Last Year at PMA

[neil poulsen]

Last night, I went to a meeting of our local Portland Photographers' Forum, and someone who works at a well-known color lab said that the scuttlebut last year a t PMA was that color film had about 10 years before it disappears. He said that , at his lab, everything is going digital.

While I didn't attend PMA last year and can't offer my own version of the "scutt lebut", this touches off a whole series of questions in my mind.

o Is this true -- will a way of life for large format photographers come to an end in 10 years?

o What is the potential of taking LF digital (aargh!) into the field?

o What is the future of large format B&W? The same person commented that, beca use of print longevity, B@W will last longer.

o Will it no longer be possible to obtain the kind of rich textures in a print that can be achieved in LF silver?

Last weekend, I purchased three rolls of Kodak 24 exp. 35mm color film for my da ughter with ASA's 100, 200, and 1000. The cost was over $18! It won't be long before these kinds of prices drive the inevitable change in the 90% of the mark et that does a lot to drive advances, etc., in the remaining 10%. (LF.)

I know about paradigm shifts. I just don't do a very good job of accepting them .

[Doug Paramore]

Neil: Sad situation. The problem is that there just aren't enough of us around who care about the quality of large format, and what few of us there are have done a bad job of educating the public. We are selling prints to a generation of younger folks who have grown up with TV, where images don't have to be sharp and full of light and tones. I show my work at art shows for sale to the public, and one of the greatest things about doing shows is to see the people come into our display and see large format black and white original prints for the first time. It literally blows their minds. I have had people spend an hour in the booth, looking at every print again and again from corner to corner. I have seen the same response to the work of a fellow art photogrpher who does large format color. There just aren't enough of us around who do LF work to influence the large companies much. I go many places to shoot where people have never seen a person with a large format camera at work. The most amazing thing about it is that nearly all of them feel that you are doing professional work. Large format still implies professional photography, although most of them have never seen a LF camera. Strange. A couple of years ago, my wife and I visited her mother on Vancouver Island in Canada. Just ahead of us was a man and wife with enough 35mm equipment to stock most camera stores. The customs person looked in the bags and waved them through. I came through just behind them with an old Graphic View II, two lenses and a dozen film holders. The customs person looked in the case and her asked if I was working in Canada on a photography job. I had a difficult time explaining that I was just taking photographs for pleasure. I finally persuaded her that my visit was the trip of a lifetime to her beautiful country and I wanted the best pictures possible. I almost had to get a work permit! There just aren't enogh LF format photographers. It is too much work for most amatuers and too expensive for the majority of pros, who shoot 120. I know there are exceptions, but think of the times when you are shooting and you are the only LF guy there. And think of the companies who made wonderful large format equipment who are no longer in business. There aren't enough of us to support them. As you so aptly put it: Arrrrrrgggggg! Doug.

[Glenn Kroeger]

Neil: A good 4x5 transparency has over 300MB of information. With Provia 100F, that 300MB can often be captured in 1/15 of a second or less. That is a data transfer rate of 4.5 GB/sec. We're a long way from that in portable, lightweight, battery powered LF digital backs... I give it more like 20 years... after all, you can still buy cassette tapes along with your CDs.

[Mark Nowaczynski]

When and if film availability is ever threatened, you can always buy a lifetime supply of your favorite emulsions and freeze them. As long as you can find processing, or do your own, why panic? You can do the same with B&W printing papers. As for the availability of photochemicals, you can make up all of your own chemistry using the formulas in books such as the 'Film Development Cookbook'. Fine art B&W photography, processing, and printing may indeed become a small niche market akin to what today are referred to as 'alternative processes'.

This has happened before: Shortly after the 1st World War platinum printing ceased to be commercially available and its use died. Today platinum printing is enjoying a Renaissance. Chemicals and sensitizer solutions must be measured and mixed by hand, paper must be hand coated, and hand processed. There are many good books to guide the aspiring platinum printer. It has become a niche process for those willing to make prints by hand from scratch, and the process is far from extinct.

