Digital photo sites shoot for $14B amateur market.(Brief Article)

Is the ordinary film camera destined to go the way of the 8-track cassette player, mimeograph machine and black-and-white TV?

Digital photography -- cameras that store photos on computer chips instead of celluloid film -- is coming on strong. Now, a crop of Internet startups are catering to digital shutterbugs, allowing them to share, store and print digital photos via the web.

The prize is a piece of the $14 billion-a-year amateur photography market. And in true Internet fashion, these startups -- with names like Shutterfly.com, Ofoto.com, Snapfish.com and PhotoAccess.com -- are attracting all-star Silicon Valley investors willing to spend millions of dollars up front to grab as much market share as quickly as possible.

Under the lens

Shutterfly is illustrative of what this new market offers consumers. The Redwood City-based company launched in December, is backed …