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barryfitzgerald

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« Reply #60 on: June 03, 2006, 07:56:09 pm »

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Given how the market is moving with Ilford hanging on by its teeth, kodak out of B&W, agfa dead, kodak closing its factories by the month and desperately trying to consolidate huge losses for the 6th year running..... As a matter of interest, what chemical B&W paper are you going to print onto in 30 years time and with what chemicals?
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Interesting!

Well as a b&w photographer, you would be amazed at how many of us still use film. I use digital too, but it cannot match film...yet...

Its simple economics...if there is demand, there will be supply...

And there is demand....I often wonder why people desire the death of film, nobody makes you use it you know! Kodak stopped b&w paper..not film
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #61 on: June 03, 2006, 08:37:13 pm »

You'd be surprised, but the economics is not that simple. There is something called overhead and scale economies. Below a certain break-even volume of production manufacfturers either lose money or they find more money is to be made shifting their resources into something else. Money and alternative earning opportunities are fungible. That's why the factories are closing even though a shrunken volume of demand remains. As the demand keeps shrinking so will the factories. It will reach a point when film and darkroom materials become quite costly niche products serving a very small fraction of the total photography market. I don't know the time path to near-extinction, but it's obviously quite steep.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #62 on: June 03, 2006, 09:21:51 pm »

Barry, it's not a matter of wanting or not wanting something to happen, when Ilford died I was still shooting med format Ilford in various speeds. I do not think at this point in time that inkjet printing is of any use except to fine art photographers with a lot of time and patience. Inkjet is certainly not a solution for a busy wedding/event photographer like myself printing hundreds of 7X5" proofs a week sometimes thousands. For the little landscape work I do inkjet is certainly not an affordable or viable solution. I read with dismay recently that Kodak are hiking up their colour chemical paper prices and given that almost all labs here in the UK are Fuji and Agfa is dead I am rather worried for a future where the economics will pull chemical printings carpet from under out feet before inkjet has matured to the point of easy accessability or affordability. Just looking at any digital printing forum is enough to scare me away from it!
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #63 on: June 03, 2006, 09:33:35 pm »

Ben, well you are confirming what I said just above about the behaviour of the economics. As for the comparative efficiency of inkjet printing, I believe that a large percentage of wedding and event photographers are fully converted to a highly efficient digital+inkjet workflow that saves them huge amounts of time and money for numerous reasons. Just on a personal note, I attended a Bat Mitzvah in the US last week and had a chat with the photographer they hired for the event. She uses a Canon 5D with a flash, and a slave unit, her workflow from capture through printing is standardized; she processes all the images through Adobe Bridge, Photoshop and a printer RIP using automated procedures. She told me there is no other way she could work given the high volume she does and the quality that is expected.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2006, 09:34:25 pm by MarkDS »
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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ddolde

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« Reply #64 on: June 03, 2006, 11:28:15 pm »

We're all gonna die !
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collum

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« Reply #65 on: June 04, 2006, 03:21:10 am »

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As a matter of interest, what chemical B&W paper are you going to print onto in 30 years time and with what chemicals?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=67310\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

the chemicals aren't really going anywhere... i regularly coat platinum, which hasn't been a major commercial product since the beginning of the last century. Hand coating silver is pretty easy, and the raw chemicals to do so are readily availaable.

coating film, though, is a bit more difficult

       jim
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RobertJ

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« Reply #66 on: June 04, 2006, 03:35:42 am »

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We're all gonna die !
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Exactly.
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #67 on: June 04, 2006, 07:18:50 am »

Mark, economically and time wise it still doesn't make sense for me - for proof printing. There are no printers that can print and cut hundreds of 7X5" prints without any worry about ink etc, for the price I get from my lab where I drop off the CD and pick up the prints the next day.  If there is then I'm very interested to hear about it. Dye Sub is expensive and unarchieval. To put it into perspective I'm paying 10.9 pence per 7X5" cropped cut print on Fuji Crystal Archeive with perfect screen to print colour. If you can beat that and I include set up costs (printer/rip/time) then I'll switch if shown to me that an inkjet printer is an investment and not something that will be hard to find ther consumables for 3 years from now, or if it goes down, necessitate expensive and time consuming repairs. I'm a pro and I need backup but certainly cannot afford backup of a quality printer, or at least I don't think I can!
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BlasR

