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Thread: survey digital vs traditional darkroom

  1. #1
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    I am curious about how much "darkroom" activity has shifted in the last couple of years. It may help me to decide how I teach some classes this summer. What percentage is your "darkroom" time spent in traditional activities vs. digital? What about two years ago?

    Two years ago I was 100% traditional in both my personal work and my commercial work. Today I am still shooting film (no capture), still printing silver, but also scanning and printing with inkjet in my personal work. My commercial darkroom is completely digital.

    So right now I'd say my time in the darkroom is spent 1/3 traditional and 2/3 digital. Which is to say that 2/3 of my darkroom time is spent in the light sitting in front of a damn computer.

    In the next year I intend to start exploring traditional prints from digitally enlarged negatives so this may shift some back again.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  2. #2
    MIke Sherck's Avatar
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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    (Personal, not commercial work.)

    100% traditional darkroom, two years ago, now, and for as long as I can get the materials (probably the rest of my life.) I sit in front of a computer all day long at work; I'll be darned if I'll do it during my miserable few hours of creative time each week!
    Politically, aerodynamically, and fashionably incorrect.

  3. #3

    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    Well, I am not "commercial", so it might not mean much but I only recently bought a digital cheapie for illustrating Web pages and sending with e-mails. If I wasn't doing that, I would even have a digi-cam.

    On the film side, I have been moving OPPOSITE to the way photography evolved! I started with 35 mm, moved to 120, then to sheet film. Now I am venturing into tintypes.

    If I keep moving in this direction, within a few years I will be drawing on cave walls with charcoal !!!! :-)>

  4. #4

    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    All my BW work is now output to inkjet on an Epson 7600. I use MIS inks in Quadtone RIP. I have played with the full spectrum carbon 6 shade inks and may switch to that altogether. No wet darkroom in over 2 years. Conventional gelatin silver prints to me look different, not better, than inkjet, depending on the subject matter. That said, I've had fun with digital negs and doing plat/pallad printing. My color work is both on inkjet and Light jet depending on what I'm after. Negs or chromes scanned on an Imacon.

    All my commercial is now digital in both the capture and output.

    Cheers,

  5. #5
    Octogenarian
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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    Hi Kirk,

    99% traditional darkroom. 1% digital. I ocasionally make an inkjet color print from my wife's neat little digital camera. From the camera to an 8X10 color print (as good as any print I have ever been able to obtain from a 1- hour photo lab.) in ten minutes. Handy for family snapshots.

  6. #6

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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    Artsy-fartsy large format stuff is 100% traditional from the get go. I can even coat glass plates in 5x7 if need be. Family snapshots are 25% film(b&w---me) 75% digital (my Bride) with everything printed digitally. I might get back to printing my own 35mm and 120 negs traditionally before too long though.
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  7. #7

    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    100% traidtional....if film goes, glass plates...I dont think pt/pd will ever be discontinued..

  8. #8
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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    100% traditional, both two years ago and now.

  9. #9

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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    I am 100% wet darkroom, mostly because that is the way I choose to spend my free time. The hands-on craft of photography is at least 50% of the reason I photograph, the computer is not a substitute for it. Photography is my hobby and not a job for me and I don't have any aspirations other than personal enjoyment and this means a blackened room and the smell of fixer. I do however understand why someone would opt for the control of a digital darkroom.

    I would like to hear more about the digitally enlarged negatives and wet printing. I could see myself getting into something like that for alternative printing.

  10. #10

    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    I scan stuff in and play with it it Photoshop to get an idea if I want a real print and what I want it to look like.

    I am moving away from enlargements and tending, at least in B&W, to favor contact prints.

    I don't like the resolution of digital output and don't like the look of of axis blacks from an ink jet.

    If I was going to a digital workflow from film, I think I would go, at most, medium format.

    I shoot for a hobby and would go digital if I were doing it for a living.

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