digital or film or...tuna casserole

[fotographz]

I'm new here so humor me let me say that this discussion has been dissCUSSED! here many times (...yes?) The only reason I went (kicking and screaming) to the digital side was to get my images on-line AND these photographs had to look as good on the web as a proper wet darkroom print.
My workflow was to scan my prints on an Epson scanner into a Mac laptop> from there to muddle my way through a "borrowed" Photoshop program which
if you worked on the original and you didn't save a copy...you would have to re-scan again (@#$%^). I did manage to get the photo to look like my darkroom prints and then somebody asked if i had ever known about scanning the negatives...😱 Anyway I scanned a negative to realize that all those print scans would have to be re-done.
Your thoughts on your preference or maybe you just like that casserole...

bright news

bubble butt

...by the way which one do you think is digital or film?

 

[bence8810]

Hello,

Great photos, just checked some of your work online!

I think the bottom one is film. Not that I can tell otherwise but I seem to notice some borders which could be the result of the scanning etc...

i also scan negatives rather than wet prints. My workflow is to develop at home / scan in the full roll with a Pakon F135+ scanner which is incredibly fast and then decide if there are any shots that I'd wet-print later.

Ben

 

[konicaman]

Scanning prints is a real PITA - fact!

I must admit that I have gone 90% digital for colour, but I use film for 98% of my B/W work - just can't get the right look and feel with digital when it comes to B/W.

There is no room for a permanent darkroom where I live now and setting up the kitchen for printing would be a lot of work - HUGE windows - so I scan my negatives and print on an Epson 3880 - my prints from the Epson are for the most part better than what I could achieve in the wet darkroom. That being said, it often takes as much time to get a print right on the Epson as it did in the wet darkroom.

A good negative scanner and good software can surely give some stunning results - I can recommend VueScan if you have not already tried it http://www.hamrick.com (usual disclaimers apply).

The results on screen might also depend on your screen - and the viewer's screen, to get uniformity the screen has to be calibrated, and/so you have no way to assure that the photo will look the same on your screen as on mine.

Have fun
Henrik

 

[shiro_kuro]

I think I prefer the method of scanning the darkroom print instead of the scanning the negative method . Scanning negatives is a tedious process .... Spending time in the darkroom creating the print is satisfying , having that part of the process makes scanning the final print to get it on the web to be seen a bit more bearable and would be my preferred method .... but only because there is a print involved .....

When you scan the negative do you still create the the print in the darkroom or was the sole purpose of the print to scan and now that you scan the negative you no longer need to print ? Never mind I'll take some of that tuna casserole now : )

I have the intention of setting up a darkroom and now have the space to do so after many years of dragging the acquired equipment from one place to the next ..... Using the the M8 and now the Monochrom to fill that gap until I get "set up " I wonder what it would be like to get back into wet printing and if it would replace the need for digital ...M4 and the Focomat V-35 vs the Monochrom and the Epson 3880 , or both ? My feeling is that I will enjoy both ......

I think both the prints above are digital only because they are being viewed on my monitor .... they look great

Looking forward to more ..Thanks ,
Charles

 

[maddoc]

I should have bought that V35 from you at the time 😉🙂 ...

... haven`t yet scanned a wet-print but it might be worth the additional work. The advantage would be that I could compare between the print to be put on the wall and the image I see on the computer screen.

I think I prefer the method of scanning the darkroom print instead of the scanning the negative method . Scanning negatives is a tedious process .... Spending time in the darkroom creating the print is satisfying , having that part of the process makes scanning the final print to get it on the web to be seen a bit more bearable and would be my preferred method .... but only because there is a print involved .....

When you scan the negative do you still create the the print in the darkroom or was the sole purpose of the print to scan and now that you scan the negative you no longer need to print ? Never mind I'll take some of that tuna casserole now : )

I have the intention of setting up a darkroom and now have the space to do so after many years of dragging the acquired equipment from one place to the next ..... Using the the M8 and now the Monochrom to fill that gap until I get "set up " I wonder what it would be like to get back into wet printing and if it would replace the need for digital ...M4 and the Focomat V-35 vs the Monochrom and the Epson 3880 , or both ? My feeling is that I will enjoy both ......

I think both the prints above are digital only because they are being viewed on my monitor .... they look great

Looking forward to more ..Thanks ,
Charles

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I don't think I've ever ventured into scanning a print to make it "good enough", scanning a negative properly and post-processing it properly is already a pain. Some people opt for a fixed photo-taking setup (i.e. what museums use to archive paintings, etc.), and I think that's the most sensible thing to do.

 

[johannielscom]

No wet printing here. No space in the house and not enough consistency in my m.o. to get satisfactory and consistent results. And as a result no print scanning either, I chose negatives to scan and have gotten better at it over the years.


Recently I acquired an Imacon Photo scanner, the older type SCSI-scanner that can do 3200dpi.

Hooked it up to a Mac G4 and also connected a Canon 8800f to scan 135 film (the Imacon only does single 135 frames, yikes).

I'm re-scanning some old negatives and having great times with my MF gear and fresh film now that I can scan in 3200dpi and truly assess camera and lens quality. Result so far: one Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta B that really needs work done to get on the mark (Mark Hansen that is 😉), a Horseman film magazine that now is light-proof again and a self-devised program to up my shooting skills in MF 😀


Re. digital B&W I have nailed it to a satisfying level, although in the end I do miss my Ricoh GXR with Mount module and Voigtlander 50mm lens...:bang:

Luckily most of my professional work so far is digital and fast turn-around, so I have time to myself to tinker with the Imacon and the MF gear 🙄

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Mr. Mentor,
I prefer canned tuna on flatbed from Subway or raw on sushi.

