----- Original Message ----- From: "gfen" Subject: Re: Whew.
> On Sun, 18 Apr 2004, William Robb wrote: > > I don't see large format being supplanted by little digital cameras, > > they are just too different in their capabilities. > > Except the people who make the desicions on what to buy aren't concerned > with the HOW or WHY of something, only the results. And for them digital > may very well be good enough. I like to think that by the time you decide your work needs large format, you are educated past that point. > > > I predict that the present generation of photographers will be the > > last to use film, and that it will become essentially dead within 5 > > years. > > Now, do you feel this is for ALL aspects, for just for general use? Again, > I like to hope that film will retain a certain appeal, and thus be > produced, for the artists of the world while the general populace moves to > digital for everything. The essentially dead part is the black and white niche market hanging on. Hopefully, it will stay large enough to keep a company afloat to make the stuff. > > > Digital is still hobbled by 8 bit printing, which can wreak havoc on > > the look of the picture. According to > > one of the Noristsu people I have talked to, 16 bit is going to > > require a large increase in data tranfer rates to be viable. He was > > talking about bus speeds in the gigahertz range. > > So, does that mean that film, in roll and 35mm, will continue to hold onto > some the higher levels for now until digital printing can further close > its gap? Not if you can no longer get optical printing done. RA-4 is not a process that lends itself to home processing, and commercial processing is going 100% digital. I bet there are some good deals on large commercial processing machines out there right now though. > > > Before anybody hawks a loogie at this, I see it every day in my lab. > > The pictures coming off the optical printer look better than those > > coming from film off the digital printer. > > Now, from a professional opinion, does this still hold true when comparing > prints from a Frontier at a drug store versus an older optical printer > from a drug store? I do need a place to send the occasional roll of colour > 35mm film, and quite frankly, am happy paying bargain drug store prices > for the initial 4x6s, then using the decent, expensive, lab to print any > enlargments? I have the luxury of having a quite good optical machine, and a state of the art digital printer side by side. Both print on the same paper, and use the same chemistry. The chemical controls are even fairly close. The optical prints just look like they have more depth than the digital product. Same neg, printed on both mahines, almost always, the optical print looks better. Digital printing does have an advantage with either very long, or very short range negatives. > > > Where digital is really weak (well, actually, totally useless, IMHO) > > is for black and white. There are not many good black and white > > options out there for getting from digital to print, and none of them > > match the qualities of a well made silver print. > > A certain part of me is very smug about this, and glad. For predominatly > greedy interests, I hope it continues to be. My only concern going into > the future and next half of my life is that B&W film will continue to be > produced, I've long ago given up colour pictures for nearly anything but > fun, and I'm happy to let digital rule that domain. > > > Whether this bodes well for black and white film is anyones guess. I > > hope it is. > > ...fingers crossed. > Yup. William Robb
