Hi Mark - here's some more detailed comment..
Mark Blackwell wrote:
Well if whether you use digital or film is a personal choice and both can be valid. You make some good points, but there are some that I believe need to be discussed a bit more or the reason you went digital.
I'd like to take them one by one if I could.
The first point is that you are not a trained technician. Well few were trained in Photoshop either. In fact Photoshop is a much deeper program than most including myself have any idea of its full abilities. You learn by doing whether it be
** Photoshop isn't the only program.
Photoshop or the wet darkroom. Personally I have no desire to work in a color darkroom (though I have done it) , but love black and white.
If the darkroom is very smelly, it is likely poorly ventilated and that might mean health risks. My sense of smell isn't a fair judge. I grew up as the son of an exterminator.
In fact, mine is only marginally smelly. It is fairly well ventilated,
but 2 hours is sufficient for that and other reasons.
Cost is often though an issue more of perception and few run the numbers. For people that take a lot of photos, it can make sense. But some have a unique sense of a lot. I have seen people tell me they take a lot of photos and when I ask how many its 100 almost every Sunday afternoon. For really high volume guys it makes perfect sense to spend $10,000 on a body if you would have spent $50,000 in they year on film and processing. At a lower level its $1500 to $3000 for a body, but you also need lower volumes to make it make sense. Even so you have to generate those numbers in a time frame of about a year and a half or so. By then its upgrade time and the clock starts over. This isn't factoring in the cost of all the computers and computer upgrades. For some it is cheaper. If you can afford it and want it anyway, don't bother to justify the cost. Just go get what you want.
Not everyone uses a dSLR - many keen photographers make do with a
compact. And thank goodness dSLRs are dropping in price as well - look
at the Nikon D60.
Now ink jet prints have come a long way, both in quality and stability. They also usually cost more than wet prints and that does not consider the high costs of printers and their shelf life when compared to the life expectancy of wet darkroom equipment. Now the ink jet print lets you easily print your digitally altered content, but many things most do in photoshop you can do in the wet darkroom. They may not be nearly as easy, but they can be done.
Can they? I'm not so sure! Certainly equalling Photoshop digital control
would be a nightmare, not just "nearly as easy".
Another option few know about or forget about is creating your digital file just as you want it, then having that file made into a negative or a chome with a film recorder. Then you can wet print.
Where from? Cost? Never seen one for home use. Please enlighten me!
Or you could just send off the digital file to a good lab and get a
traditional style print. Which is what I do for volume printing.
Now as far as time, the ink jet wins in that there is no trips to the lab and it is more immediate. In my case that time and expense saved as well as the ability to deliver prints to a client in a more timely manner is worth the difference in cost. But it isn't actually cheaper but for me its ok. Better is something I can not give to any method of creating a print. For me what the content of the image is far more important than what was used to create it. Even if you use the same image to compare the two methods of printing I still wouldn't use the term better given reasonable equipment. I would use the term different. Given two black and white images, one being done on digital and one in the wet darkroom. I haven't (and it just may be something I haven't learned yet with digital creating the issue) been able to get the real blacks out of the ink of an inkjet printer than the deep blacks of a silver print. Both are good images, but they are
clearly different. I couldn't say one is better than the other though, only what I prefer and it would be perfectly reasonable and understandable why others would prefer the other.
I like having my A3 printer because I can print off things when I want
to. The cost is to some extent irrelevant as I'm not having to audit my
expenditure unlike a professional.
One thing about digital is that little screen. It can be both a lifesaver and a curse. It can catch a gross error, but the screens are small enough for me the fine mistakes are going to be much harder to catch. When it does that its a lifesaver. It also can be a HUGE curse. If you have to go to that display before the next photo, it can cause you to miss more great photos than it helps you take.
That's down to self-control and thinking. I seem to find myself missing
many shots on my manual film SLR because I had the wrong shutter speed,
aperture and focus when I spotted that split second action shot. You
can't always have the camera ready on changing light, or when the
unexpected happens under your nose when you've just photographed that
distant mountain. Doesn't happen so often now I've gone digital.
I can fault no one on their choice of equipment and could care less
what people think of my choices. Yet I do think its a good idea from
time to time to reevaluate those choices.
Exactly. I do especially when a student wants to learn traditional
analogue techniques. So far I've still kept to digital. But I might use
film again, and scan the negs instead of going into the darkroom....
Howard