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« Reply #68 on: June 04, 2006, 08:04:37 am »

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We're all gonna die !
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I climbed mount sanai,(1999) & I ask God when I'm going to die. He tell me ask him again in  three thousand three hundred thirty three years with therty three days.
So I don't know if I'm going to die at all.  Amen to me

BlasR
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BlasR
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piksi

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« Reply #69 on: June 04, 2006, 08:43:32 am »

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It must be nice to have unlimited funds for freezers and electricity bills and the space to accomodate them all. I have three full-size freezers and they are all full of frozen food stuffs with one tiny corner given over to several hundred rolls of MF film that I buy in bulk. You wouldn't believe how hard I had to fight to displace a half dozen frozen hams that were encroaching on that space.

I'm afraid that even if I could afford more freezers or the power for them, my wife would commandeer them anyhow. Part of living in the country where you're at least an hour and a half away from decent shopping.   

My negs will have to continue to live in the old metal filing cabinets that I've been picking up at government auctions for $5 apiece, and on DVD.

Sorry, I didn't mean to boast.  I have quite many restrictions too, here in downtown helsinki majority of people live in appartment house flats which aren't really that great in size (except for the ones that cost incredibly much). I currently live in a 59m^2 flat with my wife and I've really had to struggle making enough space even for my needed working space for architecture stuff. I share my light table between the negs and drawings and my displays, computers etc are shoved inside a bookshelf to save space  I can't afford nor have space for my own dark room - luckily I have access to a large darkroom, 2 studios and a couple of sinars at the helsinki dept. of architecture thanks to my studies, otherwise my photographing would be severly limited compared to what it is now..

Imho it's fair to say that actually the photopapers and films in our refrigerator take less space than the digital backups and storage for my photos, because I scan backups of my films too.  So I'm struggling with storing heaps and piles of dvd's
« Last Edit: June 04, 2006, 08:43:53 am by piksi »
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #70 on: June 04, 2006, 09:09:01 am »

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Mark, economically and time wise it still doesn't make sense for me - for proof printing. There are no printers that can print and cut hundreds of 7X5" prints without any worry about ink etc, for the price I get from my lab where I drop off the CD and pick up the prints the next day.  If there is then I'm very interested to hear about it. Dye Sub is expensive and unarchieval. To put it into perspective I'm paying 10.9 pence per 7X5" cropped cut print on Fuji Crystal Archeive with perfect screen to print colour. If you can beat that and I include set up costs (printer/rip/time) then I'll switch if shown to me that an inkjet printer is an investment and not something that will be hard to find ther consumables for 3 years from now, or if it goes down, necessitate expensive and time consuming repairs. I'm a pro and I need backup but certainly cannot afford backup of a quality printer, or at least I don't think I can!
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Ben, we all need to do what makes the most sense in our circumstances. I was only drawing  attention to one example of many working profesionals who operate a totally integrated digital workflow, but what works for some will not necessarily be optimal for others. If you and your lab are well colour-managed between yourselves and the lab produces what your clients are willing to pay for, you have accomplished something that isn't usually easy to achieve, so it sounds as if you should cherish it. Also the cost seems eminently reasonable. I can't produce a 5*7 out of my Epson 4800 for 11 pence - (assume we are talking UK, which in CAD would be about 22 cents).

That much said, I believe according to Henry Wilhelm's testing, Fuji Crystal Archive properly handled will not begin to deteriorate for about 65 years, which is conisderably shorter than said to be achievable with Epson K3 inks and media. This could be a problem for BlasR because the guy on top of Mt. Sinai told him he has 3333 years and 33 days to live - so he really needs thosse inkjet prints and a very long memory - but for the rest of us mere mortals 65 years would outlive the longevity of the average marriage by many years, and who knows whether the grand-children would really be interested in all those wedding photos anyhow! I keep getting asked what I'm going to do with all these photographs from my 4800 I'm "archiving", and all I can respond is "enjoy them" and hope that some time in the future my descendants will enjoy them too. What to say.  
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #71 on: June 04, 2006, 09:20:58 am »

Hey I'm open minded (ish), if there is an inkjet solution that is more economical then I will use it, my decision to go digital has been an economical one from day one though the other perks are nice.

