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Death knell for film ?
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only if the EU ban hydroquinone it would seem. if enough people make a fuss about it then it should be ok?
otherwise he said there is no likelihood that film will disappear, he says the market is steady enough
I think you might be right Isabella, but the other point he seems to make is that we should do a lot more printing in our darkrooms. It just seems too easy today to scan our negatives and play around with them in Photoshop etc., I know that I’m guilty of this myself and often find that months go by without me darkening my darkroom (pun). I’ll just have to try harder. It is still a great feeling to hold a well exposed print in your hand.
The point he makes about printing being the real concern was interesting and unexpected.
Haven’t been in the darkroom for a very long time now. With enough free time hard to come by these days
its not easy to do…i still much prefer a darkroom print to a scan. i scan all my negs (usually to avoid having to do contact sheets) but there is no substitute for the real thing when it comes to a final print.
negs rarely end up being optically flat in my home scanner and that really throws out the focus, certainly on medium format they always have a horrible curl. scanners are great for unprintable shots though, they can forgive a lot where enlargers don’t in terms of extreme over or under exposure.
still though the hardest bit is to make the time. i was gifted a DeVere 507 a couple of months ago… must get out and use it more!
Nice to be reminded what a wonderful object a nice fibre print is. You can however see within our own film circles how we are starting to print smaller, cost is driving this, I know we will continue to pay a premium for our craft and this will increase as the smaller suppliers are squeezed out of the market. While I love Ilford Products their increasing control of the market may have a long-term negative impact. Long live the FIBRE print.
I love my film cameras and thoroughly enjoy processing a roll of film. But my love of analogue ends there. The traditional methods cannot hope to achieve what is possible with a good scan, a good knowledge of photoshop and a decent printer. Particularly when it comes to making a black and white print.
However, I do miss the smell and peaceful solitude of a darkroom where time doesn’t seem to matter – there is nothing romantic about an inkjet printer.
Chris Moody wrote:
I love my film cameras and thoroughly enjoy processing a roll of film. But my love of analogue ends there. The traditional methods cannot hope to achieve what is possible with a good scan, a good knowledge of photoshop and a decent printer. Particularly when it comes to making a black and white print.
I have printed digitally (epson r3000) and in a darkroom. I don’t think my digital prints come anywhere near the hand printed fibre. How experienced are you in a darkroom?
Since you ask:
I first stepped into a darkroom in 1984 as a schoolboy. I have also worked professionally in the photographic processing business, handling colour neg (C-41) and traditional black and white film. I have printed colour (RA-4) on the Fuji Frontier and by hand using a Durst Enlarger. I have printed black and white, mostly as a hobby for many years using both graded and multigrade papers and many different enlargers from a cheapo Krokus up to the top of the range Leitz.
More recently I have worked as a colour management consultant to photographers and have created colour profiles for many Epson printer from your R3000 (which is quite capable of producing excellent black and white using Epson’s own driver) right up to the Epson 9800.
A year or two ago, out off interest, I scanned a 5×4 negative on an Epson V700 and printed it on my Epson 3800, using Canson Photo Satin paper and Quad Tone Rip.
I took the same negative into a darkroom and printed a similar sized print onto (if I remember correctly) grade 2 fibre based paper using a De Vere Enlarger.
Tonally the results were almost identical. Framed behind glass you’d have been hard pressed to tell which was which.
Thats very interesting.
The Art of Photography youtube channel did a similar experiment but he did it with with prints through adorama and the difference between the two was crazy but it was playing in the back of my mind that he just went with the bog standard cheap as chips printing option.I think any test, depending on your motives, can be done to make either side look better than the other.
Well, I developed my first roll of film last night and I must admit, I did get a great kick to pulling it out of the tank and getting to see I at least had something on my negatives.
I think it very easy to view everything in B&W (excuse the pun) but nothing is every as straight forward. There is a time and place for everything. Lately I have been shooting a few polaroids though out the day of a wedding and people get such joy from having something tangible to hold when for so many year, people now just think of images as things on their phones or tablets.
Chris Moody wrote:
Since you ask:
I first stepped into a darkroom in 1984 as a schoolboy. I have also worked professionally in the photographic processing business, handling colour neg (C-41) and traditional black and white film. I have printed colour (RA-4) on the Fuji Frontier and by hand using a Durst Enlarger. I have printed black and white, mostly as a hobby for many years using both graded and multigrade papers and many different enlargers from a cheapo Krokus up to the top of the range Leitz.
More recently I have worked as a colour management consultant to photographers and have created colour profiles for many Epson printer from your R3000 (which is quite capable of producing excellent black and white using Epson’s own driver) right up to the Epson 9800.
A year or two ago, out off interest, I scanned a 5×4 negative on an Epson V700 and printed it on my Epson 3800, using Canson Photo Satin paper and Quad Tone Rip.
I took the same negative into a darkroom and printed a similar sized print onto (if I remember correctly) grade 2 fibre based paper using a De Vere Enlarger.
Tonally the results were almost identical. Framed behind glass you’d have been hard pressed to tell which was which.
Thats very interesting. Would love to pick our brains. Have been totally frustrated with the R3000 trying to get decent prints out of it. Using calibrated monitor, proper paper profiles and fibre papers. The results have been totally hit and miss…
Interesting Chris. What sort of steps have you taken with QuadTone etc… to get these results?
Mark wrote:
Interesting Chris. What sort of steps have you taken with QuadTone etc… to get these results?
It’s been a while but as far as I remember I didn’t do a whole lot with the actual image. I scanned it flat on the V700 and saved as a 16 bit Grayscale tiff. I made some minor adjustments in photoshop and printed it using the neutral options in Quadtone RIP on Canson Premium Photosatin paper which has a pretty neutral base white. It’s a very nice paper and a recommend it. The surface texture is very fine lustre finish and I think it suits black and white particularly well. It was recommended to me by Tony from Rightbrain here in Cork a few years ago. It is available from a supplier in Dublin.
Martin wrote:
Thats very interesting. Would love to pick our brains. Have been totally frustrated with the R3000 trying to get decent prints out of it. Using calibrated monitor, proper paper profiles and fibre papers. The results have been totally hit and miss…
There are lots of reasons why it might not be working for you but I do know that the R3000 should be able to deliver the goods if used correctly. This is how I would go about it.
Scan your negative flat without adjustment or correction.
Assuming you are using a decent monitor. Profile it using the manual options: Gamma 2.2 6500K whitepoint and and luminence of around 120. It’s important that you keep your working environment consistent and block out window light. Your editing room should be comfortably lit – I use a 5000K flourescent bulb relected off a white ceiling.
Make your adjustments in photoshop.
Make a print using the Advanced Black and White options in the Epson Driver. The results are very good.
You could also use the Quadtone RIP software which supports the R3000.
Don’t expect your print to match your monitor exactly. If you want to compare screen to print then an affordable option is 4700K Solux Clip on light.
The best advice of all is to read ‘Real World Color Management’ by Bruce Fraser and understand what’s going on under the hood.
It’s been a while since I did any Colour Management work so some of my advice may be outdated. Apologies in advance.
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