The real digital dilemma - was: Bailing out.
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
Re: The real digital dilemma - was: Bailing out.
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
Re: The real digital dilemma - was: Bailing out.
On Mar 26, 2006, at 7:05 AM, Ralf R. Radermacher wrote: A little more curve-tweaking and you'll clearly see the fringing and posterizing. Maybe you just have to pretend you're shooting slides and not try to save the thing in post. -Aaron
Re: The real digital dilemma - was: Bailing out.
On Mar 26, 2006, at 7:28 AM, Paul Stenquist wrote: I like to control the entire process. Me too. Which is why it stinks that I find the process so godawful boring. -Aaron
Re: The real digital dilemma - was: Bailing out.
Aaron Reynolds [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Maybe you just have to pretend you're shooting slides and not try to save the thing in post. Won't help. I have to use colour negative film, exactly because of the limited dynamic range of slide film. 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
Re: The real digital dilemma - was: Bailing out.
At 07:56 AM 3/26/2006, you wrote: Ralf, I'm in general agreement. For those who enjoy and want the best out of film large format is a relatively inexpensive venture. (That is, compared to what I've seen in some 35 outfits.) 4x5 -- a. $150 for a good press camera to start with (Busch Pressman 'D' or Crown Graphic) or $300 - $500 for a decent wood field. (Nagaoka. Perhaps a used Shen Hao or similar.) b. Add a good lens for $100 to $300. (Fujinon, Schneider, most any) or an excellent lens for $300 to $600. (Schneider, Rodenstock) 8x10 -- a. $200 for a starter body (Kodak 2-D) or $1000 for an excellent body. (Deardorff) b. $300 for a basic lens. (Schneider Symmar 300mm) Look at the options and add it up. Then add up what's in your digital world. My outfit is probably a medium-sized film/digital outfit but adds up in value to over $2000. With 8x10 you really don't need an enlarger. Just a contact printing frame and a light source direct enough to allow dodging. These prints will always satisfy. (Last year I met a 4x5 photographer who never enlarged. Nicely-framed 4x5 contacts are/can be rather attractive.) But if you do need to enlarge, just add (build yourself) a new back for the 8x10 (a light source) and put it (the camera) on a heavy copy stand. Collin He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose -- Jim Elliott
Re: The real digital dilemma - was: Bailing out.
I don't find either process terribly boring -- darkroom or digital. But I don't process other people's work, only my own. That is much more rewarding than operating a lab. I tried doing custom BW printing at one time many years ago. I got plenty of business in a hurry, but soon learned that I didn't enjoy printing photos that others had taken. Oh there was the rare beauty that engaged me, but they came few and far between. Paul On Mar 26, 2006, at 8:01 AM, Aaron Reynolds wrote: On Mar 26, 2006, at 7:28 AM, Paul Stenquist wrote: I like to control the entire process. Me too. Which is why it stinks that I find the process so godawful boring. -Aaron
Re: The real digital dilemma - was: Bailing out.
On Mar 26, 2006, at 9:06 AM, Paul Stenquist wrote: But I don't process other people's work, only my own. That is much more rewarding than operating a lab. I tried doing custom BW printing at one time many years ago. I got plenty of business in a hurry, but soon learned that I didn't enjoy printing photos that others had taken. Remind me to tell you about the time I had to retouch the photographs of the dog wearing a tiara. The owner had spilled beer on the framed print, let it dry, then tried to pull the photo out, peeling the emulsion off. I spent almost two hours looking at that dog. -Aaron
Re: The real digital dilemma - was: Bailing out.
- Original Message - From: Collin R Brendemuehl [EMAIL PROTECTED] For those who enjoy and want the best out of film large format is a relatively inexpensive venture. Cheap to own, expensive to use... ;-) Jostein
Re: The real digital dilemma - was: Bailing out.
Jostein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Cheap to own, expensive to use... ;-) Not necessarily. You simply can't fire away at 4.3 fps wwith a 4 by 5. :-) 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
Real Digital
Check out the new View Camera magazine. The review of Better Light's 4x5 scanning backs is impressive. The top-of-the-line model produces a 309 meg image but costs $13k. The low end model produces a 50 meg image and is $6k. http://www.viewcamera.com Collin
