future of lf photography.....in competition with digital

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

what are your opinions bout the future of high class largeformat

equipement and photography.....a.e. i just bought a 6x17cm linhof

zechnorama and also a 360degrees roundshot seitz camera, working on

mf film.......how long i will be able to use this equipment till the

digital cams will offer similar quality...and much better handling

and costs. if i think to the new kodak fulllframe cam with 16mill

pixel....i spmetimes believe..that in two years the world of us

analog photgraphers will be dead.....more or less....

what do you think about?

[scott_eaton]

Has nothing to do with brute force resolution, and if you continue to think in such terms you'll only speed up the extinction of your format. Scanning digital backs already trounce 4x5 film. Been there, done that, worked with it, unlike most of the posts that will likely show up in this thread.

 

Classic LF photography combined with proper choices of film and printing offers unique aethestic characteristics over digital. That's the reason you should be using it and what you should be quantifying with. If you're just using LF just because of raw resolution issues you should probably BE using digital in the first place.

[marv]

Are we talking medium format or large format? Unless your camera is 6 X 17 INCHES, it's medium format to me. With that rant finally out of the way.........

 

LF and digital are two different disciplines. Rum isn't whiskey, a beer isn't a soda, a BMW isn't a Neon. For this LF photographer it is the medium that I want. I want to take the time to set up the camera and establish a composition. I want to soup the film to my specs. I want to craft the print in my style.

 

I like wood and brass. I like the feel of a holder as I slide it in the back, the reassuring thunk of a Ilex #5. You know that shutter fired when you push the button. I am proud of the fact I can tell the difference between 1/25 and 1/5 of a second by the SOUND of the shutter. I just looked outside and know without un-holstering the Pentax that the exposure is f64 @ 1/2 second. Do you get the point?

 

I have a lot of brothers and sisters in the world of LF. I don't think we will be lost in some digital shuffle. If we are, shame on us.

[qdb]

.......how long i will be able to use this equipment till the digital cams will offer similar quality....

 

Its a fair question. I agree from my experience that scanning digital back quality equals or exceeds 4x5 quality, but scanning backs are by their nature limited to shooting completely still subjects. One shot digital capture is not yet up to 4x5 quality in terms of absolute resolution.

 

I think we are now at a point where one shot capture is the equal of medium format. I'll guess at 3-4 years before we have relatively affordable one shot capture that is roughly the equal of 4x5.

 

But of course there is more to it than just raw resolution.

 

Quentin

[eugene_singer]

Rainer, in my mind, 6X17 Technorama and a Seitz Roundshot are not large format cameras. I feel that the advantage to large format lies in the fact that it is possible to custom expose and process each sheet of film, individually. You are correct, more and more commercial photographers, who use 35mm and 120/620 rollfilm, are changing over to digital imaging and outputting, especially for color work. In many ways, the results from digital surpass film. At least their clients seem to think so. There are still a lot of us "analog" people out here using film, and we will be using film, along with wet darkroom materials and techniques, for a long time to come.

[nathan_congdon]

Film generally will become increasingly a niche market, aimed at hobbyists and art photographers. I think color film might largely disappear, but probably not B + W. The one stumbling block to this right now in the consumer market is figuring out a digital interface that is not intimidating to the average snapshooter. Anybody who thinks that the majority of people WANT to sit around printing out their own photos is out of touch. But these sorts of things will be sorted out in a few years, and I think the average vacationer (definitely the average pro, or nearly all pros) will be shooting digital in a few years. The increasing mini-backlash which has led to a resurgence in alt process and the really big ULF cameras like 12X20 will continue to grow, sufficient I think to sustain a Bergger and maybe even an Ilford as a fairly reliable producer of B/W sheet film for quite some time, probably long term. Modular 4X5 cameras are quite well suited to switching from digital to film and back again, so I think those of us interested in both the digital and film worlds will be able to have our cake and eat it too well into the foreseeable future.

 

Regards,

 

Nathan

[scott_killian1]

I can't believe that we're beating this dead horse again since this topic has

been already been covered in nauseating detail in past posts.