As for the archival properties of the paper, heck it's as good as anyone has been getting until now save B&W silver prints, customers cannot complain that I'm not giving them at least the industry standard.
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #72 on: June 04, 2006, 09:52:07 am »

Ben, if your customers are happy and that is the objective, fine. It's when you need more on-the-spot custom control over the printing, more longevity, and more flexibility with media and subject matter that the inket solution becomes rather inescapable.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Ray

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« Reply #73 on: June 04, 2006, 12:35:49 pm »

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To put it into perspective I'm paying 10.9 pence per 7X5" cropped cut print on Fuji Crystal Archeive with perfect screen to print colour. If you can beat that and I include set up costs (printer/rip/time) then I'll switch if shown to me that an inkjet printer is an investment.... [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=67343\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Geez! Ben, and I thought the U.K is an expensive place compared with Australia. I pay around A$290 for a 30M roll of 600mm wide Epson Premium Lustre.

If my maths is right, 5x7 is 125x175mm = 0.021875 M^. 30M x0.6M = 18M^. Allowing for a small amount of wastage, I would expect to get about 800x5"x7" prints from the roll. $290/800 = 36 cents = 14.5p per print. I don't know exactly what the ink costs would be, but the impression I get is they are about equal to the cost of premium paper, so I reckon just the cost of consumables would be around 29p per print for me, using the Epson 7600. Factor in depreciation on the printer, general overheads and my time, and the final cost would be at least double.

11p per print?? You're kidding!
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #74 on: June 04, 2006, 12:51:48 pm »

Gosh and how did we manage before Inkjets matured to that point (a year ago?)    

I print on Fuji Crystal Achive, Fuji (wedding) pro paper, Kodak Pro Endura, Ilford Hi Gloss, Kodak Mettallic and canvas from an Epson depending on what lab I use for which purpose. I can email the pictures to all 5 labs and because they are all pro labs with well calibrated machines, the colour differences are so slight as to be easily ignored.
I did a test actually recently between my Fuji CA and Kodak Endura, one from a lab in the US one from a lab here, same 3 files. Little to no colour difference at all, infact far less difference than printing the same neg on those papers would give as the calibration of the machine/paper cancels out 98% of the papers colour attributes to neutral.
One thing I will say is that the Kodak makes far more neutral B&W's than the Fuji which have a green tinge (this is from 3 seperate labs, it's a machine/paper problem not operator I think) but I've never seen a B&W printed on colour chemical paper to come anywhere near a silver print.

For me, and  feel free to put me straight on this, this is only coming from my own preconceptions:
Inkjet printing is expensive relative to chemical printing from a regular lab;
Calibrating the printer is both expensive and time consuming involving RIP's, colour checkers, seperate profiles for each paper, etc;
Trimming the prints to size is time consuming and wasteful economically even when using a program to utilize the maximum amount of space;
Ink is expensive and extremely expensive when having to run wasteful cleaning cycles on a regular basis;
An inkjet printer has a limited life, I should not count on it as a 5 year plus investment;
Even were it to last that long the ink might be unavailible or difficult to find and expensive;
The industry is yet to mature to the point where it can overtake chemical printing in every way. What I mean is that B&W is still not there yet (has metamirism vanished as a problem yet? why are new papers still being released to solve problems etc?). Just recently it was pointed out that the Epson Matt papers are not there yet with the Matte ink.

Don't kill me for these points, they are what I think through what I've picked up over the web but I have no direct experience at all with inkjet printing of a professional standard. What it seems to me is that as yet it is not mature, just as digital photography has not yet matured. It also seems to be extremely expensive by the time you get it all right. I think I'll wait it out until it does mature and then if it is wise economically then I'll happily go for it.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2006, 12:54:16 pm by pom »
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #75 on: June 04, 2006, 01:43:34 pm »

Ben, a fair amount of what you are saying above is incorrect from my experience.

