Digital BW, The Print

Kevin,

good questions....  I just want to put in my two cents on the "quality" front:

There are some issues that are purely technical and measurable and can be 
said to promote "quality" in that sense. For example, a bad scan will make a 
bad print . Or if you do copy work with a softer-than-perfect lens you are 
cheating yourself and your client.

Then there are issues of style and subject matter and other creative choices in 
which the notion of "quality" has to apply in a purely subjective way. In that 
context, less or more grain, less or more optical aberrations, fewer or more 
tonal transitions are entirely up for grabs. I see many people gravitating 
towards larger formats and super sharp optics and grainless films purely on 
the basis that this will result in higher "quality" photography. What this leaves 
out is "of what?". What is the merit of this extra technical "quality" in view of the 
style and subject  of the images?

I offer this distinction in the use of  the term "quality" only as "food for thought" 
in this thread....

Antonis



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Kevin Gulstene <kevin@d...> wrote:

> Obviously some cameras are best suited to some tasks.  In this little
> experiment it was a simply lit still life and I was judging quality
> primarily in terms of that 'richness', and the subtly of tonal transitions
> (scrupulously avoiding DyR and DnR <g>).
> 
> That led me wonder what other people felt contributed most to improving the
> quality of their images over their digital learning curve?
> 
> 
> Kevin Gulstene