Digital BW, The Print

Hi Digital BW folks,

I'm Alfie Wang, a 25-yr. old street/documentary photog who has become 
a lot more interested in digital b and w. I used to be a die hard 
traditionalist and thought that digital shooting and printing was a 
joke. However, my attitude totally changed when I saw some grand 
prints by G. Plantigina (look at photovillage.com gallery for 
examples) and the Leica shots looked stunning when I went there in 
person. I was stunned. The range of tonality and shadow details were 
captured beatifully. ;)

My head got a change instead. I've decided to try out inkjet printer 
of b and w prints. I plan to get a Epson C80 to start off some test 
prints and next year I will make the full change into B and W 
piezography using a Epson 1280 or 2200 (once Jon Cone gets the 
profiles for the printer 2200 model).

I even decided to add digital shooting in addition to my shooting 
with Leicas and Nikons. A Nikon Coolpix 775 does a very reasonable 
job in my opinion and for me, the method of shooting isn't as 
important as the ability to print what you see or desire to see ;)... 
so I have a few questions here:

1) Does anyone here use digital cameras and output into piezography 
(preferably Cone's inks I'm more interested in...)?

2) Which outfits do you shoot with personally? I'm very close to 
thinking about using some Holga shots and doing piezography on toy 
cameras??? A joke perhaps but worthwhile shot...

3) What perked your interested in digital black and white printing?

4) What made you switch from silver halide based processes to digital?

5) Why do die-hard traditionalists object to digital black and white 
prints? Tonality range? Shadow detail blockage? etc. etc.?

Thanks for your help and I look forward to working and learning (more 
of that) from the intelligent folks here who are more experienced 
than I am!

sincerely, Alfie