I lost control of my color images. That was high on my list of reasons for switching to digital. Yes, BW was fine. (And it remains so. I still have a very nice darkroom.) But for much of what I do, I have to shoot color. The best lab in the area was consistently kinking my 120 film so that frame number one -- and sometimes number two as well -- was almost always ruined. My color negative film was frequently coming back dirty and scratched. Color printing from every source I could find was inconsistent at best, abominable at worst. To print my own work, I had to scan, which is more time consuming than RAW conversion. I might have solved the problem by shipping my film off to still more expensive labs and suffering through a week long turnaround. But digital solved it nicely. Paul
> But Ken, we always had control of our images. With B&W, for example, one > could choose from numerous emulsions, many ways to expose, a wide choice of > developers and development techniques, many paper choices and paper > developers and developing techniques, and an almost infinite number of ways > to make the final print. Plus there was toning with many types of toners. > > And even with color film there was control, albeit perhaps not quite as > much. > > What you're saying is that now with digital we have another set of controls > to learn and master. > > I don't think it's at all about control so much as it is about style and > technique and preferences. I also think that a lot of people shoot digital > because they are lazy. They want the camera to think for them, the > computer to solve their exposure problems and fix any defects in the image, > and they want a quick output so they can use the results immediately. Of > course, there are certainly plenty of photographers who don't take that > lazy approach, and work on their images diligently and with great care, but > by and large - and i think this is part of a greater trend in society - > fast is more important than good. Acceptable has become good enough. And > what is acceptable quality is also diminishing - there's a moving bar, and > it's moving lower and lower. Let's do the Quality Limbo, mon! > > I think it was Calvin Trillin who, many years ago, wrote an essay entitled > "The Decline and Fall of Breakfast." I'll never forget the first sentence > of that essay:: "Gone is the butterball, gone is the rightly crisped > rasher." I was thinking of those words yesterday while trying to enjoy a > bran muffin and a cup of coffeee at one of the local breakfast places > yesterday. I got a hard little piece of butter wrapped in foil to go with > the muffin and the warm coffee. The coffee was warm, not hot, because the > restaurant was concerned about law suits should some careless dolt spill > coffee on themselves. Serving this type of food would have been > unthinkable at this place a few years ago, and now it's acceptable for the > sake of expediancy and cost. And it's now acceptable to the customers as > well. > > Well, I better get off my soap box before being pelted with virtual > tomatoes and eggs. > > Shel > > > > [Original Message] > > From: Kenneth Waller > > > Yep, we're all control freaks. (Control of the image which I didn't > directly have before). > >
