survey digital vs traditional darkroom

[Kirk Gittings]

I am curious about how much "darkroom" activity has shifted in the last couple of years. It may help me to decide how I teach some classes this summer. What percentage is your "darkroom" time spent in traditional activities vs. digital? What about two years ago?

Two years ago I was 100% traditional in both my personal work and my commercial work. Today I am still shooting film (no capture), still printing silver, but also scanning and printing with inkjet in my personal work. My commercial darkroom is completely digital.

So right now I'd say my time in the darkroom is spent 1/3 traditional and 2/3 digital. Which is to say that 2/3 of my darkroom time is spent in the light sitting in front of a damn computer.

In the next year I intend to start exploring traditional prints from digitally enlarged negatives so this may shift some back again.

[MIke Sherck]

(Personal, not commercial work.)

100% traditional darkroom, two years ago, now, and for as long as I can get the materials (probably the rest of my life.) I sit in front of a computer all day long at work; I'll be darned if I'll do it during my miserable few hours of creative time each week! :)

[Calamity Jane]

Well, I am not "commercial", so it might not mean much but I only recently bought a digital cheapie for illustrating Web pages and sending with e-mails. If I wasn't doing that, I would even have a digi-cam.

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 !!!! :-)>

[David Luttmann]

All my BW work is now output to inkjet on an Epson 7600. I use MIS inks in Quadtone RIP. I have played with the full spectrum carbon 6 shade inks and may switch to that altogether. No wet darkroom in over 2 years. Conventional gelatin silver prints to me look different, not better, than inkjet, depending on the subject matter. That said, I've had fun with digital negs and doing plat/pallad printing. My color work is both on inkjet and Light jet depending on what I'm after. Negs or chromes scanned on an Imacon.

All my commercial is now digital in both the capture and output.

Cheers,

[Gem Singer]

Hi Kirk,

99% traditional darkroom. 1% digital. I ocasionally make an inkjet color print from my wife's neat little digital camera. From the camera to an 8X10 color print (as good as any print I have ever been able to obtain from a 1- hour photo lab.) in ten minutes. Handy for family snapshots.

[John Kasaian]

Artsy-fartsy large format stuff is 100% traditional from the get go. I can even coat glass plates in 5x7 if need be. Family snapshots are 25% film(b&w---me) 75% digital (my Bride) with everything printed digitally. I might get back to printing my own 35mm and 120 negs traditionally before too long though.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

100% traidtional....if film goes, glass plates...I dont think pt/pd will ever be discontinued.. :)

[Oren Grad]

100% traditional, both two years ago and now.

[RJ Hicks]

I am 100% wet darkroom, mostly because that is the way I choose to spend my free time. The hands-on craft of photography is at least 50% of the reason I photograph, the computer is not a substitute for it. Photography is my hobby and not a job for me and I don't have any aspirations other than personal enjoyment and this means a blackened room and the smell of fixer. I do however understand why someone would opt for the control of a digital darkroom.

I would like to hear more about the digitally enlarged negatives and wet printing. I could see myself getting into something like that for alternative printing.

[Neal Shields]

I scan stuff in and play with it it Photoshop to get an idea if I want a real print and what I want it to look like.

I am moving away from enlargements and tending, at least in B&W, to favor contact prints.

I don't like the resolution of digital output and don't like the look of of axis blacks from an ink jet.

If I was going to a digital workflow from film, I think I would go, at most, medium format.

I shoot for a hobby and would go digital if I were doing it for a living.

[Joe Smigiel]

"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.

[Ralph Barker]

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.)

[Robert Skeoch]

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

[Struan Gray]

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.

[bob carnie]

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

[Ben Calwell]

100 percent traditional darkroom work

[Bruce Watson]

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.

[Matt Miller]

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.

[Armin Seeholzer]

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!

[David F. Stein]

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.

[tim atherton]

Simplistic indeed

[Paddy Quinn]

"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."

I feel that way about people who can't take a good colour photograph, only endless repeats and imitations of the same boring old B&W stuff

[Bruce Wehman]

My commercial work has been 100% digital since 1996 and the introduction of the DCS 460. I talked the company that I worked for into shelling out $50,000.00 for it and a couple of dye-sub printers and haven’t looked back. Personal work, however, is 100% traditional.

[sanking]

I do 100% film capture, in formats from 6X6 to 12X20, but over the past two or three years I have started to scan and make digital negatives for alternative printing (carbon, kallitype and palladium) from all of these formats. I find it easier to print this way even in ULF formats because I can do all of the tonal corrections in Photoshop and then print a same size digital negative that gives similar image quality to the in-camera original, at least with alternative processes such as carbon and palladium. My feeling is that original in-camera negatives may still have a slight advantage over digital negatives, at least those made on inkjet printers, but the edge is very slight.

What someone else wrote earlier does ring a chord. He said, "I sit in front of a computer all day long at work; I'll be darned if I'll do it during my miserable few hours of creative time each week." Well, all day in front of a computer was my life also in a former position, and at that time I would not have dreamed of spending photography time in front of the computer. But now that I don't have to work with the computer as much at the office I find the computer photography work interesting and fun. But I still spend about 85% of my time making prints with wet processing, not in front of the computer.

Anyway, the short answr is about 15% digital, 85% traditional print making, and that percentage is not likely to change for quite a while because I am very pleased with my current work methods.

[Kirk Gittings]

Sandy,

I knew you had moved in the direction of digitally enlarged negatives and I hope to see some of it first hand one of these days. I do alot of traveling. Are you showing anywhere in the next couple of months?

[Graeme Hird]

100% film capture (mostly 5x4), 100% digital printing (Lightjet)

[sanking]

Kirk,

I plan to be at APIS this summer and will have a lot of my recent work, much of it from digital negatives. Have quite a bit of kallitype and palladium work already done to take there, and hope also to have some carbon prints. I say hope because I just resumed carbon printing after a forced absence of about a year and it takes a while to get bake in the groove with this process, but the use of Mark Nelson's PDN system has been a gift in giving me a tool to obtain the the exact qualities needed in the negative for the process, and to match those qualities to my tissue, so things are going well right now.

[Randy_5067]

From a second year photo-journalism student, film is the only way to go. We were having a discussion last week, and a digi-type was arguing that the latest and greatest new digi-slr was as good as film. Then he added "With Photoshop...." I have been shooting LF for about 5 years, and as others have said they are doing, same here, with tin-type attempts, and the wet-collodian process. Glass plate, aluminum sheet, polished tin, etc.etc. homemade papers. Can't beat a good old dark room for escaping.

[gene LaFord]

100% Traditional all the way - film to sensitized paper - and proud of it!!

[Henry Ambrose]

Since 1992 the bulk (in sheer numbers of photos) of my commercial product work has been practically 100% digital capture. Over the past 6-7 years film capture and scanning has been increasing - not replacing the digital work, rather adding on. Its just better for some things.

For 4X5 architecture I'm all hybrid - film capture and scanning to get digital files and prints. Architecture is my main commercial interest now but on a numbers basis I'm still way more digital than film. (10 :1 -- digital product photos : film builiding photos)

And I do sell some wet darkroom prints. For personal work I'm about 90% wet darkroom, I _really_ like it.

What Bob Carnie said about missing out if you don't do both digital and wet is very true in my opinion.

[Jim Rhoades]

100 % real photography. To keep in touch with my Luddite roots I'm starting to do Pt/Pd.

[Tom Westbrook]

I'm 90% wet darkroom and 10% digital. The digital is almost all for the web, except a little bit of printing on the Epson R800 I recently acquired and has come in handy to send image samples to interested parties.

Two years ago it was about the same. I think I got my scanner about 2-3 years ago (it's an Epson 2450, bought shortly after it was introduced).

I'm pretty much a B&W guy, since that seems to correlate strongly.

[Al Seyle]

90%: I shoot furniture for a living. Since there is no subject movement, I prefer hot lights and EPY. Digital cannot come close to this combination in our opinion. Film is scanned for high-end brochure reproduction.

10%: For my personal work I shoot and print traditional --Tmax and color neg. I still very much enjoy the challenge of my wet darkroom.

[Brian Ellis]

I'm not commercial but I'd say it's about 5% traditional darkroom, 95% digital from 4x5 scanned film. The only reason it isn't 100% digital is I develop my negatives in the darkroom plus I've found that I can make contact sheets for a large number of negatives faster the old fashiioned way. So about once every couple months I grit my teeth and go back in the fume room to make contact sheets from the previous several months' work.

[John Sarsgard]

For both commercial (portraits) and personal work, 100% film capture and 100% traditional printing. But doing more and more digitally enlarged negatives, which will continue, and in which I see great value. I want to do mostly Pt portraits as commercial work in future, and 4x5 film capture makes sense...detail vs. cost. Photoshop gives me great retouching ability, and an enlarged negative that still looks like a genuine Pt/Pd print, if I don't enlarge too much. Without digital in the middle, no easy retouching and no flexibility on print size. OTOH, direct Pt/Pd or silver (Azo) prints from a large in-camera neg is easy! I'm shopping for an 8x20 or 7x17 camera for non-portrait work.

