Dear God, Shall I drop digital?

[Larcomb]

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I appreciate the refutation, Steve. It could lead to an enlightening thread.

 

One observation of mine - after downloading a number of MM '.dng' files and looking at them carefully in Photoshop I can see a signature in the shadows that have never come up in my own scanned negatives from 35mm to 4x5". There is a certain micro-contrast in the MM files that my negatives do not produce. This may be for better or worse, as one desires to consider it. In other words, regardless of the talent of the MM photographer, the characteristics may appear and distinguish the MM in that particular regard.

 

Regardless, I stand my ground until convinced otherwise. For now. Scanned film is not to be compared with its original foundation - to be wet printed.

 

And to Keith Cocker - with greatest respect this is not a digital vs analog or film observation. I have no 'vs' in my intent at all. Differences are good.

 

Peace,

Pico

 

Scanning B&W negatives won't produce the same result as printing, for various reasons.

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[AlanG]

There is a lot of opinion presented here and in many other similar threads. But there has been no demonstration of a universal truth. And all are entitled to an opinion and to use whatever process and methodology they like and feel works "best" for them.

 

But what seems missing is an explanation for why millions and millions of serious long time film/wet printing photographers switched to scanning/digital printing, and/or digital photography. If the differences are so universal and apparent, are they all consciously compromising the quality of their work for some reason or even for a variety of reasons?

[bill]

But what seems missing is a unified explanation for why millions and millions of serious long time film/wet printing photographers switched to scanning/digital printing, and/or digital photography. If the differences are so universal and apparent, are they all consciously compromising the quality of their work for some reason or even for a variety of reasons?

 

Convenience.

 

In the same way as the ballpoint all but replaced the fountain pen and handwriting deteriorated, or CD replaced vinyl. Cheaper to make, cheaper to sell, "does the job" - that's all you need, isn't it? Something that just does the job - anything else is un-necessary, inefficient, foolish, romantic, old-fashioned... After all, why bother with the cost, time and effort to go to a decent restaurant to eat fillet steak when a Big Mac is SO much faster - it fills a hole, doesn't it? And you don't even have to get out of your car - now THAT's convenient...

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[Jeff S]

Millions of film users in years past conveniently dropped off their film at the local store for their 'point and shoot' pics. And millions of new photographers now conveniently use digital phones and similar devices to post billions of pics online...because they now can.

 

In the midst of all this, there are those who care about quality and craft, who use either film, digital or some combination. And for them it's not about 'just getting the job done.'

 

Jeff

[bill]

...In the midst of all this, there are those who care about quality and craft, who use either film, digital or some combination. And for them it's not about 'just getting the job done.'

 

Quite.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[pico]

With a good scanner and technique, a good printer and Baryta paper, I don't think there is much if anything between the wet darkroom and a scanned image.

 

The only way this argument, or observation, can be settled is by a gallery show - photos on the wall, and observed by experts across the generations and definitely not by persons entirely marinated in the Web.

[pico]

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[...] what seems missing is an explanation for why millions and millions of serious long time film/wet printing photographers switched to scanning/digital printing, and/or digital photography.

 

Because the majority of professionals know the path to profit, and the others are lazy so they take the path of least resistance. The 'net is becoming the standard of presentation for those who will become obsolete the moment they post.

[Michael Hiles]

We need to take care - much more of this and poor Steve Ash will not only drop digital - he will drop photography. Perhaps on the advice of God.

[zlatkob]

Millions of film users in years past conveniently dropped off their film at the local store for their 'point and shoot' pics. And millions of new photographers now conveniently use digital phones and similar devices to post billions of pics online...because they now can.

 

In the midst of all this, there are those who care about quality and craft, who use either film, digital or some combination. And for them it's not about 'just getting the job done.'

 

Exactly. The notion of film as the province of high quality and craft is nostalgic and only partly true. While high quality and craft existed in the film world, the bulk of the film world was point & shoot convenience. Likewise, the digital world today is mainly one of point & shoot convenience, but within it there is a place for high quality and craft.

 

We are at a point where one can certainly do great work with either. However, for me, digital gets the job done better. Not just a little better ... much, much, MUCH better.

 

When I think back to photography in the film era, digital is like a dream come true. It is everything I wished film could be. It is something like a wild science fiction technological fantasy that one day comes true. At the same time, much of what I learned about craft and quality in the film era translates well to the digital era, especially in software like Lightroom and Photoshop. (I think that Ansel Adams would have been absolutely delighted with the digital photography of today.)

 

Photography is automatic drawing with light. That happens with both film and digital. Photography is not drawing by hand or painting with oils. So the comparison with fountain pens / ball point pens and their effect on handwriting doesn't quite fit. Important hand-work done with film is replicated in digital (dodging, burning, adjusting contrast, etc.), while much of the dull hand-work thankfully is not (loading & rewinding film, adjusting chemical temperatures, watching the timer, removing film curl and scratches, tapping the tank to avoid air bubbles, etc.).

[zlatkob]

Has God chimed in yet?

