Do you challenge you photographic assumptions?

Mainecoonmaniac · May 10, 2018

Cholentpot said:
Cellphones are the P&S of our day. They'll get spectacular results in the right hands. Or even the wrong hands that get lucky.

There. I said it.

I get what you're saying. I think to remove technological hurdles democratizes photography.

Cholentpot · May 10, 2018

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I get what you're saying. I think to remove technological hurdles democratizes photography.

We have every day documentation of how we live our lives. Every day lives. Even the stupid food photos will show people a few generations down the road what we did and liked. It's an amazing revolution, in the future there will be Instagram and Facebook archaeologists who will sift through posts and images to gather up a view of the world in 2018.

Mainecoonmaniac · May 10, 2018

Cholentpot said:
We have every day documentation of how we live our lives. Every day lives. Even the stupid food photos will show people a few generations down the road what we did and liked. It's an amazing revolution, in the future there will be Instagram and Facebook archaeologists who will sift through posts and images to gather up a view of the world in 2018.

Our phone pics will probably be a form for cultural anthropology. Everybody's a Martain Parr.

slackercrurster · May 10, 2018

Cholentpot said:
We have every day documentation of how we live our lives. Every day lives. Even the stupid food photos will show people a few generations down the road what we did and liked. It's an amazing revolution, in the future there will be Instagram and Facebook archaeologists who will sift through posts and images to gather up a view of the world in 2018.

Sure, add a few decades or a century and it becomes priceless!

slackercrurster · May 10, 2018

Cholentpot said:
Cellphones are the P&S of our day. They'll get spectacular results in the right hands. Or even the wrong hands that get lucky.

There. I said it.

No need to apologize, it is true! I don't have a smart phone, can't afford it. But I'd use it if I had it. (and didn't have my regular cam.) All I got is a $75 a year Wal-Mart Tracphone

slackercrurster · May 10, 2018

jtk said:
You may be aware that " giclée" is/was a term that was used for marketing of inkjet prints. It's not accepted by fine photo galleries because of that deception factor (tho tourist galleries persist). Ilford has a fine array of papers as does Epson, but Canon's Platinum is remarkable if you like high gloss, and many of the traditional non-photo art paper manufacturers produce coated versions of their best watercolor papers. And there's Japanese rice paper and very interesting/challenging Nepalese paper. Crane. Hahnemeule. on and on. check out www.itsupply.com.

They mainly call them arrival pigment prints. Giclee is kind of passé.

Cholentpot · May 10, 2018

slackercrurster said:
No need to apologize, it is true! I don't have a smart phone, can't afford it. But I'd use it if I had it. (and didn't have my regular cam.) All I got is a $75 a year Wal-Mart Tracphone

Smartphones aren't all the expensive. I got mine for a little more than $100. It's a generation behind but it works just fine.

slackercrurster · May 10, 2018

blockend said:
A Martin Parr exhibition two years ago featured digital and silver prints. Most of the prints were very large, and all of them excellent. My prejudice against home digital printing is cost, as I use an online printer who regularly has offers for 12 x 9" prints for around 50p. These may not compete with the best home prints - it's a while since I printed my own - but they're very good and the equal of many I see at club photography shows.

Digital printing is a medium I just can't get excited about, and as someone with a lifetime of darkroom know-how I'm happy to leave it to smarter heads and commercial machines.

Digital is cheap...if you do it yourself and do enuf to keep your printer unclogged.

slackercrurster · May 10, 2018

Cholentpot said:
Smartphones aren't all the expensive. I got mine for a little more than $100. It's a generation behind but it works just fine.

Yes, but it is the monthly bill I can't affford. My phone was free and cost is $75 a year for everything. Smartphones cost almost that every month.

slackercrurster · May 10, 2018

RalphLambrecht said:
I came to the same conclusion after buying an Epson 3880;just never too old to learn a new trick.You just enhanced your photographic tool box; nothing wrong with that.

In its day the 3880 was THE printer. I am still using one I got in 2012. Amazing printer. I think it has close to 10,000 prints run through it. Just wish it had a gloss optimizer option.

Here...

Vintage silver gelatin print left made in 1972 Agfa Brovira paper. Inkjet print made in 2012 on Hahnemühle Ultra Smooth Matte paper with an Epson 3880 printer on the right.