[Sam]

100% traditional B&W here. I don't do color, only for portaits and usually a smaller format. Lugging a 4x5 around can be quite cumbersome and I always have ideas running through my head about a smaller camera, but the payoff in the darkroom is ALWAYS worth it.

[Ken Lee]

Adios Digital except for snapshots.

Digital... born to fade. Try sneezing on an inkjet print - or better yet, leave one in the window for a few weeks !

No more goofing around with scanners, software, drivers, toner, storage devices, profiling, calibrating, etc etc.

Gone to contact printing on Pt/Pd.

[Jeffrey Scott]

I do primarily wet darkroom for personal work, all wet darkroom for my business Labwork - The Black & White Lab www.labwork-bw.com. (http://www.labwork-bw.com.) I do have a digicam for posting things on forums and to photograph my band Rare Blend www.rareblend.net. (http://www.rareblend.net.) As long as I can get film and paper and chemicals I will do it the traditional way.

[Mike H.]

For school, hobby and, hopefully, some sales in the future: All 100% wet in my darkroom. But, I carry a Sony DSC-T1 in my pocket constantly (along with a picture phone on my belt) and have taken about 1500 photos on it since last August. Copy from the Sony to the computer daily, clean it up and start over new each morning.

[kreig]

In reference to digital cameras, I really dont understand this digital stuff. Sure maybe convenient for snap shooting but how can anyone justify shooting digital cameras when 35mm film can pick up 20-40MP?? I see so many books, magazines etc, with digital images with blocked highlights, jaggey edges, no resolution, i just want to puke!! For so many years I read magazines article about film and lens resolutions and everyone was trying for exacting images and suddenly it is ok to have this poor jaggey low res images from "big" 4, 6, and even 8 MP cameras. Am I the only one who can see the king has no chlothes?

And before anyone jumps on me for being anti digital cameras, when they come out with a digital camera that can match film (20+ MP, 40MP???) i will jump for it. I recently looked at 8MP pictures from the canon SLR. they were 4x6 prints, all i saw was unsharp images. 11x14 were all full of little squares.

Look at some of the advertisements on View Camera magazine. You can count the pixels on the images of cameras and lenses they have for sale. Very blurry images at best. I would not buy something from an advertiser that cant fgure out how to make a proper image for an audience that expects quality images.

It isn't about digital, it is about choices

[Dominique Labrosse]

Family snapshots are 95% digital. Personal work is always film capture and printed traditionally (B&W) or on a lightjet (colour).

For our purposes at work (I am a designer/photographer for the world's largest industrial auction house - Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers - check us out at rbauction.com) digital poses too many logistical problems in terms of storage and access issues. We store thousands and thousands of trannies captured for us by a slew of photographers over the course of a year. Flipping the pages over a large light table is still the fastest way for us to find an image. If it was all digital, we'd have litterally terrabytes worth of data to wade through every time we were looking for a shot.

My limited amount of commercial work is entirely traditional on Fuji RDP III. I just finished shooting an assignment at work today shooting group portraits of senior managers and company directors. I rented a Fujifilm GX680III (closest thing to a view camera in MF). During our pre-light day, we ran a back-to-back test with a Nikon D70 and decided to stick with the GX680III, even though the final printed frames in the annual report will only be about 5" x 7". The senior designer and myself realize that the D70 would have been more than adequate for this particular job and we took a couple of frames with it as insurance, however, we liked how the film looked better and we felt capturing the image with the GX680III would give us more options should we need to re-purpose the photographs later.

[Duane Polcou]

Kirk:
The type of capture in my commercial work is dictated by client need. I photograph box art and publicity imagery for independent film production. Given a choice, I would should exclusively digitally commercially as image inspection is immediate, image quality up to the most common repro sizes is outstanding, and sharing shots with all parties involved (clients, magazines, models) is simply a matter of burning a new CD. No more duped film.

But for personal work, ie, fun? Well, lets just say the next time I go hiking in the Needles section of Canyonlands I'll have a 4x5 in my backpack.

I don't understand the venomous either/or diatribe. Both digital and film-based capture are amazing. After working digitally for a stretch and reveling in its' benefits, I eagerly await the time when I can be outside again and actually look at photons projected on a ground glass and anxiously await my return home to wet process film and "see what I got". It's a traditional sort of joy. Conversly, after spending a stretch in the dark it IS nice to sit in front of a beautiful LCD screen and 'shop it up.

I suspect that anyone who so vehemently opposes one or the other never fully explored the loathed medium's true potential. To quote some California friends of mine "It's all good"

[Kirk Gittings]

"I don't understand the venomous either/or diatribe. Both digital and film-based capture are amazing."

For twenty years I was perfectly happy with Tri-X/Hc110 and silver prints. Steve Simmons had hounded me for years to use pyro.

I used to think pyro was a myth until I got to see some work by Gordon Hutchings at a workshop we taught together. Then I tried pyro......

George De Wolf had bugged me for years to get into digital darkroom.

I used to be down on digital inkjet printing until I started to see some truely good work appearing by a friend and former assistant of mine (who has exceeded his mentor!) Allan Labb at the Art Institute of Chicago. Then I tried digital darkroom......

Were it not for the persistence of my friends I would be a very happy troll in my darkroom. My repetroir (sp?) has expanded so much because of them that I am forever grateful.

[Tony_5130]

I have nothing but contempt for digital.
I came within an inch of buying (and I can hardly say it without retching) a D70.
I fired the thing off in the shop a couple of times (much to the joy of the 17 year old assistant) and could not rember the last time I felt such an overwhelming lack of fulfilment.
I would rather gnaw my arm of than trade my MPP for a piece plastic tat.

Please don't send hate mail, it's just an opinion.

[Chris Ellinger]

99% darkroom. 1% digicam for family snapshots.

Since I don't make my living with photography, the "bottom line" end result is not the only consideration for my choice of method. I use the method that provides me the most rewarding complete experience. For me, darkroom work feels like "craft", while computer-aided imaging feels like "engineering". I also appreciate the "one-of-a-kind" nature of a print made by my hand and eye, as opposed to one mass produced by clicking <print>. There is also a strong element of personal evolution and history in my many years of darkroom work that I find fulfilling.

If I relied on photography for a living, I would probably be more involved in computer-aided imaging.

[Paul Butler]

100% film exposures, 100% digital for printing. I started using photoshop for printing a few years ago, because I was doing a lot of color and I didn't have the skills or equipment to print in color in the darkroom. Now I print everything digitally (or, in the case of larger prints, I burn files to a CD and send them out). Completely different printer for color than for B/W due to the aforementioned color problem with B/W. Have to be very careful with inks and paper. And we have to admit that we don't really know how long the prints will last, despite the ink and paper used. At least, the negative can be preserved. I look forward to scanning and printing my negatives again in my old age - I'll have a completely different take on each image, I'm sure!

[Eric Woodbury]

100% film. 100% darkroom. 100% black and white.

[Ole Tjugen]

I've seen wonderful prints from just about any process anybody can mention, and I believe some more too. Yet I persist in doing "wet" darkroom work for all but a very tiny fraction of my work. And that is because I enjoy it; I've never lost the feeling of wonder when seeing a print come up in the developer. There's a special pleasure in being able to develop the film, enlarge (or contact print) onto a paper, then process the print and seeing it become exactly what I intended.

I hope it happens someday - but I'm getting closer every day!

[QT Luong]

Darkroom: has been 100% digital for more than 5 years.
Capture: 100% color film in LF, 100% digital in 35mm.

[Philippe Gauthier]

Capture is 100% film, both in color and B&W. I process and print all the B&W work myself, in either miniature, MF or LF using traditional wet processes. Color jobs are only done in 35 mm, usually as slide; there were some instances where I scanned the slides and had them digitally printed in a minilab machine, but that's no more than 5% of my work.

I might consider going the printer way for more color work in the next 2-3 years when I have more spare cash, but I doubt I'll do a lot of important work that way. I still worry about print permanence (not to mention securely archiving the digital files) and going the minilab way on color photo paper offer some guarantees. Capture is likely to remain 100% analogue for a long time.

I will also agree with the others that I like the craft part of B&W photography and the fact that no pictures are exactly identical. I too already spend too much time in front of a computer. There is something zen about the darkroom that I enjoy.

All my work is, of course, personnal. If a were a pro, I'd certainly consider the (expensive) digital capture way because of the faster workflow.

[ronald moravec]

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.

[paulr]

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.

[Jay DeFehr]

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.

[Juergen Sattler]

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.

[Daniel Geiger]

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.

[David R Munson]

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.

[Frank Petronio]

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.

[Tony_5130]

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/nikon/coolpix5700-review/

[Kirk Gittings]

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.

[Tony_5130]

I give up!

Basket weaving here I come.

[robert_4927]

Working mostly in pt/pd my only interest in digital consist of a curiosity in making enlarged negatives. On a shoot a couple of weeks back I was shooting with a young college student who was using digital capture. What concerned me was the attitude taken about composition. As I was taking light readings and preparing to expose my in camera negative the young college student was just firing away. When I asked about his composition his reply was ." I can fix everything in photoshop". Now I know digital is the future but is this how we are preparing artist of the future? It has taken over a century for photographers to get recognition as artist and in some circles we still are not considered as such. As great as photoshop is it does nothing for photographers as artist in the eyes of painters and sculptures and other artist in other mediums. I'll continue to work in the old processes with the old in camera negatives because that is how I work, relying on how I interpret light and form to produce my images. To each their own they say and that is so true and if digital is the only way to get that young college student involved in the creative process then there is a lot to be said about it.

