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Inkjet saves Graflex
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djon



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 174
Location: New Mexico

PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 4:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My hope: That scanning, Photoshop (or Paintshop Pro), and inkjet printing (and other digital technology) will bring lots of photogs back to their abandoned Leicas, view cameras and press cameras to shoot and create additional demand for FILM ... perhaps delaying its inevitable demise. I hope to shoot 6X9 for another 5 years, even after Agfa, Ilford, Kodak, and Efke are fully out of that business.

Scanning and digital printing is easy, very accurate, more subtle than traditional darkroom practice, and very high resolution.
And archival, should anybody care.

Get a scanner from Epson or Canon, get a printer from Epson, and save our Graflex heritage !

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glennfromwy



Joined: 29 Nov 2001
Posts: 903
Location: S.W. Wyoming

PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 4:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, but where's the fun of fumbling around in the dark while smelling stinky stuff?

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djon



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 174
Location: New Mexico

PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good point. Guess we'll have to improvise.
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RichS



Joined: 18 Oct 2001
Posts: 1468
Location: South of Rochester, NY

PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 9:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And if poeple simply shoot film, we won't have to worry about the lack of availability at all!

I just love your dismal outlook on _our_ hobby and your overly optimistic, and overly opinionated, outlook on the digital stuff.

Digital won't "save Graflex", but using the cameras as designed, and not destroying them or butchering them up _will_ save the use of the Graflex cameras.

No thanks. I've done 'digital' since computeres were first available, in kit only form, and have absolutely no inclination to ruin my photo fun with any form of computer!


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djon



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 174
Location: New Mexico

PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2004 10:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rich:

If wishes were horses...

You know and I know that nobody's going back into the darkroom. Done, finished. The photo classes in colleges are using Polaroid 55PN and scanning it.

Check the give-away prices for Leitz and Durst enlargers, not to mention the nearly free D2Vs and MCRXs.

I do shoot film, but it's getting hard to buy what I want these days. Can't even get Efke 100 in 120 currently, much less Plus X or (sob) HP4.

Compare digital to film shooters anywhere we see cameras, such as sports events, school events, weddings and birdwatching sanctuaries...not many film cameras but lots of digital. Maybe 20:1 as a matter of fact.

I love film, intend to keep shooting it, but it's getting tough.

According to Kodak back in the 70s (I managed industrial sales for a big custom photolab back then) 80% of cameras only saw the light of day three or four times a year (Christmas, Easter, maybe a wedding or vacation..two rolls of film total), so you can imagine how much use they shoot today. Visit any fine oldtime camera store...check all those Nikons on consignment, the owners secretly hoping to get $150 for F4 bodies. Those cameras are dead commodity products, like old stereos, far from collectable. Graflex cameras have the advantage over them of being able to shoot sheet film, roll film, glass plates, and digital backs...if somebody wants to treat our Graflex tools like collectors items, that's up to them, but a more respectable approach might be to USE them, and if it seems to make sense, modify them just like serious photogs always did during the entire history of Graflex.





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David A. Goldfarb



Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 142
Location: New York City

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 12:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If it works for you, then that's great! I find digital interesting for some things, but even at its best, it's a different kind of product from a silver or other kind of print.

Not long ago I was photographing a historic viaduct with my 8x10" camera. Rackstraw Downs, the great modernist realist painter happened to be across the street painting it in oils from a different perspective (you think we carry a lot of stuff?--He had a panoramic canvas spread across two easels). Meanwhile some bicyclists wandered through the scene and made some snapshots with P&S cameras. None of this activity was mutually exclusive.
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djon



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 174
Location: New Mexico

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 1:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

David, that's a beautiful kind of observation.
Various people made graphic images, another wrote about it (you), I'm commenting on it, and undoubtedly poets and tour guides have gone on at length about it. Humans, can't live with em', can't live without em'!

I certainly agree that certain traditional photo effects are hard or impossible (I yield) to obtain digitally, but among those effects are not sharpness or tonal scale. In fact, silver prints cannot rival platinum for platinum effects, but digital can come close.

