I gave my friend an old Nikkormat and taught him how to use it. He liked it and has a good eye so now I have some extra film to develop. I don't mind that. I suppose printing is next.
Thanks, that was entirely my point and I had thought it was obvious but maybe George was just actually making a point of order as you do in the cut and thrust of debate or Perry Mason court case. Looks like my role is that of the earnest but ultimately hapless Hamilton Burger.
I had thought I had run out of friends until I saw your reply
You mean minilabs don't make optical prints from negatives. That day is long gone.
Some minilabs can scan negatives and printer them (vis a laser-like Fuji Frontier)) onto RA4 paper and wet process the prints. That's about as analogue as you can get these days.
An occasional print would be fine or if they were a friend’s negatives (Jim or Tom) or my kids’ … maybe even for a Scout who took photography Merit Badge with me. But a production line is out of the question.
But I have so many of my own that need to be printed. I have freedom to pass on my negatives I don’t want to print. And all that effort I went through to tune the negative to my paper … would go out the window if I had to tackle a fuzzy underexposed negative
I often print for friends, often negatives from long ago of their long gone family that they have found negatives of in their attics etc, I enjoy it but manly eill do straight prints, only dodging/burning if needed to simply get a good print, not to interpret the negative, and often the look they have when they see lost fathers/mothers brothers Ect is worth the effort
An occasional print would be fine or if they were a friend’s negatives (Jim or Tom) or my kids’ … maybe even for a Scout who took photography Merit Badge with me. But a production line is out of the question.
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all that effort I went through to tune the negative to my paper … would go out the window if I had to tackle a fuzzy underexposed negative
If someone asks me to print a bad negative I will print it to my own taste and style...a fun opportunity. After all, I'm an individual (dare I say "artist"). I'm not at all interested in someone else's idea of ideal.
If Ansel could have printed some other way, he would have.
My most gratifying recent B&W were shot on KII (Kodachrome) that I printed decades ago on Cibachrome, recently Nikonscanned and inkjet printed on Canon paper.