The point is, with such a wealth of silver gelatin prints in private and museum collections, and with fine prints fetching increasingly higher prices at auctions, how can the most important processes in the history of photography ever die out?

The mainstream availability of B&W photography may contract into a smaller and specialized niche market, but it will never die. Has fast food killed the availability of fine cuisine? Has pop music killed the performance and recording and playing of Bach, Beethoven and Thelonius Monk? Will digital kill the legacy of Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Paul Strand etc.? No, I have greater faith in mankind, and moreover I can afford to buy at least two deep freezers!

Keep shooting and help preserve the art, craft, and science of photography from being obliterated by the digital death star...

[bill zelinski]

As a very new arrival to LF I often wonder if investing a lot of time and expense in this format is foolish but then I take this old camera out and just stare at the GG, maybe expose a polaroid or two, and think that this is the most amazing thing in the world and that I have now found my way to practice photography and will never be satisfied with smaller formats again. For me this is now the way. The problem is not that digital will or will not ever equal or surpass analog, it will. THe problems is that traditional methods will be pushed to the margins and become even more difficult and expensive to pursue. Not good for those who cannot afford it. I've made my commitmant to LF and will fight to stay in the game, I will learn to make my own film, parts and developers if thats what it takes, damn it.

[Ron Shaw]

Well, I dont think its quite so dismal. Working with digital just replaces the way we capture images. It doest replace the need for vision, or diminish the value of photography as art. The big truth is, film and processing and printing generates a lot of very nasty chemicals, and that is one of the driving forces to go digital, not just consumer acceptance. Yea, yea, I know, making chips uses nasty chemicals too, but at least its only once, not roll after roll after roll.... Large format has digital solutions today, and they give excellent results. Not very portable, for sure, but I bet that will change, too. As processing power gets cheaper, memory gets cheaper, etc, very portable solutions will emerge, probebly faster than any of us think it will. There are certainly benefits to digital that we can all look forward to. Instant feedback (no more shooting 10 sheets with various bracketing to get that important shot), greater dynamic range, no more loading film holders in the dark, dust spot problems, lab processing goofups, etc. Digital is going to affect us, so we may as well learn to use it as a tool.

[Glenn Kroeger]

Neil:

I am not afraid of digital coming to LF field work, in fact I am looking forward to it. I just think of digital as a new, better, erasable emulsion. There will still be view cameras but the format will probably be more like 6x8cm and I will need shorter lenses. Can't get too much smaller since the MTF of the optics will limit image quality at some point. A 6x9 Arca with the binocular viewer still produces a pleasing groundglass experience, although not the full impact of an 8x10 gg.

I see a kind of phased transition of rising costs and phasing out of formats. I suspect the first to feel a pinch will be 8x10. Every time a new color transparency film is released, I look to see if it still available in 8x10 (I don't shoot 8x10, but I see this as the canary warning of bad air in the mine). When Fuji discontinues Quickload I will fall back on 120 if digital isn't quite there yet.

[sheldon hambrick]

I see a kind of phased transition of rising costs and phasing out of formats. I suspect the first to feel a pinch will be 8x10. Every time a new color transparency film is released, I look to see if it still available in 8x10 (I don't shoot 8x10, but I see this as the canary warning of bad air in the mine).

You guys are depressing me! Im just getting my 8x10 package together, and would like to make at least one contact print before I have to A- start stockpiling emulsions B  mixing my own chemicals C - paying $200 for a box of 10 sheet B&W!

Never the less, I have to agree with Glenns statement. As its been stated above, I too think digital will progress a LOT faster that we all think! This is one of the reasons that Im starting to back off 35mm SLR photography. For the type of 35mm shooting that I do, the technology/performance/quality is already there  if only I could afford one of the nicer Canon or Nikon bodies.

Im not afraid of digital coming to LF; its just how much will it COST, and how long will it take before the armature/hobbyist can afford it??? The scariest thing is that back in the day, it was the professional product/fashion/architecture photographers that supported LF for the most part, but they also seem to be the ones moving to digital the quickest!

Damn! I can see/deal with coating my own paper, and mixing my own chemicals, but what about the film?