My only real point is that film and paper are getting hard to come by, and chemistry is a genuine environmental problem.

The worst thing about digital is the eccentric, non-poetic verbal claptrap that's
inescapably part of it. Whereas, we can go into a darkroom, develop and print without knowing anything more than the temperature and the time, assuming that we are working with our old tried-and-true chemicals and materials.

The problem is, those chemicals and materials are on the way out, for economic reasons alone...the environmental argument has unfortunately been trumped.
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clnfrd



Joined: 26 Mar 2002
Posts: 616
Location: Western Kentucky Lakes Area

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 1:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You know and I know that nobody's going back into the darkroom.

Then I must be nobody.

Fred

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David A. Goldfarb



Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 142
Location: New York City

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 1:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

And the industrial processes involved in producing computers and inks are not an environmental problem? The fact that the life cycle of a computer or a digital camera is about 5 years these days is not an environmental problem? The batteries that these things take without really adequate recycling facilities for them is not an environmental problem?

I recently worked on an interesting project for an appraiser who was conducting a workshop on photography appraisal. A colleague produced an 8x10" negative, and he produced platinum, VanDyke, cyanotype, and a few other types of prints, and I produced an Azo print, and we had a proficient digital printer produce a high quality digital print all from the same neg. For the purpose of the workshop, my colleague also made a silver print from a 35mm neg of the same scene as well as an inkjet on a cheap color printer. The appraiser matted and labeled the prints on the back, and it wasn't difficult to tell which was which, and which prints were the really fine prints in the group (the platinum and Azo prints). The Piezography print was interesting--very crisp with powdery blacks--but just didn't look as smooth, particularly in the high values, as the platinum or Azo print. Was it a good print? In some respects, yes. Was it the kind of print I want to make? Not remotely.

If you want to produce that kind of print, then enjoy your medium. When Kodak finally stops making Azo, and I can't find another silver paper that I like, then I'll coat my own platinum. The chemicals for photography as it was practiced in the 19th century aren't disappearing at all, and a lot of 19th century photography is pretty good.

[ This Message was edited by: David A. Goldfarb on 2004-12-11 17:32 ]
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glennfromwy



Joined: 29 Nov 2001
Posts: 903
Location: S.W. Wyoming

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 2:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yup, that's me. Just another nobody.

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RichS



Joined: 18 Oct 2001
Posts: 1468
Location: South of Rochester, NY

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 4:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's a LOT of 'nobodys' around!

The biggest problem in the film world is people spouting the digital stuff as gospel, with no facts or objectiveness involved. Film will be available long after we're all dead and gone. I'm not worried and will continue to use for as long as I am able. Same goes for my 'nobody' darkroom!

Ummm, platinum IS a silver photo product and process!

You can live in your digital world, but leave the rest of us photographers to live happily in our silver world. And maybe in 20 or so years, the digital technology will catch up! And even then I will have no interest! It's simply NOT the same thing...

And I wouldn't suggest brining up the environmental aspect of digital. The worlds worst problem right now is the millions of computers, printers, scanners and monitors filling up the landfills. Over 30 million projected for this year alone! And shall we bring up the heavy metals, toxic chemicals and heavy industry used to maufacture them? There's absolutely NOTHING toxic in B&W _standard_ photo chemicals if left to decompase naturally, and that's been proven. Prove to me a compter in a landfill is as environmentally friendly!


"Done, finished"!!!


[ This Message was edited by: RichS on 2004-12-11 20:36 ]
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djon



Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 174
Location: New Mexico

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 6:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know what "standard" B&W chemicals might be, but if you're thinking about Pyro, which causes Parkinsons, or Rodinal, which is too weird to fly these days, you'll have to rethink your theory.

You may be forgetting that literally most film has been color negative for decades, and that B&W is getting scarce today (check dealer inventories).

As well, press cameras have been shooting lots of color since before WWII, including Kodachrome sheet film, so it's unfair to our Graflex ancestors to pretend they left B&W cameras for us.

