The main points of her inquiries can be summarized as follows:

• Why do I hate digital – considering I use it and write about it and obviously know the digital world so well.
• Why do I hate speedlights, built-in flash, and for that matter just about any little portable flash units.
• Why do I hate HDR
• Why do I hate new cameras and innovations.

I will take these point by point but first I want to say that I don’t hate any of them – not one. I can see how one would think that I do based on quite a few flippant remarks and asides woven throughout the site – especially if you do not know me and we have never spoken. In general I would have to say I take the devil’s advocate’s position on what I would lump into the category of silver bullets, the emperor’s new clothes, over-hyped technical solutions to problems that don’t exist, over complication, and last but not least – snake oil salesmen that prey on the faithful in need of a cure.

Let’s cover digital first. This obviously is in the context of film vs. digital. I don’t hate digital, I am not an either or person. I just love film in certain contexts and applications. A lot of film has an inherent beauty that digital just does not reproduce – it has a different “look”. I bring this up a lot because I feel it is important if you have a love of photography that you find some way to experience using film. I do this because the vast majority of people that I run into in 2010 that are photography enthusiasts have never really experienced film in a meaningful way, if at all.

I love the fact that more people are actually “into’ making good photographs because of digital – the downside is that they really don’t have an appreciation of film and some of it’s wonderfulness. That wonderfulness extending to some things that are considered weaknesses. Yep – limited exposures, time to process, one ISO, less options for the treatment of color, actually choosing and knowing that you are shooting either color or black and white at capture time, grain, all of that stuff can be strengths and either teach or bring back an appreciation of subtlety. That last one – tiny, minuscule differences are one of the essential things that make or break a photograph – hopelessly lost in the age of digital where wild swings in color, saturation, sharpness, contrast, etc. are the norm. I don’t think most people can even evaluate subtle differences any more. In my book this is a bad thing.

Moving right along to portable/small/built-in flash. I don’t hate them either. I hate that built-in, autoflash, in the worst possible position has become the default. I think the default ruins most pictures people take. I think that the default makes people extremely lazy where they don’t even think about the actual light in the scene anymore.

Here is where it get’s really complicated. I also believe that most great images out there taken by ANYONE are not lit in anyway but ambient conditions.  After making hundreds of thousands of photographs both professionally and personally combined with my own viewing experience from masters to my mom – I think the best photographs employ only ambient light. This doesn’t mean that there is not a place for “lit” photographs – of course there is. I made a living from this for 7 years. In fact some photographic endeavors are best served via strobe either aesthetically or practically or both. The other reason I pooh-pooh the current little light craze is because I think there are way too many people that know better purveying a bunch of nonsense for profit reasons – in other words telling people to do exactly the wrong thing to achieve a set of results – TTL automation, off-camera lights, expensive battery powered small units to achieve results that are easier, less expensive and better via manual large strobes.

HDR – now here is a topic that is sure to win me a curmudgeon of the year award. This one ranks right up there with things I consider wayward fashion trends that took too long to go away. I could be wrong here but I think HDR will go the way of the dodo bird real soon. Don’t take this the wrong way – I mean HDR as it sits now – with that nasty Photomatix software and such things. When someone says HDR what they really mean is Photomatix or something just like it.

The act of translating the very very contrasty world onto a piece of paper has been in existence since cavemen started drawing on cave walls. Painters do it – good painters to it very very well. Black and white photographers have ALWAYS done it – black and white film captures an amazing amount if information. Slide film shooters and digital guys do it and always have with graduated filters and balanced fill light of sorts. Even digital guys do it with multiple exposures long before the advent of automatic blending nonsense like Photomatix. In fact I think some of the multi-exposure composites I have seen are fantastic – I linked to a guy that does this a long time ago – I think I titled it “HDR done right” or something.