Whether or not inkjet printing is expensive compared with a lab depends on what size you are printing, how much customization you need, which inkjet printing system you are using and what kind of paper you need. One cannot generalize about this. Maybe you have one specific set of needs that come cheaper from your labs, but that is not the universe of situations.

Calibrating the printer takes about 2 minutes to print a target, and if you do your own profiling about 10 minutes to create the profile. If you send the target to a professional profiling service, the time it takes to mail the target, and about 50 dollars more or less. If you have a friend with a profiling kit, the friend can make it for you free - if a good friend! If you plan to use alot of different papers it may pay to buy a profiling system for about 1000 dollars, otherwise, you get a few profiles made and use them repeatedly. If you buy a RIP say from Colorbyte the profiles are included and any other profile you need is made free on request. ImagePrint RIP does all your layouts and is programmed to minimize wastage of paper relative to the layout parameters you give it. Many professionals swear by it for this purpose.

You can read my articles on this website about the cost of using an Epson 4800. But Epson is not the only show in town any longer and I understand other makes are less prone to clogging. The Epson 4800 is a substantial improvement over the Epson 4000 in this respect.

Inkjet printers - especially Epson's professional machines are built like tanks and physically they will far outlive their economic life, which is determined by technological obsolescence, not by wearing-out. You can keep it as long as you are happy not up-grading to newer technologies. That is a matter of personal choice.

Inkjet inks for whatever prevalent model you buy will most likely be available for years after most of these machines have been re-cycled out of use. We can't make iron-clad forward-looking statements about long-term availability of ink cartridges, but I've seen ZERO complaints anywhere on the internet about people not being able to get the supplies they need for their printers.

The general professional consensus is that this technology is mature and the highest quality black and white printing is now possible from the latest model inkjet printers being produced certainly by Epson and most likely by the new Canon offerings. You will find material on this website and in the L-L Video Journal attesting to this. There will always be people who refuse to believe this, but that is their problem, not an objective reality.

I have been doing inkjet printing for the past six years, starting with the Epson 2000P, graduating to the 4000 and since last November a 4800. I am doing work I never thought possible in both colour and B&W and there is no way I would even dream of getting into a wet-lab environment again, whether for colour or B&W - it is for most intents and purposes so surpassed that it's not worth talking about.

Considering what you get and the flexibility and possibilities it offers, and by the time you amortize the initial investments over a reasonable volume of output, this is a bargain and it will most likely keep becoming cheaper in real terms.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #76 on: June 04, 2006, 02:16:16 pm »

We live to learn!
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barryfitzgerald

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« Reply #77 on: June 04, 2006, 04:00:09 pm »

Well I am not printing in anywhere near the volume some people here are. And I wont go in depth into the overpriced inkjet cartridges debate...thats a clear one..

I have never found 35mm film (b&w) to be so cheap...processing I wont do myself...I have little interest in that area anymore. But I will carry on using film for as long as possible..though I shoot more digital.

I think the cost of processing film is cheaper than volume printing from an inkjet..and for most consumers, its really been false economy in a sense going digital for them. I dont blame the technology...but rather the manufacturers..

Ink costs more per ml than the finest champagne, and russian imported caviar. I find that somewhat shocking.
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #78 on: June 04, 2006, 09:59:53 pm »

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Ink costs more per ml than the finest champagne, and russian imported caviar. I find that somewhat shocking.
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It's also way more expensive than gasoline for your car, but the comparison is devoid of any signifigance unless you happen to know a great deal about the technology and manufacturing costs that go into the formulation and production of these inks compared with champagne, Russian caviar or gasoline.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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alainbriot

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« Reply #79 on: June 04, 2006, 10:29:18 pm »

"Ink costs more per ml than the finest champagne. I find that somewhat shocking."

Indeed, but that's not the worse part.  Have you tried drinding it?  Tastes like ****!

Note that K3 ink costs slightly less per ml than Channel #5.  And, compared to Scorpion venom, K3 is a real bargain!
« Last Edit: June 04, 2006, 10:35:59 pm by alainbriot »
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