>>3324703Time will tell, but to become a classic any product needs two fundamental things:
>have a massive commercial successThis serves two purposes, creating a popular consent around the product, and diffusing it in such large numbers that even long time after the end of its production it can be easily found in good conditions and purchased for cheap.
>endure the test of timeThis is very demanding: the product must be able to compete with the current technology; in other words the product, albeit obsolete, must not age.
A film camera can't really age: the output quality will be as good as the glass and the film you put in allow, regardless of when the camera itself was designed, so for instance a Canon AE-1 will make photos that will be as good as for instance a Nikon FA (assuming they both use the same film and comparable lenses) which is a much newer camera, and once the negative scanned at 7200dpi it will be as good as a digital photo (with some flavor added, but that's not the point).
Digital cameras however are segmented through sensor's size, which by the way keep improving with sensor iteration, hence making the test of time way more difficult to pass, because technically a better sensor, which is embedded in the camera itself, will make better photos. Moreover smartphones are making dedicated cameras a niche, reducing the potential spread of a "massive commercial success".
