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Oh I best clarify - the FD course has a large darkroom setup with multiple enlargers up to 4x5, and is fully b&w. Colour developing is possible but then the negs/trannies must be scanned on a scanner.
And the guy that winds me up, well, no he's not great at photography (before you bash me and worship him ;) ).
Knowing how to use digital well will make you a better film photographer Ash... you're lucky to live in a time when you can do both with ease. Getting instant feedback is very valuable, and it saves a lot of money wasted on Polaroid and guessing.
Group darkroom classes always suck anyway, once you get beyind the basics you'll readily outpace most of your professors anyway. Even at RIT in the 80s there were only a handful of profs that knew their way around the darkroom.
Just save a few coins and pick up a used 2mp pro body, like the old Kodak DCS720 from 6-7 years ago (maybe 100 pounds if not free). It is a rugged beast, like a "real" camera and it will use real lenses and all that. It should be sufficiently retro enough to cause a mild consternation (only 2 mp but his pictures rock!) and by going down in resolution and being somewhat digital retro... you'll show the gearheads that it isn't the camera or the media that matters.
Or just do something equaly absurd, like use a digital P&S really, really well, like this guy: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/mul...id=7-6468-7844
Now that you're into school, the idea is to rebel against it ;-)
The future is in photogravure and everyone knows it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary L. Quay
Digital isn't easier, it's much harder. The only people who think digital color printing is easier than printing in a color darkroom are the people who don't know anything about it.
You find your color darkroom easy to use because you can do next to nothing in it from a creative standpoint (unless you start making masks, which almost no one does because it's a royal PITA to do and isn't all that great anyhow). Without masks you can do exactly two things in a color darkroom - get the exposure right and get the color balance right. You can maybe do a tiny tiny amount of dodging and burning before you mess up the color balance. That's it, end of print, move the next one on to the assembly line and do the same thing over and over again.
When you have almost no options, and when those two options are basically mechanical tasks, things are very easy. Printing color digitally is much harder because you can do so much more with it, the creative choices are literally infinite. So learning how to do those things requires a lot of effort and then applying them takes even more effort. But oh so much more rewarding.
I'm at a loss as to why you've been trying for three years to match your prints with your monitor and haven't been successful. Millions of people have successfully calibrated their monitors. What calibration system and monitor are you using?
maybe the near future. for the distant future my money's on cave painting with charcoal.Quote:
Originally Posted by cyrus
LOL! Yup, and they all have a different version of how to go about the darkroom. One thing that peeved me most working in education was nobody was consistent with teaching technique at the basic level. One instructor would say wash your prints of 5 minutes, and another would say 20 minutes. Being a lab manager I'd have to flush out students who didn't wash in enough time because of all these different notions running around. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Frank Petronio
All,
Interesting thing that the article didn't cite anyone praising Kodak's film in
particular. I'm coming back into the field after 30 years and from what I hear,
they're not at the leading edge any more.
I doubt that we will ever be able to make a 4x5 inch piece of silicon that is
as perfect as a similar sized piece of film. Digital wins in the smaller formats,
but it's hard to believe that it will ever match what can be done with a LF
camera and traditional materials.
If you like what film does, keep on buying it! Economics wins in the end.
Cheers,
Joe O'Hara
That, is a matter of opinion. I will gladly take anything out of my F6 over my D200.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe O'Hara
i bought a used 6mp dslr a week ago, figured i'd see what all the hype was about and stay up on what's going on with photography in general. i've printed from it mostly at 5x7, the 8x10 seemed to be a bit much for it. while i found the 5x7 print very good, it has a quality about it that is inherent to the technology that i found a little wanting. it is convenient, and the color and exposure controls have amazed me (using RSE), but it is more work and less "wow". i was carrying a canon VT in my walkaround bag. it was a gift from a family member who has passed and i was nervous about losing or damaging it, so i swapped it out with the dslr. the dslr doesn't quite fit in my walk around (it wears a 28mm prime), and it can't make a "wow" of an 8x10 like the VT. i give people credit for being sensible and smart. if everyone was seeing what i'm seeing in the prints, the digital honeymoon would be coming to a close real soon. oddly, as i was buying lenses and sensor cleaning kit for dslr, i did see many students at samys with AE-1's and k1000's. good for them. i guess film is still popular with pros and students.
After a digital-using pro went on national TV in Trinidad to extoll the virtues of digital, and to make fun of my website's film use, he still hasn't accepted the challenge of putting up one of his (12MP) prints against one of my 8x10s enlarged to, oh, a measly 80"x100". Oh yes, and to allow viewers to walk right up to the prints. Come on, make my day. :cool: