stupid M9/digital question

[ymc226]

Does digital allow the fine tones in B&W compared to film (35 and 120mm)?

So far, I work only in film and only in B&W but if I can use my Leica lens on a FF RF, I would contemplate getting a M9 with an Epson 3800 printer.

What do people think of the results of a "wet" print 35mm enlarged to 11x14 compared to a digital b&W print using a high quality printer such as the Epson?

 

[Roger Hicks]

The answer is a firm, unequivocal 'it depends'.

Yes, you can get very nice B+W out of inkjet, and you don't need a Leica to do it, but it suits some subjects better than others. Overall, with all the thousands of silver halide prints and ink-jet prints I've seen (and I go to trade shows and exhibitions a lot more than most people) I still prefer silver halide for B+W.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Erik van Straten]

A well made silver-gelatine print is chemically much more stable and will outlast a print from an inkjet-printer.
It is also more beautiful, but that's subjective.

Erik.

 

[rxmd]

All in all I think you can get very good prints out of the setup you describe. It's easy and very convenient just to print something. If you want very good prints there is a certain learning curve involved. This includes the processing of the image, the choice of the right inks (archival ink for extended durability, particular choices of dedicated black & white ink sets, etc.), the choice of the paper etc.

Basically the learning curve is similar to making good prints in the darkroom. In the darkroom it's easy to just slop a print on multigrade RC paper, but when you go into fine art printing, archival toning for durability etc. it takes quite a bit of work and practice to produce consistently beautiful prints.

One advantage of a digital workflow is colour (difficult to do in a home darkroom, easy to get in good quality from a good digital minilab). Another advantage is very large format prints - of you ever want a 30x40, you can simply take your digital files to a company that will print them on good photographic paper using a laser imager. You can also have them put on slide film if you want to show them to someone on a conventional projector. In that way you are probably more flexible with a digital system.

 

[Erik van Straten]

You can also have them put on slide film if you want to show them to someone on a conventional projector.

How is that done? Interesting!

Erik.

 

[gabrioladude]

All in all I think you can get very good prints out of the setup you describe. It's easy and very convenient just to print something. If you want very good prints there is a certain learning curve involved. This includes the processing of the image, the choice of the right inks (archival ink for extended durability, particular choices of dedicated black & white ink sets, etc.), the choice of the paper etc.

Basically the learning curve is similar to making good prints in the darkroom. In the darkroom it's easy to just slop a print on multigrade RC paper, but when you go into fine art printing, archival toning for durability etc. it takes quite a bit of work and practice to produce consistently beautiful prints.

One advantage of a digital workflow is colour (difficult to do in a home darkroom, easy to get in good quality from a good digital minilab). Another advantage is very large format prints - of you ever want a 30x40, you can simply take your digital files to a company that will print them on good photographic paper using a laser imager. You can also have them put on slide film if you want to show them to someone on a conventional projector. In that way you are probably more flexible with a digital system.

I agree with all said so far but a critical aspect hasn't been mentioned that is the computer and software

you need to properly colour calibrate your monitor

you have to download the proper paper profiles to get the best result

you need to figure out how to actually use the software (which can be a challenge....oh my goodness I let the printer control the colour and not the software....again)

you need to (ususally..!) install new drivers for your printer everytime you upgrade your operating system

you get frustrated spending time on the phone with the computer rep, the printer rep, the software rep while they argue who is really at fault when your printing is not working out the way it is supposed

see it is really easy (bah humbug....)

 

[Sonnar Brian]

All modern Digital cameras have color Mosaic filters in from of the sensor, and you have to convert to Monochrome. So that is strike One. You give up half the sensitivity and up to 4x the spatial resolution. If you are photographing a Blue or RED object, you have 1/4th the pixels under that Bayer pattern Mosaic Filter as you do with a monochrome sensor. The last Monochrome camera was the Kodak DCS760m, 6MPixels and 12 bits per pixel. Strike 2 with most DSLR's: the Anti-Aliasing Filter kills high-frequency information, necessary because of the Mosaic Filter. Not necessary with a Monochrome Sensor. The M9 does not use one, does Anti-Aliasing in software. I suspect it can be bypassed?

And Strike 3: The printers are not as good as making a real enlargement.

From my 1992 Monochrome DSLR. No Bayer pattern Mosaic Filter, No AA filter, no IR cut filter.

 

[rxmd]

I agree with all said so far but a critical aspect hasn't been mentioned that is the computer and software

you need to properly colour calibrate your monitor

you have to download the proper paper profiles to get the best result

you need to figure out how to actually use the software (which can be a challenge....oh my goodness I let the printer control the colour and not the software....again)

you need to (ususally..!) install new drivers for your printer everytime you upgrade your operating system...

Yeah, basically that's the digital equivalent of getting to know your various brands of paper, their tonality curves, their response to different toning procedures, the combinations of film and developer, your enlarging lenses, the procedures to make sure that enlarger baseboard and negative carrier are parallel, etc. pp.

Just like any other creative procedure, if you want really good results, you need to know your tools very well. This applies to computers just as it does to darkrooms.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

gabrioladude, do you do a lot of wet printing in a darkroom? It may be quick and easy to get some kind of print in the darkroom, but it can take hours (or days) to get a high quality exhibition print with traditional printing in a darkroom. And it can get expensive! I know. I had a darkroom for 40 years.

You can get some kind of print from a digital file even easier. But it can take hours (or days) to get a high quality exhibition print from a computer. Sound familiar?