It seems that at some point God said, "Let there be digital", and there was digital. And God saw the digital, that it was good. Well, at first, it wasn't so good. But it soon got a lot better, so today it's pretty good.

[wildlightphoto]

But what seems missing is an explanation for why millions and millions of serious long time film/wet printing photographers switched to scanning/digital printing, and/or digital photography. If the differences are so universal and apparent, are they all consciously compromising the quality of their work for some reason or even for a variety of reasons?

 

I can't speak for the millions, only for myself. My prints from scanned transparencies and negatives printed on RA-4 paper with a Lightjet are more pleasing to my eye than my prints made optically from the same negatives and transparencies. And my prints made with a Lightjet on RA-4 paper from the DMR's DNG files processed by ACR and Photoshop are more pleasing to my eye than either the optical prints or the prints made from scans.

 

 

Convenience.... After all, why bother with the cost, time and effort to go to a decent restaurant to eat fillet steak when a Big Mac is SO much faster

 

I don't eat either the fillet steak from an animal given who-knows-what antibiotics and feed nor the meat-ish Big Mac with who knows what ingredients.

 

 

The only way this argument, or observation, can be settled is by a gallery show - photos on the wall, and observed by experts across the generations and definitely not by persons entirely marinated in the Web.

 

My next one is in November in Woodland California. Y'all are invited to come, and it matters not to me if you think my film-based prints or the DMR-origin prints are better as long as you come.

[AlanG]

Because the majority of professionals know the path to profit, and the others are lazy so they take the path of least resistance. The 'net is becoming the standard of presentation for those who will become obsolete the moment they post.

 

I said "serious photographers" not specifically professionals. And I was leaving the p&s crowd and low level amateurs out entirely.

 

Many "serious photographers" working in the fine art, professional, or simply enthusiast level have very high standards yet have moved from film/wet prints. So are you saying the pros only do it because it is more profitable and the rest are lazy?

 

From my own perspective, my work is better since I went to scanning and digital printing. And then improved even more when I went to digital capture and as digital cameras improved and added more capabilities. (Some of which are not available on film cameras.) The way I define "better" may be different than how some others define it. But besides the resultant image "quality," digital photography allows me to broaden my approach to photography and fine tune my images in various ways that were difficult or impossible with film. I bet this is also a big attraction to many others.

[CalArts 99]

I agree with Alan and Wildlight, and I'm not so sure about the 'convenience' (implying 'lazy') part of digital that some people are suggesting. I personally find digital (whether originating as film capture or digital capture) to be often a lot more time consuming and usually requiring more effort than straight analog printing from film capture.

 

See my previous post on this thread. That print took over a week to produce. And it meant going back and forth to the studio to look at proofs and to re-work the file in PS. Corrections were often made, and the scan itself took a lot of effort. The final print was a triptych from three separate negatives. It would have been even more difficult to do solely as an analog print and perhaps impossible.

 

Producing a print digitally and/or hybrid requires a lot of effort to do it right. And I feel it's definitely worth that effort as the digital and/or hybrid workflow offers so much more in the way of options and tweaking. The result (going with drum scans and Lambda or Océ output) can be pretty spectacular. The final product looks exactly like an analog print. Because it is an analog print! But it's been produced from an optimal negative or positive (or an optimal digital file from a quality digital capture device.)

 

This is what digital has given us. An opportunity to make spectacular prints than can surpass previous analog attempts. At the same time, it also gives us 'convenient' images to post on the web and maybe make an inkjet print, or quickly download to the news bureau to make a deadline.

 

It's really opened up a whole new arena of producing calculated and crafted work. And with the same kind of skill that is required in the wet darkroom. And yet we can choose to originate with film or from a digital capture device (of which we have an enormous range to pick from.) It's a great time to be in photography.

[AlanG]

I...and I'm not so sure about the 'convenience' (implying 'lazy') part of digital that some people are suggesting. I personally find digital (whether originating as film capture or digital capture) to be often a lot more time consuming and usually requiring more effort than straight analog printing from film capture.

 

 

I remember some photographers that I know did not want to switch to digital as they were comfortable with what they were using and didn't want to invest the time and effort to learn something new. This was also alien technology to them and they might not have been very good at learning it as they now had to deal with a lot of other issues than just shooting photos and taking them to a lab and then sending them to the client.

 

For a serious enthusiast or pro, shooting slide film and then dropping the slides into a projector or inserting them into a slide page is very simple compared to the many hats one needs to wear as a digital photographer.

[batmobile]

And you can take the best of both worlds...

 

Not long ago I hung three digital prints (from drum scanned 6x7 negs) along with 17 silver prints and nobody cared a bit. I did, because although I prefer silver prints when everything goes right, I had to consider the cost and ease of producing 40" prints as well as the attributes of the individual negs.

 

In the end the very large digital prints looked amazing, because I had been able to make local adjustments to contrast and density that would have been a gymnastic nightmare for an army of hands in the darkroom. So the tonality was not as good as a darkroom print IMHO, but the overall look of the prints was great.

