Mark C. wrote:
> I'm totally with you on this, Mike. I bought a 3 mp digital about a month
> ago, and just relish the freedom to walk around and shoot whatever. You
> can shoot hundreds of pics in a day, get the results instantly, see what
> works and what doesn't. The instant feedback and ability to just practice
> like mad results in a big boost in the learning curve.
That's the fun of it, all right. Besides the boost in the learning curve,
there's the economy of it. It used to be that shooting 3 rolls cost me $9
for the film, $1 for the processing chemicals and proofing paper, and, more
significantly, an hour and five minutes of my time to develop the film, plus
a certain unspecified amount of time to clip and sleeve the film and make
the contact sheet. I can't really have the results sooner than the next day
(since I usually develop at night and leave the film hanging to dry). Then,
with my own working method, I had to add to that the labor of making 6 to 12
workprints per roll. Shooting digital is utterly free and instant. You can
do it all day long.
I think the thing I might like best is the fact that I no longer need to
workprint. You just slide the card into the card reader, and you can see
your picture as big as your computer screen happens to be.
The feedback element you talk about is really significant. Although practice
and knowledge certainly helps, traditional photography is always at least to
a small extent a guessing game. One thing I've noticed about my own shooting
is that if I have an idea in mind, I can shoot it repeatedly until I get
just what I want. I used to occasionally do a lot of shooting in 35mm just
to cover my ass, to make sure I "got it." Now I can KNOW that I got what I
wanted, and trash the rest on the spot.
Not only can you keep on the camera the things you think might be promising,
but then you only need to archive what you want to keep. I don't know about
you, but I think the highest yield I ever got off a single roll of B&W was
nine prints I really liked...maybe it was 12. The vast majority of rolls
fall in the range of 1 to 6 negatives I want to workprint, and I've shot
plenty of rolls where not a single thing interested me once I saw the
results in the cold light of morning. With digital you're no longer
responsible for processing and archiving that vast mass of detritus.
> I still shoot film for more serious stuff - there are not the long lenses
> and marcos (with decent working room) available ofr my digital. Also, the
> image quality of a well exposed slide still beats a 3.3 MP image. But
> there are some very unique advantages to digital that are worth delving into.
I read some fascinating comments recently written by a guy who signs himself
Peter iNova--I don't know his real name. He pointed out that the resolution
cutoff for digital is relatively severe--because, in his words
(paraphrasing), "You can't resolve half a pixel within a pixel." But, UP TO
that resolution limit, there is NO loss of contrast. Where film loses
contrast gradually as resolution increases (this is what modulation transfer
function plots), digital can put a solid black pixel next to a solid white
pixel, for theoretically maximum contrast up to the resolution limit of
pixel size. Neither one is inherently better or worse (although for specific
scenes or intentions one might be better than the other), but they ARE
different.
Plus, smooth areas of color/tone can be much smoother. As we all know, in
the more heavily exposed areas of a single B&W negative, say a clear sky,
the film still has to express the tones by a buildup of grain clumps. But
with digital, a pixel has a single tone and a single color. Put it next to
another pixel of the same tone and color, and there is NO boundary and
NOTHING to interrupt the smoothness of the tone. This advantage is tempered
somewhat by the size of the inkjet dots if you're printing in inkjet (dye
sub isn't limited in this way), but with the current 4 picoliter dot size, I
can barely see the inkjet dots under a low power loupe...certainly, you
can't pick them out with the naked eye. Smooth gradations are similarly
excellent, because putting one blue-sky pixel next to another that is just
ever so slightly a different color or density is so far below the threshold
of JND (just-noticeable difference) that it is invisible.
Finally there's color purity--as is well known, color negative materials
cannot depict something so simple as a pure yellow, because the dye layers
are always at least slightly contaminated by the other dye layers. The best
exception has traditionally been dye transfer printing, because you lay dyes
on the paper completely discretely. But, as Frank McLaughlin once said, one
lifetime is not long enough to become both a master photographer and a
master dye transfer printer <g>. (Even Eliot Porter, who worked in dye
transfer for most of his life, enlisted the services of a master dye
transfer printer, a guy named Jim Bones.)
Olympus now makes a small-footprint dye sublimation desktop printer called
the P400. It costs $1k (less if you buy an Olympus digicam at the same
time), can print up to 8x10, and the results can be simply marvelous�like
the best type C prints you ever saw. Cost per print is about $1.80 for an
8x10. Personally I prefer the look of inkjet prints. I haven't quite learned
how to control it yet�color management is no tiptoe through the tulips�but
I'll get there.
--Mike
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