[Leica] Film Lab

lluisripollphotography lluisripollphotography at gmail.com
Sun Jun 4 12:23:32 PDT 2017 

Gerry, Jayanand and other friends

What I can say is obvious, film and digital technologies are different, they work in different ways and maybe it is a mistake compare them. What I can say and afirm is that if you have a negative from film, you print it and you also you enlarge it in the darkroom the results are much better from the darkroom procedure, for example, one of the prints I’ve do on my EPSON SC-P600 on Canson Platine Fiber Rag size A3 and the same enlarged on Ilford Baryta Multigrade, same size, the resukts are much, much, much better from the chemical process, the digital printing offers an approximate view with less gradation, les definition and deepness on the blacks and on the highlights, on this picture there is sand and very shiny sea waves, in the inkjet print the sand appears as many small pints and the highlights without information, on the wet copy you see a rich extended zones of grey on the sand and information on the highlights. If you take the focusing magnifier used n the darkroom and lou look at the  picture information from digital, you see big drops of ink, if you look at the wet copy you see fine points of grain. The printers still “don’t know print in a fine gradation, they know only input points (drops if ink)”. If we ONLY look at the picture on the monitor the differences are less evident, the monitirs are retroíluminated and they give us a better suggestion of the image, if you consider as I do, that the final picture is the picture, I’m sorry to be so “brave” as Gerry says but the wet copy is the winner.

A different think is if you have shot something on digital, in my opinion on this case you are already to work with the digital values, they can differ from film values. In my recent experience in the darkroom with a friend who know very well the B&W negative values, he has demonstrate me measuring the negatives zones with a densitomer that separation and information between the different zones, particularly on the extreme zones 0, 1 and 9 and 10 is more rich with film. I’ve do Digital Negatives, an interesting technique to get chemical prints from digital files, not easy, and at least in my experience the final quality is not as good as a copy from a real negative, I think because the original amount of information is not the same, when you make a Digtal Negative you print it, and I have already said which are the inconvenients of a printer procedure compared with a chemical one.
 
Beside this there are many possible interpretations as well as compromise and in many cases digital could be enough, but what I’ve realized is that if I have a nice picture to print, I prefer have it from film and do it on the darkroom than in inkjet printing.

Cheers
Lluis




> El 4 juny 2017, a les 9:30, Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com> va escriure:
> 
> Dan,
> Oh, I am sure of that!
> 
> I feel that digital output is still better than darkroom output, though,
> even for B&W. IMHO, there is simply no comparison, in the complete
> workflow, from capture to print. As I said, others may have different
> opinions and I respect that - I know Lluis does, and we have discussed this
> many, many times privately, and in the end we just amicably agree to
> disagree, and go on with what suits us individually! However, I find the
> exchange of views very useful, leading to invaluable insights.
> 
> Cameras are tools for me, and digital cameras, Fuji & Nikon, one for street
> and one for wildlife, are my tools of choice at this point of time. The
> Fuji GFX50S is tempting, and exerting a siren's song,  but I cannot see how
> I have any use for it that makes it superior to my existing gear, for my
> type of photography, and the sizes I print at present. A printer that
> accepts 24" wide paper, instead of 17" that my Epson 3885 uses might be a
> better choice right now!
> 
> I have a fair amount of film camera equipment gathering dust on my shelves
> and in the bank locker, more, I am sure, than most of the most committed
> film shooters around - Leica IIIF and IIIG, Nikon F Apollo. F2AS,
> F3Titanium, F4, F100, Canon and Nikon Rangefinders, Rollei TLRs, Mamiya
> 645E - except for the Leicas, all of them were originally bought by my
> family - uncles, aunts, father, myself - and finally found their way to me.
> Most of these are with me because I did not have the wit (or the heart) to
> sell them in time. This after selling most of my Leica film equipment in
> London a few years ago (M3, M2, R6.2 and 10 lenses)!
> 
> Pens and watches, on the other hand, are hobbies, passions which make them
> an emotional issue, while cameras are just a utilitarian one! I am
> particularly fond of JLR and IWC in watches, and Pelikan as well as the
> Japanese trio, Namiki/Pilot, Sailor and Platinum as far as pens are
> concerned, and primarily these are what I use.
> 
> Cheers
> Jayanand
> 
> On Sun, Jun 4, 2017 at 12:30 PM, Dan Khong <dankhong at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Jayanand
>> 
>> You might be more analog oriented than you think.
>> 
>> I actually like collecting and using old fully mechanical watches and apart
>> from the antique look, almost all that I have are accurate and they run
>> like clockwork. I also write with fountain pens in my work and cheap ones
>> perform really well. So it looks that we have much in common.
>> 
>> Dan K.
>> 
>> On Sun, Jun 4, 2017 at 11:15 AM, Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> I disagree, I think film is nowhere as good as digital, but to each his
>>> own.....:-) (Hey - I use mechanical watches and fountain pens!!!)
>>> 
>>> Cheers
>>> Jayanand
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Jun 4, 2017 at 3:18 AM, lluisripollphotography <
>>> lluisripollphotography at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Gerry, Dan
>>>> 
>>>> I’m agree of course, but film is not only nostalgia, it is better
>> quality
>>>> than pixels technologies…
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers
>>>> Lluis
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> El 3 juny 2017, a les 23:23, Dan Khong <dankhong at gmail.com> va
>>> escriure:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Lluis
>>>>> 
>>>>> Film and darkroom is far from dead. Ilford is revived as
>> Harman-Ilford.
>>>>> Kodak still makes films both for still photography and
>> cinematographic
>>>>> industry. Seems Star Wars and latest Bond movie were shot on film.
>> Once
>>>> in
>>>>> a while, I set up my darkroom (bedroom for the dry part and
>> connecting
>>>>> bathroom for the wet part) and enlarge a dozen prints. Nothing beats
>>> the
>>>>> smell of fixer for nostalgia.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Bests
>>>>> 
>>>>> Dan K.
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, Jun 3, 2017 at 6:34 PM, lluisripollphotography <
>>>>> lluisripollphotography at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Jayanand,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The best B&W is from the darkroom, now I’ve been back I regret to
>> have
>>>>>> spent so much time and money on digital….
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>> Lluis
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> El 16 maig 2017, a les 5:05, Jayanand Govindaraj <
>> jayanand at gmail.com
>>>> 
>>>>>> va escriure:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> If it catches anybody's fancy!
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/175814937/filmlab-an-
>>>>>> app-for-viewing-and-digitizing-analog-f
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>>> Jayanand
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Leica Users Group.
>>>>>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more
>> information
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Leica Users Group.
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>> information
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Leica Users Group.
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>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
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> 
> _______________________________________________
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