 

However, I'm a big sucker for the film vs digital debate so I might as well join

the party with my amazing theories:

 

Fact: Most professionals will go digital in the coming years. Professionals are

in the business of making money from photography and they will naturally

gravitate to the faster, cheaper solution - this means digital. At one time,

freight companies moved product across the Atlantic in sailing ships and

when the steamship came along, they switched because it was faster and

allowed them to make more money. The same fate will become of film, sooner

or later.

 

But this doesn't mean the death of film! Just as people still buy and use

sailboats today, people will continue to buy film just like they continue to buy

fountain pens, horseshoes and record players. Even with the invention of the

airplane, there are many companies still making the sailboat because people

buy and use them - not for the reasons they did 100 years ago, but for the

simple act of sailing. Similarly, professionals generally don't take pictures for

the act of taking pictures, they do it for profit. However, there will continue to

be people like myself who value silver gelatin prints and the traditional

process as a form of image making regardless of how good or cheap digital

becomes.

 

As a result, digital is just another choice for making images, albeit the one

most pros will use for the reasons above. Did the introduction of color film kill

B&W? Did video kill photographs? Did television kill books? No - these

introductions only offered choices, although they may have altered the way

people who make money select the tools they use.

 

Kodak announced better than expected earnings earlier this week, their roll

film sales were up 3% for the quarter. Regardless, even when consumers and

professionals inevitably stop using film, somebody will step up to the plate

and service the demand - it may not be Kodak, but somebody will. (Heck, you

can still buy handmade writing paper for crying out loud!)

 

Gotta go - I've got a pile of 4x5 sheet film to tray process....

[scott walton]

Sitting smiling about Scott's post, I have to agree! Even to the point of platinum printing, this is an old art and still it thrives more so now as does Kallitypes and other mediums that we prefer to work with whether they be for work or enjoyment. You should be able to use your new found cameras for quite a number of years because as stated, Kodak has always had great growth and earnings with film and though they have stopped making some nice papers/films (Ektalure), and changed several things that in my mind weren't broke, film will be here for awhile. The statement about film shooters will be dead is just your opinion and should be reevaluated with a more open mind. Sure digital is part of our life and has warranted a place in our world but film, large format or small, will be in our world for awhile also.

[hyperfocal]

One question � Everybody keeps assuming that digital will keep getting better and better. Why? At some point, after digital exceeds traditional film in medium format and large format used for commercial photography, why would the digital developers worry about trying to equal 8x10 or 11x14, especially since it�s such a small part of the market? Also, since my conjecture tells me that 90% of the photo illustration used is smaller than 16x20, what is the point of trying to make digital capture to create 30x40 prints? Seems to me that at some point diminishing returns has to set in and the �advance� will stabilize. Just wondering �

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

no...television was not killing books, cause this are two pair of shoes.

but compact discs have killed records, even the cd doesnt sound better, it is just more practical. so a handfull of listeners still use records...( as me ), but 97% of the market are made with cd,- and nearly all with digital produced music.

my question above is about prof. photographers....

i shoot architecture and i use LF and the cams described above,- and sometimes 36mm for details or for documentations etc.

now few weaks ago i just wanted to buy me a fuji s2, reading about it...but after holding her 1 minute in my hands, i didnt bought it,- so cheap the feeling of the body was.istead i bought a little nikon 4500 cam, thinking to use it for fun. now i am really astonished......not so much bout the picture quality,- but about how easy and practical it is to use such a cam......and i think it makes it so easy to shoot even difficult pictures,- wherefore you needed a lot of experience to shoot them with conventional film ,- that many many prof. work will disappear in the future cause it will be too easy and too cheap to make the pics without knowing much about photography.....sure many of you will be now very disappointed bout my writing and think...whats about picture, about composition....b+w...baryt....scheimpflug...etc...etc

but i think the problem could be: that the prof. nivel will go down and many of us will be without work,- and just the best ( and the best names....) will be able in future to live from photography. i hope that especially in arch. work this will happen slowly...but maybe i`am just dreaming to be optimistic.

i was living nearly 20 years from writing music for films, the last years i made my old hobby to my new prof.: shooting film esp. architecture. i am very happy that my working situation seems to run good...but in music i made the experience in the 80s what does it mean.,- such a change from analog to digital. the result here in germany was fatal. 95% of all studios closed....the filmmusic in television has commonly a nivel now, that every schoolboy can produce it on his pc ( well i describe it a little bit drastically,- but more or less its true....)

and now i have fear to live the same thing a second time in my life....thats all....

greatings from germany

[scott_killian1]

Rainer,

 

Even if schoolboys have access to the technology, as you say, they still need

to be able to "see" and I would hope that this is what you are selling. I would

argue that recording studios who went out of business because the

technology became cheap are studios who failed to provide enough value-

added services beyond simple access to equipment. The same is true of

photography.

