Japan’s top camera maker, Canon Inc., will stop developing new single-lens reflex film cameras as more people abandon film for digital, company officials said Thursday.

The Tokyo-based Canon’s move followed a similar move by its closest Japanese rival, Nikon Corp., which announced earlier this year it would stop making seven of its nine film cameras and concentrate on digital models. —Canon to stop making single-lens camera (Yahoo!)

Part of me wants to say “That’s a shame,” but the part of me that actually bought two digital cameras for the student paper and one for myself says, “That’s the way things are.”

I learned how to shoot and develop black and white film for my school paper, and with various odd jobs I picked up writing press releases (and one semester, designing and painting billboards for the drama department), that skill kept me in pocket change during my undergraduate years.

For a while there, the film industry hung on there with a meme that went something like “digital photography is for information, film is for memories,” but I note this change without any sense of personal loss.

Okay, as a kid I would always have a moment or two of sadness when I threw away a comfortable old pair of sneakers that I had outgrown. I am feeling that way now.

Meanwhile, can someone tell me where USB port is on this thing? (I found it while cleaning out a storage cabinet in student publications office.)