Did you notice the echoes of your keyboard banging around these empty halls here in "The Wet Darkroom"? Glad to know someone other than me pops in here from time to time. A wet darkroom person is like the Maytag repairman on LL.
I got my first "serious" digital camera in 2004 and was heading to an all-digital future. Sold the Beseler 45MXT, put the 4x5 Sinar in mothballs and prepared to sell my Nikon film gear. Then on a lark I bought a Contax 645 and rediscovered medium format. THose gorgeous negatives and slides....There is a "something" to film--maybe it's only foolish nostalgia--that I don't get from digital. I am also an inveterate tinkerer, and the alchemy of B&W processing always presents something new to try.
That said, if I could afford a Phase P45 or P25 or even find a decent DCS Pro 645 C for the right price, I'd go MF digital just to avoid the hassle factor of processing, cataloging, and storing film. Maybe I should have sunk the contax cash into a D2X with all the trimmings....(If "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, it'd be Christmas every day....) But there is something, also, about that Contax that I dearly love. It fits my hand like it was molded for it, and all the controls are just where they are supposed to be. And did I mention those fabulous images?
THis is entirely un-rational, but it seems "wrong" to me to have to toss the entire camera whenever you upgrade a digital SLR. With the Contax, you keep the same camera and lenses and can shoot digital or film. Makes no sense, "feels" right. I might also be rationalizing my now-considerable investment in Contax gear.
I'm going home today to mix up some PC-TEA to try out on my B&W film; I have a few Christmas rolls to process. The grandparents get mad because they only get to see my kids in beautiful black and white.
Let's see if we can't get this forum humming again. Check out my website (see signature) for some of the B&W work.