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Thread: survey digital vs traditional darkroom

  1. #11

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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    "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 !!!! :-)>
    --Calamity Jane, 2005-02-21 11:38:49 "

    Same here. I'm seriously considering taking up wet collodian. BTW, CJ, I saw your portable darkroom page briefly today. I'll have to check it out in more detail as I'll need one for the field if I start doing wetplate. Have you broken it in with a field run yet?

    As far as the original question, a few years ago I dabbled in Photoshop and digital maging and actually initiated a course (Digital Photography I) at the local community college where I teach. After a year I couldn't stand it and left it behind. So, I went from about 50/50 digital/traditional back to 10% digital 90% traditional in the past year. I only use digital now for quick web things and for making digital negatives for alternative process printing.

  2. #12
    Moderator Ralph Barker's Avatar
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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    I'm probably 80% traditional film/darkroom and 20% digital, trending toward more traditional. (I don't include scanning for presentation purposes in that comparison.)

  3. #13
    -Rob bigcameraworkshops.com Robert Skeoch's Avatar
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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    I run a commercial studio and we are 100% digital, in fact there isn't even a film camera on the property.
    My personel work is B&W landscape.... I try to set aside 1 day a week for my landscape work.... split between shooting, souping, work proofs and final b&w prints.
    At the studio we have a Epson 10600 printer so every once and a while I'll scan in an 8x10 neg and print off a huge print just to see how it looks. I've never bothered to frame up one of these ... I tend to use conventional prints for the wall.
    In the future I expect to continue b&w printing my personel stuff but in the commerical world I'll never go back.
    -Rob

  4. #14

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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    I have only ever shot photographs on film. Two years ago my printing was 100% traditional. Now I am 100% digital.

    The change came about mostly because I left a job where I had access to fully-equipped but almost unused darkrooms. My background includes image processing and scientific imaging, so once scanners of reasonable quality were available at an affordable price the choice of where to invest my own money was a no-brainer. It helped that a digital darkroom is much more compatible with my three small children.

    I now have access again to the same darkrooms, but probably won't use them except perhaps for some film developing, and even that only in ULF.

  5. #15
    bob carnie's Avatar
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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    Kirk

    I own a small traditional lab , five years ago I was 100% traditional. I have continued to build my wet lab and processing area and today as a result I am busier than 5 years ago in wet fibre printing,ciba and ra4. We have added a couple of digital equip to our lab over the last year, a G5 system hooked up to a 9600, with an epson flat bed scanner.
    As well we are buying an Imogon scanner and are in the process of installing a Lambda 76 lazer printer.
    We frame everything we print as an aside to our printing services.
    I will admit that the digital side has greator growth and potential financially but without the analog methods, one I would be lost and two having both worlds running side by side is a distinct advantage for us.
    We plan to run workshops this summer... all analog, holgas , and only aimed at children,teens and their parents.

    Without understanding both methods I believe you are not as strong and the possibilities are tremendous using both.

    I will be making digital negs with the Lambda, I will then print cyanotype,van dyke and platinum.
    Both photographic worlds combined into one fluid process.

    Just so you know Kirk, my skills are in seeing and judging photographs, not in using photoshop, I do not know how to add an attachment to this article.But I can assure you that one of my staff do.
    I worked on Photo Comp at a high level for years , therefore I can direct a computer operator to make photoshop work with my terminology and understanding of photography.

    I would hope you do not stop teaching analog , but make it part of your digital growth.

    By the way, Kirk, I still print 6 days a week in a traditional wet room and do not intend to stop. Period

  6. #16

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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    100 percent traditional darkroom work

  7. #17
    Resident Heretic Bruce Watson's Avatar
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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    All my captures are to 4x5 film, Tri-X and 160PortraVC. Since I've started scanning, I dropped chromes altogether.

    Anything to be printed is drum scanned (I do my own). The grayscale prints are printed on an Epson 7xxx/9xxx using the StudioPrint RIP and Cone's PiezoTone inks, on cotton rag paper (mostly Hahnemuhle Photo Rag) or canvas (both cotton, and cotton/poly).

    To recap: all my capture is to negative film. All my prints are inkjet.

    Bruce Watson

  8. #18

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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    Color stuff, which are basically family snapshots, are 100% digital. Everything else is 100% traditional B&W. If I had an endless supply of time it would all be traditional. I despise digital photography, the way it looks, the dickheads around here who think they're great photographers now that they've got a dslr, the film companies dropping products, etc. etc. It's just so convenient , cheap, & quick for the color snapshot stuff.

  9. #19

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    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    Hi

    its now only 20% weet and 80% digital!
    But I will do again more weet in the future at least 50% is my purpose!

  10. #20

    survey digital vs traditional darkroom

    In my simplistic way of thinking, in painting, it's all about the shadows, in photography, it's all about the highlights-their rendering is what carries the magic of an image and the illusion of space. We can live with the noise in the shadow areas of digital images, of which there is PLENTY—and there are about 99 different add-ons made to handle it, but I have yet to see digital capture that handles highlights well.

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