 

Cameras are just tools and they don't take pictures, people do. Changes in

technology only permit ease of process, but they don't improve the "seeing".

[stevewillard]

There are a lot of issues with digital. Resolution is only one of

them. There is also color fidelity, limited exposure latitude, and

the huge expense it takes to get into digital. A medium format

digital back runs around $20,000. A drum scanner runs around

$28,000. And the list goes on. I was reading a PDN publication

a while back where out of 600 professional photographers only

20 were using digital for more than 50% of their work. The

reason they sited was digital is too expensive, and the

equipment became obsoleted before they could write off the

expense.

 

Recently I saw some stuff at a lab the does both digital and film.

They showed me some work from the same camera, one using

a digital back and the other using a film back, both of the same

images. Now I know that this stuff is like religion, but if you saw

what I did, I think a lot of you would rethink your claims about

digital.

[john_luke]

I know guys who use an 8x10 with hot lights for annual report shots of people. Apparently just showing up with that thing puts the subjects in a different mood than the guy with the 'blad and a chimera. Whether it's a better mood or worse mood, I don't know, it's just different. Good clients don't really care what you use. To shoot digitally and stay in business means you will be charging more because of the following. #1) Your overhead increases to buy all this stuff which needs to be paid off in about 1 year because of its obsoleteness as soon as it's purchased. #2) You will spend much time at the computer "processing" that raw file. I see so many hacks who think they can underbid film guys it's not funny. These clowns will be out of business soon, but unfortunatley, there seems to be a steady stream of these jokers willing to keep jumping in and charging on the cheap. You may gain efficiencies in shooting digital by not having to wait for processing and waiting in line at the scanner or not having to clone out dust specs on scanned film. You may appreciate and have lower stress levels by having "confirmed" the final image on a laptop screen and therefore don't have to sweat it out while the film is being processed. But you need to charge appropriately. I think the camera to have will be a 6x9 view camera with a digital back. Sinar just announced a 3.5 x 5 cm size chip with 22 mega pixels- thats about a perfect 645 format. The 6x9 will be the next leap and solves that dreaded wide angle loss common to many of the smaller chips.

[howard_singer]

who cares? go look at photographs made a hundred years ago and when you can equal the quality in your own work then take time out for the digital debate. let's get this bb back to discussing art and technique or else let's start another area for people who want to do the craft rather than window shop

[jonathan_bundick]

Well put Howard, well put.

[jonathan_bundick]

Even though Howard has made the best point, I feel the need to address another.

 

" If you're just using LF just because of raw resolution issues you should probably BE using digital in the first place."

 

This statement fails to take into consideration any cost factors at all. Although, I agree with the line of thought that resolution alone does not make LF what it is, the cost of doing what we enjoy is a primary factor for consideration. 4x5 graphic with two lens set, < $700 or .....what digital, even in 35mm SLR type can come close to the price point, and deliver the tonal gradation, and resolution? None. Film, in it's various forms will be arouond for quite a while. As I mentioned in a previous post, the growth of the overall market for photo finishing is growing a such a rate that the demand for film is actually increasing in real terms, dispite the inroads digital has made.

[edward_paulson]

Also to respond to the raw resolution issue: It will be some time before the portability of data that film offers is threatened by digital. I carry 4x5 equipment for 12-14 day expeditions in a backpack. I may shoot 50 to 100 sheets in that time of sheet film and several 120 rolls too. That is a massive amount of data in digital terms. I don't have to worry about batteries, and I can pull the camera out and shoot very quickly. I don't have to carry a heavy laptop to operate.

 

I may be mistaken but I just don't believe that any digital system is this versatile yet in terms of weight and volume and data carrying capacity.