Oh well, maybe Im worrying too much. What I need to do is go out and by some holder sand start shooting.

What do you think Sean Y?

[Erik Ryberg]

My parents have a picture on their wall of my great grandmother when she was in her early twenties, standing in her garden. This picture was taken (and the print made) before 1900.

It was probably taken professionally, but it's really just a snapshot. However, the technical quality of the photograph is astounding. It is extraordinarily sharp, excellent contrast, perfect exposure, and 100 years old. It is so obviously superior to anything anybody ever takes today in similar circumstances. It blows away anything I have ever taken or seen taken with a Nikon. It is by orders of magnitude better than anything I have ever seen from a digital camera. This picture compares rather well with the 50 million faded 4x5 color snapshots in various albums around the country taken in the past 30 years, and the 50 million more blurry digital images taken in the past 2 years.

If we cared about good pictures, we would have stopped making cameras and lenses in 1900. But we don't care about good pictures. We care about something else. What is it? Cleverness? I don't know. But it isn't good pictures. (I admit by the way that lenses, film, and cameras have "improved" some (only some!) over the past century, but for the vast majority of consumers of images, the images themselves have gotten much worse.)

I'm not sure what my point is, except to express sadness about this digital age. It seems with each technological advance things take longer, are harder to do, cost more, and deliver less.

[Kevin M Bourque]

I remember when synthesizers first hit the music scene in a big way in the 70's. No need for carbon-based musicians anymore....let the synthesizer do it! Tubes got hard to find, and everyone was doin' the digital dance.

Well, guess what? There's been a serious backlash. Digital is still out there, and always will be. But, pick a up a copy of Guitar Player magazine, and see how many manufacturers are producing tube amps with that "vintage tube sound". Everyone is suddenly appreciating just how good those 6L6's really sound.

My guess is that silver will not disappear anytime soon, although the market will shrink, and the price will go up. Digital will quickly replace silver in certain applications. But there will always be a chemical-stained cadre that wants this stuff, so someone, somewhere will make it. After all, there's no "practical" reason why anyone would want to do a platinum print, right? You can get the same picture with other, easier methods, right? But plenty of folks think it's worth the trouble, and materials are still available.

But still, these might be the Golden Years of silver!

Now maybe I'll go shoot those rolls of Panatomic-X I've got in the freezer.......

[Glenn Kroeger]

I can't disagree more with Erik's claim that:

"It seems with each technological advance things take longer, are harder to do, cost more, and deliver less"

In my color photography, scanning and printing digitally with a LightJet have allowed me to become an artist. For years, I was stuck with trying to pick a film/process/paper that would produce what I visualized. But unlike B&W, it was a process with precious little control. I had to carry negative and reversal films, choosing based on some guess as to whether Cibachrome or Type R would reproduce the color palette I saw. I had virtually no control over contrast or tonal range. Aside from exposure, it was pot luck.

I still capture the image on silver. But Photoshop gives me the artistic control that an ART should have. I can CHOOSE to faithfully reproduce what my eye saw, not what some particular emulsion/paper pair could manage. Or, I can CHOOSE to produce what I wanted to see... just like a painter with canvas. But now it is MY choice. And this technology holds new promise for B&W as well. Sure, N+ and N- developing let you change the overally slope of the curve, but with digital you can change the curve at every density. Sure, you want a good high-silver fiber based paper for the final product, but that doesn't mean digital cannot be used as a process in route to the product.

Now as Erik points out, having paint and canvas does not make everybody a Rembrandt. We have all seen the abominations in the typesetting that the advent of the Mac and Laserwriter brought to the world. Having typefaces and knowing how to use them are two different things... and a mouse and menu don't replace centuries of development of an artform like typesetting. But the response is not to go back to hot-lead, but to educate the users about the asthetics and sensibilities of the medium.

Another note, digital may not be so environmentally friendly as we hope. The digital cameras I have used go through batteries like ... thru a goose. If everybody would recharge batteries it would be fine. But most consumer still digital cameras use AAs. And on vacation, that means the family is going to go through dozens of alkaline batteries. That's nasty for the environment.

