Digital BW, The Print

Scott McLoughlin wrote:

> Your description of students shooting LF, made me wonder something.
>
> I'm not so interested in the progress of digital in the "pro" and
> "consumer"
> markets. Understandable.  And reasonably well described and report on.
>
> But what's the medium of choice for "fine art" photographers, whether
> "pro" or "serious amateur?"   Or rather, why are these folks going digital
> or sticking with film (or both, which I suspect is common with this
> demographic)?  How does color or B&W orientation effect the choice
> of medium?  Who is printing digitally or sticking with the darkroom?
>
> Scott

Interruptions and fumble-fingers aside, let me try this again:

I'm one of those "fine art photographers" of whom you speak. I make most 
of my captures to 5x4 Tri-X. A few to 5x4 160PortraVC. These I drum 
scan, and print with inkjet printers. My ink of choice at the moment is 
the selenium PiezoTones. I typically print to HPR, or BC Brilliance II 
canvas.

Why use film for this duty? Some reasons:

1) Better dynamic range. Tri-X will give me around 11 stops (as does 
160PortraVC). Excellent response from shadow detail to highlight detail 
on a white flower in full mid-day July sun. The drum scanner can pick it 
all up with ease so I don't have to do any N- or N+ development tricks. 
Expose for the shadows and let the highlights fall where they may.

2) Quality of big prints. I print some of these images at 12x 
enlargement. My biggest print to date is 150 x 93 cm. I can print that 
size at native printer resolution (360 ppi output) without 
interpolating. This results in "nose sharp" prints with astounding 
detail (trust me).

3) Parallel vs. serial capture. When I expose a sheet of Tri-X, I expose 
the entire sheet pretty much at once. That is, all parts of the sheet 
are exposed in parallel. If I use something like a Better Light scanning 
back, the image capture is done by scanning across the image area - 
exposure is done serially. This means that anything moving is effected 
oddly - like moving clouds or water. And I like to keep my rivers and 
streams looking like rivers and streams.

But the biggie for me is:

4) Specific weight. That is, resolution per unit weight. The only 
digital capture system that equals what I'm doing right now is a Better 
Light scanning back. The entire thing, with batteries and photocells for 
maintaining the batteries' charge was about 10Kg last time I checked. 
That's without the laptop to store the images and run the software.

My entire kit right now - LF camera, four lenses, tripod, ball head, 
meter, 10 film holders, etc... is 16+Kg. That's a haul if you are 
climbing mountains starting at 1300m and trails that go for 15km or so. 
If you think I'm adding more than 10Kg on top of that, think again. I'm 
not big enough, or young enough, or dumb enough (although people argue 
about that last point).

These are practical reasons. I'm not going to argue about "digital 
resolution" vs. "film resolution" or the quality of "CMOS noise" vs. 
"film grain" until digital solves these other problems. And I doubt it 
will because what I'm doing is just a tiny fraction of the huge 
photography market. IOW, I'm not holding my breath.
--
Bruce Watson
www.achromaticarts.com