How much of an analog purist are you?

[vet173]

Well, if we really want to discuss to analog vs. digital, tell me a new digital ampllifier sounds better then a pair of 35 watt Mark Levinson Tube amps!!!

Dave

You tellem Dave, I've been a tube freak for a long time. Hellen Keller could tell the difference and she's dead. Want a digital picture of my CR developments tube amps? LOL

 

[BradS]

I feel the same way, but for me there is still the issue of image quality. Even the 16MP Cannon Ds MkII can't compete with the level of sharpness that Fuji Velvia is capable of resolving, much less color depth. There just isn't anything that can beat looking at a bunch of transpariences laid out on a light table.

Oh, yes...of course. Totally agree.

 

[Melanie]

HI
I have a digital camera that is a few years old, I don't think of it as old, around five years old,maybe, and uses floppy disk to hold the pictures and is great for ebay or for a picture of some thing I need to email that day. my other is in my phone,my grand daughter love's it, but most of them are just a quick picture. the best picture I've taken of her so far is a b/w taken with a TLR that was made in the 3O's. and as far as other digital things go, I can take it or leave it. and most of the time I do leave them, they just don't have that much of appeal to me, maybe all that plastic.... no soul like some one said earlier...
Melanie

 

[roteague]

I enjoy the Stones on digital. But I really feel good, when I'm playing them on my turntable; scrathces and all. Chicago's 25 or 6 to 4 is just better on vinyl...it just is! And I will never own a digital recording of Deep Purple's Machine Head! When the record wears out, I stop listening!

Yes, I have a copy of "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida" (the 15 minute version, of course) on CD and you can still hear the original tape player hum in the background. Great ... has a definite feeling you don't get from the CD.

 

[Claire Senft]

The only concession I have made to digital photography at this time is to avoid being involved. I think there may be some very definite advantages to a hybrid system. I would very much like to be able to make masks with digital for printing color negatives that would give me the range of densities that would print as I wish them, incorporate any burning and dodging that I wish to do and to have sufficient density so that one could eliminate color impurities caused by the color negative and printing paper characteristics.

I would find the same type of help to be useful for masking in b&w.

At this point I have not read about a hybrid system of this type for color negative printing.

 

[steve]

Well, if we really want to discuss to analog vs. digital, tell me a new digital ampllifier sounds better then a pair of 35 watt Mark Levinson Tube amps!!!

Dave

You'll have to tell more more about these Mark Levinson tube amps. Levinson himself was always into solid state electronics, and in fact Mark Levinson Audio Systems (1972 - 1984) made nothing but high-end solid state equipment as he believed that the "new technology" (transistor amps) could be refined to provide good sound with the inherently greater reliability, consistency, and convenience of solid-state technology.

Levinson went out of business in 1984. The company was re-opened in 1985 by Madrigal and Mark Levinson was not associated with that business.

The first tube products I am aware of designed by Mark Levinson are the Red Rose Music amplifiers which are a hybrid transistor / tube design - none of which are 35 Watts.

In fact, when Levinson brought out the Red Rose equipment (circa 2000), it was such a huge change in philosophy that Dr. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg likened it to Stalin defecting to America; Arafat converting to Judaism; or Sonny Barger buying a Honda motorcycle.

I get the point as I have both solid-state and tube equipment - and either can sound stunning. The Nelson Pass designs are wonderful as are the Victor Khomenko BAT tube and solid state designs. In fact, my BAT VK-6200 is the only 6 channel amp that gives a "tube like" warmth to my surround sound system.

Certainly, six Wolcott tube amps might be the ultimate for driving current-hungry surround sound speakers - but the air conditioning system and space would be prohibitive.

I would expect someone who was a true "tubey" would be waxing poetic about either classic Conrad Johnson, Marantz, or McIntosh equipment or new equipment from Lamm Industries...