[Frank Petronio]

A good large format image looks great in inkjet or silver. We used a LARGE FORMAT camera to make it. This is our forum.

[J. P. Mose]

Personal only....100% traditional.

[Mark_3632]

Why is it called digital darkroom? It has nothing to do with a darkroom, nor do the activities mimic each other in any way. Why don't people call it what it is: digital printing, or digital processing. Do people feel they have to tie it closely to traditional photography to give it some legitimacy? Call it what it is. It is not darkroom work, nothing like it.

No commercial work but my BW work is all traditional and my color is film captured, scanned and then digitally processed.

[Brian Ellis]

Tony - digital is discussed here because some of us use film in a large format camera, scan it, and print digitally. "Digital" doesn't necessarily mean digital camera. Hopefully you're not so narrow minded as to think participation in this group should be limited to people who not only use large format cameras but also make prints in a traditional darkroom. There's certainly nothing in the title of the group that would limit participation in that way.

Mark - Actually the activities when making prints digitally mimic traditional darkroom work almost exactly. I crop, dodge, burn, use unsharp masking, adjust overall and local contrast , and sometimes tone the print when I print digitally. I even occasionally combine several images just as I used to occasionally do when I used a traditional darkroom. In fact I can't offhand think of anything I do with Photoshop that I didn't do in a traditional darkroom, I just do it better because the tools are better.

[Chris Ellinger]

Mark,

I think a more descriptive term is, "computer-aided imaging" (CAI). The precidents for this are other fields which make extensive use of computer processing: "computer-aided design" (CAD), "computer-aided manufacturing" (CAM), "computer-aided engineering" (CAE), etc. Thus, CAI might more aptly describe the nature of the process than "digital photography" or "digital darkroom".

[Mark_3632]

That makes sense chris. Thank you for clarifying this for me.

Brian
I own a poodle. I want to call it a doberman. Considering your argument this is perfectly legitimate. Both are dogs and do what dogs do so it is fine. Is this what you are saying?

Or since they are different breeds they should be considered different and have a name all to themselves. What you ,and the rest of the people who partake in digital, are doing is computer imaging. Why not call it that?

[Kirk Gittings]

Digital Darkroom. I think the term is a bit like in the early days refering to an automobile as an Iron Horse. Of course it was not a horse, but it performed a similar function.

This term will surey evolve into something else. Some have suggested "lightroom". I personally don't care what it is called, DD is convenient right now and people know what I am talking about.

[Tony_5130]

Brian:

Sorry you seem to think I am narrow minded (and perhaps I am) but I do feel your large format photography ended at the neg/tranny/plate stage. You then switch from photography, as I understand it, and take up computer aided design.

Mark:

You have re-kindled my enthusiasm (with the help of some others) who at least have the common courtesy to admit they are still purists.

Well said.

[Mark_3632]

Tony

I can't call myself a purist. I partake in CAI because it is quick and easy for color work (kind of feels like cheating). I just believe in calling a poodle a poodle, and doberman a doberman.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Brian, while I agree with you that you do the same things in the computer that you did in a real darkroom, I see the frustration many experience when people doing digital steadfastedly refuse to coin the appropriate names for their process and instead borrow terms from traditional photography to do so.
Then again it never fails that there is the guy who outright lies to make his work seem better. For example, there is this guy selling ink jet prints on e bay who actually states that carbon based ink jet prints have better archival properties and are in fact more stable than silver or pt/pd prints. Of course when I challanged him to send me one of his prints so that I can tape it right next to one of my pt/pd prints and put it for 30 days under the sun, I never heard from him again. His prints were very good, but c'mon, enough is enough, let your work and process speak for itself without trying to diminish the qualities of traditional processes.

[David R Munson]

Tony - you might want to check out apug.org if you don't already follow that site.



I maintain that photography encompasses both traditional and digital techniques. Yeah, digital can go seamlessly into graphic design and such, but I don't think that negates it as a valid tool for photography. Others disagree, obviously, but I'm quite glad to have that many more tools at my disposal. I'm not about to let what I see as irrational dogma keep me from using tools that I migh find valuable. I make photographs, and sometimes getting the image I want means using techniques that lie outside traditional means. That doesn't bother me a bit.

[Michael Chmilar]

100% capture to film, mostly 4x5 and some 35mm.

After that, 100% digital.

Eventually, digital capture will meet or exceed 4x5 film, at an affordable price. When that day arrives: "Good-bye, film."

[QT Luong]

It actually takes a room with pretty low light levels to do accurate work on precise color monitor.

[Carlos]

I don't do commercial. My work is 100% traditional film/darkroom.
Digital for non-commercial still very expensive (not only cameras) and the quality still not up there.
Besides every person that gets my work, the fact that was done by hand and with the traditional method, they seem to treasure it more.

[Brad Rippe]

Hi Kirk, I am 100% in the traditional B&W darkroom. (since the mid 70s) I haven't yet seen black and white inkjet prints that come close to silver. I'm sure its a matter of time and technology before digital catches up. What concerns me is the apparent lack of care in composition digital allows. The attitude is that it can be tweaked in photoshop.
However, I recently gave my wife a little digital camera and she uses it for work and I use it for photographs of the kids. Sometimes I bring it out with my view camera and find that I use it to record things and places that I would not even consider photographing with my 4 by 5. It seems digital has found a special place in creating quick visual diaries, but not necessarily for fine art. Sometimes, when I look back at the digital images from a hike, I see the potential for a large format photograph, which I may not have seen earlier. Its sort of strange, but this little digital camera seems to have a place in helping me see the bigger picture, perhaps a bit like a painter making a quick sketch or study, before commiting to the 4 by 5. Your poll has generated some very interesting responses.

[tim atherton]

"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."

"What concerns me is the apparent lack of care in composition digital allows. The attitude is that it can be tweaked in photoshop. However, I recently gave my wife a little digital camera and she uses it for work and I use it for photographs of the kids. Sometimes I bring it out with my view camera and find that I use it to record things and places that I would not even consider photographing with my 4 by 5. It seems digital has found a special place in creating quick visual diaries, but not necessarily for fine art."

Interesting - so the longer it takes to make the image, the better it is and the more likely it is to be "fine art"? So presumably a photograph that takes five minutes to take would generally be pretty good. But a ten minute one would be better?

They said the same when those damn Rollei TLR's ousted the Speed Graphics, then along came those minature Leicas and Nikons. Then the fiendish devils brought in motor drives and you could take several pictures a second. Then they added autofocus. And not one of those machines has ever taken a good photograph. And certainly never a fine art one.

[Matt Miller]

“ It's just so convenient , cheap, & quick for the color snapshot stuff."

"Interesting - so the longer it takes to make the image, the better it is and the more likely it is to be "fine art"? So presumably a photograph that takes five minutes to take would generally be pretty good. But a ten minute one would be better? "

I never said that Tim. I said it was "quick for the color snapshot stuff". I didn't say anything about fine art. I can take photos of my kids birthday parties and email them to someone 1000 miles away and they can print them, all in a few minutes. Can't do that with film. It's cheaper too. That's the only reason I use digital at all.

There are a lot of photographers that use digital to produce "fine art". I don't give a crap how quick they can do it.

[Brian Ellis]

I wish some of you who think digital equiment can't produce prints as good as those done in a traditional darkroom, or who think digital hasn't yet "caught up" with traditionally produced photographs, could see some of George deWolfe's work. It was meeting George through a friend in Maine and seeing his work back around 1998 that first got me interested in digital printing. His prints and those of other similarly talented digital printers since then have been extremely inspiring and demonstrated (to me) how far beyond traditional darkroom work digital can take someone with the time to learn it and the talent to put it to its best use.

[Frank Bagbey]

Brian, send me a few for my archival testing! If you get them here quickly I can include them in several of the tests I am doing with my own fiber base paper prints.

[Kirk Gittings]

Brian,
It was largely George's persistence that finally got me to try digital printing. He verbally pushed me for years in that direction. His prints finally did the trick.

[paulr]

"I give up!
Basket weaving here I come."

Me too, but lately I've started moving toward an all-digital basket weaving workflow.

Kirt: I'm confused. Are you saying that if I drive an iron horse, I can't post here?

[Kirk Gittings]

paulr,
It's not that simple. It depends on whether it is an analog or a digital iron horse and whether it is a full size or sub-compact iron horse. If its the later categories no. If its the former categories yes. If it is the former and the later no. If it is the later and the former yes and the former and the former yes. Is that clear?

[Dan Wells]

As a primarily color photographer, I actually prefer the control a really good inkjet gives me over what I could get in the color darkroom. I prefer Velvia for capture (120 in a small collection of vintage 'blads I've rescued from various basements and 4x5 in a Wista woodfield) but I also have a Nikon D2h that I use for a lot of images. I have a MUCH higher success rate per image with the Wista, due to the movements, than I have with anything else. The time I use the D2h is if I'm out as a photographer, but with a group of people who have a different purpose for the trip-I am also a professional naturalist, and I'm often out with a bunch of birders or botanists who won't stand for the time the Wista takes to set up. If I'm out with my favorite photo partner, we've got the Wista and sometimes a 'blad with us, and the only use any digital camera sees is as a lightmeter (that said, I did once get a great shot with the meter while Claire was messing with the tripod). My portfolio right now is about half and half (many more digital rejects, but about half of my best shots are film), all printed on various inkjets. I'd guess that the proportion of film in my portfolio may actually go up in the next few years.