Digital is convenient and fastest way to get my family pictures in color and to enlarge software license sticker on mobile phone screen to help me see it and "un-borrow" the licensed software.

Scanning negs instead of scanning (wet) prints is as obvious these days as going from film to digital for the matter of convenience. I do scan negs mostly instead of wet prints.

And... it doesn't feel as completed as wet print. I started to print in the darkroom because I didn't feel it to be true film photography if scans only.

Since I am still much more capable of digital image manipulation and only learning how to do it perfectly in the darkroom I could make my wet print scan as good as my neg scan.
For example, I could undo too much of the contrast on wet print in the editing software.

To sum up: digital b/w, neg scan and wet print scan are three different types of image representation on the web. All three are adequately capable if you know how to process them. All three are different visually and as result are subject for choice and preference.

Thank you, Mr. Mentor.

 

[back alley]

after 30 years in the darkroom...i love digital!!

i really like film cameras but i have had enough of the wet side of things...in a perfect world there would be an ample offering of digital rangefinders, one that i would like and could afford.

 

[kbg32]

I spent more then 30 years in the darkroom for myself and for others. It got to the point, a few years before digital was feasibly affordable, that I could not handle the chemistry anymore. After spending a couple of days in the hospital to detoxify, after a printing marathon over a few days, darkroom work wasn't in the cards for me anymore. As glamorous and nostalgic as I feel, I absolutely love digital. I still shoot film now and then and do the scanning myself.

I love film. I love digital. Every now and then tuna casserole is ok. If both images are posted online, it doesn't matter if they started out as film or digital, they are digital.

 

[jsrockit]

If both images are posted here, it doesn't matter if they started out as film or digital, they are digital.

It matters for your street cred though... (jokes, Keith, jokes).

 

[Godfrey]

I remember back at the dawn of digital (1994-1996) when I'd just gotten access to a flatbed scanner and then, amazing, to a film scanner: I met a guy who'd been doing the scanned prints thing for a bit. His digital images online looked amazing and we had a wonderful time comparing the processes.

In the end, we agreed that if you wanted to scan prints to best results, the first requirement is that you need to be a master printer in the darkroom and then you need to know how to make prints that best suited the scanning process. That worked for Don as he was a master printer; I didn't have a darkroom to work with. The struggle in the early days was to scan negatives with enough resolution to make a decent-size print, with enough tonal steps to construct a decent tonal scale in the output, then to learn how to process the scan, etc. I went the scan negative route, and worked at it for years.

Equipment and software a decade later made the negative scanning difficulties disappear, but the print scanning obstacles remain the same. Of course, by then digital capture had grown up a lot too so the whole point of shooting film and scanning to get the best of both worlds had become a matter more of which aesthetic pursuit you liked more rather than which one could produce decent results. Digital capture has gone far further in the succeeding decade than film and scanning can ever go, but both processes have their charm and value; I continue with both.

I like your photos; I'm not particularly interested in trying to evaluate digital from film. What's important to me is another good photographer adding to the forum and the strength of your photos.

Welcome!

G

 

[kbg32]

It matter for your street cred though... (jokes, Keith, jokes).

Cred = Drec

 

[OurManInTangier]

I'm not a big fan of these new fangled ideas so it's good old fashioned beef casserole for me. In terms of digital or film, both but with the emphasis on digital and film pretty much purely for the enjoyment (e.g. lower output and less time spent on my backside on the bathroom floor fiddling around in a changing bag.)

I used to work in the darkroom at work and had one, much smaller and less well designed, at home. However, here in the UK a sunny day is such a rarity I got fed up spending them in the dark....though perhaps if I'd been a good printer I may not have minded so much.

With regard to your pictures (love the newspaper one particularly btw) I couldn't say, but my guess, for a little fun, would be the top one as the original digital shot?

 

[Bruno Gracia]

and what about scan&print vs digital file&print?

Any differences? or are We just romantics?

 

[Godfrey]

and what about scan&print vs digital file&print?

Any differences? or are We just romantics?

Of course there are differences. Not better or worse, just different with different constraints and freedoms. Try both, enjoy both, use whichever suits your intent best.

One can be just as romantic about either. The goal is to make photographs that satisfy, to enjoy how you make them as well.

G

 

[Bruno Gracia]

that's the point Godfrey, if at the end one can't tell the differences between a TriX or a Fuji x100s picture print on high quality papers, what's the point to be discussing differences, if at the end images look the same? or even more important, does people care about it?

 

[Hsg]

or even more important, does people care about it?

That is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.

All these efforts and so on, what for? Does anyone care?

Its like one-sided love. No matter how much you love the person, if they don't care, all that effort is futile.


If you're going to upload small jpgs online, don't bother with any effort.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

that's the point Godfrey, if at the end one can't tell the differences between a TriX or a Fuji x100s picture print on high quality papers, what's the point to be discussing differences, if at the end images look the same? or even more important, does people care about it?

Sorry, to intervene, TriX is sold in 8x10.
Where are some people who are capable to know, see and care about the difference.
The rest doesn't care if it is on x100s cropper or from iPhone.

It is up to you to choose the audience. 🙂

 

[Godfrey]

that's the point Godfrey, if at the end one can't tell the differences between a TriX or a Fuji x100s picture print on high quality papers, what's the point to be discussing differences, if at the end images look the same? or even more important, does people care about it?

... And as I said, there are differences. You have to evaluate for yourself whether the differences are important to you, whether to avoid them or take advantage of them. Whether you enjoy the process or not. Etc

Don't expect your viewers to notice these things. Photo viewers and buyers generally couldn't care less how a photo was produced: they only see the photo. Content rules.

G