 

[df cardwell]

I know this is Analog Photography. I love film and conventional printing, but I'm not weird about it. If I thought digital made a better picture, I'd consider switching. I'm not a purist.

I'm a purist. A Photography Purist. Not from Ideology, but simplicity.

To me, if you are going to:

1. use an unsharp mask, or
2. retouch the image, beyond dust spots, or
3. apply paint to the image, or
4. use extensive burning or dodging, or
5. any other alteration of the "simple statement of the lens" ...

..... it is no different than using Photoshop.

When it is NECESSARY, I will do anything I need to to make an image suit its purpose. But as far as 'purity' goes, the line isn't drawn at analogue vs digital, but at simple straight photography vs manipulation.

Simple, to me, is best. Computers are not evil. "Fuzzy concepts", as Ansel said, are the problem.

.

 

[modafoto]

I am into analog photo because it is fun and I haven't seen a digital B/W print that could be compared to an analog RC or Fibre print. The tones, sharpness and resolution is way better with analog.

But for a lot of other things I dig digital a lot.

• I like the sound quality of the iPod (in spite of the compression that will cause a loss of data) compared to an old walkman that plays tape.
• I like using E-mails instead of handwritten mail (My handwriting is miserable)
• I like using digital recording when recording my bass. It gives me cleaner sound with less hum. The analog tube sound is warmer and loved by many...but it doesn't suit my style of playing bass. A matter of taste.
• I use digital effects with my bass as well as analog. With effects I go after the sound, not the technology. If it's analog and sounds great I choose analog. If it's digital and sounds great I choose digital.
• I like using computers for writing, budgets, communication etc.
• I use a Palm Zire (cheap PDA) to keep track of my calendar, handle contacts, store development times and keep notes, control my development with FotoTimer(c) and read the news.

Greetings Morten

 

[fingel]

I use digital for most things. My entire day at work is spent using Photoshop and Illustrator. My music is digital (ipod) my phone is digital, my cable is digital, you get the idea. I like the look of film and it is a nice break from the digi-world to use a camera that doesn't need batteries or menus set or whatever.

 

[cvik]

I also use digital for most things.
* I don't use a wris****ch, only the watch on my cellphone (the only phone I have)
* I use MP3 for all my music (not even CDs which I rip in the highest quality and then throw it away - for me the cover is just paper and plastic).
* I use a digital lightmeter
* Most of my film is scanned and edited on my computer.
* I sometimes even create black and white images from color slides such as
Dead Link Removed
Dead Link Removed
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Dead Link Removed

* I rarely watch TV (perhaps once every two months, not kidding!) but use Internet and computers for work, news, learning and entertainment.
* I use my computer to play movies from DVD, DivX or MPG.
* I work parttime with computers to make a living and also study information science full-time at the University in Oslo.
* I got my first computer at the age of 6 (Commodore 64 in 1985) and I've been into computer programming since I was 12 years old.

I am however in the process of getting myself a darkroom, but even the enlarger I bought (without knowing what it was) is computerized with AF and a built-in color densitometer.
* All of my cameras use film, but one of them, a Rolleiflex SLR, has pretty advanced electronics. I even read it can be "programmed" with an optional accessory.
* I once had a digital compact camera that I gave to my parents. In fact, that camera, and friends who are photographers, made me interested in photography. Once interested, the camera was replaced with a second hand Leica M6 which still is the camera I shoot most pictures with.

I like the concept of digital cameras but I don't like the images they create. I do know that one day I will become all digital. When I look at the black and white images at http://www.leica-camera.com/produkte/rsystem/digitalmodul/portfolio/index.html I even realize that digital has potential.

But, as long as I can point at the (technically) ugly pictures in french photo and see that they are all shot with digital cameras, I'll use film. And as long as I can't buy some fancy lightjet "printer" and use traditional photopaper the way I want it, I'll use film.

Anyways, I'll have my own darkroom up and running in a couple of weeks

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Does the APUG software automatically censor "wris****ch"?

