Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Marc, I still have a darkroom and I have recently started to use it again! Just like you I dedicated a room in the attick for use as a darkroom when we rebuilt our house a couple of years ago. However, the role of parenthood took priority about a year ago and pushed photography significantly down on the priority list. As I said, I recently started to use the darkroom again. The reason simply being that I for several reasons prefer the analog process to the digital one for my photgraphic hobby. Being a computer specialist I have spent my share of hours in front of the computer screen the last 20 years so I do not have the urge to spend even more hours in front of the computer than what is strictly necessary to do my daily job. Sure, I do scan my films too and it is cool what can be done with a sharp transparencies made using the best M&R lenses, a good scanner, Vuescan, NeatImage, and Digital Light & Color's Picture Windows (which in my opinion is superior to Photoshop for photographic purposes). For color this setup is now my preferred way of processing photos and I do not shoot any color negative films anymore. The result is is quite good! For B&W, though, I started to use the darkroom again. Being an amateur photographer I do not have to make very many copies of each print so I can afford to spend the time required in the darkroom to process each print. I usually enlarge them to 11"x15". For me, therefore, the analog process is faster than processing scanned images of the same photos on my computer, and much more fun :-)! I can understand that those of you who need to create lots and lots of copies digital is the way to go, no doubt about it! Then it is worthwhile to spend an extra effort on creating a high quality digital image that easily and predictably can be printed with good results again and again (independent of whether the source image was created by a digital camera or scanned from a negative). Still each digital print that I make is a reproduction while each of the analog prints that I make in the darkroom is an original that has a certain uniqueness to it. It is no doubt about which version I prefer to give away to others. IMHO. -- Arne Helme HELME CONSULTING Email: helme at home.nl (^" at "^@) Phone: +31534309352 (office), +31642697956 (mobile) -----Original Message----- From: Marc James Small <msmall@infionline.net> To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org> Subject: [Leica] Who Still Has a Darkroom? Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 17:41:18 -0400 I moved into my present house almost two years ago, and dedicated a room in the attic for use as a darkroom (it had originally been the Servants Quarters' when this house was built in 1897). I have never completed fixing it up as such, as I now scan my negatives and slides and, now that I am getting a bit familiar with this, I have no strong desire to go back to chemical work. I can load film into tanks in a changing bag and processing is no big thing. But I am unwilling to give up, quite yet, on the ability to produce chemical prints as they still are better in quality than are scans, at least with my current gear and at my current level of expertise. I suspect I will never finish making the putative darkroom completely light-tight and air-conditioned but, still, I cannot quite give up on it. I have a grand set of gear (a Leica V35 and a Beseler 23CX-II with Rodenstock APO enlarging lenses, all sorts of trays, tongs, timers, lights, &c &c) -- Hell, I not only have 16mm and 127 reels but I have not one but TWO print driers. And finishing the darkroom would be a matter of five or six hours or less. Dreams die hard. I spent a magnificent number of hours over forty years in a darkroom and I guess it is time to admit that I'll probably never enlarge another negative. But I'm not willing, yet, to come to terms with this reality. So, like Tina, I can and do process film but scanning is becoming just so damned EASY! Marc msmall@infionline.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!