By the way – the choices of what goes black what goes white, where there is detail, where there is not, where there is high midtone contrast and where there is low contrast is the art of making a photograph – both at time of capture and when it comes to making a print. The HDR that I hate – and I do hate it is the rubbish that I see run through Photomatix et, al. Yea I know, I know, we will all agree on the generality of “good” and “bad” HDR but I am going to go further – it is all rubbish. I have given it a chance, I have let it sit. Even the work of the “masters” of sliding those Photomatix sliders – guess what, a year later even the images that I thought I liked look ridiculous to me at this point. Without fail my desire is to see a “regular” version of the same scene done well. Polyester leisure suit of the early 21st century.

I will not bother to answer the last one because I in no way hate innovation. Hope that clears up my position on things a bit more than just a flippant remark pointing to idiotic things like the 9 speedlight ring flash.

RB

By popular demand – actually just a few people I have decided to expand the number of papers I am offering as sample prints. I am adding a couple today and will add a couple over the next few weeks.

The first is a really really nice paper that is so much like Agfa 118 it is not funny. In every way – emulsion – base color -surface color – every way. It is Foma FB Variant IV 123 Velvet Semi-Matte – that is a mouthful – neutral base – not bright bright white with an emulsion tone similar to the MCC Adox. The surface combined with the subtle colors is what makes this paper very special. Great stuff.

The second paper is a super warmtone – very very very different. Foma FB Cream Base Warmtone Matte – really cool.

They are available now with the same image selection as before. Over the next few days I will be adding some additional images of subject matter that has been requested – still life – landscape – architecture that I think will print well on the papers that I am offering as samples – when they are available I will be introducing another two papers as well, I am just fine tuning the image selection to fit across all three.

Hope you enjoy them.

RB

I got this one with the lens shown for $70 including shipping! The film rails, pressure place and all of the internals are pristine – the viewfinder is cleaner than my D3- no crap. I wish I had the facilities to take a picture so you could see. Think daughter No. 1 will like it? I hope so I am giving it to her tomorrow with an old tripod, a couple of rolls of TRI-X, PLUS-X, and maybe that Vivatar 17-28 that I got for free. I figured she might considering how much fun she is having with that Fuji Instax she bought a couple of weeks ago – that and she asked me to teach her to make black and white prints.

If you are not familiar with the FM – think Pentax K1000 only better typical Nikon build quality and ruggedness. The really cool thing that the FM can do is mount Non-AI lenses – the FM2 cannot.

RB

I thought that some of you out there that think everyone but you is perfect might get a laugh out of this. Go ahead – after my fit of rage I get over it real quick and never take myself too seriously. Life is too short. The other thing I thought you might find amusing was a guy with so obviously little patience shoots large format – ha ha. People sometimes mistake my obsessiveness for patience – they are two very very different characteristics that have a tiny bit of overlap. Even you digital only people should find this amusing – in a different way.

So – why do I shoot large format then? It looks different. The tonality is unique. I can use beat up lenses with no coatings and are in the process of separating from the 1920′s – with strange designs and stranger aberrations that also provide a very unique rendering. Take a look at this crop. The print from this would be about 4 feet high. This is also the grainiest film I shoot – really – it does not get much grainier than this in this developer. This film is even grainier than TRI-X (which is not really a grainy film contrary to popular urban legend – at least it has not been for decades).

Enjoy – The joke is on me.

RB

Ps – My P-O-S flatbed does no justice to large format – I print this stuff on real paper – sometimes paper I coat myself with platinum or other odd do-it-yourself processes.

First off – I wanted to clarify some things I wrote in this post that I have received a few emails about. The difference in print exposure for the two scans shown was about 1/2 stop of print exposure on grade 2.5 paper. Yes print exposures of 1/2 stop make a huge difference – it get’s bigger as you up the contrast. Part B of the question was related to “contrast” – the scans are raw scans strait off my really crappy flatbed scanner of the two under and over prints with NO contrast adjustment so they look a bit flat on your screen – visually in person the blacks are black – not grey. I did not want to monkey with them so I didn’t.

