Darkroom vs. digital

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Traditional, or film, cameras are expected to remain in the picture, at least marginally, for the foreseeable future. Even though digital cameras get more advertising, promotion and sales, camera manufacturers and those who teach photography insist that the film format will endure.

"I would say in five to 10 years, [film] will progressively disappear," says Roberto Bocci, assistant professor of digital arts and photography at Georgetown University in Northwest. "Some companies will make film cameras, but it will be a specialty, like black-and-white printing is becoming a specialty in schools."

That specialty will be used by art photographers, as film cameras provide them with a direct, hands-on approach to the "magic that occurs in the darkroom," says Peggy Feerick, assistant professor and division coordinator of photography at George Mason University in Fairfax.

Other photographers, amateur and professional, already are working more with digital cameras. An exception is portrait and wedding photographers, whose clients want access to negatives, Ms. Feerick says.

"It's a leap they haven't totally made yet. If a client requests it, they will still shoot digitally, but I think they are still working more with film," she says.

Suna Lee, owner of Lee's Photography in McLean, is one of the few who has made that leap. The portraitist, who also does wedding photography, switched to digital photography more than a year ago.

With digital, Ms. Lee, says, she does not have to change rolls of film and has more control after taking her photos. She can crop or adjust the colors for the proofs, then do her own touch-ups in house.

"All the manipulation is icing on the cake," she says. "The choice of film versus digital is what the photographer chooses to use. It has nothing to do with their skill or expertise."

Digital-camera sales account for 70 percent of revenue generated in the camera market in North America, Europe and Japan, says Jan Woelfe, digital camera product manager for Hewlett-Packard, based in Vancouver, Wash.

"Over the years, primarily price wars and declining prices of digital cameras have dominated and driven digital cameras to the mass market," he says.