Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/09/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I went to a friends wedding and met some old NY artist/photographer friends who moved out to LA. Among them Iris Klein who recently had a show at the Leica Gallery (March 9th). (Just to lend some credibility to my post here, lord knows I have little), her recent experience is that the top B&W photographers, meaning the ones with $$$ sorry no names, are returning back to traditional processing due to the relative lack of gradation in the digital color conversion. In other words they are done with the excitement of the technology and getting back to what good B&W is all about. I also know a Magnum photographer in my neighborhood who showed me his new state of the art darkroom in the basement of his brownstone. He complained about similar issues with digital B&W. A B&W a la cart option on the M9 would be sweet At 06:12 PM 9/14/2009, you wrote: > > I really don't know. I am sure a dedicated B&W sensor would give > > better results than the current bayer pattern ones converted to B&W, > > probably by a lot, but that is hypothetical, 'cause you can't buy one. > > In terms of resolution 25asa B&W film probably still has it. The > > benefit of digital is in the colour. 1 set of 4 Bayer pattern pixels > > can produce 12 bit or 14 bit colour (and even now 16 bit colour is > > talked of for the S2) whereas it takes a lot of coloured dye clouds in > > developed film to get anywhere near that, if possible at all. > > Frank > > >A black and white inkjet on rag paper has to apologies to make to darkroom >silver prints. They are getting to be a standard. What you see went a >photographer has a show in a gallery. Even old timers they'll have somebody >else do it. > >But its not the print on the wall its how it got there. >Workflow is the buzzword. >With an M9 or M8 you're going to shoot a ton of pictures and see what you're >doing as you go along. With film you're going to shoot 2 rolls and hope for >the best. Later. And be happy when you've got something. >In Lightroom, aperture or Bridge your going through a lot if choices to hone >in which is the very best image of what you're trying to do. >Then you spend 5 minutes Photoshopping it. >Then you put a piece of good paper in your printer and hit the print bottom. >What you end up with is going to be way better then what seems now as an >amazing expense of materials and time of shooting film; mixing up chemicals >and printing them in a darkroom. >Its a superior process. >Which may explain why 99.9 % of all serious photographers are working in >this process. >Its not a half assed shortcut to making images. > > > >Mark William Rabiner > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Leica Users Group. >See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information