[Leica] RD-1 and I

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

On 12/9/04 11:50 AM, "Dan C" <bladman99@yahoo.ca> typed:

> When I bought my first digicam, a Minolta Dimage 7, the quality it produced
> was "good enough" for me to forsake about 80% of my film usage, even though
> I could clearly see advantages that my film cameras had.  Now that I have
> my first "real" digital camera, a Minolta 7D DSLR, I am amazed at the leap
> in quality that the camera can produce over the Dimage 7.   The photographs
> it produce no longer have any kind of a "digital look".  I honestly can't
> think of an occasion where I would prefer to use film, other than the
> occasional time where I may feel nostalgic and take my M6 out for a walk.
> 
> Yesterday I tried to describe to someone how I used to make colour prints
> in my darkroom, using Fuji FA paper and a hand operated (rolled on a
> counter top)  Cibachrome drum processor.  How I would go through the
> iterative process of making a print, judging colour balance, fiddling with
> the colour filters on my enlarger, making another print, judging it again,
> etc., and that if I was lucky and/or good, I would end up with a truthfully
> very beautiful colour print that may or may not be superior to a print that
> can be popped out of a Canon or Epson or HP printer at a push of a button.
> 
> You can't go home again.
> 
> -dan c.
> 
Its just that the film you were exposing with your Hasselblad making up your
"body of work" could be Cibachromed and sold for half a grand to galleries
and collectors 20x24 size if your Jobo is that big. You could make a 300 MB
scan from that stuff and than have it Light jetted (by a LightJet Knight) or
UltraChrome it yourself to the same collectors and galleries. Or interior
decorators. 
But a 6 to 12 or even twice that MB file from a medium format digital back
on your Hassy does not add up to 300. Which I think is the going rate rez
wise for stuff which can go up against your Cibachromes in large sized
landscape sized prints.
All your past film work, that body of work can go pie in the sky to the
moon.

But shooting digitally it's like shooting half frame film.
Good for sketching.
It doesn't even break out of the atmosphere.
Your ceiling is very low.

And ok plenty of schlock and not so schlock commercial work.

But not d?cor and not fine art landscape.

Which is good because you  might be walking down the street and take a
picture of some tree or a bush. Or a whole field of them!


Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/