Does It Really Matter Anymore? Do We Even Understand the Rules Now?

In the hybrid digital age, when shooting black and white film...

Does film choice matter anymore?
Does what speed you shoot really matter?
Does developer matter?
Does inversion, agitation, dilution matter?
And all other "black and white" negative development mojo and alchemy matter?

... when developing black and white negatives in the chemical development phase of the workflow?


Only I - and I alone - NickTrop, have determined the one true and correct answers to these and other questions facing the modern black and white film photographers who process digitally...

How do you keep a bunch of dunderheads in suspense?

I will tell youse all tomorrow...
 
Nick

The film type, exposure, and processing- and everything else that comes before scanning matters. I had always thought that scanning and subsequent actions, be they from the SW or manual tweaking would cancel out the characteristics of the previous steps.

But these remain. The scanner indeed 'sees' and its SW only 'reads' what is there. I can still see the differences between a D76 and Rodinal-developed negative. The enhanced sharpness and sharp grain of the latter is still there. In this regard, the scanning process can soften these details but subsequent sharpening (as is often needed to restore what is lost) reveals them again.

The differences in contrast in grain of two emulsions of different speeds also show. "Signatures" like the usual higher contrast of an ISO BW film like EFKE KB 25 shows in photos scanned from it, and will stand out very obviously when compared to photos scanned from something like ISO 400 Fuji Neopan. And the usual gang - sharpness, finer grain, colour sensitivity, grey rendering from filtration, etc- is there.

Scanning and editing SW like Vuescan, Silverfast, Photoshop or Lightroom can be used many ways: One, to use them so that their influence on the picture is limited. Two, they could be used like the old wet darkroom tools- as an extension of the developing process itself, controlling contrast like the graded papers or VC filters did, varying the image tone like the use of bromide/chlorobromide papers and cold or warm developers, or even chemical toning to achieve sepia, blue, or even green tones. Three, they can be used to crop, much like raising the enlarger head. Or Four, radically changing the image by editing it so that it no longer resembles what BW film can normally do.

In the end, the digital tools are no more different than the traditional wet darkroom tools, if used 'properly'. Anyone who's had experience in the darkroom can recreate what he did in the computer, and get more than satisfactory results. The pics won't necessarily look 'digital'.

The 'concerns' you enumerated above still matter. 🙂

Jay
 
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Digitization and post-processing software has brought the end of photography as an art. I admit to that fact even though most of my work is in digital.
 
leicasniper said:
It has done no such thing. A negative fresh out of the camera isn't a sacred thing, not to be messed with. Ansel Adams messed with his negatives big time to end up with many of his well known photos. Is it only art when it's done in a wet darkroom rather than on a computer monitor?

It really seems that there is a growing film cult that perpetrates a scorched earth agenda toward any other technology. No one worshiped film before digital. We mostly cursed it for its limitations and struggled to create art despite them.
Click to expand...

Ansel Adams created the zone system which even until know most people don't get. He had decided on the development and printing before he even made the exposure, that's what he called previsualization. Then he spend countless hours in darkroom dodging and burning with his hand. Now to compare that with photoshop is an insult to Ansel Adams. His postprocessing was part of his craft where as anyone can do postprocessing in their computer by pushing buttons and if it did not work pressing the undo button... So, please lets not compare darkroom techniques with photoshop.

I'm a digital shooter, but I know this much that the only way I can be taken seriously as an artist is if i shoot film. Digital is easy and lacks "authenticity".
 
In many ways you're right. You can do a lot more w/ your film digitally than in a darkroom. But your source still counts. You really have to shoot Agfa color film, for instance, to get that Agfa look. Same w/ Tri-X or HP5. Some films just have a native character that cannot readily be duplicated. And if you are going to work in the darkroom everything the Old Masters came up w/ is still relevant.

As much as I like the digital on the back end, I have been looking at some B&W prints done in the 50's in the local museum and they are very interesting indeed. I may yet have to learn some darkroom skills, especially if I want to try a palladium print. It isn't possible to get that look using inkjet printers.
 
NickTrop said:
I Only I - and I alone - NickTrop, have determined the one true and correct answers to these and other questions facing the modern black and white film photographers who process digitally....
Click to expand...

Nick:

There are only two possible answers:

a) yes

b) the one espoused by those searching for a Photoshop add-on to recover the photo they missed because they left their camera at home.
 
Photography as an art is not dead. Photography is alive, thriving, and being practiced now by far more people than before, thanks to digital cameras. The fact that we seem to like (and emphasize) one particular process over others... doesn't validate the process as "the best"; only as the one we like.

I for one, while am not crazy about digital media, have to recognize that without it, I couldn't do what I do with my cameras and film. Sure, I ponder about choices... only to the extent that they may make my life easier. Hence, I pick my B&W films based on their "pushability" and the time they require to be souped in developer (the less the better). If this makes me less of a photographer... so be it.

