels out numbered those in the 2-3 million pixel range.

What does this mean? Well, I wouldn't run out to buy stock in Kodak, Fuji, or Agfa. On the other hand the inkjet printer manufacturers like HP, Epson, and Canon have a real bonanza on their hands. Lots and lots of printer ink and special paper will be consumed, while the use of silver and chemicals for traditional photo development and processing is falling off a cliff. All things considered the impact on the environment has got to be better. Almost all of the inkjet inks used in consumer applications are waterbased while the traditional photo process generates lots of chemicals and waste to be processed.

Industry experts are seeing the total number of photos ramp up pretty rapidly. But, since they are digital photos, the vast majority of them never actually get printed.

Even more interesting is the fact that the major winners in this game are not the traditional film and camera makers. Sony leads the pack far and away with their Cyber-shot series. On the printer side of the equation only Canon had some link to the traditional camera world before the digital camera tsunami hit.

3M-Pixel Digital Camera Production Surpasses 2M-Pixel Output in Jan., JCIA Says
- posted by tempusmaster @ 1:13 AM