You're right that computers cause landfill (and other environmental) problems, but of course they are necessary to our stupid economy, unlike B&W film and paper (sadly).

Visit a few camera stores, ask about their inventory of B&W film and paper as compared to six months ago, and ask what they
rely on to pay their bills.

As for platinum, I mentioned earlier that I like it... it's easy enough to make the paper at home, but that's not going to justify Kodak keeping any coating lanes open for B&W film (it's also not too tough to make glass plates at home, so there's always that ).

The hostile responses are amusing. Flat earth types, evidently.

I didn't cause Kodak's near total conversion to digital, Agfa's or Ilford's failures, those realities were caused by didn't shoot and process film TODAY caused those changes.

Today I shot and processed a paltry 4 rolls of Efke 100 (now no longer in stock at J&C) in Rodinal. I'll shoot and process a half dozen of Ilford Delta 100 tomorrow, mostly out of nostalgia for that sad company's memory. If you shot and processed today, congratulations. If you didn't, you're part of the problem.

Ask your local mini-labs if they're half (1/2) as busy now as they were a year ago.

Ask your local professional labs if they're doing half (1/2) as much photochemical color work as they were two years ago.


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RichS



Joined: 18 Oct 2001
Posts: 1468
Location: South of Rochester, NY

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 6:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The "hostility" is a normal response (if not really 'hostile') to your self righteous proclaimed 'facts' that are so far from the truth that the rest of us chuckle as we type the responses.

"Pyro, which causes Parkinsons"? This is an old wives tale solely from the fact that Edward Weston contracted the disease and used pyro. That's it! No other association exists, but the stupid rumor gets passed on and on... Like film being dead!

Pyro would not be considerd a 'standard' B&W chemical by the way. Fixer (sodiun thiosulfate), D-76, stop bath, etc, would be considered 'standard' as promoted in most photo texts and used universally... Any basic B&W text would solve that issue.

Illford is alive, if not so well, and shows no sign of going under. Read the follow up facts before you spread the death rumors. Efke, Foma and Agfa are in similar positions, and still producing product.

The whole 'problem' is your preaching the digital gospel (to people who really don't want to hear it by the way!) and your twisting of factoids. Kodak is renowned for making bad corporate moves. We, as comsumers, will never know what direction the company will wind up. True to their history, they may just as quickly drop digital tomorrow and go back to film only. And if you've followed Kodak's history at all, you could not dispute that. I doubt it myself, but you can not say as _fact_ that there will be no more Kodak silver products in 6 months. That's absurd!

The fact is that there are millions of silver product customers in the world right now and more every day. There are places where digital is simply not practical. Developing countries, Antarctica, certain science and industrieal areas. All combined, film and associiated silver products will be available far longer than any of us will be living. I am not worried. I may have a concern for the next generation, but not ours.

If you like analogies, then you would be likened to Chicken Little. Luckily only your sky seems to be falling and I have no worries.

So instead of running around preaching digital to people who don't want to hear it, which by the way is a sure way to help kill film usage! Why not just enjoy _your_ hobby, and let the film folks alone to enjoy theirs? Wouldn't that make everyone happy?

And no, you haven't seen any 'hostility' here... I''ve seen hostility and this ain't it!


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45PSS



Joined: 28 Sep 2001
Posts: 4081
Location: Mid Peninsula, Ca.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote



[ This Message was edited by: 45PSS on 2005-12-26 18:33 ]
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RichS



Joined: 18 Oct 2001
Posts: 1468
Location: South of Rochester, NY

PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:

On 2004-12-11 23:01, 45PSS wrote:
Kodak will probably commit sucide just like its founder.


Funny you should say that. I just had a conversation with my wife tonight about the problems Kodak is having with it's medical imaging division. Seems no one ever thought of either how much storage space would actually be needed for all those digital images, nor had they figured out how to archivally store them for retrieval years later. Seems our hospitals may be in big trouble in a few years!

On the bright side, they seem very willing to sell brand new equipment that will deffinitely fixe the problem, for now... The long term storage seems to have no fix yet, but no one ir worrying about it either....


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