The main problem with inkjet is to not get any solvents near it and the image or it will wreck it. And it is not as permanent as a silver gelatin. But for all practical purposes, the pigment inkjet is very permanent as long as you don't leave it on display year round in the sun. Also inkjet has an issue with matte paper and transfer of the blacks rubbing off to the backs of the prints on top of it if you stack the prints. Matte inkjet is kinda fragile and needs to be sleeved or framed.

A hi-grade pigment print wont fade in the sun for 1 year. Going on to year 2, in the sun, it starts to fade a little. Although I've never tested a silver gelatin in the sun for 2 years, will have to try it. But how many of us display our prints in the sun year round? And even if we do, as long as we have he file, we just shoot off some more prints.

Pigment inkjet prints are some of the most fade resistant prints out there, other than laser and Cibachrome. Fuji Crystal Archive is very fade resistant, about 90% as good as the best inkjet. (I've only tested Fuji C.A. v1)

Dye bases inkjets are terrible. Fade very fast. Just as Eastman's dye transfer prints fade fast in the sun. But I think the dye based inkjets are worse. (At least the ones I tested years ago.)

Even with the few drawbacks of inkjet, the amount of control you have over the image is amazing.

Vaughn · May 10, 2018

I stick with platinum and with carbon for fade resistance...and hand-made printing processes for all the control I need.

Cholentpot · May 11, 2018

slackercrurster said:
Yes, but it is the monthly bill I can't affford. My phone was free and cost is $75 a year for everything. Smartphones cost almost that every month.

Good for you then. Don't need the latest and greatest, it's a bunch of bull.

Ste_S · May 11, 2018

Cholentpot said:
Cellphones are the P&S of our day. They'll get spectacular results in the right hands. Or even the wrong hands that get lucky.

There. I said it.

More so they're the camera, darkroom and publishing tool rolled into one

removed account4 · May 11, 2018

Poisson Du Jour said:
There other other labs still providing RA-4 printing (involving considerably more travel over what is desirable), so I am well into investigating and assessing a complete migration to giclée, simply because the technology and variety of the media is superior to the narrow media range of RA-4.

are you talking the original glicées made on an iris printer or the later adoption of hte term used to describe anything
printed from a nozzle ( gicleur )? glicée os one of those terms that a lot of people give a bad rap ...
as you probably know when jack (duganne) came up with the word he was working at nash editions
and trying to figure out a way to describe tke fine art prints he was making with an iris printer ...
which at that time ( 1980s ) was just being used for pre press proofing and hadn't been adpoted by photographers yet ...
( i wonder if they still use the term in the french xxx industry ... or if the world has gotten too highbrow for such base vocabulary )
so he decided on glicée because of the ink nozzle ... just like 15 years later people started using the term "hybrid"
to describe a melding of old and new technologies but the term (hybrid ) didn't originally mean that but camera made and hand made
and referred to only the negatives, not the prints ...

i guess nowadays we live in a world filled with transparency of process yet the words used to describe camouflage as much as the olden days

YMMV

Ko.Fe. · May 11, 2018

MattKing said:
The high quality digital prints I refer to in my earlier post come from ink sets that cost hundreds of dollars. Those photographers are using inkjet printers that cost hundreds and hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
The consumer grade inks and printers are very different. Just as in the day there was a real difference between most mini-lab prints and prints from custom pro labs.

It changes little for serious work. I have seen large expensive prints. They call them carbon, super archival prints, yet it fails on close inspection.

But; I must be honest. For small and mid-sized prints the right combination is possible. In Halton Camera Exchange here is one very gifted printer. I bring him bw negs scans and he knows how to print nice with inks. For framed and behind the glass prints. It is among my DR prints at the walls and adequately pleasing .

But for holding in hands nothing is close to FB DR prints. It is hand made vs machine made.

darinwc · May 11, 2018

I often test my lenses with a digital camera. There is too much disinformation about "sharp" lenses.
I've found many lenses that are not favored to be quite excellent.
Also I have found none that are silver bullets. (Though I have not tried them all. Need to get moving on that)

When using film, there are too many other variables (for me) to get consistent results.

It is very different to know how a particular lens performs rather that relying on a jumble of reviews, mtf charts, and forum comments from a wide variety of sources.

cliveh · May 11, 2018

Some years ago I was standing next to an excellent black and white printer of silver gelatin prints and we were looking at a selection of prints, some silver, some digital and on some neither of us could tell the difference.

Do you challenge you photographic assumptions?

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency