Digital BW, The Print

One tip on fixing.  If you're using a water stop, either do it in
running water or fill and dump on a few occasions.  Otherwise the
potassium salts left over from developing can intergere with the fix. 

But putting chemistry to one side, the debate on film vs digital has
brought to mind the debate over Leica Ms (a debate largely had by the
converted!).  What I like about my M and what defines my photography
with it:

- its speed (both shutter(no mirror) and manual focussing)
- its compactness
- its quietness (no mirror slap or motorwind)
- the quality of the lenses (especially at full aperture)
- the ability to see outside the film frame in the view finder
- ease of use

These qualities are reflected in the final image.  It's very
unobtrusive and speed gives you a different type of image.  You
capture moments.  People are less conscious of you. You get the second
shot, the third shot, more, before people realise you're there. I had
one moment when a priest stopped a christening to ask why I hadn't
taken any shots (3/4s of a roll in)!  

Let's not be snobbish of course.  Some of these qualities are shared
by disposable cameras! (a fact leica users conveniently ignore when
they rave about their Ms being 'whisper quiet')

When you come to the debate on quality, you enter another interesting
realm.  There is something I like about Tri X, 35mm.  I could shoot
Tmax, I could shoot 100 film.  But, there is something I like about it
- the gutsy grain.  I remember first seeing the in your face grain of
Salgado's 20 x 24" Workers series and being struck by it. 

And, of course, I've seen some fantastic work with a Holga.

So, turning to digital.

There doesn't seem to me to be any reason digital couldn't emulate
most of what I see as the advantages of the Leica - certainly speed,
quietness, lenses.  Compactness I have a bit of a question against -
from what I can tell, pixel sensor size is a big issue in image
quality and Ms might simply be too small to deliver a quality image in
digital. It seems the Epson rangefinder suffers from problems of
lenses coverage - stemming from the fact the lenses have to cover a
larger area than they're designed for.

Anyway, technology moves fast, so maybe that will change.

I wonder, though, how much of a market there is for some of the other
features in digital.  Your manual, rangefinder focus for example.

Just my two cents worth

Cheers
Gareth