Now, I'm going to Providence, RI, tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be able to shoot some snapshots on Friday morning. 🙂

Have a cool day! 😉
 
If I may contribute my very humble opinion - I think there are no rules, there never were any rules. Some folks need "rules" to adhere to in order to excel, others excel in making and breaking them at will. What bothered me a bit in the original question is the "should I". I (again, very very humbly as I am merely a student) say let's leave the rules to the monks and have fun making images any which way we can 🙂
 
akptc said:
If I may contribute my very humble opinion - I think there are no rules, there never were any rules. Some folks need "rules" to adhere to in order to excel, others excel in making and breaking them at will. What bothered me a bit in the original question is the "should I". I (again, very very humbly as I am merely a student) say let's leave the rules to the monks and have fun making images any which way we can 🙂
Click to expand...

Three cheers to that! 🙂
 
Im a fairly young guy (27) and I shoot pretty much only film. I buy it cheap (walgreens/fuji $1 a roll) and get the negatives processed. I then scan them at home, and post them online. I make prints only when people ask for them (which is rare because my pictures aren't that good).

I have bought more expensive film, but it didn't make a difference for me once I started messing with the negative using the software.

The game has changed. I took photography in high school and we made wet prints, black and white. I have so much more control over the negative to make the image I want with a digital darkroom.

My main concern is proper exposure, which makes for better scanning.
 
Hi Nick,
I feel your concerns and understand implicitly.
It seems as though we all shoot now for an end result. Its the way we are conditioned to think. I shoot for various reasons, but after the camera part is done, I do everything for longevity. I develop to get my negatives as flat as I can, I use the developer that does the job in the most chemically sound way, I process to make sure the film will last for as long as possible. I shoot frivolously with direction, I develop with conviction.

I get a feeling of great relief knowing that when I have an image scanned on my computer that I have just ten feet away, in a safe with a real tangible solid piece of film which I know is real and I do not have to use anything other then the light of the sun to see that image.
I got stung when I lost then thousand images I shot on digital and put on DVDs and when I touched base those disks were unreadable... I still have the disks, but those images are inaccessible. So that is why I do what I do.
I never print my work anymore, I am highly trained printer, but I got blood poisoning from the chemicals Pneumonia and Emphysema, I printed little of my own work and mostly for clients and newspapers. I dont really feel the need to print my work, enlargers and darkrooms have no special appeal for me now.

My scanner is crude, my skills are cr*p, my images look OK but its the images that I shoot on slides -the ones I dont scan- are the ones I show in projectors because its the tightest cycle from camera to audience. No corrections no hiding, no faking it, I show my work, I get criticized, I learn and go shoot again and I get it right.
 
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irq506 said:
Hi Nick,
I feel your concerns and understand implicitly.
It seems as though we all shoot now for an end result. Its the way we are conditioned to think. I shoot for various reasons, but after the camera part is done, I do everything for longevity. I develop to get my negatives as flat as I can, I use the developer that does the job in the most chemically sound way, I process to make sure the film will last for as long as possible. I shoot frivolously with direction, I develop with conviction.

I get a feeling of great relief knowing that when I have an image scanned on my computer that I have just ten feet away, in a safe with a real tangible solid piece of film which I know is real and I do not have to use anything other then the light of the sun to see that image.
I got stung when I lost then thousand images I shot on digital and put on DVDs and when I touched base those disks were unreadable... I still have the disks, but those images are inaccessible. So that is why I do what I do.
I never print my work anymore, I am highly trained printer, but I got blood poisoning from the chemicals Pneumonia and Emphysema, I printed little of my own work and mostly for clients and newspapers. I dont really feel the need to print my work, enlargers and darkrooms have no special appeal for me now.

My scanner is crude, my skills are cr*p, my images look OK but its the images that I shoot on slides -the ones I dont scan- are the ones I show in projectors because its the tightest cycle from camera to audience. No corrections no hiding, no faking it, I show my work, I get criticized, I learn and go shoot again and I get it right.
Click to expand...


Hey, I really like that idea! I just may look into reversal processing for B+W neg film to create positives to project. Too bad Scala was so expensive and the processing difficult to obtain and not DIY.
 
Yeah it matters to me; the photos I frame and display are traditional darkroom prints. The computer is not involved.
 
Personally, I think the move from albumen plates was the beginning of the end, but 35mm film was what really destroyed photography as an art. Or was it colour film? No, hold on, it was digital. Anyway, photography can't be art. It's too easy.

It's only really art when you have to collect all your paint materials, mix them by hand, and make your own canvas and brushes. Sculpture only counts as art if you quarry the stone yourself.
 
NickTrop said:
2a. Wouldn't it be better, then, to shoot at lower ISOs, get an underexposed neg, with all the tonality intact in the properly exposed zones, and make the necessary adjustments digitally?
Click to expand...

No. The longer your scanner needs to expose to compensate, the noisier your negative will be. If you tell the scanner not to increase exposure, you will still be stuck with a relatively lower signal-to-noise ratio and the noise will be amplified along with the signal when you boost the exposure/brightness in post-processing.
 
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