I take back every bad word I have said about Kodak...

[Drew Wiley]

I was at a party in a home of a climber- photographer last weekend who likes to collect and frame various examples of that same genre. Among many other framed images, he had a quad-printed version of AA's famous early Precipice Lake ice & cliff shot. This kind of press technique allows standardized mass reproduction, and comes out both cleaner than the original and richer than any inkjet version would be. It also costs about 1% of what any remaining vintage print by Ansel's own hand would command. But I still prefer the period-authentic look of the original. It's useless to surmise what somebody might or might not hypothetically do given today's options. AA wasn't even up to speed with the quality of darkroom equipment and variety of printing options available through the latter part of his own active career. The point is to thoughtfully use what you do have.

[Duolab123]

I used to see Ansel around town quite a bit growing up in Monterey. If you look at his history, like being an early adopter of Polaroid and later one who learned the art of offset lithography better than most printers, you have to think that if he were to keep going, he would have been an early adopter of digital technologies like scanners and then Photoshop. It only makes sense. He was always one to push boundaries of available technologies. I can only think how intrigued he would have been to actually scan a negative and then manipulate it with a degree of repeatable precision he probably wished for but couldn't quite achieve. Drum scanners were making the scene in the late '70's but the early ones never even produced a digital file, they only scanned the film to be turned and imaged onto the plate making film, so four separate scans to print and a re-scan if your color balance was off. Pretty crude.

I totally agree. When you see what he accomplished, the early days of staying for days on end, for just the right light. One can only imagine what he could have done with drum scanners, film recorders, digital negatives, ink jet. That's pretty cool to have grown up in such a place and time.

[Mark Sampson]

"The point is to thoughtfully use what you do have."
Indeed! Well said Mr. Wiley.

...Haven't followed the entire thread but I am glad that the OP likes TMY. There are still a lot of True Believers (including some ex-colleagues) at Kodak, who want to make the very best film; good to know that they're succeeding.

[Drew Wiley]

If AA had chosen current digital printing options, nobody would ever have heard about him except as just another dime a dozen dude with a DLSR hanging around his neck. He certainly wasn't a true pioneer with respect to photographing places like Yosemite - many had gone before, at least two of them perhaps even more artistically endowed - but within the context of the significant National Parks and Wilderness theme expansion of the mid-20th C, he was viewed as such by the public, with his cowboy hat, mules, and big cameras. Probably better most, and even better than his own assistants, I can appreciate his sensitivity to the light because I grew up right at the confluence of all that scenery which made him famous. I didn't artificially adopt a "rocks n trees" genre in order to make catchy photos like his; rather, I was moulded to it long before I ever saw an actual AA print. What is now named the AA Wilderness area was my front yard view; and Yosemite, SEKI, John Muir Wilderness, etc, could all be seen from atop a short walk. I certainly don't regard him as the greatest printer around. He was accustomed to his usual Dektol and so forth. He wasn't anywhere near as cutting-edge technique-wise as a lot of hero-worship mythology about him suggests. He made do with what was familiar to him from long usage. But he was far more sensitive to lighting and poetic composition than most of his thousands of wannabee ZS clones. As I understand it, Polaroid came to him when it was still basically what we'd today call a cash deprived start-up. So they paid him in stocks, and that is what mushroomed into his primary source of real wealth. Anyone who thinks modern digital printing is a step forward is only looking at the convenience aspect of it. In terms of actual image quality, some of us regard it as commercialized de-evolution. But that has happened many times before in the history of photography. Choose your own tools and master them; that's how you get from Point A to Point B.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Steve Could you provide links to a good and bad photo of each using the grad ND?

I will show more examples, give me a day. Been out in the boonies for four days. Toroweep, also known as Tuweep Grand Canyon. Like nowhere. Only saw Ranger once. Had Campground and whole area to ourselves. Can only get there by high clearance a 4-wheel which I have. 6 inch lift Ram1500 or hiking.

Took 15 frames I think. 10 4x5 Portra 160 and 5 D100 8x10. My game was off though, sent camer to Chamonix for minor maintenance after a fall, customs busted the sh*t out of it. Used a Toyo 4x5 which is a brick and a borrowed Toyo 8x10 which is 4 pallets of bricks! I miss my 45H-1!