On Feb 8, 2008 4:36 PM, Scott Loveless <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > When Christie and I got the 750z I think I made a statement along the > lines of "I don't see a need for color film, anymore." Christie got a > K100D right after they came out and I started reaching for that for > quick snapshots. (I still do.) Shortly thereafter I got a K10D and > used that exclusively for several months. I certainly can't complain > about the camera. > > What I missed was the black and white process. Saint Ansel referred to > it as "donkey work". I also missed the tactile aspects of film in > general - putting slides in the trays, sleeving the negatives, etc. > Editing on a computer screen sucks, at least for me. It's even less fun > when I have to scan those slides and negatives, but at least I get to do > the touchy-feely part of photography that I really like. I no longer own > the K10D. > > I suppose the end result should be the driving factor, and that the > stuff in the middle shouldn't really matter. But for me that part in > the middle is the most fun. I'll try the digital thing again when > traditional black and white film, chemicals, and paper becomes too > inconvenient to purchase.
I've never done darkroom work. Not since high school anyway - and that's so long ago that it's quite prehistoric. I didn't like it then and I've never had the urge to start doing it. I know, "every ~real~ photographer should experience the darkroom process, yadda yadda yadda", and that may be true, but I never really did. Derive from that what you will. Beyond that, I enjoyed holding film up to the light, looking at an identifiable image; it made my work seem more tangible and real. This stuff about pixels hiding on discs, drives and solid-state cards spooks me a bit. OTOH, getting home from shooting, sticking the card in the computer and seeing screen-sized renditions of shots taken as recently as minutes ago is quite exhilarating - an instant gratification that film can never match. I enjoyed having my film in sleeves, those sleeves in binders, those binders on a bookshelf, waiting for me to look at them. I didn't like shuffling through binders and binders, looking for that one frame that "I know I took, I just don't know when and what roll it was on". Finding stuff in computer files is way easier. I guess what I'm saying is that, yes, there are things I like about film, but I'm finding there are things I like about digital, too. Right now, the convenience and price of digital outweighs whatever image quality advantages there might be with film (and keep in mind that as I continue to work with PS, that gap will likely diminish). I never thought I'd hear myself make that admission... cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