[light-zone]

Scott,

 

I have to agree with Rainer. The state of commercial photography here in Germany is at an all time low. We as photographers can "see" the difference in quality from a shot produced by an experienced professional, and one produced by either a graphic designer, or worse yet, a sales rep using a 3 million pixel digital camera with direct flash. But the important question is, can the client see it, and if so, is the difference in quality worth the difference in price. Again, unfortunatly, I'd have to say that more and more clients are more concerned with the bottom line, than the quality of the final product. Pride in craftsmanship in commercial graphic design is still there, as well as in professional photography, but the state of affairs as well as the ever failing economy is forcing us (commercial photographers as well as graphic designers) to continually cut costs whereever possible. Being forced to resort to cheaper printing processes as well as cheaper stock brings us to the point of thinking, why bother with an 8X10" transparency and an expensive drum scan, when in print you'll never be able to appreciate the difference. Hence the choice of less expensive photo methods.

 

In support of digital: I shot a 24 page catalog last week. about 125 simple shots of tools on white seamless, that will then be sillhouetted. I used a friends studio with Phase One H digital backs on a Sinar. After the intial set up and calibration, the shots went amazingly fast. The one flash system using bron packs let me work just like I do when shooting film, and the 25-40 mb files were over kill as far as file size is concerned, but I could scale them down before "developing" the preview. The data was clean and burned on CDR's and I was able to do the silhouetting 2 days later. Eliminating the scan process made the job faster, and no film meant it was less expensive to produce. It definatly increased my profit margin.

 

Now back to the darkroom where I have some Efke 8X10" film to develope in ABC Pyro, then print on Azo. See, you can have it all!

[stefan_marquardt]

hallo rainer,

i am an architectural photographer here in germany as well - and i do wonder sometimes about the same thing. One(!) resason I choose to specialise in architecture, was the idea that the change to digital will arive in this segment of the pro-market the lastest (after editorial, advertising...). I shoot with an arca swiss 4x5 myself and I have been looking to the fuji s2 an others too as an additional camera - but -for the moment- decided against it.

1.resolution isn´t there yet

2. you need perspective controll (sometime quite a lot of it! - more then an some nikon pc-lens can offer)

3. what if the client ask´s you for a real big enlagement (just happend to me, and I could hand him a 250mb file. recently a architectural magazine use an 2x4cm crop of an 6x9cm transparancy to use on the cover of their magazine. That would have not been possible with a file from an 11megapixel SLR that easily.

4. specialy in architecture, clients tend to be thight with their money. I have no problems to explain to them that I need film and polas to do the work and that they would have to pay fot that. BUT I can see them grumbeling over a "digital capture fee".

 

All of that said, I do somtimes wish I had an digital solution and would not have to travel back and for to the lab (wich is nearly an hour away).

 

By the way: I sometimes do advertising work for which I get paid a flat rate and no expenses/material. For those pictures (I know they dont get printed bigger than 4x5inch or so) I use my good old nikon coolpix 950! You just have to pick the right tool for the job.

 

viele grüsse stefan marquardt

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

hallo stefan....

good to read that you understood the point of my view, which is absolutely not only the question about the resolution,- more that i wonder myself about the consequenzes for us prof. photographers in terms of our future work. and i believe that the change of the clients and their opinion is one of the most important points in this discussion and also the more and more close distance from ambitionated private shooters to profs in some aspects. as i said before,- what astonished me in my nikon coolpix at most is the possibility to shoot pictures as night shots, portraits against the sun. sunsets, neon lights, flash and ambient, sequenzes till 30 fr. per second, full manually, semimanually control....nearly all what you wish to have and more. and- for the fast possibilty to see the pictures on the display every 8 years old guy can use it succesfull and fast. and this is the difference to a 250 dollar analog cam, which offer more than enough possibilities too,- but you have to become firm in photography to use more than the programm automatic.....which makes horrible pictures if you dont know to use it. with the digi cams...everybody will be able to shoot very difficult things....in acceptable quality- depending on the eyes of the viewer.

