[Largeformat] Re: digital imaging

["Thomas L Labron" <norbal@okstate.edu>]

From: "Thomas L Labron" <norbal@okstate.edu>

Luis,

     Personally, I don't think the vast majority of us will be using
digital all that soon.  Like I said in one of my other retorts that to get
the quality of 4X5 or larger you have to spend $20,000.  Even at today's
pricing that is still a lot of film, paper and devloper.  Plus it still can
take minutes to get an image scanned in to the back.  Also, you have to
remember that people like Dicomed supply you with a back that is the size
of a Polariod Film back for your 4X5 camera or a back that fits on your
Hasselblad, so the only thing that you are not using are the film backs.
Even Linhof makes a digital back, but is not as "portable" (if you consider
hauling serial cables and a powerful notebook computer around as portable)
as the Dicomed, but have happily embraced this companies ventures.  As
stated before you are still talking long exposures in the seconds or
minutes, depending on the aperature you are using.

     Oh, if you go to the Linhof site they have film verses digital imaging
compared and it looks like the digital can be better.

God Bless and Keep You and Yours,

Regards from Pawnee America and have a Happy New Year,

Tom La Bron
LTA  Oklahoma State University
Office E-mail: norbal@okstate.edu
Home E-mail:   norbalt@juno.com
Website URL:   http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/6309
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---



All this talk of sandwiches is making me hungry.  Seriously, though,
on the topic of digital imaging, aren't most people here particularly
frightened of what may happen to their investment in their equipment
and expertise acquired as image manipulation comes within the reach
of non-photographers?

The compact disc virtually replaced the LP in a matter of a couple of
years, and with computers making leaps and bounds, encroaching upon
every aspect of our lives like either the black plague or a sunrise
after a stormy night (depending on your point of view), the hard,
cold reality of the situation is that being in the approximately
0.5% of photographers, we may soon find ourselves literally in the
dark.  Film may or may not be around for a long time to come.
Look what happened to amateur filmmaking and home movies.

Move over sausage, here comes Sizzlean.  I for one, don't think
digital is better.  At least not until it gets to the quality where
it can reproduce the dynamics of an analogue world.  I still think
vacuum tube amps are better than solid state.  LP's are better than
CD.  Heck, even cassettes sound better than CD.  Digital photography
has yet to impress me.  Even the analogue C-Band satellite dishes and
analogue video laserdiscs produce a stunning picture quality and
sound not achieved by DSS or DVD.  Digital is clean, digital is pure,
but it is weak and reflects today's trend toward safer cars, non-fat
diets and not being able to do anything without offending someone.
I still prefer donuts over bagels, drive an environmentally unfriendly
8-cylinder 1979 Chevrolet Blazer and shoot large format negatives.

Black and white's comeback after being mowed over by progress gives
a glimmer of hope for the future.  New technology isn't always better.

Just wondering how the rest of you are coping...

Luis P.