-dan

[Bill_1856]

This thread is now over two years old. It might be informative to see how the posters have changed (or not) in the intrervening time frame.
Kirk???

[Kirk Gittings]

Well for me, I have been so damn busy that I haven't been in the darkroom for almost two years. Sad I know. I am waaaaay behind on traditional print orders. All the shows I have had have either been old work printed as new digital prints or silver prints borrowed back from private and museum collections. Things need to slow down, primarily so I can work on some new book projects and explore digitally enlarged negatives.

[MIke Sherck]

No change: still 100% traditional "wet" darkroom. I don't even own a copy of Photoshop (or a computer which would run it, for that matter. Nor an inkjet printer. Hey -- I've still got my daisywheel printer, though! And a 9-pin dot matrix.) Amazing how one determined person can ignore an entire decade of progress, isn't it? :p

Mike

[Andrew O'Neill]

I'm all traditional and plan on staying that way to my grave. All my gear is coming with me, ya hear me John??

[Greg Lockrey]

I changed over to digital printing about ten years ago and haven't looked back. I occasionally shoot some 4x5 B&W negs and 120 transparencies for myself and scan those. The business keeps me too busy for much personnal work. Business wise it's 90% digital with some 35mm transparencies for clients' submissions for shows.

[Doug Dolde]

I haven't had a darkroom since high school (60's)

Digital workflow but shoot film and scan transparencies.

[Darryl Baird]

I've gotten a "bug up you know where" and have begun shooting more film in 120/220, 4x5, and recently 8x10. Now I'm starting a project to begin contact printing the 8x10 negs in a variety of print emulsions... gum, cyanotype, Argyrotype (like Van Dyke for those tilting your heads) and maybe even silver, with heavy toning. So my darkroom work has jumped to roughly 50-60% for film processing (versus capture), but printing was still all digital until this last redirection.

I have a small frozen storehouse of paper that mocks me every time I open the freezer door. I can't take the taunting anymore.:eek:

[Joe Lipka]

Two years ago it was digital only to create the digital negatives and web site content. The rest was traditional darkroom work with alternative processes. At that time I would have the effort placed at 80% traditional, 20% digital.

With my Labyrinth Project I have been 100% digital. I will be starting a new project in a week or two which will be back to the more traditional and less digital. But, who knows?

[Joe Lipka]

Two years ago it was digital only to create the digital negatives and web site content. The rest was traditional darkroom work with alternative processes. At that time I would have the effort placed at 80% traditional, 20% digital.

With my Labyrinth Project I have been 100% digital. I will be starting a new project in a week or two which will be back to the more traditional and less digital. But, who knows?

It sure is easy to get nice looking prints out of an epson printer.

[Eric Biggerstaff]

100&#37; traditional

[Aggie]

Need anyone ask what type I do?

[Neal Shields]

100% wet darkroom for photographs. Digital for snapshots.

Photography is a hobby for me and I want the best output I can get. I have run tests and you simply can not get as much information to paper with digital processes.

Because most comercial color printing is going to 300dpi which translates to about 6 lp/mm I am transitioning from 4x5 color and black and white to 8x10 black and white contact prints. (Just about the time I had my 4x5 set up where I wanted it after about 10 years of watching Ebay.)

Note: I hold 10 US patents spaning both mechanical and electrical so I am not a ludite. On the contrary, I think I understand the limitations of digital better than most which is why I am still with film.

Beyond that as a matter of taste, I just don't like digital printing especially the off axis look to ink jet.

[Marko]

Note: I hold 10 US patents spaning both mechanical and electrical so I am not a ludite. On the contrary, I think I understand the limitations of digital better than most which is why I am still with film.

Neal, it is neither their education nor their preference that makes certain people luddites, it is their active opposition to a particular technology. Choice is good, and the choices we have are great because they are not mutually exclusive. Technology, on the other hand, is neither good nor bad, it just is. What we do with it, or not, can be good or bad, but depends very little on technology and quite a lot on us.

Photography is a hobby for me too, and I want to enjoy it, feel good while I'm doing it and simply have fun. I am doing both digital and film and enjoying both, since they each have their strengths and weaknesses.

[vann webb]

Anything done for business purposes, which is primarily destined for the web is digital.

For my personal stuff, it's all traditional darkroom. Count me in with the crowd that spends all day on a computer. It's hard to get fired up to spend more hours in front of it when I have leisure time. Plus, it's like starting over in a lot of ways. The photoshop curve is pretty steep for me. As long as I can get the materials that I want, and the results that I want, I will probably keep plugging away in the dark.:)

[Dave Aharonian]

100&#37; Digital - and I never thought I would be saying this! I haven't had a darkroom for a few years. I was never happy with digital b&w until Museo Silver Rag came out. Now with a good scan I feel I can make a better print digitally than I used to make in the darkroom. But its been quite the learning curve...

[Don Wallace]

Two years ago, I had only a temporary darkroom so monochrome printing was pretty much on hold. At that point, I shot mostly colour and I did try to scan and print on my own. After a lot of frustration, including plowing through manuals the size of phonebooks, I simply gave up, bit the bullet, and got a darkroom built. Now I do almost exclusively monochrome in a traditional wet darkroom. If I am in a big rush, I sometimes scan the negs to take a quick peek at what might be required when I print. I also use the scanner to select what colour pos or neg I want to get drum scanned and printed at a professional lab. When my scanner dies, I will not get a new one.

In my opinion, nothing beats digital technology when it comes to sucking the joy out of a craft. I find the digital workflow to be boring and expensive, but I accept that if I were a commercial photogapher, I would shoot only digital.

[Ted Harris]

Two years ago I was printing some, but not all, of my black and white work digitally. I was already printing all of my color work digitally. Last December I built a new studio and darkroom. I have not yet unpacked and set up an enlarger. I keep thinking about it but have not seen the need or the reason to do so. It was also about two years ago that I realized that if I was going to get the best possible results from both color and black and white digitally I had tomake the investment in a high end scanner and did so. The cost may seem high but it is no higher than the same investment in top-of-the-line enlarging equipment 10 or 15 years ago.

I embrace and will continue to embrace anything that allows me to improve the quality of the images I display and sell and speeds the work I do for my clients. While I don't rule out the possibility of returning to the wet darkroom I also don't see any immediate need.

I'll go one step farther. The day a digital back that equals 4x5 film is available for under $10,000 will be the last day I shoot film .... but, before everyone gets up in arms .... I don't expect to see that day in this lifetime.

[otzi]

[QUOTE=Ted Harris;257345] I had to make the investment in a high end scanner and did so. The cost may seem high but it is no higher than the same investment in top-of-the-line enlarging equipment 10 or 15 years ago.

Ah, yes. But there is a caveat. The enlarger so mentioned would undoubtedly give you a life times use and when thrown on the scrap heap some student will take it for an other life time of use. Not so sure about the scanner though.

[ic-racer]

100% b&w silver film and projection printing to silver paper. I think the only 'digital' thing in the darkroom is a calculator.

[Ted Harris]

otzi,

When we are talking about the high-end flatbed and drum scanners the same principle applies that applies to the enlargers, IMO. My Screen Cezanne is now in its second life, having served as a Screen company demo for three years before I got it. Same is true for lots of other high end scanners in use by our members.

[resummerfield]

......nothing beats digital technology when it comes to sucking the joy out of a craft.......I do all my work in a traditional wet darkroom. I’ve had most of my equipment for many years, maybe 20, and it operates today as it did when it was new.

All my work is personal. If I did commercial work, then I would probably use digital.

[Gene McCluney]

Profesionally, my darkroom time is about the same, as I still shoot 4x5 E-6 for a major client, and I do my own processing. The big change came about four years ago when my major client went from sending out color print product/news release prints to sending out electronic images on disc. I have since not had to do any large volume printing in the lab. Now, for my personal work, I am spending more and more time in the lab developing large-format b/w film, but most printing is done thru scanning and printing digitally.

[adrian tyler]

shoot: film

proofs: analogue / digital 30 /70

exhibition prints: digital

[Doug Howk]

I enjoy the craftsmanship of traditional photography whether its enlarging or alternative processes. The prints are not perfect, but that's part of the lure. I've tried digital (computer programmer so no luddite); but as an image approaches perfection after many hours on the computer it loses something intangible yet real.

[xavier deltell]

All my capture are film (provia, tmax100,TriX ) 70&#37; 4x5, 30 % 120
All my prints are digital (epson ultrachrome k3)
All my family shots are digital

[al olson]

95% of my work is photographic and the other 5% is digital. I mainly shoot negative films for low light photography because they are superior to transparency films and to digital because of their greater exposure latitude. All of my film and prints are done in my darkroom.

Digital has its place. I use it for snapshots, ebay ads, and preparing workshops that are presented with digital projection. I also scan my negatives to present on my web site, for workshop presentations, and for booklet printing.