--Good heavens, it does! That's really bizarre. Just goes to show why analog censors are better than digital ones. Fortunately, I carry a pocket watch.

 

[Andy K]

Its because it has t wat in the middle, makes me wonder what'd happen if someone from S****horpe joined the forum, lol! (That's Scun thorpe)

 

[bobfowler]

OK, maybe we need a list of words...

wris****ch
S****horpe

What else works?

hehehe

 

[Andy K]

Swanky? Nope, maybe that's too anglocentric, lol!

 

[Andy K]

President George W **** and Vice President **** Cheney, lol!

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

"Purists" indeed!

 

[zenrhino]

I'm a purist only as far as b/w goes and then even only so far.

I can't process my own c-41 or e-6, so there's no need for me to shoot color film at all.

Also, since I only this last month learned to do any printing, I'd always scanned my negs. Personally, I figure as long as it holds up to AP ethics standards (basically if it can't be done wet, don't do it in PS) I don't feel badly about it if it's documentary or visual rhetoric work. If it's fine art work, anything goes.

If black and white ever gets to the level of quality through digital that one can get analog, I'll look at leaving analog behind. But not a second before that.

 

[sunnyroller]

I sitting here cruising apug b/c I am proscastinating working on my last image for Photo 2. We are doing all of prints from scanned film and then curved and spotted in PS. I feel so cheated. The greatest thing about taking formal Photo courses was the opportunity for instruction in the darkroom. Next semester the only class that will be offered above P1 and P2 is digital color (the department head is on a sabbatical in spring leaving only one other instructor). I will probably take it for the experience, but will also end up taking classes offered by the local arts centers--they have not succumbed to the digital siren and still value the analog process.

 

[htmlguru4242]

What an awesome question for a topic... some people are a little bit too much of analog pursuists.

As most people here have said, phtography for me is completely analog. Though I do have a digital camera, I have not turned it on for a year and a half, and the last time was to shoot an Infrared photo.

My darkroom equip. is all analog: alcohol thermometer, analog timer, etc.

In other areas, though, I have an aversion to digital audio equipment (tube or early transistors just sound better), though MP3s on my PC are ok.

As far as everything else goes, it really doesn't matter.

 

[fingel]

Shit, you can't type anything anymore.

Well, that got through.

 

[blansky]

With the proliferation of computers, I was forced into bankruptcy due to bad advice I received from a former friend suggesting that I corner the market on carbon paper.

Shit.




Michael

 

[jovo]

My darkroom equip. is all analog: alcohol .....

Yes, me too. Scotch!

(Sorry about the extreme distortion. It's very much like what the press can so easily, and often does do.)

 

[david b]

I spent 10 of my 36 years in front of a corporate computer. I refused to make my art work with one.

 

[colrehogan]

I spent 10 of my 36 years in front of a corporate computer. I refused to make my art work with one.

I spend a lot of my time at work in front of a computer. I don't want to spend my evenings at home in front of one getting frustrated with PS.

 

[steve]

I find it interesting that a lot of people comment on the fact that they spend all day in front of a computer; and for entertainment, relaxation, self expression (whatever) - they don't want to drag their working environment (the computer) into that endeavor.

So many aren't really purists in the sense of working digitally but working in a digital environment because it reminds them of work. I can certainly understand that.

If you can turn that one around, and think about someone who spends hours in a darkroom producing work, then maybe you can understand how they actually feel liberated by working in a lightroom on a computer instead of in a darkroom.

I've worked heavily in both environments and, at this point, only care about the best workflow to get the final image I want. I ignore the working environment, as I really don't like working in a darkroom anymore than I like working on a computer.

For real relaxation, I go out into my workshop and cut metal, weld, or construct things from exotic woods. I move dirt with my tractor, build fences, and lately have taken to roasting my own coffee. Those are the things that get me away from photography completely in either the darkroom or lightroom - and refresh me to work in either photographic environment.