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Thread: Digital Depression

  1. #1

    Digital Depression

    I can’t get out of my mind that Agfa has decided to skip all LF activities. To me this has a strong symbolic charakter for the last convulsions of analog photography in general.

    Ok, a complete digital workflow for studio photography is not just efficient but is definitely also fun to use. The same goes for photojournalists switching to something like a Canon D1s and the average consumer rediscovering photography with his point&shoot digital camera.

    But what has the industry on offer for us? A digital back for USD 25.000 which gives us the unique opportunity to also carry a laptop and a bunch of batteries in our much too light backpack?

    I can’t get rid of the impression that people like the members of this forum are the only ones on the loosing side of this game.

    Contrary opinions are very much appreciated…

  2. #2
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Digital Depression

    In Agfa's case, they haven't really been a film company for some time now, it's just not their main thing. SO it's not suprising they have dumped sheet film.

    And on the other hand we have Fuji developing some very good brand new films in sheet size....
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  3. #3

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    Digital Depression

    For every product that disappears it seems there are ten new ones to replace it, and sometimes we see companies revive old lines. Last summer I bought a NEW Weston Euromaster from a company in England that started making them again - pretty cool. Leica introduced the MP, essentially a modern remake of the M3, with better workmanship than the intermediate models... Who's to say that somebody won't start to make Bovira or Agfa 25 again in ten or twenty years? Heck, I wish I had a stash of Bovira from thirty years ago when it had some ummph.

    Digital is spinning off some great things for large format photographers. I'm looking at my Epson 3200 scanner - only $400 and it's far better than scanners I paid thousands for just a couple of years ago. Same goes for inkjet printers and Photoshop - the tools are mature and capable. It'll be a long time before an affordable, portable, backpackable digital camera matches the resolution of a 4x5 Readyload - and while the number of emulsions will be shrinking, I'm confident we'll be able to buy sheet film for at least another generation. If you love film and wet chemistry, it isn't going away - people still do gum bicromate, platinum, etc. despite the hardships - who knows, maybe silver prints will become more exotic and expensive? What's the matter with that?

    There is fairly large museum exhibit and archive market that will demand archival toned silver prints for many years to come - that alone should manage to keep a couple paper and film lines going. And you could always do what Fred Picker did - fill a freezer chest full of discontinued paper. Except he did it in the 1970s, and he thought the sky was falling then.

    Use digital as tool to compliment your large format work. It's a great time to be doing this - more choices, changes, and activity than ever.

  4. #4

    Digital Depression

    To the plus, a lot of old film equipment is hitting the market at low prices and there has been some reaction in the form of the antiquarian avant-garde. We will loose film choices and paper choices, probably most of them, but we will keep on making pictures even if we have to make our own stock. It IS happening even now.

    I have seen some digital images that were very good. It took years of looking at some very bad ones though. Business will never go back to film as it will never go back to woodcuts. In some ways we loose but we gain in some areas. It always works for the good and the bad, change does.

  5. #5

    Digital Depression

    "There is fairly large museum exhibit and archive market that will demand archival toned silver prints for many years to come - that alone should manage to keep a couple paper and film lines going."

    I was just looking at an auction catalogue of contemporary art that arrived in the mail - still plenty of the usual paintings and drawings, lots of mixed media and some installation pieces etc. Of photographs there were, I think three silver prints, one platinum print, one cibachrome and 4 or 5 color dye coupler prints. By contrast there were perhaps 25 photographs variously labelled giclee prints on watercolor paper, inkjet prints on archival rag paper, digital prints and lightjet/lamda C prints (oh and one photocopy transfer...) - all with reserves generally somewhat higher than the traditional prints - anywhere from $1500 to $15,000.

    On the manufacturing front - people like Forte have always made colour film in 35mm. Wouldn't it be great if they went on and produced a colour sheet film? They seem to have no problem with up to date technology - I remember when Kodak chased them out of the US for selling their "T-grain" films... as I recall, they might have got away with it if they hadn't chosen "T" in the name! Maybe they will be able to do something interesting in color sheet?

  6. #6

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    Digital Depression

    Digital sucks.

  7. #7

    Digital Depression

    On the manufacturing front - people like Forte have always made colour film in 35mm. Wouldn't it be great if they went on and produced a colour sheet film? They seem to have no problem with up to date technology - I remember when Kodak chased them out of the US for selling their "T-grain" films... as I recall, they might have got away with it if they hadn't chosen "T" in the name! Maybe they will be able to do something interesting in color sheet?



    I have been blabbing about this, and it seems to fall on deaf ears. I keep telling people to support companies like Bergger and Foma. They make "old style" films right now....because there is a demand for them.



    If and when the BIG companies stop making "modern" films, a company like Berrger, Foma, Forte, etc. will step up and start making similar films, because there will be a demand and the GREAT YELLOW FATHER, won't be meeting it.



    Fuji, Kodak, and Agfa....have lots of intrests in product lines other than film and photographic paper. Bergger, Foma, Efke, and Forte...do not (at least not on the scale the BIG THREE do). Start supporting, and when the time comes they will step in.



    By supporting, I don;t mean switching films if you don't want to. But buying a few boxes of 4x5, or 20 rolls of 35mm a year means more to a smaller company like Forte, than it does to Kodak.

  8. #8
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Digital Depression

    Nah Gene - for LF colour it's hard to do better than a film/digital workflow best thing to come along in donkeys years
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  9. #9

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    Digital Depression

    I know from having been the photo engineer at a circuit board company that Agfa is a large contender in LF film (say 20"x26") for industrial purposes. They compete successfully against Kodak.

    I spoke to them after they discontinued 4x5 Optima. Apparently, they weren't able to sell out supplies from a single run before those supplies went out of date. But, why not make smaller runs? The interest just doesn't seem to be there, and perhaps one could say that their interest in the customer just doesn't seem to be there.

    They sell an excellent paper in Classic Multi-Contrast DW FB Glossy. Let's hope that doesn't go on the chopping block anytime soon.

  10. #10

    Digital Depression

    Agree that sheet film supply should not be the real bottleneck for the nearer future.

    Photographing only in color my concern is more on the processing side. Regarding E6/C41 pro labs have already lost large parts of their business. More and more pro labs close their doors, other labs have increasing problems to offer stable quality as their machines run far below capacity.

    In pessimistic moments I have the impression that in 3 years from now I will have to send my slides to the Fuji headquarter in Japan for getting them developed...

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