The costs?
A “classic” Olympus Mju2 now sells for $200 on eBay; colour film is $10 a roll and more to develop; CR123 and other classic “camera” batteries get used quickly – those costs too.
Howevwer, a classic digicam with charger and battery costs less than a pizza in 2022 and a 32GB SD card costs the same as 2 caffe lattes – then it costs nothing more as long as the battery keeps recharging OK.

And quality – sufficeint for big prints and HD screens? Think of it this way – if film is your stanadard to match – what do you need?
A 35mm colour negative has approximately 14 million to 17 million colour dye spots. This can be thought of as 14MB to 17MB in digital terms. If we think we need a sampling rate of two-to-one for proper sampling to surpass the resolution of 35mm film, a sensor will need to generate a file of approximately 28MB. With 24-bit colour, the threshold for non-compressed images is in excess of 8 megapixels to give approximately the same resolution as 35mm film.

For printing 7×5’s and showing on a laptop or TV screen; the 5MP standard sensor of a 2005 digicam is good enough. Go to 8MP and you are now at or beyond Kodak Gold 100ASA standards. Bonus – you get to shoot and adjust and reshoot until you get the image just as you wanted it; just try that with film! For me it is this ability to immediately see and rethink that gives the creative kick. Make the cameras so inexpensive that you have one wherever you go and creativity follows you around.

My extra key tip? Carry a lightweight mini-tripod with you. Most digicams can be locked to 100asa and expose up to 5-10 seconds, and many to 60 seconds. Those low light and long exposure images can be fantastic!

PS – OK – yes I love film too! I just restrict it to be used where it really matters.

With a classic 1/2.3 CCD sensor the dynamic range is about 8-9 stops at base iso, so exposure is always a compromise; it’s a bit like shooting 200asa slide film- what to preserve, highlights or shadows?. By design, I look for those that can shoot auto bracket sequences (rescues 2 more stops for landscapes and scapes) and save to SD or SDHD cards.

The market feels a bit like film cameras 6-7 years ago when I bought Nikon’s with a lens for £20/$30. Given the creative kick that some of these cameras can give, I too have the feeling that they will be the next big thing as affordable but creative pocket cameras are no longer being made, and as others have said, CCD has a magical interpretation of colour.

Here is a typical story: today I got a flagship Lumix FX500; list price £330/$399 at launch for £10/$13 with 2 batteries and a charger. It has full manual control and Panasonic’s first touchscreen and a Leica 25-125mm perspective lens. Colour, contrast, noise reduction and sharpening all can be customised. It shoots HDR sequences over 3 stops.

Peak digicam sales were about 2010-13: so for now there are lots of decade old inexpensive “obsolete” once high end cameras looking for buyers…. but for how much longer?

Yes, I also use a great smartphone, but even with built in HDR, panorama and 1600iso, something is missing!

I should also mention that even though the images I took with the HP Photosmart 315 were pretty awful, on balance, they have extra special meaning for me because it was during my semester abroad in Australia that the 9/11 terror attacks occurred. Our group of 35 students was so far from home and so far from our families that we all came together into a very solid friend group. Our Australian hosts were incredibly supportive and gracious as well. In the end, a decision was made that Australia was pretty safe and our group did not have to cut our trip short and return home to the U.S. ASAP. And even though those photos are garbage, looking at them stirs fond memories of friendship, support, and humanity we all shared during a very tumultuous time in our history.