clearly not in the aspect of good picture compositions and so on.....but lets wait how this "easy to use" possibilities will change the taste and the use of the photography....in music it happened more drastically than anybody could imagine. here in germany with techno and ambient sounds which you listened in any corner,- and even more subtil and very drastically ,- in the rationalisation of living musicians....at first drummers in the 80is....later nearly all studio instrumentalists, and each of this people has been really virtuos. you can count on one hand the cases where the use of samplers increased in this aspect the quality of the music, but it was only done cause it was cheap and people who cannot write one note had instant access to a string ensemble....and it was sounding good enough if you have not learned to listen good......as most people never have learned. about economics: the prices in the 80s for a midrange sampler was app. 10.000 dollars, it offered less than 1% of the possibilities of the machines 10 years later,- a real prof. sampler had in this time a price around 125.000 bucks ( minimum ! ). 10 years later the price of a machine ( which had much more possibilities ) was at 5.000 dollars.......and a consumer sampler....also much better than the 10.00 dollar machine from the 80is was at 500 dollars.

imagine this for photography,- and i fear similar things will happen here too.

 

 

so: will our clients accept in future the costs and

the time we will consume more in analog photography?

 

please no more advices that i should go out and shot as great as other photographers did it 100 years ago...and similar nice comments. believe me : i go out and i shoot...and i do my best. but therefore i want and i need to live from it,- and i just think about my and about our future as profs.

greatings to all...

und schöne grüße an meinen kollegen aus deutschland.....

[marv]

Maybe its time to take the gloves off.

 

I shoot traditonal large format. Most of the folks that used to inhabit this forum did also. Most weren't pros looking to go d. but wanting to discuss LF. It was a refuge from the flames of other forums.

 

All that changed. Now we are treated to a daily flood of people telling us our format is dead and dying and wanting to give us 100 reasons why. But I guess we are a slow lot. We think you really have a concern for LF issues. In the end though the response is always the same: I shoot a lot, I do the things you advise, You all don't understand my question. We understand. You just don't like our opinion.

 

Here is my advise. GO SOME WHERE ELSE!!! Give us back our forum.

[stefan_marquardt]

rainer - I see this quite often: I have been speeking to a lot of companies that told me, that they just bought a digital camera and are now doing most of there potos themselfes. I am also amazed how well those little cameras (coolpix...) work (if you know how to use them) - but I than again I am always very pleased (happend last week) when a client (who told me not to bother as he was goingt to do the photo himself) sends me his picture AND IT IS TOTALY USELESS (I still forewarded it for publication - maybe they learned something).

Im am glad, I am not in the market for product shoots, catalogs ...

In the architectural segment LF is still (and hopefully for another year or two) an absolute must. And not many clients can handle an LFcamera - luckily!

stefan

[edward_paulson]

Rainer you should have specified 'pro photographers only' in your original post as it would have silenced the rest of us who shoot for enjoyment and a quality product.

 

Photographers using 35mm equipment have long had a cost advantage over large format users and yet it has survived the competition. The latest Kodak / Canon digital full frame are just bettering 35mm film. It may be cheaper to shoot digital than 35mm for the same quality now BUT it has been cheaper to shoot 35mm than large format for a long time.

 

Finally all the other points in my previous post remain valid. If you do want to carry a large amount of image data home, film is still the most efficient way to do it in terms of weight, volume and time taken to get the image.

 

Perhaps you just need to find clients who want a bigger output (or make them want a bigger output). If you can't then you probably never have been able to justify larger format photography for your business needs.

[jim_galli4]

It's hard to argue that a vacuum tube amplifier is better than the latest digital CD mega watt thing. What makes it better is unquantifiable and not even apparant to the masses. Large format photography is gradually making the shift into that arena. There is an individuality, simplicity and elegance that is hard to quantify. Especially to number crunchers with a bottom line. What are you shooting for. If I was going to have to work for that number cruncher, I wouldn't choose LF. If I want to strive to make something beautiful, simple, individual and elegant, then I would.

[tim_atherton2]

>All of that said, I do somtimes wish I had an digital solution and >would not

>have to travel back and for to the lab (wich is nearly an hour away).

 

 

You lucky guy stephan - mine is 1500 miles away! MAkes life fun as a pro...

 

It also makes aspects of digital more applealing.

 

I think it's horses for courses - didgital will be used where it's more convenient, or does the job better or cheaper or quicker. Traditional will be used likewise, and for the other qualities it can bring to a job/project/image