[Blake]

calm down...this isn't trackable but there are a lot of us here using large format and if we could total film sales over the last year I'm sure we'd see an increase from the 80's. I think that if the silver-eating consumer market goes digital faster we could see our silver-based products cheapen. Let's wait and see...it can't be all that bad. And Sheldon...don't do that...the price you pay for a digi cam that might get you decent 8"x10"'s in bright daylight will get you a Mf rangefinder for the same price/weight. Trad is still the best bang for the buck. I've used our frontline kodak nikon digicams and they are very noisy at 620asa and above unusable for anything but very small pj quality work...the bodies are huge and any print from that cam even at hi-res settings the prints hurt my eyes over 5x7. What we can do now is stick with trad cams and not buy the digicams and let the companies know without a doubt that we won't settle for anything less than what we have.

[sheldon hambrick]

And Sheldon...don't do that...the price you pay for a digi cam that might get you decent 8"x10"'s in bright daylight will get you a Mf rangefinder for the same price/weight.

Trib, youre reading my mind! Thats (buying a Fuji RF or two) exactly what I was/am planning on doing with the proceeds from the sale of some of my 35mm stuff.

[Glenn Kroeger]

Maybe a counter trend, but sales of MF equipment are rising, and the MF manufactures are clearly trying to appeal to traditional 35mm users (witness Contax and Mamiya AF)... is this because of or dispite consumer digital?

[Blake]

that as good as any reason I've heard Sheldon...I bought my GSW because Ilford released 3200 delta in 120....I couldn't feel more justified since.

[Sean Billy Bob Boy yates]

While I am worried about the whole mess, there are plenty of good points made above. Video did not knock out film. Color did not wipe out black and white.

Last year at a convention of movie theater owner/operators and other exhibitors, traditional film projected by a top flight union projectionist went head to head against the newest high tech alternative. It was a draw of sorts. The union projectionist was quite impressed with the new technology and it's image quality. They had improved dramatically over what he had seen in the past.

However, the new tech folks were rather stunned at the quality of the projectionists work. They had been basing their qulity standards on what they had seen at the local multi-plex which is unfortunatley all too common and accepted by consumers.

I watched the sequal to Jurassic Park in a multiplex in New Jersey and thought there was something wrong. Sure enough, when the credits rolled it was all too obvious that the gate was open or out of registration. Did anyone but me complain?

Super XX is out of production, although Ron Wisner is trying to change that. If you're interested I suggest you contact him at sales@wisner.com. Azo is on the endangered species list, but Freestyle has doen what it can.

If you care about quality and traditional materials there's two things you can do - as Trib said - VOTE with your Wallet! and call the manufacturers and raise a stink!

I pay about $1.60 something per sheet of 8 X 10. How much better quality for as little price and portability can you get? If I could afford the Mido system, I'd be able to carry even more sheets of film!

I wouldn't say that digital is devil-spawn. As stated above it has made materials control more manageable for some. I was flabbergasted though when the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago went all digital rather than shoot 1 B&W, 1 Chrome and 1 Color neg. That was standard practice in the studios I worked in and they scanned everything and sent it to their clients on zip drives!

What I don't understand is why they haven't tried to standardize like TV - there's no calibration color bars, no waveform monitor and vector scope, no back porch breezeway and so forth that will allow you consistancy from monitor to monitor from printer to printer to e- mail'd jpg to zip dirve etc. yet is there?

[Sean Billy Bob Boy yates]

p.s.

Has anyone noticed the irony that we're discussing the advent of digital and the downfall of traditional materials/processes on an electronic forum associated with a page maintained by a computer mayven interested in the pursuit of those traditional materials?

[Bob Salomon]

Why would this have been at last years PMA? This years was just last month and there really was no major conclusion drawn other than last year was the year digital became viable and affordable for many and that both systems will continue to co-exist for quite some time.

This was also the conclusions drawn at a recent PMDA dinner where Managers of Kodak, Fuji, Olympus and Nikons digital divisions made a presentation to the industry in NYC.

