more signs of things to come...?

Another film related buisness bites the dust. I guess I might get

that "Digital Photography For Dummies" book after all.<P>

 

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/19/nyregion/19lab.html"> NY

Times story</a>

Jay's prophetic word coming true?

Film=Janis Joplin Digital=Britany Spears

I'd say that this is at least as much "traditional darkroom printing killed by digital printing" as "film image capture killed by digital image capture".

I wonder where these photographers will go once they get bored with their digital snapshots that all look the same and bad unless the light is exactly right, and butt-numbing Photoshopping?

Gary, well said. Film will stay around as the cool alternative just as vinyl has

remained the conoisseurs choice. Who gives a f*** what the plebs get up to in

their spare time?

Well, on auction at the moment is a Leitz V35 enlarger that has 111 hits on its page after a day and a half, and another that has a little over a day left with 210 hits. So how do you explain that?

But how long did they stay??

Ray,

 

Perhaps the enlarger is a curiosity. Not so long ago, I was invited to a business event and the invitation came in a box that included a vacuum tube with the company's name printed on it. When I showed the tube around the office only one person under the age of 30 could tell me what it was. The 15 or so others had never seen one before.

 

Respect the past...embrace the future.

As you know Jake, I'm conducting a personal experiment at the moment... the jury is still out as to whether I dump the enlarger or that expensive new Epson.

I'm experimenting printing my digital files on a local Frontier system - which prints to real

and archival photographic paper. So far so good - the quality is excellent.

 

I haven't tried Costco's Frontier yet - they'll print a 12x18 for $4. Glossy or matte finish.

Brad,

 

I have just had four 12x10 B&W prints made (matted & framed for a customer) from digital files downloaded from a CD onto a Fuji Frontier (In a good lab). The prints are extremely good. I was'nt expecting them to be. The last time I sold to this customer I had 15x10 prints (true B&W from a good local pro-lab) made from Ilford FP4 negs.

 

Gary,

 

The customer is happy and claims he cannot tell it was from digital when comparing with my old prints on his hallway wall. What do I do?

 

Should I tell him that digital is made by Britney Spears and that he has no eye for quality and that his money is useless? I think not! I am pleased and suprised that the digital prints came out well and my customer is pleased so thats it really. The 'points' that matter are the ones scored in my wallet and on peoples walls and in mine and the customers satisfaction not with off the cuff remarks about Janis and Britney.

 

(There are people who love Janis played on CD and Britney played on 12" vinyl so it what does that mean?)

<i>Film=Janis Joplin Digital=Britany Spears</i><p>

 

It always amazes me that some people can't tell the difference between process and product.

Digital gets the marketing dollars. Sells cameras and printers and software. Consumers seem to like it. I have family that think "digital = superior quality." Like an equation, not a considered opinion. No foolin'. Like Sony "MegaBass" on an old boom box or really slow high capacity disk drives or tiny cache Celerons and Lord knows what else moves products at Best Buy.

 

So what? I have both solid state and tube amps. I even have a digital guitar preamp/processor. I look forward to the day when digital might give me lots of fat pixels on a MF size sensor at a reasonable cost. Maybe we'll have plug compatible sensors to give different formats and "effects," kind of like using different films. That would be pretty cool.

 

What makes me barf is the "millenialist tone" some of the digital promoters here on PN use. It's plain to me that digital doesn't require any promoting at all. It's doing just fine on its own. What bizarre ego identification process is going on that makes many gleefully proclaim: "Soon thy precious film shall be no more!" It's quite freakish, really.

 

I mostly use B&W film, so that's already pretty anachronistic. So what? I also pay for nice US and Italian leather shoes that you can't snag at a Walmart. Sweet spot of the market? Probably not. Nicer shoes? Yes. I shop at Nordstrom, not Walmart. I also have industrial SCSI tape drives for backups, not CD R/W. But again, so what?

 

My friend in NY shoots large format. Another friend here in DC just got a little A75. I shoot film, develop my own negs and then scan them. Shoot film if you like that. Shoot digital if you like that.

