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[OM] Re: Analog Forever

Subject: [OM] Re: Analog Forever
From: AG Schnozz <agschnozz@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 13:34:58 -0800 (PST)
> The digital rush is beginning to concern me. As a beginner, I
> want to believe that film-based analog systems have a serious
> edge over filmless digital both in terms of ultimate
> performance (interpret as you wish here) and in terms of
> durability of media.

I'm constantly battling the storage and organization problems of
digital, but these are growing pain issues and find that any
"solution" today is worth about two years of peace and mind.

Is digital taking over for me?  Well, for commercial work, yes!
I hardly shoot any film anymore for "hire" work.

Is digital an adequate replacement to a full-blown analog B&W
setup?  Hardly.  It's getting closer, but the biggest problem is
in the response curves.  You can mimmick the response curves,
but the problem is that in digital you are mimmicking the look
in a much narrower brightness band. There is a noticable
"fullness" to a chemical B&W print that is not easily achieved
with digital.

A hybrid approach to B&W is to shoot digitally, edit and then
output to transparency material for making contact prints in the
darkroom. In the medium term, I'm heading that direction, but
for the time being, I still prefer to expose B&W film.  In the
past six months, that's been almost exclusively PanF+ and Delta
400 (35mm) and HP5+ (4x5).

As to stockpiling B&W materials, that isn't a good idea. I
believe that even if Kodak, Fuji and Ilford completely stopped
manufacturing B&W materials that there will be adequate
"boutique manufacturers" out there to supply our needs for the
time being. Most of my printing papers and chemicals are already
sourced through these alternatives.

However, the moment Ilford announces the discontinuence of Delta
400 or PanF+ you'll either see me take out a loan for a lifetime
stash or I'll bail and go 100% digital.

AG


                
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