 

The more tools you have in your toolbox, the better.

 

I fully expect to exhibit a mixture of digital-digital, analog-digital and analog-analog prints in the future as I assemble projects that happen to draw upon images captured and printed in different ways.

 

... but I still come back to the point of saying that overall, I personally find that analog-analog prints look most pleasing to my eyes and that at present, digital cannot compete in the realm of fairly straight forward prints. When you have a flat neg that tops out your VC paper.... and local adjustments that cannot be achieved in the darkroom etc, then digital surges ahead and this can be dramatic.

 

To those that say 'capture method does not matter at all', I suggest that this fails to recognise that there are fairly significant differences between the attributes of the different mediums. As to which you prefer, that is likely to be personal and probably would, or maybe even should, vary from scene to scene. When we have digital cameras with the dynamic range of film then I will accept the notion that everything possible with film can be done with digital if you know how. Its getting closer to being true, but not there yet. Sadly we tend to have to commit to film or digital for a particular task, so we get stuck with certain limitations.

 

I have attached a 40" print from a drum scan and to my eyes, as an experienced darkroom printer, while it is not the same as a darkroom print, or even as good in some ways, in this particular case it is better overall than the 20" darkroom print that preceded it.

 

The smaller 24" London night scene is a delicious print with depth and luminosity I have never, ever seen in an inkjet/digital print. At this particular exhibition, there were both digital and silver gelatin prints and the silver prints were in a different league for quality. This was in part due to digital workers who were not sharp enough to produce stunning digital prints, so its not only traditional film users who are unwilling to fine tune the digital process.

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[Steve Ash]

We need to take care - much more of this and poor Steve Ash will not only drop digital - he will drop photography. Perhaps on the advice of God.

 

Do not worry

Steve

[stunsworth]

In the same way as the ballpoint all but replaced the fountain pen and handwriting deteriorated, or CD replaced vinyl. Cheaper to make, cheaper to sell, "does the job" - that's all you need, isn't it? Something that just does the job - anything else is un-necessary, inefficient, foolish, romantic, old-fashioned... After all, why bother with the cost, time and effort to go to a decent restaurant to eat fillet steak when a Big Mac is SO much faster - it fills a hole, doesn't it? And you don't even have to get out of your car - now THAT's convenient

 

Can we infer from this that you have a wet darkroom?

[andybarton]

Alternatively, do you make your own digital prints?

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[Olimatt]

OMG. Your prints look amazing!!

 

And you can take the best of both worlds...

 

Not long ago I hung three digital prints (from drum scanned 6x7 negs) along with 17 silver prints and nobody cared a bit. I did, because although I prefer silver prints when everything goes right, I had to consider the cost and ease of producing 40" prints as well as the attributes of the individual negs.

 

In the end the very large digital prints looked amazing, because I had been able to make local adjustments to contrast and density that would have been a gymnastic nightmare for an army of hands in the darkroom. So the tonality was not as good as a darkroom print IMHO, but the overall look of the prints was great.

 

The more tools you have in your toolbox, the better.

 

I fully expect to exhibit a mixture of digital-digital, analog-digital and analog-analog prints in the future as I assemble projects that happen to draw upon images captured and printed in different ways.

 

... but I still come back to the point of saying that overall, I personally find that analog-analog prints look most pleasing to my eyes and that at present, digital cannot compete in the realm of fairly straight forward prints. When you have a flat neg that tops out your VC paper.... and local adjustments that cannot be achieved in the darkroom etc, then digital surges ahead and this can be dramatic.

 

To those that say 'capture method does not matter at all', I suggest that this fails to recognise that there are fairly significant differences between the attributes of the different mediums. As to which you prefer, that is likely to be personal and probably would, or maybe even should, vary from scene to scene. When we have digital cameras with the dynamic range of film then I will accept the notion that everything possible with film can be done with digital if you know how. Its getting closer to being true, but not there yet. Sadly we tend to have to commit to film or digital for a particular task, so we get stuck with certain limitations.

 

I have attached a 40" print from a drum scan and to my eyes, as an experienced darkroom printer, while it is not the same as a darkroom print, or even as good in some ways, in this particular case it is better overall than the 20" darkroom print that preceded it.

 

The smaller 24" London night scene is a delicious print with depth and luminosity I have never, ever seen in an inkjet/digital print. At this particular exhibition, there were both digital and silver gelatin prints and the silver prints were in a different league for quality. This was in part due to digital workers who were not sharp enough to produce stunning digital prints, so its not only traditional film users who are unwilling to fine tune the digital process.

[Scarlet]

Not long ago I hung three digital prints (from drum scanned 6x7 negs) along with 17 silver prints and nobody cared a bit.

 

Where I normally have images framed they offer different types of glass, including what they call museum glass, which has an anti-reflective surface, slightly purply-tinted, that is very effective on reflections (similar, I believe, to what many eye-glasses have).

 

I am wondering how different types of frame glass will impact the viewers' impression of the image underneath, that is, whether it is more or less possible to tell a silver print form an inkjet etc.

 

/s