Tired of anti-digital threads

[Jorge]

That response was made by Clay, who is not only an outstanding platinum printer, but also makes digital negatives for pt printing. Most likely he got annoyed by the incredible ignorance of the person who made the post, if the post itself is not a troll.

Imagine what would happen if I went to the Ferrari scuderia and told them I wanted to race against Schumi or Barrichello for a spot in the team and BTW can they please tell me where to put gas in the car.....They would probably take turns kicking my a$$ out of there.

I think, under the circumstances, Clay exercised incredible restraint and it is a credit to the LF community that they have not eaten this guy alive just yet, but then, it is Saturday night, lets give it some time to see some funny responses...

 

[Sean]

We have a mission. It is not to bash digital, but to differentiate traditional processes from the digital marketing hype.

I firmly believe the future of traditional photography hinges on the above statement. I've said before that I believe it has always been digital marketings intent to replace traditional, not work along side it as another form of photography. We must drive a division between the two mediums so that each is preserved in their own right. Publications, museums, and galleries must be informative in making distinctions between these two mediums. If for example the lines continue to blur and "digital platinum giclee prints" are labeled "Platinum Prints" and sold as a "Platinum Prints" then where does this leave us? Digital marketing quite often tries to dumb down the marketplace and remove distinctions between the two forms of photography. Maybe APUG is the first step in this 'awareness'. I would suggest all traditional photographers label their work to give an indication of the process. For example if you call your c-print a "traditional c-print" this raises awareness, then the digital camp will have no choice to call theirs a "digital c-print". We can drive this market, no need to let the digital hype steamroll us..

 

[Francesco]

I would suggest all traditional photographers label their work to give an indication of the process. For example if you call your c-print a "traditional c-print" this raises awareness, then the digital camp will have no choice to call theirs a "digital c-print". We can drive this market, no need to let the digital hype steamroll us..

Sean, I call my prints non-computer raped prints.

 

[Jorge]

Why Sean? it is the result that matters, not the process.... What is the difference between a C print made from a digital file on a lighjet or a pt/pd print made from a digital negative? Both end up in paper that has been chemically developed the "traditonal" way. If we are to supposedly "educate" the consumer, we must stand fast on our beleifs, we cannot waffle and say, "your process is not kosher but mine is" simply to please or appeace some people.

If we are to take this role, we must realize our view will not be popular and resistance from the growing horde of digital infidels (with my apologies to Les, Clay and Kerik, you know you are all allright in my book ) will require that we dig in our heels and demmand "truth in advertisement" but this has to apply to all, not just those we perceive as being wrong. I have gotten in big flame wars over this in the LF forum, and to some degree here, and I have never wavered in my belief that if we are going to draw a line in the sand and say, "the process matters and it is important to the image" then we should mean what we say.

Nothing against digital, I have even said on this forum that if all I was doing was 35 mm, MF or even 4x5, I would seriously look into digital output, be that ink jets or lightjets. But I dont do this, and it really burns my a$$ when I read in this forum that digital negatives made on an Epson printer are the equivalent of my 12x20. Sorry, I have seen them all and that is just plain not true, but if other people who have not, read it here, then they will think it is true, since it is allowed in this supposedly analog forum.

Personally, I dont worry about it anymore and I am certainly not taking the role of "educator" at all, I have decided I will let my prints speak for themselves.

 

[127]

In many respects it's not about the medium but about the care and attention paid by the practitioner. I'm here because as someone previously involved in digital imaging (though NOT digitial photography), I'm in total awe of the level of detail that traditional practitioners bring to their craft.

I've presented work at SIGGRAPH (as have other APUG members!) which is the only conference on computer graphics which matters, but the computer guys are nowhere compared to the quality that analouge has generated through 100+ years of experience.

Digital is always about "good enough", but that just doesn't cut it...

Ian

 

[JD Morgan]

From the mind of a disco shooter... A post from another forum titled:

I'm suffering from Digital Fatigue
My cat is lying on her back under the piano in a pool of sunlight. She's sooo cute, but I don't want to go get my camera and take her picture, because then I'll have to download the pictures and then schlep through the RAW files, convert them, etc. I'm just so sick of the time it takes to do that.

Seriously, it's not just laziness. When I'm working with my Raw files they take about one minute each to open, and scrolling through File Viewer Utility takes about 45 seconds per row to load and scroll 4 pictures just to FIND the shot I want. This doesn't sound like much time, perhaps, but since I started taking RAW files it has slowed everything to a crawl and I'm getting sick of it.

I asked at the Apple Store if a G5 would speed things up and he said no. I'm about at my wit's end.


Any solutions?
---------------------------------------

I had a good laugh when I read it.

 

[Sean]

Seriously, it's not just laziness. When I'm working with my Raw files they take about one minute each to open, and scrolling through File Viewer Utility takes about 45 seconds per row to load and scroll 4 pictures just to FIND the shot I want.

Let's say she snapped 5 pictures of kitty. That's 5 minutes to open them in photoshop and another minute for them to load up in the file viewer. 6 minutes total! My god! this poor digital photographer! All in all it could take 10 mintues for her to produce the final result. This is madness, who wants to spend more than 10 minutes making a photograph!??

