Hybrid Photography

[neil poulsen]

I just upgraded my enlarger, since the one I wanted has pretty much been discontinued. (Found something used.) So, will print in the darkroom.

I have a digital camera, printer (4000), and a 4870 scanner. I also have a good spectrophotometer, so that I can generate my own profiles.

Am getting into printing platimum/palladium using both digital and traditional negatives. I finished building a UV source, and I built a waterbath using a heater designed for same and a garden pump for circulation. I also want to get into cyanotype. What's neat is being able to use a digital camera for capture, even pocket cameras.

In the past, doing alternative methods like these required that the camera be the same size as the print. Digital negatives has changed all that. Talk about combining what was going on at the beginning of the last century with what's going on at the beginning of this century.

What I'll miss is being able to print color negatives on Type C paper. I don't have a color darkroom, and our local resource where people can print their own work has had that end of their business fall off substantially . It's anybody's guess how long they can continue to offer the service. I find there are some color negatives that just don't print well digitally on an inkjet. (Maybe a drum scan would help? I'll have to give it a try. Or, a Jobo.)

[Ralph Barker]

I shoot both film (35mm, 120, 4x5 & 8x10) and digital (D2x). Anything "important" goes on film. All B&W film work is manually processed and traditionally printed by me. Color processing is outsourced, and I scan and make small (up to 11x14) color prints myself on an Epson 2200. Original digital capture is limited to family snaps and quick-turn-around projects for which the output is suitable.

[Ben Chase]

I shoot 6x7 (until I order my 45SU), and print using the Chromira on Fuji supergloss paper for color transparancies. For black and white printing, I print using the Piezography process on the Selenium-toned ink. I've been happy with that process.

I have a Nikon SC 9000 scanner to scan the 6x7 transparancies and negatives. The super-special stuff gets sent to be drum scanned.

All of my development here in Spokane is done by a fine company called Chromastat. Eventually, I'd like to process the b/w film myself, as I'm intrigued by the level of control possible.

Ben C

www.benchasephoto.com

[David R Munson]

I am totally in love with the hybrid workflow. I see no reason to devote myself wholly to one approach or the other. I think that there is much to be gained by mixing the two. I shoot on film from 35mm to 4x5 (mostly 120), develop B&W by hand, send color film to a lab, and then scan/output digitally. When I can swing the cost, I'll be getting a good digital camera body and adding that to my arsenal of tools. Not as a replacement for anything, but to augment what I can do in the realm of all of my photography.

[paulr]

i'm loving the hybrid workflow too. i'm hanging on to my enlarger more for the sake of nostalgia than anything else. i'm continually blown away by the ink prints i've been making these days.

[bglick]

I think the "image capture" is the digital vs. film battle. In the printing end, I think digital had proeven itself a winner over the years, at least for the masses. Hard to beat digital workflow, regardless how you captured the image!

[Santiago Vanegas]

I shoot chrome film with and Ebony SV23, a Hasselblad H1, and a Hasselblad XPan II, then scan on an Imacon Flextight 343 and print on an Epson 2200 (upgrading to a K3 ultrachrome inkset soon). I have not switched to digital capture yet for basically one reason. Digital capture is far too limiting when it comes to exposure times. I do a lot of night photography and I really need the freedom to be able to make as long an exposure as I need, no mater how many minutes/hours it takes. As of now, this is impossible with digital capture. I'm actually quite surprised that so little people seem to address this issue about digital capture. The longest exposure I've seen on pro digital cameras is 32 seconds. 32 seconds is extremely limiting when shooting at night, or even at twilight in some cases. With digital capture (no matter how fancy the camera), forget about painting with light, astrophotography, night photography, long exposures in daylight with neutral density filters. I'm looking forward to the day when digital capture will allow photographers the freedom to expose as long as we please. For me, the "hybrid" way has worked wonders for me. I'd never be able to do what I do in a traditional darkroom. But for now, I'm sticking with film.