Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale <stevekale@...> wrote:
...
> > So what? I'd argue that few but sports, street, or documentarions or
> > the like should be shooting 35mm color film anyway. I don't know
> > anyone that does except for snapshots, maybe low end retail fashion
> > guys, but they are rightly all digital now.
> 
> Interesting.  I know of no high-end fashion photographer who is sill
> shooting film consistently except when a P45 can not yield the desired
> "print" size - which about confines it to extreme billboard work.  Everyone
> I have worked with in London has moved to digital.  But again, each and
> every one of us can cite different examples of experience.

Read Steve, read. I said they are all digital now, rightly, and I said low end in fact. Of 
course the high end has mover there too, believe me I know. What you may not know, 
some at the high high end still shoot film.
> 
...
> ... It would be my expectation that the
> penetration of digital capture amongst professional photographers now
> dominates, that it (unsurprisingly) dominates the point and shoot casual
> observer, and that its penetration of hobbyists (especially the B&W
> enthusiast) is much more mixed - but rising.  Only a statistically
> significant set of poll results would confirm either way.  If it weren't
> better (for whatever reasons, and I note this discussion was only focussed
> on resolution, grain and the ability to institute gain) then its adoption
> would likely have failed in most or all segments.

In the world I live within, the success or failure of a technology or product has little to do 
with being "better", whether or not any human needs it, or whether or not it even works.
> 
> Given the trends in film production and particularly B&W film production,
> film enthusiasts would do well to bandy together and identify a means of
> protecting their access to this raw production material they hold so dear.
> Would a niche company like MIS be interested in, for example, in acquiring
> or arranging for film production facilities and acquiring the rights to
> start producing specialist films such as the beloved Tech Pan again? (I can
> imagine an impassioned plea to Kodak securing such rights for very little
> cost.) Presumably if it's so good there is a ready market willing to pay for
> such a niche product - even if it has to be priced at a multiple (4x, 5x?)
> of what it once traded at? An entrepreneurial person, passionate about B&W
> film, would do well to investigate such an opportunity if they want to see
> the format survive.

That's almost humorous Steve. Don't worry about us, we'll be fine, even without ink 
companies taking a hard left turn into film manufacture...

T