On Saturday, March 23, 2002, at 04:32 PM, Bruce Rubenstein wrote: > Just about all the folks saying that digital has a ways to go yet, turn > out to > be spectators.
Bruce, I own a lab. I do a good business in large format inkjet printing. One thing I've learned is that just because someone is a working pro with a digital rig or a nice scanner setup it sure as hell doesn't mean they know thing one about using it right. Sometimes I want to cry when I see the results being churned out by people who have much better scanners than I could possibly afford. 35mm Provia 100F through our old Polaroid SprintScan 4000 (which sells for under $1k these days, I think, I paid $1800 CDN for it a couple of years ago, and we've since upgraded to a SprintScan 120) produces an image significantly better than anything we've seen from our customers using D1s and D30s, particularly in terms of black detail and fine texture. Current digital has a smoothness to it that masks its lack of detail. The images are sharp, but the detail is not there. It was particularly evident in some NHL images that we printed, where the fibres of the jerseys were just not visible, despite the razor sharpness of the images. The difference is quite noticeable at 11x14 with every camera I've seen so far, but I expect this to change. Having seen the printing side of things, I would not hire a digital wedding photographer for my wedding (but I would also not hire someone who used excessive softening filters in shooting or printing, either). It is not to my taste. However, if one were shooting 'soft' images in the first place, and that was the desired result, today's digital is entirely capable. If the final result is for printing at 8x10 or smaller, or reproduction in a lower-resolution magazine or a newspaper, digital rocks. If you want to make nice 11x14s or 16x20s that rival traditional prints with plenty of detail, digital ain't there. Yet. -Aaron - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
