Digital BW, The Print

On 9/4/02 7:18 PM, "akivisuals" <akivisuals@...> wrote:

> Does anyone here have input as far as shooting digitally vs.
> scanning transparencies or negatives?  I have heard that you
> can get more latitude with digital.

This is a frequent source of arguments on this list, but in my experience
shooting 35mm and 6x7cm film and a Nikon D1x 6 megapixel camera I get a
significantly broader latitude with film not digital.  The digital images
are nice for 8x10 BW prints but for larger work I prefer a 4000dpi scanned
negative.  I also find it very difficult to capture high contrast images
with digital...because either the shadows or the hilights are gone.  I've
often thought that you could capture these scenes by bracketing and then
blending the images in photoshop...but that would only work for static
situations.  Overall, I frequently use digital for color work or commercial
BW jobs and then shoot BW film (and sometimes color neg film) for my fine
art work.  One other thing that I find digital useful for are lower contrast
scenes where the lightening is really difficult.  In some cases I will use
the digital as a very expensive light meter...capturing an image...checking
it and then using similar settings on a film camera.

Robert