Digital BW, The Print

I had a similar experience this summer, but with digital.  I took a trip 
through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado (in 5 days - if it's 
Thursday it must be . . .) and came home with 500+ digital images.  Many of 
these are just out the car window driving across the vast prairies (it has 
been 30+ years since I've been out there, and not much seems to have 
changed.)  Most of these images will never be printed, many have windshield 
reflections and bug splatters in view, but I can browse through a slide 
show on my computer (or on the PDA I just got) and remember what it was 
like.  I never would have taken many of those shots on film, and if I had 
taken film and been willing to pay for processing, it is most unlikely I 
would ever get around to looking at them again.  (I have trays full of 
slides, none of which have been viewed in 20 years, largely because of the 
nuisance of setting up projector and screen.)

I did get some very nice images in Santa Fe, Taos and Chama, NM, as well as 
along the narrow gauge railroad from Chama into Colorado.  I will probably 
print 75-100 of the images in 8x10 size or so, and bind them into a book 
that I can flip through at leisure.  Or maybe I'll print them at 5x7 in 
color, and only print a few of the best ones larger in black and 
white.  With digital capture I have all of these options at practically no 
capture cost after buying the camera and lenses, and paying for the paper 
and ink to make the contact sheets.  If I were still shooting film I know I 
just wouldn't have all of these choices, as I almost never shot color film 
(probably 20 total color rolls in 30+ years, compared to 200+ rolls of B&W 
a year) and would not have spent the film to capture random views of the 
Texas panhandle at 75 miles an hour in black and white.

So maybe I did shoot "too many" digital images on that trip.  But I flushed 
the unfocused, blurred and duplicate ones (I took about 700 shots overall,) 
I can look at all of the rest conveniently, and do something special with 
the good ones, all as I decide after the fact.  This flexibility at very 
little marginal cost is what caused me to not take a film image once I got 
a good digital SLR in 2002, and to sell my dozen or so film cameras this 
past summer.  (I did keep an Olympus Stylus Zoom P&S just in case, but I 
have not used it in two years, and I suspect it will never be used 
again.)  So on the whole, I'm delighted with the possibilities that digital 
capture offers.

Cheers,
Kip

At 11/29/2003 08:34 PM +0000, you wrote:

>Our recent trip to Europe 3 weeks long. The wife and I shot 82 rolls
>of film Approx 35 rolls of Provia 30 rolls of Superia the balance
>being XP-2 and 1/2 frame. Developing at the local Pro lab hit
>$1100.00 with a nice discount. I have 5 full 140ct carousels she
>sorted down to 3 large Parker albums and I have a couple of 4X6 flip
>books for the B&W prints.
>
>We saw and did a whole bunch of stuff that didn't invlove our cameras
>BUT we sure enjoy having the photos now that we are home.
>
>Mark W.