Digital BW, The Print

The other week I rented a 4x5 camera to satisfy a long interest in trying
large format.  I was startled by quality of the prints that resulted.  They
seemed to be much "richer" (can't think of a more descriptive word), and
portrayed fine details as well as subtle tonal transitions much better than
I was able to with 35mm or medium format.  Over the past two and half years
I've worked with different scanners, different film, lots of scanning
techniques, and even more Photoshop techniques, but this simple change
eclipsed all the others in terms of contribution to my perception of the
quality of the print.

Obviously some cameras are best suited to some tasks.  In this little
experiment it was a simply lit still life and I was judging quality
primarily in terms of that 'richness', and the subtly of tonal transitions
(scrupulously avoiding DyR and DnR <g>).

That led me wonder what other people felt contributed most to improving the
quality of their images over their digital learning curve?


Kevin Gulstene

Kevin,

good questions....  I just want to put in my two cents on the "quality" front:

There are some issues that are purely technical and measurable and can be 
said to promote "quality" in that sense. For example, a bad scan will make a 
bad print . Or if you do copy work with a softer-than-perfect lens you are 
cheating yourself and your client.

Then there are issues of style and subject matter and other creative choices in 
which the notion of "quality" has to apply in a purely subjective way. In that 
context, less or more grain, less or more optical aberrations, fewer or more 
tonal transitions are entirely up for grabs. I see many people gravitating 
towards larger formats and super sharp optics and grainless films purely on 
the basis that this will result in higher "quality" photography. What this leaves 
out is "of what?". What is the merit of this extra technical "quality" in view of the 
style and subject  of the images?

I offer this distinction in the use of  the term "quality" only as "food for thought" 
in this thread....

Antonis



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Kevin Gulstene <kevin@d...> wrote:

> Obviously some cameras are best suited to some tasks.  In this little
> experiment it was a simply lit still life and I was judging quality
> primarily in terms of that 'richness', and the subtly of tonal transitions
> (scrupulously avoiding DyR and DnR <g>).
> 
> That led me wonder what other people felt contributed most to improving the
> quality of their images over their digital learning curve?
> 
> 
> Kevin Gulstene

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Kevin Gulstene <kevin@d...> 
wrote:

> That led me wonder what other people felt contributed most to 
improving the
> quality of their images over their digital learning curve?
> 
> 
> Kevin Gulstene

I'm going to re-interpret your question.

I never went beyond medium format. In fact, at one point I was blowing 
up  tiny 11mm ISO 400 Minox negatives in darkroom to 11 x 14!

I have images that have great slabs of 100%k in them, washing over the 
print. One like this is considered one of my best prints. Sometimes I 
am VEEERY carefull about my histograms. <shrug>

The most important thing to me in improving my images is learning when 
to follow the rules and when to throw them out the window judiciously.
Jim H.