Very high quality analog equipment is certainly much more attainable
than comparable digital equipment at the present time. But this will
change as the digital market matures. Of course that will take time.
What matters more to me is that I can achieve very high quality color
printing at home with digital. With analog that was very difficult and
commercial printing is both expensive and hit and miss in terms of
quality. I like to control the entire process. With analog, I could
really only do that in BW. I do sometimes miss darkroom work, and I
have not yet sold my equipment. But I'm so busy producing digital work
that I don't really have time to return to the chemical process. I did
want to print from some 16 x20 BW from 4x5 negs, and I had purchased a
very good enlarging lens for just that purpose, so I may still do that.
On Mar 26, 2006, at 7:05 AM, Ralf R. Radermacher wrote:
Kevin Waterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
My problem is that photography has become more of a production line
than an art.
There's another thing that's nagging me about digital:
With analog, it takes very little money to produce a technical quality
that can't be distinguished from what you get with the most expensive
pro gear. An amateur with a modest budget can get the same quality as a
pro with much more money to spend.
Take a Kiev 60 (or the more expensive Arax version), put a Schneider 80
mm Xenotar on it and you'll get the same technical quality as if you'd
taken your pictures with an expensive Rollei 6000 and the same lens.
Take a few pictures with an MX and an SMC 1.4/50 mm plus a few more
with, say, a Leica R9 with the 50 mm Leica lens and noone will be able
to tell them apart.
You need 'real' quality, the stuff that will absolutely blow you away?
Want to count the leaves in your wide-angle landscape shots? No big
deal. Spend a few hundred to buy a used 4 by 5.
Get the idea? These days are over with digital. There is no digital
equivalent to the Kiev with the Xenotar and there will never be one.
The
difference in quality between a *istDS and a 39 mpix back is there for
all to see and there's no way around this. It may not show in many
applications but it sure does in others.
From now on, with our DS or DL we'll have to live with the fact that
we'll never again be able to produce the same quality as the big guys
simply because there is no affordable alternative to the Hassy with the
39 mpix back.
But wait, there's more...
Enlargers. Put a decent lens on a Meopta and your prints will be just
as
good as those made with a Leitz Focomat costing ten times as much.
The digital Meopta (aka Photoshop Elements) works in 8 bit as oppposed
to 16 bit with the real thing. A little more curve-tweaking and you'll
clearly see the fringing and posterizing. So, either fork out your
shekels for the CS2 version or learn to live with limitations and
inferior quality.
Pity, really...
DRI as I might, my industrial night shots simply don't work with an
APS-C size sensor. Experience from analog 35 mm suggests even a
full-format DSLR won't do. It takes something - no matter if analog or
digital - at least the size of 645 to keep those star-shaped patterns
around the lights tamed and to accomodate the enormous dynamics between
highlights and shadows.
Stay with analog, you say?
As much as I like the ease of digital, I guess I'll have to keep at
least the medium format equipment for a significant part of my
photography. And I frankly don't see anything happen that will change
this situation. Noone will ever make an affordable 12 or 16 mpix full
format 645 sensor. His investors would kill him.
Now, if only the price for C-41 developer alone hadn't more than
doubled over the last 12 months because of manufacturers eliminating
certain package sizes (3 x 5 l with Fuji-Hunt) or going bankrupt
(Agfa).
And I'm afraid that's only the beginning.
Ralf
--
Ralf R. Radermacher - DL9KCG - Köln/Cologne, Germany
private homepage: http://www.fotoralf.de
manual cameras and photo galleries - updated Jan. 10, 2005
Contarex - Kiev 60 - Horizon 202 - P6 mount lenses