On the other hand, I would never consider offering a digital print for sale. There is an aura to a photographic print, silver gelatin or a chromogenic, that cannot be replicated by inkjet.

It may be because the silver or the dyes are embedded in the emulsion, not sprayed on the surface of the paper, that gives the photographic print a feeling of greater depth. (I know, they are working on inkjet printers and papers that will permit the ink embed itself into the paper.) It may also be due to the fact that digital images contain so many artifacts caused by sharpening, pumping up the contrast, over-saturating the colors, etc., that they always look somewhat artificial.

But I guess that that is what contemporary imaging is all about. The past 6 or more covers of Popular Photography & Imaging have been absolutely garish!

Has anyone ever seen a digital image that has not been sharpened, either in camera or in Photoshop? The resulting edge effects may be subliminal, but they detract from the quality of the image.

I have worked with digital imaging since the mid-70s, at first writing software to analyze Landsat data while working at the U.S. Geological Survey. I have watched imagery bloom into a viable media. I view digital imaging as an adjunct to photography, not a replacement.

I know that digital will continue to improve, but film and photographic papers will be around as long as people care about quality, especially prints from LF and ULF. No chip will have sufficient surface area to record as delicately the texture and tonality that one obtains from LF, that is why LF is so much more impressive than 35mm.

[scott_6029]

Film and traditional wet darkroom for all 'serious' black ans white work...

Film (tansparencies) and digital scanning and printing for color work

For family snaps and such digital - rarely even make prints - mostly download and email.

[Maris Rusis]

I just finished my latest 100% traditional darkroom in a house I moved to last year. The project cost about $5000 but I reckon its worth it to get a really good work environment. After all I'm going to be spending a lot of time in there.

There are no plans to engage in any kind of electronic picture making. Even the back of my photographer's business card reads "Guaranteed no digital."

[John Kasaian]

110&#37; traditional Why the extra 10%? I just started (restarted?) souping and printing my own 35mm (using a really spiffy $40 ebay Valoy II) rather than sending it off to the drugstore since the drugstore prints are now digital and I just don't like the way they look.

[Ron Stowell]

Wet darkroom for 99% of my work. 1% digital that I use for selling on E-bay. If it weren't for e-bay, I wouldn't own a digital camera. Terrible pathetic piece of &^*@ that it is.

[Armin Seeholzer]

Sorry Ted but I belive not thad you can use your Scanner longer then 15 years then will be the pc brocken and you need a new one but the software will not run anymore on the new pc!
So a scanner will never be for a livetime in my opinion like an enlarger which are for 2-3 generations!
So in my case it shifted more to digital in comercial work about 90% and in my freetime it is about 50 to 50%.
So I still have my wet darkroom and start to promote it in the near future, so maybe I can create more bussiness with it!
Armin Seeholzer

[evan clarke]

2 years ago, 100% digital. I am back in the darkroom and am now 100% wet..EC

[Ben R]

Amusing really. For me I envisage what kind of end product (the image) I want to produce then use the equipment and technique that will give me that end product. I couldn't care less about how I got there as long as the printed image works in the way I'd intended.

Methinks there should be a new title for people whose approach to photography seems to be all equipment and technique with the actual image as a side issue, whether it be by traditional or modern methods. Technicians maybe, photographers possibly. Artists certainly not.

If you are so passionate about how you got to the image rather than the image itself and what you are trying to convey with that image could I suggest that you've missed the point?

Most people slamming digital do so based on what they've seen from a p&s (seemingly half on this thread) or equate their results from playing with a 6 megapixel DSLR to be the final statement on digital not realising that they are not comparing like with like or understanding that just as they didn't learn film photography and darkroom in 10 minutes, so too their out of camera jpg's are not going to exactly represent digital as a medium.
On the other hand the digital evangelicals who try to suggest that a 8/10 megapixel file is plenty for a 30X20", 'as long as you stand back far enough' are just as guilty of opening their mouths to voice opinions that they are not educated or experienced enough to substantiate.

It's just so boring...

[David Schaller]

I just built a traditional darkroom last year. I am thrilled to be 99&#37; traditional, only using the digital for snapshots which I never print. I am thinking about getting a scanner, but I've been thinking about it for a long time and have not been moved to do it.

[Joseph O'Neil]

100&#37; traditional for all B&W, 100% digital for all colour, all formats.
joe

[cobalt]

Am I the only one who can see the king has no chlothes?

No, you are not. The emperor is indeed naked, and is not aging well.

As for the original question: Went from 100&#37; digital capture and printing to 100% film capture and 100% traditional printing for the keepers. That is to say, I generally scan 6x9, 4x5, 5x7 and 8x10 negatives just for use as proofs. The real stuff (i.e. the stuff I want to show to people and sell) is contact printed (and enlarged for 6x9 and sometimes 4x5). I never again plan to exhibit inkjet prints, unless I begin to make color prints. ( I shoot 99.9999999% black and white)

Even a 4x5 contact print has a gem like quality that I have yet to see matched by any inkjet, although I have seen (and hopefully produced) some very, very good inkjet prints.

Will likely soon be selling my Epson r2400, as well as the 4990.

For me, film still rules. Period.

[evan clarke]

Amusing really. For me I envisage what kind of end product (the image) I want to produce then use the equipment and technique that will give me that end product. I couldn't care less about how I got there as long as the printed image works in the way I'd intended.

Methinks there should be a new title for people whose approach to photography seems to be all equipment and technique with the actual image as a side issue, whether it be by traditional or modern methods. Technicians maybe, photographers possibly. Artists certainly not.

If you are so passionate about how you got to the image rather than the image itself and what you are trying to convey with that image could I suggest that you've missed the point?

Most people slamming digital do so based on what they've seen from a p&s (seemingly half on this thread) or equate their results from playing with a 6 megapixel DSLR to be the final statement on digital not realising that they are not comparing like with like or understanding that just as they didn't learn film photography and darkroom in 10 minutes, so too their out of camera jpg's are not going to exactly represent digital as a medium.
On the other hand the digital evangelicals who try to suggest that a 8/10 megapixel file is plenty for a 30X20", 'as long as you stand back far enough' are just as guilty of opening their mouths to voice opinions that they are not educated or experienced enough to substantiate.

It's just so boring...

I agree with most of what you say but for me it came down to the fact that I am not happy with the inkjet paper (I have used about everything). It just makes the actual object feel cheap to me. I was at a large art fair this weekend which had about 30 photographers represented, one wet process B&W and the rest digital printers. Without exception, the digital printers could not seem to resist excess sharpening, color saturation or toning gimmicks for B&W..my $.02...EC

[Kirk Gittings]

The emperor is indeed naked, and is not aging well.

Going back to Kreig's original claims about 35mm.....as one who shoots 35mm slides and DSLR professionally every day, 35mm is clearly the one area where digital blows away film. Aesthetic preferences and technical ease aside from a practical output standpoint, even a 12 mp DSLR far outperforms any 35mm film regardless of compared output. One may prefer the look or practice of film, but claiming that you need 20 to 40mp to compete with 35 mm film is simply not accurate. Too many people confuse their aesthetic preferences when comparing film and digital. Frankly I prefer the best tool for the job, period, and in 35mm there is no comparison to DSLR. in formats above 6x7, I still think film is clearly superior for a variety of reasons.

Evan, One should compare the best pigment ink prints with the best traditional for a valid comparison. There are plenty of crappy traditional prints for sale at art shows too, maybe not oversharpened but out of focus, too contasty, too grainy etc etc etc. A really good printer can make any print medium sing.

[cobalt]

Going back to Kreig's original claims about 35mm.....as one who shoots 35mm slides and DSLR professionally every day, 35mm is clearly the one area where digital blows away film. Aesthetic preferences and technical ease aside from a practical output standpoint, even a 12 mp DSLR far outperforms any 35mm film regardless of compared output.

This is simply not true.

I don't shoot slides at all, and don't shoot for hire. I have, however, been making images in one way or another (e.g. with pen, ink, pencil, brush, litho plates, etc.) for more than 30 years. From the perspective of an artist, as opposed to that of a technician, I strenuously disagree. I've owned and shot: d1x, d100, d2x, fuji s2, s3 and s5. The best of the lot, in my opinion, was the s5. However: same photographer, same sensibility, same shooting style...the Contax G I used to shoot with "blows away" any dslr I have ever touched, especially when used to produce black and white images. Even when scanned on a "lowly" Nikon 9000, the images I was able to produce were simply superior to dslr output. Oh, and I've been using computers (and Photoshop) for quite some time as well; I am not a novice.

When I feel the need for speed, I have a little Yashica rangefinder that produces amazing image quality on Kodak VC 160 film. The Fuji came closest to providing the warmth and depth of film, but when compared to film, it was still lacking. I think the next iteration of the Fuji chip will stand a chance of drawing a parallel, if you will.

I think that many of us want to justify, if even only in our own minds, the expediture of thousands upon thousands of dollars and man/woman hours in the endeavor to parallel, let alone exceed, what was accomplished with "analogue" equipment decades upon decades ago. I try to look at things realistically. Try as one might, spend as one might, the devil is in the details, and stubbornly refuses to be exorcised. Digital capture , by its very nature, is discrete. Film is continuous. No matter the number of pixels squeezed together, there is still space twixt one pixel and another. Even though not consiously recognized, it is there, and is percieved. Problem is, we as a society have become used to...well...crap.

