Digital BW, The Print

Relying on lab processing using standard development for film is analogous
to a digital photographer processing files using only the "auto" setting in
the scanner and PS. The whole point of chemical fine-art photography is to
control the process for individual images, like the zone system, etc.

My landscape shoot next tuesday will involve five cameras:

4x5" with RVP color trannie film using late 1890s dagor cells in new shutter
with polarizing filter.

4x5" with Tmax 100 using Symmar or Super Angulon lens and yellow filter.

8x10" with Tmax 400 using T-R convertible and both polarizing & yellow
filters. 

I setup all three together side by side and shoot as the light changes.  I
do both dawn & dusk.  If birds or a fast breaking situation happens, I have
a Hassleblad loaded with fast color trannie and pola filter, and Fuji wide
loaded with B&W & yellow filter.

My point is that the discussion here is still talking about film like it was
some sort of generic image capture device, which is only the beginning of
the story.  How are you going to change the lens bookeh with a digital
camera?  I will have one of those too, which will serve as my Polaroid back
used to do, without the expense and messy trash.  I am glad to have digital,
it is a very profitable addition to the fleet, but for landscape work it is
not your main cash register.  The shoot will cost about $350 in expenses
alone and I am expecting to make a profit.  Digital would save less than 20%
of the cost, but would eliminate all the top products, which are: Large
format fiber silver gelatin, 4x5 trannie for publication use, and if I am to
believe many of the posts on this list, it may compromise the quality of
Super B size digital prints.  Two suitcases full of lenses from the 1880s to
new Nikkors will admittedly make a relatively small difference, but if you
expect to sell a print for $500 you better have excellence that
distinguishes your work from all the me-too stuff.

I am not anti digital at all, over half my orders are digital now, but one
is not a substitute for the other, and I want to give the customer what they
want, that is the way to make money in my experience.  I don't care how much
crap I have to haul around, the only thing that matters is getting the
picture.  One good shot will sell for the rest of my life.


> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Anthony
> Atkielski" <anthony@a...> wrote:
>> Clayton writes:
>> 
>>> It's a subject that has concerned me for a
>>> long time, as I've hinted at in past posts
>>> about my fear of losing the look and feel
>>> of particular films.
>> 
>> I worry about it, too.  There is a very widespread but mistaken
> belief that
>> the images produced by any B&W film can be duplicated by some magic
>> manipulation of a color image in Photoshop.
> 
> Why should this be so hard?   Every black and white film has a
> characteristic response curve, and that curve can be characterized
> for R, G, and B (because even modern "panchromatic" films are not
> perfectly panchromatic).    So if you start off with a wide-latitude
> color film, like Portra, what limitations do you bump up against
> trying to simulate a given B+W film?
> 
> It seems like all you have to do is compute a scalar from your
> source (color film) response curve to your target (B+W) response
> curve for each intensity level.   When you're done you have a vector
> of scalar values and that vector is the curve you use for your
> conversion.    What would NOT be described by that curve?   It would
> tell you how much shadow detail you get, how highlights look, how
> smooth or even midtones are, etc.