[rollei_list] Re: Digital Advice

Points well taken.
Doug


On May 30, 2008, at 9:05 AM, ERoustom wrote:
It's not fair to compare the picture taking gear. When film gear was the medium of the day it didn't come cheaply at all. 
It's also a given that we all have computers.

But the output can be looked at.
Epson 4800 list price $1995. Full set of inks $600 +/-. 8x10 sheet of good paper $2 +/- Time spent per print: first print (including post processing) 1 hour, additional print 3 minutes? (Mark Rabiner, can you help with these figures) 
Capacity of inks, number of sheets ?
Life span of equipment, with care, and not upgrading software that would make it irrelevant, 5 years. 
Tolerance of equipment and process to any malfunction very low.
Complete eBay era darkroom $1000, including basement modification. 1 Gallon Dektol $7, Stop & Fix another $20, Fine FB paper, $1.50 Time spent per print: first print (including mixing and setting up) 1 hour, additional prints 10 minutes, washing & drying time till next day, flattening another 24h. 
Capacity of 1 litre trays - 10 to 20 8x10s
Life span of equipment, with care, indefinite.
Tolerance of equipment and process to any malfunction good.
No need to compare waste product, as the plastic generated by digital (whence it came and where it goes) is probably more harm to the planet and the people on it than silver mining ever was. Silver is recoverable, and asks only some diligence - calling Safety Clean to take away 30 Gal drum of fix, about $300. What do we do with all that plastic?
It's really a wash, with some overhead cost advantage to the wet darkroom (for those with the space and time), unless you have to feed your kids from the sale of the product, in which case you'd be nuts not to go digital all the way. Even if I was a pro, I'd keep a darkroom. Every now and then someone would want to pay a little more for what might be called "the real thing." There's got to be someone somewhere out there charging a mint for darkroom work. The art & craft (discarded technology) niche in the printing industry has been good for me, I'm surprised there isn't a parallel in the photo industry. Maybe I don't know about it.
On the other hand: charcoal crayon $1, sheet of 22x30 rag paper from France $4, drawing (archival and unique) priceless, very relaxing. 

E.




On May 31, 2008, at 12:00 AM, Marvin Wallace wrote:


The Price of Analog hardware was very expensive if you wanted good
stuff-Noctilux, Lihoff with Zeiss glass etc. I think that the cost of film and processing depends very much on the style of shooting. Thirdly, the price of film and processing has been radically lowered in Hong Kong at 
least. Thanks to digital.


in purely financial terms the most expensive part of
film photography is the film and processing, not the
hardware.
Frank
--- marvin0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:


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