I encounter the same essential argument among painters from time to time, although to a far lesser degree than here:

Many assert that acrylic paint can be made to do everything oil paint can do, only faster and with minimal clean up. Funny how analagous the arguments are:

no smell of turpentine/ no smell of fixer...less hazardous chemicals (this is bull excrement, as well, cadmium is cadmium, whether bound in stand oil or acrylic polymer)...if I make an error, I just paint over it in a few minutes/ I just delete and take another picture.

There is a reason why my grandmother makes cakes from scratch: they taste better

[Ben R]

I agree with most of what you say but for me it came down to the fact that I am not happy with the inkjet paper (I have used about everything). It just makes the actual object feel cheap to me. I was at a large art fair this weekend which had about 30 photographers represented, one wet process B&W and the rest digital printers. Without exception, the digital printers could not seem to resist excess sharpening, color saturation or toning gimmicks for B&W..my $.02...EC

I have to agree with you there, my Kodak C prints on a LED printer may not have anywhere near as clean blacks and whites as the results I have had from a Canon 8000 printer and probably less longevity but I hate the look of the ink lying on the paper rather than the image seeming to 'live' inside.

[Kirk Gittings]

All you have stated is that you prefer the look of traditional processes, which was not what I was about.


This is simply not true.

I don't shoot slides at all, and don't shoot for hire. I have, however, been making images in one way or another (e.g. with pen, ink, pencil, brush, litho plates, etc.) for more than 30 years. From the perspective of an artist, as opposed to that of a technician, I strenuously disagree. I've owned and shot: d1x, d100, d2x, fuji s2, s3 and s5. The best of the lot, in my opinion, was the s5. However: same photographer, same sensibility, same shooting style...the Contax G I used to shoot with "blows away" any dslr I have ever touched, especially when used to produce black and white images. Even when scanned on a "lowly" Nikon 9000, the images I was able to produce were simply superior to dslr output. Oh, and I've been using computers (and Photoshop) for quite some time as well; I am not a novice.

When I feel the need for speed, I have a little Yashica rangefinder that produces amazing image quality on Kodak VC 160 film. The Fuji came closest to providing the warmth and depth of film, but when compared to film, it was still lacking. I think the next iteration of the Fuji chip will stand a chance of drawing a parallel, if you will.

I think that many of us want to justify, if even only in our own minds, the expediture of thousands upon thousands of dollars and man/woman hours in the endeavor to parallel, let alone exceed, what was accomplished with "analogue" equipment decades upon decades ago. I try to look at things realistically. Try as one might, spend as one might, the devil is in the details, and stubbornly refuses to be exorcised. Digital capture , by its very nature, is discrete. Film is continuous. No matter the number of pixels squeezed together, there is still space twixt one pixel and another. Even though not consiously recognized, it is there, and is percieved. Problem is, we as a society have become used to...well...crap.

I encounter the same essential argument among painters from time to time, although to a far lesser degree than here:

Many assert that acrylic paint can be made to do everything oil paint can do, only faster and with minimal clean up. Funny how analagous the arguments are:

no smell of turpentine/ no smell of fixer...less hazardous chemicals (this is bull excrement, as well, cadmium is cadmium, whether bound in stand oil or acrylic polymer)...if I make an error, I just paint over it in a few minutes/ I just delete and take another picture.

There is a reason why my grandmother makes cakes from scratch: they taste better

[Kirk Gittings]

And for me, having printed tens of thousands of C prints over 30 years, I have always found them lifeless and plastic looking and would never consider making a serious image on them.


I have to agree with you there, my Kodak C prints on a LED printer may not have anywhere near as clean blacks and whites as the results I have had from a Canon 8000 printer and probably less longevity but I hate the look of the ink lying on the paper rather than the image seeming to 'live' inside.

[Bill_1856]

Well, this continuation of the earlier thread certainly showed a completely different outlook on the situation. From the original "what are you actually doing?" it became another "dig vs film harangue."
Sorry I reopened it.

[PBrooks]

100% wet

[evan clarke]

Going back to Kreig's original claims about 35mm.....as one who shoots 35mm slides and DSLR professionally every day, 35mm is clearly the one area where digital blows away film. Aesthetic preferences and technical ease aside from a practical output standpoint, even a 12 mp DSLR far outperforms any 35mm film regardless of compared output. One may prefer the look or practice of film, but claiming that you need 20 to 40mp to compete with 35 mm film is simply not accurate. Too many people confuse their aesthetic preferences when comparing film and digital. Frankly I prefer the best tool for the job, period, and in 35mm there is no comparison to DSLR. in formats above 6x7, I still think film is clearly superior for a variety of reasons.

Evan, One should compare the best pigment ink prints with the best traditional for a valid comparison. There are plenty of crappy traditional prints for sale at art shows too, maybe not oversharpened but out of focus, too contasty, too grainy etc etc etc. A really good printer can make any print medium sing.

I know this and I do compare them. My point about the art shows is that I think digital tempts people to try and get more pop with the standard cheap Photoshop tricks. I printed digitally for about 10 years from DSLR (last kit was a 1DS MKII, 1DS and 1D MKII) and scans from medium and large format. I have Epson 2400 and every Epson photo printer which preceded it and have done all the ink tricks and have used all the paper stocks prominent printers have mistaken them for wet. Behind glass they are beautiful, but my bias is that, in my hand, they feel cheap and look like ink. Now that I am back in the darkroom, I am there to stay..just more pure fun!!..EC

[Michael Kadillak]

I know this and I do compare them. My point about the art shows is that I think digital tempts people to try and get more pop with the standard cheap Photoshop tricks. I printed digitally for about 10 years from DSLR (last kit was a 1DS MKII, 1DS and 1D MKII) and scans from medium and large format. I have Epson 2400 and every Epson photo printer which preceded it and have done all the ink tricks and have used all the paper stocks prominent printers have mistaken them for wet. Behind glass they are beautiful, but my bias is that, in my hand, they feel cheap and look like ink. Now that I am back in the darkroom, I am there to stay..just more pure fun!!..EC

I am 100% darkroom and have absolutely no desire to turn to digital (other than my pocket shot camera). I consider myself terribly fortunate to not be employeed in the business of photography for a living as I already spend enough time in front of the flat panel computer screen as it is with my day job at home. I completely agree with Evan about the inherent desire to utilize all of the capabilities that technology offers to the point of approaching what I call literal abstracts. The images that these techies generate are so saturated, balanced and "perfect" figuratively speaking that they have absolutely NO connection with the world that I live in.

I was in the Cherry Creek mall in Denver last night with my daughter getting her Apple computer ready to go back with her to college and there is a photographer that leased a huge space in the mall selling these types of images for between $800 - $1,800 as high end "art" and it took me about 20 seconds to scan the sales space from one side to the other and I just shook my head and walked away. All I can say is that I wish them well as they must have a considerable amount of borrowed money at risk and will likely call it quits as soon as the reality of the marketplace sets in. Similarly, those people that I know that have gone digital have dropped loads of cash on equipment that establishes new records for accelerated depreciation. No thanks. As long as I can buy sheet film and printing paper I will be purchasing bulk chemicals and living large format and ultra large format.

Cheers!

[sanking]

And for me, having printed tens of thousands of C prints over 30 years, I have always found them lifeless and plastic looking and would never consider making a serious image on them.

I am totally with you on the C-print. And not only with what you say, but also in the fact that all of the C prints I ever made that received any amount of light have seriously faded. My sister has about ten hanging in her house that I gave her 10-15 years ago and it embarasses me when I see them. By contrast, a well-made color print with inkjet pigment inks on a fine art paper is just lovely, and we do believe they will last a lot longer than C prints.

As for the survey, about five years ago I was 100&#37; traditional, film and print. Today I am still 100% film, and I still print a lot from ULF negatives (in fact, I am about to take delivery on a new 20X24" camera), but more than 75% of my printing now is with digital negatives (made from film scans) and alternative processes (carbon, palladium, kallitype, etc.). Except for some testing I have not made a real silver print in over ten years, and I am not looking back with a lot of fondness to the time when I did.

Sandy King

[fhovie]

Silver all the way - only B&W. It is a hobby. If I was doing commercial/wedding it would all be digital for sure. I use a digital spot meter. Does that count?

[Robert Richardson]

Well, I think digital is just terrific; I think that it is the wave of the future - that's right, the wave of the future - BUT, right now, I'll take a John Sexton print over anything anybody has to offer - including my self!

[Robert Richardson]

Sandy,
Good God,
What would - will - Michael and Paula say?
Bob Richardson --- Sandy Only - Ask Michael OR Paula who the hell a Bob Richardson is!!!!

[sanking]

Sandy,
Good God,
What would - will - Michael and Paula say?
Bob Richardson --- Sandy Only - Ask Michael OR Paula who the hell a Bob Richardson is!!!!

Gee, Bob, I really think Michael and Paula will be cool about this!

BTW, I forgot to mention that I am planning a project in AZO with the 20X24" camera. Maybe even with ortho sensitive in-camera negatives.