 

[JD Morgan]

Reading between the lines of the 'digital fatigue' statement one might conclude that disco is.... zzzzzzzzzzz..... boring and the thrill is almost gone.

Having a CAD program and compu-automated machines to build a nice piece of furniture just ain't the same as makin' it by hand and will not provide the same satisfaction or retain the same value.

I believe the consumer market on the disco toys will flatten as the thrill fades and people begin to realize it was all just to sell them more stuff -- constantly. Maybe it should be digital 'captive' rather than 'capture.'

But then, we already knew all that....

 

[Andy K]

Having read the lines and between the lines of that poor hard done by person's digital fatigue statement I have to say... Que? What's a RAW file? Why does it need converting, is she vegetarian? :confused:

 

[clay]

It's true. The post looks very much like a troll, so i gave a kind response in the same spirit of the original question. Late night attempt at humor. i was tempted to paste in url of one of those nigerian scammers and tell him that the plug in could be bought there. But that borders on cruel instead of merely flip.

That response was made by Clay, who is not only an outstanding platinum printer, but also makes digital negatives for pt printing. Most likely he got annoyed by the incredible ignorance of the person who made the post, if the post itself is not a troll.

Imagine what would happen if I went to the Ferrari scuderia and told them I wanted to race against Schumi or Barrichello for a spot in the team and BTW can they please tell me where to put gas in the car.....They would probably take turns kicking my a$$ out of there.

I think, under the circumstances, Clay exercised incredible restraint and it is a credit to the LF community that they have not eaten this guy alive just yet, but then, it is Saturday night, lets give it some time to see some funny responses...

 

[Max Power]

From the mind of a disco shooter... A post from another forum titled:

I'm suffering from Digital Fatigue
I asked at the Apple Store if a G5 would speed things up and he said no. I'm about at my wit's end.

Any solutions?
QUOTE]

Had I read the original post, on the site to which it was posted, I probably would have proposed that the author go out and pop $150 on a Rolleicord and a couple of bucks for a roll of film. What cheek, eh?

The sad truth, though, is that the result would most certainly be better than anything an Apple G5 and nifty DSLR could do.

 

[dr bob]

Oh-oh, here is another digital disaster! Not a camera – oh no, my old (20 years at least) digital timer, a “Chronus” (?), has failed! Last week it worked great. Last night when needed (has red LEDs) – nothing. Battery leaked! Circuit board corroded! Now what happens to a $K camera when this happens? Never? Don’t kid yourself. They may try to tell you the compartments are leak proof. I’ll bet the farm not. In ancient time when we worked with KOH (electrolyte) under pressure, we checked the integrity of our piping systems with a helium leak detector. Within days, evidence of KOH creep could be detected as carbonate deposits on the swaged fittings. Battery electrolyte will get anywhere!

BION, after a thorough cleaning and 12 hours operation on a regulated power supply, the timer works again! Go figure. Will cameras do as well????

 

[anyte]

These days it is quite common for most everyone to assume that every image they see has been digitally produced. Unless you take care to make sure your viewers are well informed of the process used to create your image we will lose more and more people to digital. People will see the beauty of your work and will marvel at how wonderful digital photography is/has become. They will rush out and buy the lastest and best digital, believing that quality comes with a bigger price tag. If they already have the lastest they will just strive that much harder to create similar images. It will drive the production of even more patches and add-ons to create analog effects.

No one's work can speak for itself if the viewer doesn't know the difference.

 

[Ed Sukach]

I don't see APUG as a "Digital-Bashing" organization ... no more than an Oil Painting Group could be considered as an "anti-charcoal" group. Our interests and focus of attention simply lie in "Analog" - film-chemistry photography. Others like digital - more power to them ... but please don't try so damned hard to convert me. I've tried "digital", thank you. I have an understanding of the mechanics - or more properly - the electrics of it - probably more than the average "digiteer". I've chosen to remain with film ... a conscious CHOICE I have made.

The other day, I ran across a "defector"... sold his Leicas and Rollie (actually traded them for a pittance) -- crowing about how his digital prints were better than his "film" prints - both done in a commercial lab. I questioned the results ... BOTH sets were printed DIGITALLY - one using the input from a card, and the other from a scanned color negative ... on the same machine. I won't blow my own horn as far as my color printing skills .. but one thing is certain ... I could print those color negatives a great deal better than what I saw.
In his mind, comparing one color digital print to another color digital print, provided fair proof of the superiority of digital photography.

Oh, well - all I can do is unwrap another Flavored Strip - and move on.

 

[Art Vandalay]

I had a bit of good news, in the ongoing digital vs film wars. I was talking to an instructor at our local very artsy art college (Emily Carr) about Ilford's announcements and she said that the college just bought a very expensive, but rapid BW paper processor. I'm not sure about other art schools but the one here has made a very big committement to the film/paper world. I've also noticed that when I go to see exhibitions by emerging artists that their photography is always film based. They may scan and print digitally but they always start with film and often they'll use alternative darkroom techniques. In fact there seems to be a very anti-digital undercurrent in the art world. So the next time people want to malign the (modern) art world, just remember that they are on our side...and for good reason.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with the original thread but I just wanted to get my two cents worth in