Teach traditional if theywill take the class. learn the basics.
Certain things are much easier in digital and I use it for that. Look at the Beckham Digital site and see what can be done with watercolor filters.
Other than special effects, I still like wet.
2 years ago: 100% traditional.
Now: film is traditional, then scanned and printed digitally.
This was brought on by three things--getting thrown out of my old loft and losing the darkroom, rumors that the one paper I like is getting discontinued, and the start of a book project that requires that I scan my negs and learn to print digitally. If it weren't for these things intruding on my reality, I'd probably remain a happy dinosaur for a lot longer.
100% chemical/film. I'm not even sure that seeing a really good digital print would sway me, but since I've never seen one, I can't be sure.
Not commercial - 100% pure hobby.
I do 98% darkroom and 2% digital. Two years ago it was 100% darkroom. I love spending time in my darkroom - I can disappear there for days and only show up when food is on the table:-) The digital stuff is all related to family/friends snapshots - it's great to be able to email pictures almost immediately after they were taken, but I just can't see myself spending all my time in front of a computer screen.
Juergen
Shoot mainly film for outdoor stuff, >95% in color, both 35 mm as well as 4x5. Have played with a coolpix 8700 (8MP): ok for cheap snap shots, worthless for macro; actually worse than worthless, because first you think it might actually work, then you realized it doesn't and you have to go back.
Been pondering the digital back question. Single shots are not producing large enough files (22 MP is too small and 2/3 of color information interpolated), and scan backs are too slow for outdoor; Just was in Joshua Tree and had to adjust base exposure every 30 s between changing sheets for the exposure series, due to rapidly moving clouds. Scan backs and all the Photoshop work in the world won't help there. Once a 0.5-1 GB singel shot foveon-type 3 layer chip is out there at a couple of grand for cost, then I'll start to consider it. I guess I wait another decade or two.
Image capture at the SEM and Light microscope is 100% digital. Use 6.7 MP grabber on a SEM (Zeiss EVO 40 XVP). And a 12 MP grabber on a LM; you're at the limit of diffraction, so that is good enough (Zeiss Axioskop II with all Planapo lenses and an Axiocam HRc).
Hardly do any printing. I scan images for stock agency, and give my chromes to a lab for enlargements. Prints make family and friends happy; I get excited about chromes on a light table with a 10x loupe. Then they rest in binders. Don't do enough prints to justify clogged cartridges and heads. Last time I was in the dark room was in '96 for a paper published in '98, since then, I've only submitted digital image files for printing, color as well as B&W.
Re escaping from the computer to the dark room, I can easily live without fix-smelling hands. Anyone care to read the MSDS on the various components? Ain't healthy, for sure. I prefer to walk around outside, and drop off some sheets at a lab, rather than breathing all these vapors. But that's just me.
I can't get quite exited about all that darkroom fiddling. For me, if you have to do that much fiddling in the dark room, the picture was not that great to begin with. I never get the excitement about some of AA's images, like that dark moon over Hernandez (or something like that). I once saw the straight print, and it is bland and boring. Only the dark room makes the memorable print. So what is all the fuzz about a bad negative rescued in the dark room? I guess that is where art starts, and we cannot rationally discuss that; that's art's nature. Obviously, I am a science geek depraved of any sensibilities.
For both personal and commercial, a healthy mix of digital and traditional. I see plenty of reason to take full advantage of the strengths of both processes. I love traditional and adore digital - it's all photography to me, regardless of the technology used in the process.
I've been all digital since the mid-90s. I even owned an Iris 4012 and Scitex scanner for a few years (bought high, sold low). But I was a hardcore darkroom junkie from my start in 84, and learned from a couple of Ansel's former assistants. So I think I know what a good fiber print looks like. And no, I can't make an inkjet look like a good fiber print. But I can make a matte print on uncoated paper that'll blow your socks off, and that was impossible only a few years ago.
Right now I am happy with an Epson 2200, using it straight for color and a Harrington RIP for BW. Enhanced Matte. Most scans are from a Epson 3200 for 4x5 and 120, a DiImage Dual Scan IV for 35mm, and a cheap Nikon D70. Low overhead, but I'm really quite happy with the results I can get. Sometimes I scan on an Imacon and print on a 7600-9600, but I don't need that many large images on my walls and I don't do print sales - for most commercial work I'm more than happy to get to 11 x 17 @ 360dpi.
I'd love to make some nice fiber prints again, but I remember spotting them, And trying to get them to lay flat, and the heartbreak of getting a half moon crease in their hard toned surface. I also remember using dozens of sheets of paper and half a day to get a really good print. The smells and chapped hands. I don't miss that.
I REALLY don't miss c-prints and internegatives!!!
Even after all these digital years - even teaching digital - it has only been the past couple years that I have really felt that color profiling and ColorSync in general "works." They finally got that right - that took almost a decade alone.
I still find it incredible that conributors to a LARGE FORMAT PHOTOGRAPHY discussion group even respond to the question digital or traditional (excuse the self contradiction there).
If you are using photoshop or digital backs or whatever, you are in the wrong forum.
Read the site title again, LARGE FORMAT PHOTOGRAPHY, there is a clue in there somewhere.
Maybe I'm in the wrong place, is there a LARGE FORMAT TRADITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY web site? anyone?? yes/no maybe?
Hey, looky here, great reviews for some of you guys, get your old LF stuff on EBAY and with what you make on the sale you can have the hardware to create digi pics .
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/ni...ix5700-review/
Sorry Tony but digital darkroom is an undeniable reality for LF. It is just another tool, but oh so useful. Even old school platinum guys like Dick Arentz are digitally enlarging LF negatives for contact printing. Here is even a posting by the editor of this forum:
"Darkroom: has been 100% digital for more than 5 years. Capture: 100% color film in LF, 100% digital in 35mm." QT Luong
Digital darkroom is just another tool and there are particularities to DD that are specifically related to LF just as there are particularities to traditional darkroom unique to LF.
When I joined this forum (two years ago or so), I was 100% traditional film and printing. At that time there were a number of thread categories already dedicated to digital that I had little interest in. Now I am interested. I teach LF at two universities and DD is a vital part of my darkroom curriculum just as traditional methods are. BECAUSE THE STUDENTS NEED ALL THE TOOLS! I would be remiss to not learn and teach this vital new tool.
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"
I give up!
Basket weaving here I come.
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