But I can sit at my computer and print to my Epson with digital, which at age 59 I much prefer. 🙂

But the real bottom line is that we better make some peace with digital. If we want to continue being photographers beyond the near future.

 

[rxmd]

How is that done? Interesting!

Well basically you use a laser imager, except that you dont project on photographic paper, but on slide film instead. Usually you get 10 to 12 megapixels which is close to what slide film is capable of.

There is a fair number of companies that offer this sort of service (http://www.colorslide.com/ in the US, http://www.diapix.de/ in Germany, just as examples). It costs about $1-$1.50 per slide currently.

 

[sepiareverb]

One advantage of a digital workflow is colour (difficult to do in a home darkroom...

That C-printing is difficult seems to be an urban myth. Current chemistry is quite generous with temperature control (same as B&W) and papers are even cheaper than B&W. I hadn't printed color in over twenty years and my third print was on the mark. I've since spent lots of days C-printing with a very high success rate. I'd suspect that C-printing costs less than inkjet printing, but having no inkjet printer I don't know for sure.

 

[rxmd]

That C-printing is difficult seems to be an urban myth. Current chemistry is quite generous with temperature control (same as B&W) and papers are even cheaper than B&W. I hadn't printed color in over twenty years and my third print was on the mark. I've since spent lots of days C-printing with a very high success rate. I'd suspect that C-printing costs less than inkjet printing, but having no inkjet printer I don't know for sure.

I must say I hated it. Fiddling around with trays with RA-4 chemicals in the dark, no safelight, colour calibration is a pain if you want to get it right, you begin to notice the limits of your enlarging lenses on larger formats, etc. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I find it easier to go to a minilab I know, ask for the colour profile of their imager and have them print from files for low amounts of money. Different strokes for different folks I guess 😉

 

[Erik van Straten]

Well basically you use a laser imager, except that you dont project on photographic paper, but on slide film instead. Usually you get 10 to 12 megapixels which is close to what slide film is capable of.

There is a fair number of companies that offer this sort of service (http://www.colorslide.com/ in the US, http://www.diapix.de/ in Germany, just as examples). It costs about $1-$1.50 per slide currently.

Thanks for this information. I suppose when you generate a negative from your image in Photoshop and you make a slide from it you can put the slide in an ordinary enlarger and print it normally. Sounds easy, but the price, $1,50 per slide, is quite high.

Erik.

 

[sepiareverb]

Different strokes for different folks I guess 😉

It all comes down to craft vs. convenience I suppose. The same thing that has crept into most of modern life. I admit I get endlessly more pleasure from making something than by having it made for me, be it a photograph, a shed, my food or my firewood.

 

[tom_uk]

It all comes down to craft vs. convenience I suppose. The same thing that has crept into most of modern life. I admit I get endlessly more pleasure from making something than by having it made for me, be it a photograph, a shed, my food or my firewood.

As long as you know that you will be able to make it to your satisfaction.

I just cannot get colour balance right. I've read all the books, I understand the theory, but when I've got an image in front of me that "doesn't look right" (in terms of colour) I simply cannot see how to fix it. Even if I could, I doubt my ability to actually achieve it.

So I do my own mono work - digital at the moment, wet darkroom in the past, and (who knows?) perhaps in the future again - but get any colour scanning & most printing done professionally. it's far, far better for my blood pressure than trying to do it myself; and might even be cheaper. I once used an entire 25-sheet 8 x 12 pack of Cibachrome paper, plus chemicals etc, without getting a single print I was even half-way happy with....

 

[sepiareverb]

As long as you know that you will be able to make it to your satisfaction.

I have negatives I've never printed as well as I wanted to, in B&W and color. Part of the game for me. I'll revisit them if they hold up design-wise when I've learned something new to try, or come up with an idea for something that might work. Of course I could just scan them, perfect them with PS and have someone spit out a print (inkjet or silver), but that just doesn't work for me.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I just cannot get colour balance right. I've read all the books, I understand the theory, but when I've got an image in front of me that "doesn't look right" (in terms of colour) I simply cannot see how to fix it. Even if I could, I doubt my ability to actually achieve it.

Same here, though I've gotten a little better. I mostly shoot B&W because of this, although the new Pentax DSLR has superb AWB, and is allowing me to shoot more color. It'd be nice if the M9 had excellent AWB, and if I could eventually come to afford one.

 

[0bli0]

while i love colour developing, colour printing required a lot more planning, preparedness, and care. it's not that it was necessarily 'difficult', just more involved.

to answer the OP's question - the 'it depends' is pretty much spot on. it really depends on the individual, and also the exposure, light, etc. and also how you learn to deal with any limitations or characteristics that differe from what you're used to. personally, i think you will learn to adapt quite easily, yet still have plenty of room for your film-based work.

 

[ulrikft]

I print my BW on a Epson 3800, and I must say that if you calibrate the printer/your secreen, choose nice, heavy baryta-base paper... you get quite nice results. Better than I'm capable off getting when printing in the darkroom. And i get those results consistently!

 

[Turtle]

I have seen very good results from B&W digital, but you have to be genuinely good to get a good conversion and get a really pleasing greyscale. I think the noise from grain can help, whereas digital images can look a bit too clean. I am sure there are ways around this, but it would take some learning. I love the depth of a great silver print and when I start seeing images from digital files looking as pleasing to my eye I will be really interested. Right now, I would only consider taking colour files to a real expert for conversion to mono and printing. I dont have the experience to come anywhere near matching a wet print, personally.