I real­ized today that my film scan­ner (a Nikon Coolscan 9000, for those of you who care) was dis­con­tin­ued a few months ago. It looks like Nikon is get­ting out of the scan­ning busi­ness. A quick check of eBay con­firms that my machine is now worth roughly twice what I paid for it a few years ago. While many man­u­fac­tur­ers have decided that the film busi­ness isn’t viable, it also refuses to die. Kodak made big waves in the last year with the sur­prise intro­duc­tion of two new pro-grade color films for still pho­tog­ra­phy. Appar­ently they’re doing quite well.

The resale value of dig­i­tal cam­eras is not that dif­fer­ent from auto­mo­biles. You pay a mas­sive pre­mium to be the first owner, after which it loses value rapidly. If you wait more than 10 or 15 years, you’ll prob­a­bly have to pay some­one to take it off your hands.

Film equip­ment is dif­fer­ent. I bought my Leica used in 2006, and due to sta­ble sup­ply its resale prices have more or less tracked infla­tion. Assum­ing I sold it today (not hap­pen­ing!), that would amount to a free 5-year rental. Not bad. Own­ing well-loved but dis­con­tin­ued equip­ment like the Coolscan is start­ing to look like an investment.