 

But folks should skip the silly photo Zeitgeist blather. It's all part and parcel of marketing hype fueled by Madison Avenue PR firms (God bless 'em, I ran a company for several years :-) ).

 

Judging from lots of other product categories, at least, film will be a viable option for as long as some people like to shoot it. Not most of the people, just some of the people. Will some companies and products fall by the way side? Sure! But what else is new.

 

For high quality images (MF and LF), film is still the cost/benefit leader by a mile for quite some years to come. And that's aside from many discerning shooters' aesthetic preferences for particular emulsions (Velvia, FP4, you get the idea).

 

Shoot film and fear not - if that's your bag. For now, it's mine.

Trevor, I make sure I am happy with the quality of the images I make, then I put them up for sale, not what I can slip by as a sellable product, its old school verses new school.

Scott, just who are these "digital promoters" you are speaking of, anyway?

 

My take is those that are actually using digital in capture and processing are quietly going

about their business. Seems to me it's the people that are stuck in the past unwilling to

learn something new that are making the most noise about the demise of film.

My guinea pig died. I'm going to call the US Fish & Wildlife service and demand that guinea pigs be listed as an endangered species. In fact, I'm going to demand that ALL rodents be listed as endangered species - maybe all mammals! The end is near!

Gary, my client saw these images on my PC and liked them and asked for mounted, framed prints. I told him I would do so if they were good prints. I did'nt know how they they would come out beforehand as I am quite new to digital and assumed from all the 'propaganda' that they might present quality problems. As I said before, I was suprised at how well it worked out and so I was happy to sell them to someone who has already got 'the real thing' on his walls.

 

Until a few weeks ago I didnt even know how to use a digital camera and bought one assuming the worst based on images I had seen in digital camera reviews and many years of reading the usual digital scare stories. I thought I would be plagued by noise and digital artifacts and moire and the images would all be flat and lifeless and that anything bigger than 6x4 would exhibit pixellation and that all my remaining hair would fall out and..... well all the stuff we swallow from anti-digital propaganda threads like this.

 

It turned out that i CAN use digital and film without being arrested! People who know I use film and digital did'nt stop inviting me round and my children still talk to me. My film cameras have'nt refused to work in protest and I am contemplating an upgrade of BOTH my film and digital gear because I am confident that film will be useful to me for a long time and will be around for a long time yet to come.

 

Stop thinking this is a battle of darkness vs enlightenment. Thats crazy. Use whatever works for you but leave other people to decide what works for them. I respect peoples work not their tools.

 

My favourite photographers work is still on display in the Victoria & Albert museum in London and recently saw 155 of his original (self printed/developed) photographs. That was special because I know he hand made them all but I can still enjoy his work in a well printed book (or even on a website). I would'nt dream of saying of a contemporary photographer... "I can only enjoy work that is from a film camera and traditional darkroom so I cannot like your digital work" what a ridiculous attitude that would be! It would be equally ridiculous for a digital 'snob' to say he cant look at 155 Bill Brandt prints in the Victoria and Albert museum because they were B&W and made with film and darkroom!!

Who's Britney?

Brittany Spears, is the person that invented the current image sensor Canon is using in the pro line.

Last year I shot five roles film on a parade, today I shot more then 400 pictures on this years parade. I'm now downloading two Microrives full of pictures. 12 roles of film with development and scans in a 1 hour minilab cost around 240 Euro, the local papers don't accecpt slides, they print digital for some 10 years now.

 

Is film dead? No! I still shoot film but not for a living!

 

 

Volker<div></div>

@Scott, have you seen the output of a Sinar Scanback on a Master Technika?

<i> What bizarre ego identification process is going on that makes many gleefully proclaim: "Soon thy precious film shall be no more!"</i><p>

 

To echo Brad, name some. I haven't seen any except Jay, who wants film to stick around.<p>

 

Between this unsubstantiated statement and the terrible analogies, there's sure a lot of nonsense going around.

Brad,

 

Why would I want to retrain just so I can suck in a "Hi-Tech" way?

 

;)

Borrowed a Canon 10D for a day, btw.

 

I still sucked!