[pure-silver] Re: Film vs Digital- was: Amusing Kodak commercial

Quoting "Dana H. Myers" <dana.myers@xxxxxxxxx>:

> The local lab charges the same for a print from a negative as for a print
> from a digital file, and, AFAIK, doesn't offer the luxury of refusing prints
> because they're pictures one didn't intend to keep.

That might be the state in the U.S.A. but in Germany processing--- once
several times more expensive than in North America--- is now cheap.

In Germany there are two BIG time labs. CeWe and Eurocolor (Fuji). They
compete hard and processing LARGE numbers of film. Minilabs are more or
less history.

Its a highly competitive market among the drugstores and shops to get
customers and so there is also a lot of competition on price for
photofinishing. One chain even offers 1 cent per print (9x13cm). I mentioned
10 cents for the 11x13cm at DM but for 9x13cm its 5 cents. It used to be only
4 cents :-)

Quality is actually pretty good and they even do B&W (DM used to stock Ilford
FP-4 before the flop and now carry APX-100 at the price of 2.49 EURO per
roll). CeWe does rollfilm too and I'd not be surprized if they'd do 4x5"
sheet film. I've had them do 120 film for me and.. well it was cheaper than
what I need to pay for the Fuji paper to print in my darkroom.. 

This is the current state of things in Germany and yet.. people still sing
that digital is cheaper mantra..

The numbers show a decline in the number of prints. Some printing is indeed
shifting to digital but most of the substitution of film for digital has
gone from having physical artifacts (negatives, prints or whatever) to having
a digital file. This is the real problem since beyond art our own personal
history and heritage are documented in these "silly" snapshots that are
vanishing as organic pigments fade (DVD and CD storage), disks fail and
computers go puff.

Digital is cheaper since the act of "photography" has for the most part become
a process of capture and only capture. It, of course, would be even cheaper to
just use an old reliable mechanical camera without film but there'd be the
missing illusion of capture.. :-)

The heart of the matter is.. Its the pierced anything that one can punch
a hole into, tattoo anything one can stick a pin and some ink into, "live for
today" culture that really screams "who cares" for memories.. only the second
counts..

-- 
-- 
Edward C. Zimmermann, Basis Systeme netzwerk, Munich
http://www.nonmonotonic.net
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