Rob, I used to do my own B&W processing way back in the old, converted bathroom. I also had access to a full lab including enlargement facilities at a local school where my Father taught. I don't think I'll be going back down that path again. I realise that I potentially give up some quality by having anyone other than myself in control of the process. Something of a trade-off
But aside from standard street shots where IQ isn't the biggest issue, at the moment I'm slightly dissatisfied with 35mm SLRs (film and digital) for certain images I really want to capture but haven't been able to due to lack of my skills or the equipment isn't up to it or both. I'm also tired of cropping to get to the aspect ratio I imagine for some shots. So much so that I've been going back through the library and removing any cropping that modified the aspect ratio taking everything back to 3:2. Most of my images stand up nicely for printing up to ~A3 (I normally print 40cm on the long side for 3:2 and 30cm when square). Giving up almost a third of my pixels is getting tiring.
Don't get me wrong though, there's a lot I really, really like about my setup and for 85% of what I'm currently doing I don't feel limited in the least. It's the remaining 15% that's like an unreachable itch that's truly starting to irritate me (the boardwalk shots are in this category as are some larger shots I want to get around Shanghai before leaving). I guess the option is to always wait for what Nikon offers next which I'm sure will include higher-resolution sensors in the mid-pro category or save my pennies until I can play with the big stuff.
Or just go shoot.
Jenn,
Yes, you are going to trade away the ultimate in control, but then that also depends on just how good a printer you are yourself; could be the lab guys are as good, too? Who knows?
However, if it’s going to be a matter of using a larger film format and then getting scans, you are into something quite different yet again.
The problem, as I see it, might come down to money, which it certainly has for me. I could neither afford to get stuff scanned by professional drum scanning companies (it’s hobby now, not work) nor invest in a dedicated top-line 120 film scanner. The alternative would leave me at the mercy and maddening frustrations of flat beds, Newton’s rings etc. etc. and I don’t need that any more than I imagine you do.
Also, assuming you do get that perfect scan, what then? Once more it becomes a matter of how great a printer you are via the computer, how good all the chain of goodies and calibrations, and then finally, your own eye plays a casting vote.
So the question, then: with all those unavoidable variables, is it worth investing in hardware in a hybrid system?
Were you to print wet again, then great, but I know that though I prided myself as a pretty hot printer in my day, when I made the break due to the work becoming exclusively transparencies for many years, and then tried to get a small domestic darkroom going again, I discovered that the stuff I could produce using traditional, graded WSG papers, was out of reach (for me) using those horrid, plastic, multigrade sheets of rubbish. Mallorca is very water challenged; one-hour wash times are crimes against nature, if not humanity! So that’s why plastic ‘papers’.
Though he hasn’t exactly said so, I suspect that Fred is also caught up in a sort of quest for ultimate print quality that may be a subliminal comparison he is making between his early wet prints (in cow feeding trays) and stuff off his digital printer. The problem is that you can’t validly compare wet prints and digital prints and get a common sort of sense out of such. For example, I used to hate matt papers when I did wet printing because gloss gave the best tonality by far; now, because of pigment inks, I print everything on matt paper, and only when it gets behind glass or lives within one of those crystal-clear archival sleeves does the sort of tonality I remember and see every day in an old photograph of my kids return to my life.
I have made very convincing glossy digital prints too, but then that bronze… it just doesn’t seem worth the bother running the risk of finding those odd patches of unwanted gold plating! Fools gold plating.
I just don't see how anyone can reach ultimate quality without doing the entire chain of activities themselves. Anything less takes away the basis of a quality standard from which to judge.
Rob C
