Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/11/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Norm Aubin wrote: > Then there's inks - MIS quad tones - Piezo inks (so to speak), EPSON inks, > and others yet. So how do you sort this all out? At least with papers you > can see a lot of other folks work and get a feel for what the papers look > like - and what the various developers do to those papers. > > Here in this brave new world of infinite possibilities it's daunting - at > least in the fiber world we had the works of a generation or two of > photographers helping us sort the wheat from the chaff. Now we have to > start over: it's exciting, but it's time consuming and fraught with lots of > ways to fail. > I don't think it is that different than with film. Let's say, 10 years ago, before the digital revolution started decimating the ranks of film/chemicals/paper makers, you could also go crazy trying to figure out which film, which developer, which paper, which paper developer etc. The solution then, as now, is to find something you like and stick with it, unless something new comes along that is absolutely compelling. For me that meant that I had a default film for each speed (Fuji Acros for 100, Tri-X for 400 and Fuji Neopan for 1600) and my default developer, XTOL. Now in the digital world, I similarly stick to Epson Matte Heavyweight and MIS inks (I am obviously talking B&W here) is my combination, although I will try the Hahnem?hle papers too in the near future. Unless you find a personal standard and stay with it, more or less, you'll end up spending all your time on testing rather than on photography. Nathan -- Nathan Wajsman Almere, The Netherlands General photography: http://www.nathanfoto.com Seville photography: http://www.fotosevilla.com Stock photography: http://www.alamy.com/search-results.asp?qt=wajsman http://myloupe.com/home/found_photographer.php?photographer=507 Prints for sale: http://www.photodeluge.com