Now that the technology is maturing, things like scanners and printers are not becoming junk as quickly. A good flatbed scanner compared with what was available just 5 years ago is far less expensive than a new digital body. Then the options for manipulations just begin. You may not want to do them all that way. I don't like that much time in front of a screen either, but some things are just easier, cheaper and more effective to deal with digitally. I am not saying that Photoshop should be used to fix bad work. No more than any amount of makeup can make an ordinary girl a supermodel, using it to improve even great work can make all the difference.
Now back to the print, you have the option of the ink jet, but you also could send it out to a place with a film recorder to make you a new negative from which to print. The digital world offers a great deal to those that never even think about a digital body.
In the end, no one cares how a print was made, what camera was used or why you did it that way. Its the viewer response that matters, even if its just you that's the viewer.
Don Feinberg <ducque@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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
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