E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Moved, by OP to Film Photography section

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I have no interest in film, nor do I shoot/print/post B&W. I'm a modern guy!

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

For me, the film/digital thing became purely economic, digital being far and away the more cost effective. Economics aside, though, the primary --and the significant-- difference is not in the process, its in the print.

For years, my 'main' systems were large format, from 4x5 through 8x10, and predominantly in b&w. I'll leave off the personal bits of having been, for a time, 'the' b&w print maker for a major university, and address instead only the 'look' of the prints I made in my own darkroom. In effect, however good (or bad) any of my 'modern' (digital) printer's prints may look, NONE of them can match the experience of a chemically made darkroom silver gelatin print on proper photographic paper.

JFCoupe Loc: Kent, Washington

I think it is purely a personal choice, neither right or wrong.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I will readily admit that I enjoyed using film. But that was last millenium. I now enjoy using digital.

My (non-dark) room is more comfortable, I can see what I'm doing and polish it before I print (export), and my developer is updated automatically. I can mix sensor sensitivity between shots without cutting the film (My Exakta had a built-in film cutter so I could shoot a partial roll). I don't have to wait for the raw file to dry before using it to make a print (file).

I don't make many prints any more because I don't have any wall space for them.

robertperry Loc: Sacramento, Ca.

I will keep my RB67, Pentax 645, Canon AE1 and most of my darkroom stuff because they are a part of my life. And I still think of shooting B/W film and developing it at home. Converting film to digital for printing. One thing I still do is NOT turn on lights when I enter a room. I can do fine in the dark. After all these years, my wife still asks, why don't you turn on the light?

BBurns Loc: South Bay, California

FotoHog Loc: on Cloud 9

After a while available wall space becomes a problem. I thought about rotating the pictures, but that creates another problem - "Storage Space" . . .

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

I can certainly understand your point of view. The caveat, for me, is the "proper" photographic paper. most of my favourites are gone.

It's hard to explain the "look" without seeing the examples in person. Even when fine prints are digitized and transmitted online, it's not the same. How yu you explain it-is the image tone, the gradations of tone, the surface of the various papers? And...of course, the skills of the printmaker. I have seen renditions of the same negative, made by different technicians to be markedly different. Interpreting and utilizing all the information on any given negative is an art form in itself.

Bill_de Loc: US

I continued shooting film, even after getting my Nikon D1x. I was using a nice Nikon slide scanner and a decent Canon printer. Over time, printers and digital cameras got better. I gave my entire darkroom to a woman I worked with. She was trying to put one together for her disabled father, but couldn't afford it. It made both their Christmases a good one, and I never regretted the move.

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E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Exactly! I did not mean to start a this vs. that thread. There are many methods of producing photographs, some are current and others are considered to be "obsolete" or antique processes. For artistic or other reasons, there are folks somewhere and somehow reviving old methods and there are even sources of supply for creating things like cyanotypes.

It's interesting to find what motivates folks to continue and preserve time-honoured or old processes and creative possibilities. Obviously, digital photography is more convenient, cleaner and provides more instant gratification than a long protracted process. If, however, there is an artistic, technical, or creative advantage in a more traditional or perhaps tedious process, why not explore that?

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

I can't remember the last time I 'looked' (on-line or elsewhere) to see what photographic papers might be available, and the last time I actually bought any (Oriental Seagull was far and away one of my 'favorites', but there were other papers --a warm-toned Agfa being one of them) that were subjectively 'better' for certain sorts of subjects, sometimes) is even dimmer in my mind.

If anything --and just as a guess as opposed to anything more rigorously based-- I'd say whatever difference(s) there may be between, say, Seagull and Epson (or whatever) is a combination of surface and reflectance. It isn't tones or gradations or any of that --those are process orientated more than they're paper related, or so it seems to me.

More generally speaking, whether its done in a darkroom or on a computer, if you took an image (film or digital) you'd printed a year or thirty ago, re-evaluated it, and printed it again today, they'd be two different prints. One would be darker or lighter or contrastier or flatter or more or less something different, because with any luck, you'll have 'grown' in one way or another in the interim, and your preferences will have (hopefully not either calcified or they'll have) become more refined. Hand that same neg/digital file to somebody else, and the results will be stranger by a mile.

While I did it, my 'job' was to recreate the print the photographer him/her self printed. It was NOT my job to re-interpret the work that a Minor White or a Sheeler or some completely unknown photographer had committed to a glass plate and that we had a print to match it to. All I can say, really, is that people should go to any of our better museums and look and look and look and SEE for themselves what the differences are between the mediums. And evaluate, and learn, and apply. Who knows? The person who does something like that may actually learn something.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

Why, indeed? Film isn't cost-effective.

BebuLamar

Cost effective is important for business but not for pleasure.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

I average about 10,000 shots per year that I keep. So, at least for me, it matters a lot.