[Bob Salomon]

Why would this have been at last years PMA? This years was just last month and there really was no major conclusion drawn other than last year was the year digital became viable and affordable for many and that both systems will continue to co-exist for quite some time.

This was also the conclusions drawn at a recent PMDA dinner where Managers of Kodak, Fuji, Olympus and Nikons digital divisions made a presentation to the industry in NYC.



"What is the potential of taking LF digital (aargh!) into the field? "

Go to Phase One and ask them where you can see the porfolio of B&W images done in the field on a Linhof Technikardan 23S camera with a Phase One back on location in Scotland last year.

The quality, tonality, detail, etc. will amaze you.

The potential is here.

[Blake]

sure the potential is there but so is the price. Better light is cheaper but both are slow.... aren't they?

[Bob Salomon]

"both are slow.... aren't they? "

Compared to what?

the finished or the viewable result on film is many times slower. Especially if one is in the field.

I am speaking of the time required from pushing the shutter to seeing a result.

[Bob Salomon]

"sure the potential is there but so is the price"

Copared to buying film and processing it?

Digital may be many times cheaper for a heavy shooter. No more film, lab, chemistry costs.

Not to mention the time savings

[Bob Salomon]

"sure the potential is there but so is the price"

Copared to buying film and processing it?

Digital may be many times cheaper for a heavy shooter. No more film, lab, chemistry costs.

Not to mention the time savings.

[Bill Glickman]

I can never see film being totally phased out in our lifetime..it would not make economic sense for many users and for the makers. As Bob S points out, for heavy shooters, digital potentially can make sense, specially in the studio... however, for field shooters, specially 4x5, the digital backs on mild evenly lit sunset scene are now shot at about 30 minutes exposure times... high noon shots at 10 minutes... many of us complain when we get to 1 second exposure time in LF... can you imagine the number of things that move in 10 minutes... I am not disputing this will not improve, but it would never make sense to dump so much R&D into this area since it represents a small market segement vs. the studio guys who are shooting objects that don't mvoe and use a ton of film, there for, they will cater to them first.... Plus, digital backs for 4x5, are $15k to $30k based on quality of equipmenent...why would many of people make this investment when film works just fine? And the investment would be obsolete in a few years with newer technology... The only thing that may ever threaten LF film makers if all of saw we can accomplish the same end results with say MF system with a reasonable price tag... and a bulk of LF users switch to these backs or systems..... and like all industry changes, the focus is the heavy users in which the new technology benefits the most, hence they are willing to pay the most for it.. unless that cost / convience ratio reaches the remainder of the market, then film will always be around... yes it will happen but my guess is not in the next 30 - 40 years. Economics still is the driving force between allmost all decisions, R&D, market analysis, end user decisions, etc....

[Bob Salomon]

< I am not disputing this will not improve, but it would never make sense to dump so much R&D into this area since it represents a small market segement vs. the studio guys who are shooting objects that don't mvoe and use a ton of film,>

How about all those people doing photography of live people, models, portraaits, weddings, sports, news, etc.

While landscape may be the least of the market the other areas are driving the research and when the quality for one is their so will landscape.

[Bob Salomon]

<the digital backs on mild evenly lit sunset scene are now shot at about 30 minutes exposure times... high noon shots at 10 minutes.>

Not necessarly so. The kaiser Scando DYNA+ digital camera with a 48mb file size in color, $7995.00 list has an imaging time of appx. 2 to 3 minutes at full resolution and full image area (size of 35mm film).

This size is more then big enough to make a very photrealistic 40 x 60" color print digitally.

[Bill Glickman]

But Bob, you must admit, that is still a far cry from 400MB in 1/30 second. But your point is well taken, the wedding /portrait market would definetly be a prime target for fast digital photography, but not that will be limited to 35mm or small, 6x4.5 MF at best... I can't see 400MB in 1/30 second in our life time...

[Ron Shaw]

The scanning backs I have seen are working at 2-3 minutes. Much slower than 1/30 sec., but nowhere near 30 minutes.