Now for the real news – I have received lots of special image requests and so far have accommodated them as best I could but… that takes a lot of time for me if I have not printed the negative on that paper before – it also causes some waste that I was not planning on. The biggest request was not for a particular image it was for a particular kind of image – namely something very wall-arty – my words. Specifically landscape-y, still life-y, architecture-y, etc. So… I am going to add a few negatives to the selection that hopefully meet that criteria.

The other thing I am going to do is add a few more papers that I have been experimenting with to the selection. The papers for now will be pretty much a good selection of the Foma fiber based papers with various warn/neutral/white bases and a couple of surfaces. These are really nice and again are so similar to a lot of the old Agfa papers that it is unbelievable. Really nice stuff. Price will be about the same – namely a great deal since  it covers materials and shipping and that is about it. I think you will be very happy with them if this kind of thing is up your ally. Any body who has them feel free to chime in.

On another front – Some of you know that Kodak announced the discontinuance of TRI-X TXP in 120 and 220 only. This is not a huge deal but a bit of a pain in the ass for some of us. I used to shoot it occasionally in 120 – not my main film but it was kind of nice when I shot medium format along with TXP in large format because the exposure and curve was so similar (not exactly but very close). So I could go with one set of meter readings and exposure notes for both formats. I still shoot TXP in large format as that is not discontinued and reports are that it sells very well but am pretty much done in 120.

I for one will not be stock piling TXP in 120 – a lot of source are already out – that is amazing. I do not feel like the storage headache. The fridge is not the issue – background radiation is so… if you are stockpiling don’t forget your lead lined bags. I do think it is a shame that Kodak cannot justify production of TXP in 120 and now that the 220 is gone there is NO MORE 220 at all in black and white. Call it the end of an era. RIP.

Now for the good news – the Kodak EKTAR 100 is about the most amazing stuff you ever shot. New last year and more formats this year – 35mm, medium format 120, 4×5, and 8×10. Wow. If you shoot color give it a try – I think you will be amazed – no wonder Hollywood likes this stuff so much (that is who the original emulsion was developed for – it is called Vision or something). Honestly you could probably shoot this instead of slides if you shoot landscape-y stuff. The cool thing is that the color is really punch but it still renders great skin tones.

If you were missing Kodak HIE – check out the sorta new Efke IR820 – Freestyle has it and here is the kicker – it now has NO ANTI HALATION LAYER – so the look is dead on for HIE. You can also do things you never could do before with the long gone Kodak HIE – not only 35mm but medium and large format as well. I tried the 35mm and it looks just like HIE – looks like I will be buying some bigger film to.

/film-crap

RB

Ps. Top image – grab shot of daughter No. 3 in an unusual state. Note the lollipop grip – that is normal for her, god knows what possessed her to hold lollipops and popsicles by the wrong end but she did – always.

A couple of people sent me emails and asked if I was serious about shooting 35mm film – they sort of get the 120 and sheet film but they were asking 35mm – really? Yep really. It is not nearly as flexible as digital the film you have in the camera dictates the aesthetic and to some degree the technical “quality”. That you are stuck with for 36 images – so what. I have no qualms shooting a couple of extra frames to “finish” I still shoot way less than I shoot with digital. I also have no qualms to just rewind half way into a roll and be done if the circumstances dictate. In reality I am not in situations that call for ISO 400 then ISO 1600 then ISO 100 within 36 frames. If you shoot 4 images and put the camera away until next week and then another 7 images and put the camera away until Christmas – well the circumstance are likely to change.

I also have no need for color/quality/black and white choices after the fact. I actually like my options limited – I decide what and how I am going to approach something and I am done. I don’t keep second guessing the infinite options AFTER I shot it. I shoot very differently when I shoot black and white and know I am shooting black and white. I shoot very differently when I shoot color – I look at completely different things. Yes there is some overlap but for the most part…

Last but not least – I am way beyond the need to make every image I ever shoot the most technically “good” image that is possible in my photographic journey. I do not mount my camera on a tripod for every image – I do not use the absolute best lens for every photo – I do not use the highest resolution finest grain film or camera setting and I certainly don’t try to make it look like I did with noise reduction, sharpening, etc. Sometimes this is critical for the image that you are making but in most cases for the subject matter I shoot – it is way way down the list. In fact some images lend themselves to some subject movement, etc, etc.