I will ask about your provenance.

Sandy King

[CG]

I know this is a terribly old thread, and the original poster may or may not be noting answers that pop up. I guess it's still of interest though, since several people have responded recently.

In some ways, the original question is similar to asking why do you work in the way you do.

My answer is that I'm building a darkroom to go 100&#37; analog work with 5x7 and 8x10 cameras. I am a fine arts painter professionally as well as a very long time (and sometimes professional) photographer.

The painter side of me has in the last few years become very actively interested in the (sorry, art-speak impending) "physicality" of the work. What does that nasty word mean? In painting, physicality refers to the physical presence of the paint; it's existence as a physical object is it's physicality. An almost sculptural aspect. Look up Hans Hoffman's work. The paint is sometimes an inch deep. In a photograph, maybe one analogous aspect would be the texture and rendering obtaining from a hand coated print, or the one of a kind things that happen with say, Polaroid transfers.

My interest is to try out some sort of intersection between photographic imagery and painted works. I have no idea whare it may lead - or nowhere - but it feels like a good starting point.

I did commercial studio product work three decades ago, mostly B/W, using my own darkroom. In the recent several years, the darkroom bug has been whispering to me ever more insistently. So, I'm heading back to my photographic roots in the large negative, modified by years of painting practice, which is very paint and material intensive, very physical painting.

Best,

C

[David Starr]

100% traditional and always will be.

[Nathan Potter]

I'm all traditional film and print paper. 35mm and 4X5 only. 35mm Kodachrome and Velvia.
4X5 Tmax and Velvia. Ilfochrome printing and various B&W papers. No commercial activities.

[John Voss]

In little ways, digital is creeping into the way I make photographs. I absolutely prefer to scan my film negatives to proof them and get a sense of what I can do with them in the darkroom, and that gives rise to some very creative thinking. PS manipulation is so facile that I find it immensely rewarding to challenge myself by finding traditional ways to emulate easy PS adjustments. My traditional prints are very much the better for it. Still and all, I'm committed to film and wet printing, but with a very healthy respect for what digital has to offer.

[Duncwarw]

Apples and oranges.

I have primarily shot MF for the last decade or so and 35mm before that.
I have an 8 X 10 and hope to eventually use it. These days, I'm wrestling with
a 4 X 5 and enjoying it despite no yet getting what I want out of it.

Though digitals have their place in the newspaper and website worlds and perform with an immediacy that eclipes film in that respect, I have no plans to abandon the darkroom or film until it is no longer available. Regardless of format, to my eye there's simply no comparison between pixels and silver. Though digitals have come a long way, picture elements arranged in neat rows (lock step) cannot express themselves (and therefore the artist) with the magic and emotion that film can.

On top of that, the immediacy and post-capture editing kicks the art of photography where it hurts. A picture taking appliance can be, and usually is, a crutch.

Look in any photo rag at the "contest winners". The bright pink sky was captured with a digital camera, then "enhanced" in Photoshop and printed on an inkjet. I would argue that far too often, the final image resulting from digital capture is not only not the image you saw, but often something that doesn't actually occur in nature.

Oh, and to answer the survey question, I guess I shoot 100% film (barring snapshots), process the B&W & E6 (C-41 goes to a lab), and use Photoshop with my film scanner for website images. No, I don't change the images, I just remove dust etcetera.;)

[neil poulsen]

I have to agree with you there, my Kodak C prints on a LED printer may not have anywhere near as clean blacks and whites as the results I have had from a Canon 8000 printer and probably less longevity but I hate the look of the ink lying on the paper rather than the image seeming to 'live' inside.

This is an interesting characterization.

The work that turned me around on digital was Charles Cramer's scanned and Photoshoped images printed on C paper printed with a Lightjet. Absolutely stunning.

I like both. I've been getting very nice results with my 4000 printing ultrachrome 2 inks on Hahnemuhle's Photo Rag. The paper one uses makes a big difference.

[geoffrey billett]

Kirk

Up to 3 years ago all analogue b/w. Then I bought a scanner, printer and digital camera as well as getting further into large format with 5x7 and 8x10 cameras. After much faffing about I have settled on printing black and white traditionally from film on a variety of formats and learning to love colour captured through the digital camera and printed on the inkjet up to A3+

Late last year I had an exhibition of 35 monochrome prints of a pilgrimage in Spain mostly printed to 19x19 inches ( Mamiya 6 ) that I couldn't ( with my current digital equipment and level of skill ) replicate digitally.

I can see no reason to change currently.

Geoff

[geoffrey billett]

Dohhh just noticed age of thread - still hope its relevant :confused:

[emo supremo]

One vote for the lab geeks: 90 percent darkroom because the research grade equipment still depends on 3x4 or 4x5 ortho film to acquire data. the negs from these scopes are scanned for reports and publication. It's impt to note to grad students that journals will not accept photographs anymore. I mention it because someone has to teach these guys how negs are made.

[JBrunner]

Commercial/consumer -80% digital, 20% chrome, once in a great while, black and white. The film shooting happens more often with the high buck high profile client.

Art- 95% traditional. The 5% is the occasional digital negative.

[CG]

Hmmm, I'm building a darkroom to do 8x10 and 5x7 contacts, and eventually enlargements. I also have just bought my first digital camera. I have watched and waited for years for the right camera to hit the market.

[Brian Ellis]

Interesting that this old thread has been resurrected. I doubt that this forum is the best place to get a representative sample today any more than it was when it was started four years ago. But FWIW - among the local photographers I know (roughly 5 commercial, 30 non-commercial) none use a darkroom, in fact none use film any more (four years ago it probably would have been 60-40 digital to film). The last film hold-out was a platinum printer who just bought a 5D a few months ago. But here I'm sure there still will be far more darkroom users. I'm now 99% digital (as opposed to 95% when I responded to this thread four years ago) except for processing the occasional sheet of film to scan. I sold the last of my real darkroom equipment a few months ago but sold the bulk of it - enlarger, lenses,easels, etc. - about four years ago. If I had the room I'd probably keep a bare bones darkroom on the off-chance that I might some day want to use it again. But I no longer have the room and the chances of ever using a real darkroom again are so remote that it isn't worth making the room.

[Drew Wiley]

I'm 100% darkroom - silver gelatin enlargements, Ilfochrome, C-prints, and on those rare occasions when I have enough time, dye transfer. It's a quality as well as personal
preference.

[Toyon]

I'm 100% darkroom - silver gelatin enlargements, Ilfochrome, C-prints, and on those rare occasions when I have enough time, dye transfer. It's a quality as well as personal
preference.

Man, I think dye transfer is the most beautiful color process ever invented.

[sanking]

My experience is probably not typical because most of the photographers I know are highly involved with alternative printing processes. Alternative printing involves some wet processing but it is very different from traditional silver printing in that you don't need a full darkroom of the type required for printing silver. None of these folks would be considered "commercial" photographers, though many of them make money from print sales and workshops, and a couple earn most of their income printing for others.

The twenty or so photographers whose work I know well have been involved with digital processing almost from its earliest days, in large measure because printing a digital negative was seen as a wonderful alternative to the tedious task of making enlarged negatives in the darkroom. I was frankly shocked when the guardians of analog at APUG did not see making digital negatives as an important means of preserving traditional photography. But the fact of the matter is that nearly all of the top echelon of alternative printers have been using digital negatives for a long time.

Ten years ago nearly all of these people used only film and scanned. Today most of them use both digital and film capture. One or two use only digital capture, one or two only film capture, but all are involved in making digital negatives.

I personally printed only with in-camera film negatives until about 2001, then switched pretty quickly to printing mostly with digital negatives. I currently print with digital negatives from both film and digital capture. Both systems of capture have certain advantages and disadvantages for my work flow.

Most of the people I know see digital and film capture as tools, not as an ideology. They use what they want, for whatever reason they want, and don't spend much time proselytizing about why they do what they do.

Sandy King

[Kirk Gittings]

I'd forgotten about this thread. My commercial work is now virtually 100% digital. No one asks for film and I don't push it as we no longer have a lab in town. My personal work though remains largely unchanged-still shooting 4x5 film largely and printing both digitally and traditionally. More digital than silver though as I prefer the micro control of contrast and tone that I have in digital. I continue to maintain both a traditional and digital darkroom.

[bob carnie]

I am doing more traditional enlarging printing these days than any period in my custom labs life span(20 years 2010), In my area every Lab has gone 100% digital which may make me a crazy holdout to the wet side but has made us a destination for wet prints.{ I am crazy now for enlarger mural prints, wow they are awesome}

I am also doing a good amount of digital work on a Lambda Laser Enlarger.
Our lab is one of a few worldwide that images to Harmon fibre paper .(our lab then tray processes every section of paper and finishes like any fiber base print). Therefore including enlarger prints and these digital prints our wet side is active.
I am currently testing different Black and White papers to go on this machine but this friggin economy kind of slows down work on this front.


I have just received a couple of rolls of con tone film to put on my lasers and output through my Jobo's to make black white film from digital files that then will be printed with a various end printing methods. I am hoping to produce film up to 30 x40 for those printers capable of making alternative prints from big negs.{ I think that Chicago Albumen Works is making negs on tmax using a Lvt recorder, and this is much like how I would describe the process I would be using with the Lambda.)