[Glenn Kroeger]

For what its worth, digital printing has convinced me that the resolution needed for large prints is much less than analog methods suggested... edge contrast matters much more. I have a 20x24 print made at 204 dpi into a LightJet5000 and it is every bit as sharp (actually looks sharper from a reasonable viewing distance) as the same sized print made from the 4x5 original with traditional enlarger technology. This suggests that 4000x5000 pixels will do this sized print, and 6000x7500 will do a 30x40 inch print WITH EQUAL SHARPNESS (which may not even be necessary given viewing distances). So I conclude that a back with 150MB will do virtually anything a field photographer needs. That is a realistic number for reasonable cost and portability within a decade. So, unlike Bill, I fully expect to live to see and use one!

[josh_560]

will digital ever be able to touch the subtle change of using a different film developer comb.?I personally dont see a filter in photo shop reproducing say the effect of pyro. but the resolution does seem to be there. A friend who works in a professional lab said he made some tradional prints from 4x5 chromes and then they made the same size print on the lambda which is some machine durst makes for doing photographic prints from digital files. according to him the prints off the lamda were just as good if not better.BUT thats color.there is no lamda that prints fiber base and probably never will be. it will just be a whole new way of doing things and a whole new look. also my friend was moved out of the print department because the demand for traditional prints has dropped signifigantly. josh

[Glenn Kroeger]

Josh: I agree that nothing touches a good fiber based B&W print... but all of the B&W people using digital that I have talked to are using digital to make new (improved?) negatives... then printing these negatives with traditional methods.

[Paul Schilliger]

After forsaking it for three years (when I got computerized!) I recently packed all my lab into a container and I am just thinking will I ever use it again? The tiny hope I have is about t he uncertain and not yet heard of coming of an affordable digital light printer. Ten years ago high quality ink jet was achieved on Iris printers costing a fortune. Now a small Epson produces amazing quality prints. O f course, the photographic market is much more confined, and if ever a small "digital enlarger " was made, it certainly would cost something. But then I would perhaps take my Ilford CAP 40 out of the box again! Will photographic paper survive however? And will I be willing to manipulate the stin ky chemicals again? A CD-Rom is such a nice thing to handle to the service bureau's staff!

[Blake]

sorry got sidetracked for a week, yes BobS...I'm sorry I wasn't more precise by "slow". Exposure times was what I was referring to. I know just how fast it is to skip the processing and or printing of trad films....but I can't justify spending $10k to $20k on a back that will force me to use exposure times in minutes or half-hours. Not here in Oklahoma with a more or less constant 60 mph wind. Besides, I actually like soaking my fingers in trays.... and I look forward to printing too. I do believe technology will one day bear a credit card sized camera that can shoot in near total darkness with the resolution of a 8x view camera. Hell, I'd take one roughly the size of my MF cams but not if it's slow....or sloppy. I'll buy one when that day comes, I'm not a technophobe or I wouldn't be here. I just won't settle for anything less for more money. So I'll wait and shoot 3200 speed films in the mean time and sweat fix out of my pores.

[Patrick Raymore]

If check the numbers carefully you will find that 4*5 digital is extremely expensive. Check out the prices for a drum scan of a 4*5 Tmax 100 negative down to grain level, or the price of a 16*20 digital output print, or the price of a archival ink set for digital printer. Thinking about a digital back? That amount of money will buy you 1000 boxes of Tmax film. Unless you are doing volume or need the advantage of speed it is hard to make an argument that digital is for the average large format photographer. I do not deny the advantages (potential for manipulation, flexibility, portability, repair etc) that digital gives, but at what cost. As for film, not to worry, as long as there are undeveloped nations that can not afford digital cameras there will be film.

[Ron Shaw]

Expensive today. But tomorrow? I would not be suprised if large format dissappeared at some time in the future, as resolution gets better and better. The future will probably see very small imaging devices, and the shorter FL lenses that will go with them will have extreme DOF. There may still be a market for cameras with movements, but the size will probably go down. As far as supporting the needs of undeveloped nations, I dont know if that is high on the corporate list.