> > David Fokos's enthusiasm is understandable and no doubt contagious (I
> > might catch it myself if I hadn't been so recently innoculated). And
> > thereby he no doubt does his bit to speed up the switch to digital... ie
> > the day when we have no choice ...
Then David Fokos wrote:
> I would have to disagree, Judy. I still use good old-fashioned Kodak
> Tri-X, and have absolutely no plans to stop doing so. In fact my fear is
> that the people shooting 35mm have hastened the demise of films like Tri-X
> in favor of T-Max films.
I've been following this discussion closely and with great interest.
I've finally made the time to throw in my 2 cents worth...
Yes, David is quite correct. While we may use a computer to make
enlarged negs, we still need the magic silver emulsion to capture the
original image. Although I prefer Ilford to Kodak for my work since
they are kind enough to supply film in the "odd" sizes such as 7x17.
The other issue regarding the archivalness of digital techniques and
planned obsolescence of software, etc., etc. is not THAT big an
issue for digitally enlarged neg work. Once the enlarged negative
has been made by the imagesetter, whether of not your original TIFF
file is compatable with Photoshop version 99.9 in 50 years is
irrelevant. Preserve the enlarged digital neg as you would any
original neg and your grandchildren can make prints from it when you
are dead and people will finally pay good money to buy your prints.
And, as long as I'm at it, I'd like to comment on the
newbie/infrequent participants discussion: It's downright silly to
sit back and think "why won't these people talk about things I am
interested in. All this platinum/gum/cyanotpye/whatevertype
discussion is SOOOO boring..." If there is something of interest to
you, start pounding the keyboard. As far as the "old Fogies" being
rude or impatient to newcomers, I've noticed some of that, although
it is much less common than kind responses and true willingness to
help. I've found the best way to deal with the "ruder" responses is
to use the "Delete" button on my e-mail reader. I've got more e-mail
than I can possibly read anyway...
All-in-all this list is a great resource. I feel lucky to have it
available. It's fairly easy to filter out the less-interesting (to
me) stuff like discussions about gummy printing, and focus on the
topics that are relevant to the work I am doing.
Peace all,
Kerik Kouklis
on the web at:
http://members.aol.com/kerik717/