We also print on a Cannon 9000 to various paper stocks with this inkjet process that I find very appealing and vibrand, this also is very substantial part of our business.

Very exciting times we live in right now as far as options to work with and interesting directions.
Digital vs Analogue- I think these are the silliest arguments I see on the internet these days and not even worth engaging in.

[Henry Ambrose]

For work, I've shot all digital for over a year. I'd be pleased to shoot film if it mattered to a client.

[pablo batt]

when i worked as a photographic pcb printer in a electronics factory our offical job title for insurance etc was a wet worker

so i am a wet worker 100%

anything else is not photography

just make sure you moisturize your hands after a session

[jeroldharter]

100% traditional. I would rather use crayons than a computer to make pictures.

[ghost]

100% wet darkroom 4 years ago before I got sick... Now setting everything back up again...computers are a great tool for work, making art with them does not interest me personally

[D. Bryant]

when i worked as a photographic pcb printer in a electronics factory our offical job title for insurance etc was a wet worker

so i am a wet worker 100%

anything else is not photography

just make sure you moisturize your hands after a session
I thought you were done with photography.

Don Bryant

[Gary L. Quay]

100% traditional for B&W.

100% digital printing from slides

50 / 50 for printing from color negative. I always match the digital prints to my darkroom prints.

I shoot 100% film. No digital capture.

Two years ago (yes, I know this is an old thread), everything I printed was traditional, but my lab was digitally printing my color slides and negatives. Now I do most of it, except for when my needs exceed the maximum size my printer can handle.

[cjbroadbent]

I found Bob Carnie's post above very interesting. There is a cold war on over resources and I could no longer match up there.
I earn a living 50/50 digital and 8x10 trannies taken to the lab.
B&W LF is a hobby and I contact print. Anything smaller than 8x10 gathers dust. I am dismayed by easy digital HDR when it took a century to get it right on film.

[poseur]

I would argue that far too often, the final image resulting from digital capture is not only not the image you saw, but often something that doesn't actually occur in nature.

I'm not aware of any photographic method that is a perfect replica of what occurs in nature. Art is artifice. I agree with your criticism of digital phoniness often looking very bad though.

[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

[paulr]

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.

That's been my experience as well. I have a body of work that's been printed both traditionally and digitally, so I can see the results side by side. Ten years ago I never would have imagined this.

[Chris Strobel]

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

Eric, what print sizes do you typically make with your D700?

[sanking]

I have a hybrid work flow. Most of my capture is with MF and LF film, which I scan and then correct and manipulate files in Photoshop. I then print digital negative for contact printing and use these negatives to make carbon transfer prints.

The use of Photoshop to correct and manipulate the image gives vastly more control than would be possible when printing directly from in-camera negatives. This part of the work flow is very important for me because it is where I craft the image to allow printing what I "saw" when the negative was exposed.

I also do some image capture with digital and also make digital negatives from these files. However, even at the relatively small size I print (no larger than 17X24") the prints from 6X7 cm and 5X7" film scans are clearly better in terms of overall image quality than the ones made from 12-22mp DSLR capture. For the record I scan with fairly high level professional quality scanners.

Sandy

[John Bowen]

100% Analog. 7x17, 8x10 & 5x7 contact printed on Azo/Lodima in Amidol. 35mm Tri-x for portraits of kids enlarged to 5x7.

Oh yeah, my point and shoot is a Nikon D200 :-)

[Eric Brody]

Chris,

I typically print 11x14 from the D700 files. I have not yet made a 16x20 but that was a rare size for me even from film, even 4x5 film. I expect to keep using my beloved Arca but probably less often than I had planned when I got it. I still enjoy the process of the 4x5 in the field, but the D700 is quite tempting. When used carefully, as carefully as I use the MF and LF cameras, the results are nothing short of amazing.

Eric

[sepiareverb]

My personal work is about the same, 2/3 film:1/3 digital, but I'm in the midst of scanning a lot of old film for a project, so I'm stuck in front of this screen way more than usual, or I want to be. "Normal" would be about half and half wet darkroom:PS/LR.

I haven't shot film for work in ages.

[rdenney]

In reading big parts of this long-term thread for the first time, I note several categories of respondents.

1. The "analog, by God!" folks, who hate the intrusion of computer technology into their activity.

2. Those who revere the traditional process, and for whom the process is as important or more important than the product.

3. Those who use digital for when convenience is necessary and film for when it's not.

4. Those who find that digital processes give them power beyond what they could achieve using traditional methods. For these folks, the product is more important than the process.

5. Those who are agnostic on the topic of digital but who believe that larger formats are better.

6. The "digital, by God!" folks, who think everyone above is a Luddite, or wacko, or both.

These overlap, of course, and I put myself groups 3 through 5, and mostly 5.

Before digital, I used 35mm for plain documentary work (family pictures, etc.) and for the occasional vacation when larger equipment was impractical. I used medium-format for commercial work and for serious work. I used large format when I had a darkroom and wanted to work in black and white.

I was an early digital adopter, at least for scanning pictures. I built my first digital darkroom about 10 years ago, and it has allowed me to control the last half of the image-making process, even in color. When I bought my first digital camera (a Canon 10D), 35mm film stopped being used in our house. I may have shot two rolls since then. I use digital for all documentary work and for a lot of travel, especially if I have to go through an airport, and particularly if the trip is not a photography vacation. For those, I'll do what it takes to having something bigger, because for me size matters. I am sometimes disappointed when I make an image that satisfies me on a small-format camera (digital or film), because I know I'll be limited in what I can do with it.

I'm getting back into large-format work primarily because of the quality inherent in the large format. If there was a practical and affordable digital capture for 4x5 (and not some tiny piece of it), I'd be all over it. I use film because that's the path to large format for the present.

I'm excited when I sit at the computer in my digital darkroom, and efficiently and directly achieve my visualization in ways that would have been insanely difficult for me to achieve in a traditional darkroom. Maybe my visualizations are too extreme, maybe my traditional skills weren't up to the task, maybe both. It doesn't matter to me.

But that doesn't mean I don't respect those who still revere the traditional processes for their own sake.

So, for me, any photography for others (including family pics, work pics, commercial work, etc.) is mostly digital, unless the required quality demands a larger format. For fun, I'm about 50-50 for field work. But I'm 100% digital in the darkroom, except for sending my film out for processing.

Rick "judging photography by the photographs" Denney

[Blumine]

My BW workflow is 100 percent analouge. From capture to final output on either FB paper or alt process. For color I am doing more and more in the darkroom, but for something things I scan it and then use photoshop. In time, I hope to be 100 percent analouge for both BW & Color.

My day job has me spending way to much time behind a computer. I prefer to spend my off time away from the things as much as possible. Using a digital camera is sometimes a little bit too much like work, so though I have one I never use it anymore.

Blumine

[PenGun]

Just getting back into it with a Chamonix, beautiful camera, instead of my old FM2s and wet darkroom. I did all my own work and processing with B&W, E6 and C41. Printed all my own stuff and even did colour prints in trays, don't ask.

I do like my Chamonix and it's starting to produce some things I like. I enjoy darkroom work but the prints I'm staring to get from my Epson 3800 are quite exceptional. I guess I may have started to use it properly. This from an Epson V700. The prints on 8.5x11, about 7x9 ish are wonderful. I have not done anything quite so rewarding in photography for a long time.

[Chris Strobel]

Pablo Batt


Now tell us how you really feel :D

[rdenney]

Pablo Batt

I suppose that puts you in my Category 1.

Rick "photography as truth is a myth no matter how it's printed" Denney

[Jim collum]

Pablo Batt


... and this is the garbage that takes a decent discussion and moves it to the school yard.... sigh

Isn't it enough to just say you don't like inkjet, without having to insult most of the posters in this thread?

[Marko]

... and this is the garbage that takes a decent discussion and moves it to the school yard.... sigh

Isn't it enough to just say you don't like inkjet, without having to insult most of the posters in this thread?

No much school in evidence there. More like a big, fat bug splashing itself in the middle of your windshield just out of carwash. ;)

Makes you wonder if he actually hates inkejts so can have something to insult people with?

[bob carnie]

100% hybrid

Various capture from film to phase back.
Imocan and ICG drum scanning.
Various output from enlarger wet prints, Lambda wet prints, Inkjet to a multitude of paper , plastic, canvas.
Moving into CMYK separations from Colour input to Carbon and Gum.*I want to make permanent Colour Prints*

Very exciting times, to be able to mix and match and crossover is really a dream come true.

[Derek Kennedy]

Guess I'm in category 3 and 4.

I went 100% digital in 2002(?) until last year (Nov) I started collecting old cameras and decided - hey, why not USE them!?!

I love digitals instant feedback and ease of getting to the computer, but I also love using the different films, developing those films and the silver prints - especially now that I have 2 enlargers (the newest to me is about 50 years old which allows me to use my 4x5 negs).

[Drew Wiley]

This is an ancient thread. But my 2 cents worth anyway. I'm 100% real film and real
darkroom, both black-and-white and color (Type C, Ciba, once in awhile DT). I have
a big investment in darkroom, enjoy it, prefer the look, so have no real motive to
change (except that I'm allergic to RA4!)