As film photography moves over for its digital cousin, some one-hour photo companies are having to add digital services or else go under.
Malibu One-Hour Photo, located in the back of Mailboxes Etc. in the Malibu Colony Shopping Center, closed on May 31. An employee there said the increasing usage of digital cameras killed their business. Last year, Malibu Discount Photo also closed down.
Because many people are turning in their 35 mm film cameras in favor of the digital domain, one-hour photo labs in Santa Monica, West Los Angeles and other areas are installing full-scale digital imaging equipment to keep their businesses afloat. Services now being offered include printing photos from compact-flash cards (where images are stored in a digital camera) and transferring film images to a CD so they can be viewed on the customer’s computer and shared via e-mail.
Digital cameras have become user-friendly. No longer are all digital cameras something difficult to comprehend-or unattainable in price. They can be quite simple and relatively cheap (the point-and-shoot variety) or complicated and exorbitant (pro cameras with a hundred options), depending on which camera you choose.
Mostly, people want convenience. With digital cameras, people can take pictures, instantly see what they look like, go home and download the photos onto their home computers and print them. That extra stop at the one-hour photo lab is, for some, a thing of the past-you can now cruise home and do it all yourself, including manipulating photos with imaging software to improve the images.
Samy’s Camera in Hollywood has seen an approximately 20 percent rise in digital camera sales in the last year, said manager Juan Aguilar. The increase is mainly due to amateur photographers wanting point-and-shoot cameras-they’ll buy a $300 digital camera over a $150 film camera.
However, Samy’s caters mainly to professional photographers, Aguilar said, and professional film cameras are still selling quite well.
Digital technology and computers go hand-in-hand, and computers are becoming commonplace in American households. According to an August 2000 Census Bureau study, 54 million American households (51 percent) had one or more computers in their homes. This is up 42 percent from the same study done in 1998. More than two in five homes have Internet access. In 2000, 65 percent of children ages 3-17 lived in a home with a computer.
Due to computer access, learning about digital technology has never been easier. There are numerous Web sites that give instructions on how to download digital photos, how to pick out a digital camera and how to use one. Both Kodak and Fuji (once synonymous with film) have Web sites to aid the public in learning about their digital equipment.
In competition with local labs, many photo Web sites such as Shutterfly are available, where photographers can upload images to the site and receive high-quality prints mailed to them in two or three days.
Even though it seems film photography may be close to being extinct, some one-hour photo shops still maintain that film developing is their primary business. “We do a lot of business developing film, more than digital processing,” said an employee of Moto Photo in West Los Angeles. “We develop about 40 rolls of film a day.”
Galaxy Video/28-Minute Photo in Santa Monica has a photo lab in the store, and the owner, Chris Noorzie, recently installed digital equipment. He also said that processing film is their main source of business in the photo department of the store.
“We process a heck of a lot of film here,” Noorzie said.
Yet, when asked why he installed digital equipment if his film business is good, he answered, “A lot of people are using digital cameras; we have to offer them digital as well.”
An employee at Fromax in Santa Monica, one of the very first labs to develop film in one hour, stated that they have a full-scale digital imaging department that helps supplement their business, yet their primary income is film developing. The owner of Fromax would not disclose how many rolls of film they process daily.
Even with technology changing rapidly, there are obviously a large number of people who still use film. Sav-On in Malibu, which now has the only professional lab in town, has gotten busier, having taken the overflow of customers from the closed Malibu One-Hour Photo and Malibu Discount Photo.
“Ever since Malibu One-Hour Photo has closed we have been extremely busy,” said Raoul Carranza, an employee at the photo counter at Sav-On. “We used to process 30-45 rolls of film a day; now we process 120-140 rolls per day. We now need more people to work the photo counter because we have become so busy!”
Last week, Sav-On installed equipment for digital processing to keep up with the times.
However, at least one former customer of Malibu One-Hour Photo was sorry to see the lab close. “I loved Malibu One-Hour,” she said. “I could leave my prints and negatives there for months and know that they would never be lost. I’m going to miss them.”