In <7a.15c8574a.284aa359@aol.com>, Bob Croxford wrote:
> In the earliest days of photography these two ideas fought it out. Daguerre
> was paid a pension by the French government to make his invention free to
> everyone, (except the Brits). Fox Talbot on the other hand controlled
> everything through his rigid patents. The result was that no one tried to
> circumvent the daguerreotype while lots of inventors tried, and succeeded, in
> circumventing Talbot's patents. The result was a huge boost to neg/pos
> photography while Daguerre's ideas stayed in a cul-de-sac. The history of
> photography seems to be against your hypothesis.
>
But Daquerre's process was a technological dead-end that really had no future
and so there was little call to get round it. It was expensive (it used a plate
coated in metallic silver), it could only be looked at in certain viewing
conditions, and there was no way to produce copies. Talbot's process negative
was the one with a future. Anyway the big improvements in photographic
processes
happened _after_ Talbot's patents expired in the 1860s; the wet plate process,
dry plates and finally film.
> Sticking with photography it was Agfa who gave us colour film we could
> process ourselves while Kodak believed emphatically in the idea of a hugely
> expensive factory owned Kodachrome line. Which idea is winning now? Kodak
> also launched the PhotoCD and hasn't yet learnt the value of the home scanner
> market.
>
Agfa's original colour films also needed to be sent back to the lab for
processing. I think it was Ferania who first produced a home-developing colour
film, and it was Kodak's 'E process' films that first made it popular. Anyway
the great majority of film users still don't do their own processing; they take
it to a lab. It is only enthusiasts and some professionals who do their own
processing. The general public are just not interested in mucking about with
dark rooms and messy chemicals; they just want to point and shoot.
Brian Rumary, England
