I can't make any "fancy" arguments here. There are clearly many applications (e.g., photojournalism, shooting action sports, etc., etc., where digital is clearly the photographic solution of choice. In other areas, I'm not so sure. But I don't do sports, photojournalism, street photography, ... For myself: I have a large investment, made over nearly 50 years, in "film-based" equipment. I get truly excellent results from this equipment. (I shoot 66% 4x5 and 33% MF. No 35mm. 66% color, 33% black and white.) I am in no economic position to even dream to acquire digital capture equipment which could even come anywhere near the quality of result I produce routinely today at very low cost (of course, because everything I own is long since "amortized"). That is to say nothing of thinking about affording needed "upgrades" a year or two after acquiring the equipment I can't afford to acquire in the first place. I produce my own chemistry from bulk, so my chemical costs are very low indeed. I routinely produce the chemistry I need, even though the "chemical" may have been long discontinued in the marketplace. I do have some decent digital printers. They do a pretty good job. Making a print on those printers costs considerably more than making an equivalent print in the darkroom. I have found that I can get some very satisfactory prints by shooting negative film, then painstakingly scanning it and correcting it in Pshop, then printing on the inkjet. --- Sometimes, using Photoshop, I can get control on the print that I would not be able to get in the darkroom. I then make a "digital" print. --- I can oftentimes get very much better prints when I print the same negative in the darkroom. Quandary! There are other significant ingredients in my personal equation: I've spent my career in the computer industry -- I've been working "at a terminal" since the 1960s. The very last thing I want to do for my recreation is to sit at a terminal. For me, my darkroom is a really significant "refuge" from the "outside world". And also, for me, shooting in the field is also an important refuge from the "outside world". I want to be "with" my subjects and not with computers. I'm very happy to enjoy "what and where" I'm doing; if I get some good images, that's a good thing. So it's probably also a good thing I don't need to support myself with photography. That's why I intend to be shooting film for the foreseeable future. Don Feinberg ducque@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
