survey digital vs traditional darkroom

[paulr]

I still shoot film. Since 2005 I've been scanning and printing digitally. At first it was by necessity (lost my darkroom, then my favorite paper got discontinued). Now I wouldn't go back. I'm producing the best prints of my life digitally (for black and white I use piezography. For my recent first color project, I worked with a custom printer who has a big expensive Epson).

I miss getting my hands dirty. So now I put that energy into cooking. Instead of creating my own developers I create recipes, and just this year launched an underground restaurant in my loft. There a pictures on the walls and they're for sale

[Jim collum]

90% capture is digital (20% LF, 40% MF, 40% 35mm). The other 10% of film is about 50/50 MF/LF.

75% of the print output is analog (alt process), with the other 25% being inkjet.

[Eamonn Doyle]

100% traditional now.
I moved back from digital to traditional about two years ago. The great thing about the rise of digital is that really great analog gear is pretty cheap now as the demand has dropped. I also work in electronic music production and the same thing happened .. all of a sudden classic old synths became affordable as everyone rushed over to software production. In the last year I bought a Leica V35 enlarger and Devere 5108 enlarger and a 10x8 sinar Norma. I could never had afforded this gear pre digital.

[Wade D]

100% traditional. I bought a Beseler 45M enlarger a few months ago with all the negative holders and lenses. The only thing I use digital for is scanning 4x5 negs and 8x10 prints of smaller negs for posting even though I haven't done that yet.

[John Jarosz]

I made the jump into ULF just so I wouldn't have to work with digitally enlarged negatives to print carbon. So I'm 100% analog.

I admit that there can be advantages to digitally enlarged negs, but I just don't want to do it. I guess there some Luddite in all of us.

John

[paulr]

I think the biggest difference between digital and analog media (visual, audio, whatever ...) is working style. The difference in workflow is huge; the difference in potential quality is very small.

Some people care a lot about process, maybe more than anything else. If you fall into this camp, then you don't need technical justifications for your choice.

You don't have to rationalize anything at all. Maybe you just love your hours in the darkroom. Maybe you never want to set foot in another darkroom as long as you live. Fair enough ... you shouldn't have to convince anyone else you made the right choice!

[Colin Graham]

Whatever I feel like that day, for that particular image. Can't wait to see what happens next.

[Brian Ellis]

The first time I responded I was 95% digital, using a darkroom only to process negatives that were then scanned.

The second time I responded I was 99% digital, still using the darkroom to process but just doing less of it.

Now for the third time - sold all the darkroom stuff (oh joy, got about $500 for gear that cost about $5,000) except for the bare necessities needed to process the occasional sheet of film. 99.5% digital, on the very rare occasions when I process film I put the stuff on the washing machine and dryer. I would rather use crayons than a darkroom to make prints.

[redrockcoulee]

I would guess that I am currently about 80 or 90 percent traditional. A couple of years ago was the other way around plus 100% at work. Reasons for change are made room for having a darkroom again and got a Hasselblad. Used my 35mm Pentax for something other than IR last week for the first time in over a year. When we have time we are going to be using a whole plate camera and a plate burner for alternative processes as well. My wife probably shoots 90% digital. She will be doing more traditional now with the new set up as she is by training a printmaker (etchings, lithos serigraph woodcut etc etc).

For colour I shoot either digital or MF with a few times a year LF. We had the opportunity a couple of years ago to buy a Nikon 8000 scanner for less than 600 Canadian and every time I see them for sell I think about how lucky I was to buy it. In decades of working in darkrooms I never had the urge to do colour. Actually I do enjoy working in front of the computer on my images and for two yearthat was also my day job. But I enjoy even more shooting with a purely mechanical camera, developing film and working in the darkroom. So colour = computer and black and white = darkroom.

What I am going to be shooting determines digital or film. Bigger decision is Hasselblad or Shen Hao and once we have film holders and lens boards for the Seneca Improved Whole Plate camera there will be one more decision.

I had cost factored darkroom versus digital and for my situation there was no real advantage either way. So if I want to spend an evening on my own I work in the darkroom but if I want to sit at my desk and watch the outdoors while working I can do colour on the computer. Once we have the darkroom finished there will be two enlargers so we can both be working in there as my wife although has less experence has as many years expereince in there.

I think post 167 should be the first response in any digital versus film thread. I know that this thread is not one of those but Paulr's comments are bang on for them.

[Eric Brody]

I can be quoted saying I'll never give up film, traditional forever... until, I started scanning my 4x5 and MF film, learned a bit of Photoshop and was turning out black and white prints arguably better than my best darkroom attempts even with 40 years of experience.

I figured that the "hybrid" approach was "in" with cars and photography...until I bought my D700. Since then, I have, sadly, rarely used my beloved view camera. I've been working with 4x5 for almost thirty years. I don't consider myself lazy, but given the quality, and ease of use of digital imaging, I'm struggling with my previous commitment to film. This was not helped by Fuji's recent discontinuation of Acros Quickloads.

For me, the print is the point of photography. I sell and exhibit infrequently, so my work is done mostly for myself. Simply put, I'm having a blast with the D700, making lots of images and I actually like my prints. I may have another epiphany and return to film completely but I rather doubt it. Oh well.

Eric