Digital BW, The Print

>> Yeah, darkrooms...I still have my enlarger after 15 years and I NEVER
>> had to replace anything on it. I wish I had the space in my new house
>> to set it up again and forget this digital mess.
>
> Scanners and/or digital cameras with enough
> resolution to make large prints are not cheap.  (But I remember my
> wet darkrooms and cameras and lenses weren't exactly cheap, either.)

Perhaps this will work itself out as the technology matures, but right  
now one of the most disturbing aspects of "digital printing" is the  
short life and throw-away nature of at least some of the equipment. My  
oldest 8x10 camera in use was manufactured no later than about 1925,  
my favorite 4x5 is from 1960, my favorite 120 is from 1960, and my  
favorite 35mm is from about 1980. They are not outdated. They  
accommodate contemporary lenses and films. On the other hand, my  
Olympus 5050Z, Minolta Xt, Sony DSC-V3 and Canon 350D show their age,  
and cannot produce the same quality as my Canon 5D.  In the digital  
world I don't buy an improved film... I have to buy an improved  
camera.  In my darkroom I have enlargers 20+ and 30+ years old. In my  
digital lightroom I have two moribund Epson printers, functioning  
printers dedicated to B&W and to color, and a "wide format" printer on  
order. All of these will probably die within five years. Epson doesn't  
even make it easy to replace the printing heads on $1000 printers,  
something that would extend their lives considerably. What a waste of  
resources!

One *plus* to digital printing that I have never seen mentioned is  
that (as nearly as I can tell) ordinary inkjet printing is  
"vegetarian" or even "vegan", while traditional photography as it is  
now practiced depends on gelatin. ...

Myron