Digital BW, The Print

On 5/20/03 9:54 AM, "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@...> wrote:

> So ... getting back to the topic of the list, what are your preferences when
> shooting black and white?  Do you ever shoot B&W digitally?


First of all...I should say I shoot theater and film still work and also a
fair bit of fine art model work.  The model work frequently involves motion
with a mix of ambient light and specialized flash techniques frequently out
of the studio in unusual locations. I also enjoy street and travel
photography.

For my film work flow I shoot tmax 100, delta 100, 400 (at 250-320) and 3200
(at 1600).  The tmax gets developed in RS and the deltas in D76 1:1.  I
shoot mainly with Leicas and a Mamiya 7II...but occasionally with a Nikon
F100...usually for fast action rear curtain flash motion shots. Typically I
scan the film with a Nikon 8000 film scanner using Vuescan...but I have had
images drum scanned from time to time using a crossfeld drum scanner.
Output is done with a variety of epson printers (7000, 1280, 1160 dedicated
for BW; 2200 and 1270 for color) using imageprint or inkjet control.  Much
of my digital vs. film comparison work was done with prints made using the
original piezo driver and either an Epson 1160 or 1280 running the original
cone quad inks.

I shot almost exclusively digital even for BW work with a Nikon D1 and D1x
for about 2 years...with the intention of using much of it for BW printing
before switching back to film.  I haven't used the Kodak dedicated BW
digital camera. I will frequently use the D1x in studio shoots to check
lighting effects before switching to film.  For the most part the SLRs are
much too noisy and obtrusive for the theater and film work that I do...and
make hand held ambient light work much less practical because of mirror
shake.  I always shoot the digitals in raw mode and use either MacBibble or
Nikon Capture 3 for image conversion.

I have a series of BW shots taken with my D1 that I like very much...but the
image sizes are roughly 2x3 inches.  When I push the images beyond 5x7 I'm
not happy with them.  I've used all the exotic enlargement, upsizing and
sharpening techniques...but the images just loose it beyond the small size.
They lack fine detail.  Even on model/portrait shots which many people talk
about being fine with digital in big enlargements...pore and hair structure
are lost and that really interferes with my being able to appreciate the
humanity of the shot.  When I switched to the D1x I found BW images that
didn't have much detail to be ok at 8x10...occasionally ok at 11x14...but I
definitely preferred the 8x10.  In contrast I will regularly print 35mm film
images shot with Delta 400 at 10x15 and have pushed them larger with good
success. I'm happy with full frame, 6x7 neg Delta 400 shots up to about
20x30in...so I'm not biased against larger images...but I've never seen
anything from my D1x that I wanted to print in BW beyond 11x14.

Just my experience,

Robert


> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Morrison" <rmorrison@...>
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 18:47
> Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Cost of digital (was full-format yada yada )
> 
> 
>> On 5/20/03 8:40 AM, "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@...> wrote:
>> 
>>>> They only see the cost of the body but they
>>>> fail to take into account the cost of the film
>>>> and processing ...
>>> 
>>> Rather like digital photographers who only talk about the cost of film
> and
>>> processing, and sweep the $10,000 they've spent on gear under the rug.
>> 
>> I believe the expression is penny wise, pound foolish.
>> 
>> Having been at producing images via a computer since the 80's I can safely
>> say that shooting film and developing and printing it yourself in a dark
>> room is much, much cheaper in the long run if you don¹t consider time and
>> you are in it for the long haul.  The $100,000's that I've spent on
> computer
>> and digital gear over that time period would have gone a long way for an
>> excellent darkroom and a whole lot of film, chemicals and equipment.
>> 
>> For my pro work...when I use digital it is always about time...when I use
>> film it always about quality.  For my art work...I have tried digital (D1
>> and D1x for about three years now)...but now I use film 90% of the time
>> because of shooting convenience and flexibility on what I want to do with
>> the image down the road.
>> 
>> Robert
> 
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