Scanning Film vs. Digital Capture - A practical Comparison

Daniel, for your purposes, it is very possible that a 5D is going to give you more bang for your buck with regard to colour 35mm and that you will be, on the whole, more productive with it. You should make that determination yourself and not feel beholden to what I or anybody else says you should see or not see in your images.

If a dslr makes you happy/productive/creative then, hey, go for it. On that point I am pragmatic.

I think many/most of us use a lot of different techniques. I use a dslr from time to time, trad. b&w, MF, LF, drum scanned stuff, polaroid, paper negs, you name it. Depends on the purpose. There is no one solution for everybody. And, even for one person (e.g little old me) there is not necessarily a single solution.

I think where I part ways with some of the other opinions in these threads is in point (4) regarding grain in my other post. My honest opinion is that if low frequency information and grain is such an integral part of the "look" of a particular film image, then one must simply adhere to the traditional process, period. Print it 100% traditionally and then scan the print if you must. I'd say that you just cannot force that grain/tonality aesthetic into the digital workflow at a cost that is reasonable to most shooters. That's why I still use a 100% traditional workflow for most of my b&w stuff.

Different purposes, different tools.

Keith - heh didn't figure you for a Rodinal/HP5 kinda guy But hey, yea... I mean if you like pure/natural grain then why alter the process? That is of course if you prefer hours of standing in total darkness, working pilot after pilot, dodging/burning, agitating trays, etc with absolutely no guarantee of having anything to show for it beyond accepting a compromise.

Personally I much rather sit in my living room with a cup of coffee, nice and cozy on the sofa, clicking away at my mouse in a well-calibrated workflow. Then, output my image to the 3800 with a curve applied and voila, 20 minutes in the darkroom and Iv'e got me the perfect print

Ok so I'm being coy!

But hey... You can't argue with all of that. Like I said in my earlier post, I've gotten further in 2 weeks photoshopping then I have in 10 years of tray-rocking! Don't like something? It's as easy as hitting Cmd-Z. I should mention, my results thus far have been limited to inkjet prints, but I'll be doing some curve testing in the darkroom later today. I am however at least moderately optimistic (or hopeful perhaps).

As for the camera, you raise a good point - "bang for your buck". After all, that is the bottom line. A practical feature comparison is one that examines "useful range" of one medium to another. I can't see myself shooting MF all the time and so perhaps the digital body would be a nice addition. I'll be considering it to replace the F100, kissing 35mm film a final goodbye. As for medium-format, the sheer size of the negative seems to justify hanging on to it. Though inkjet prints certainly look great, their flaw, imho, lies in their perfection. No real randomness to anything, each print being a genetic replica of the former and the latter. In this way traditional processes have character. I'm going off on a tangent.

Inkjet prints (or negatives) are forever limited to the maximum size your printer can handle. I don't do this professionally so sending stuff out really isn't a practical option for me, I like to keep things in-house. The only way I could think to overcome this limitation is if it were possible to obtain, from a digital file, a negative suitable for enlargement. I've been looking high and low for anything on the subject. The closest I've gotten is something about a film-recorder, but those seem to be out of circulation.

Most of the stuff I print is either on b/w silver paper or Liquid Light emulsion pasted onto pretty much anything.

Anyways, I'm rambling. Thanks for the tip. I'll certainly start looking into getting a digibody. As for the negs-from-digital-file, any suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers!

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Daniel