Digital BW, The Print

when I first started shooting/scanning I was just as hostile toward 
anything but "real photography" as you are and I measured the grain 
in a Tri-X photo and back calculated the resolution needed to do 
resonable job capturing it and it was higher than any available 
scanners at the time and that was just for Tri-X and assuming that 9 
pixels could represent a grain clump which it really can't, and that 
was grainy Tri-X not Techpan.  What resolution are you scanning at?  
(or are you doing everything in a traditional darkroom and just on 
this list to argue with everyone?) :)

No, all that matters *IS* the print.  You don't look at a traditional 
print and say, "I can't tell if this is a good photo because I can't 
compare it to one shot with a different film or through a different 
lens.  You look at the image and either like it or not.  Edward 
Weston shot many of his photos with a crappy meniscus lens, not top 
name German glass... and 8x10" will always beat 35mm... where do you 
draw the line?  When an image is "good," not based on the equipment.

mark

...
> > Also, since current scanners aren't capturing actual grain clumps 
the
> > benifits of silver based film is lost in the scanning process.
> 
> Please explain what leads you to draw that conclusion.
...
> I'm sure the image was fine, but without the ability to 1) see it, 
and 2)
> see it with a duplicate image taken with B&W film (correctly), it is
> physically impossible to see whether there would have been any 
advantage to
> shooting B&W film, so this is really a useless data point (WRT any
> comparison to B&W film).
...