Last but not least I love black and white and I love prints on paper. Film is way way way way less expensive to make not only decent but in a lot of ways aesthetically superior black and white prints with an infinitely grater range of treatment options for the final look. How much cheaper – less than half the cost – way less. If you are a black and white output guy – forget the film cost it doesn’t even count. Let’s take two really really good papers – a very nice glossy FB 11×14 silver black and white paper that I use regularly and Museo Silver Rag – a really nice Inkjet paper that I like. The real photo paper – bayarta coated (this is a black and white photo paper invention even though the new fad is to call a bunch of inkjet papers the same thing – it is not some new technology) – with real SILVER in the emulsion. Twenty Five sheets = $39. Museo Silver RAG – $89 from Amazon. Yea yea the Museo is slightly bigger but let’s talk ink shall we. The paper developer is dirt cheap $6 for at least 4 boxes of the silver paper – more if you print a lot but I never exhaust a tray of developer  in a session and never save it.

The sprint flowers at the top of the post were just a random frame from crap laying around that I shot and developed for the test roll on the FM2 yesterday – 10 year old Tri-X shot at 1600 developed using a stand process in very dilute HC110. Pretty cool.

RB

Guess what – not only have I decided that I do not want an M9 – at least not a $10,000 M9 but I am actually shooting more 35mm film than I am digital for like the last 4 months. Yes I still shoot digital to but I am shooting my M6 cameras more than my digital. I really love these cameras and I really like the way the film looks as well. So for now I am sticking with my film gear in terms of shooting rangefinders.

Based on my advanced rationalization skills acquired through a lot of practice I have determined that I can buy anything I want since I “saved” $10,000 by NOT buying an M9.What I have decided I need is a super-wide for my M cameras. I don’t want anything super outrageous like a 15mm – I have a 14mm for my Nikon film and digital bodies that is just fine and a bit too wide for “general purpose”. I want a 21mm.

My choices are either a Leica ASPH new – NOT the 1.4 and NOT crappy new budget one – the real one. A brand new Zeiss – again NOT the 1.4 but the small one or… The Voightlander. I have pretty much settled on the Voightlander – it is downright cheap and astoundingly good compared to SLR wide angles but I keep trying to get over the fact that I have only ever used Leica glass on my Leica cameras – I keep having visions of my self HATING every image that the thing pumps out but continuing to use it because it is good enough. I know that this is stupid – but somehow I am having trouble pulling the trigger on the Voghtlander.

Anyone out there have one of these things that can tell me to just go ahead and get the freaking thing already and just be done with it?

RB

I have been toting the M6 and a lens or two around with me just about everywhere. I was even inspired to start a couple of longer term projects with it. I have shot only black and white so far and have used a mishmash of old 7 or 8 year old film I had laying around. Tri-X, TMAX3200 TMZ, etc. I have liked it so much that I actually put in a big film order for 35mm film last week. It cost me about $170 this will probably hold me off on “needing” an M9 for a long time.

The camera is great – having it with me is great – being “limited” to 35mm and 50mm is great. It is a freeing experience. I forgot what it is like to travel light. The film I have shot so far has it’s flaws. The biggest one is me but I am sure I will get back in shape in another month or two. The other flaws are that the TMZ is almost useless after 8 years. You have not seen fog like this. It’s bad. The Tri-X is useable but still fogged a bit. That is why I got new film. Point is it is cheap and it is fun and on top of that I get fantastic results – at least by my definition.

I also noticed that people are still voting on my Leica M9 poll. The results have cooled off a lot since the introduction. Far more people are not considering it as a purchase now. I wonder if the same demographic decided to make a future investment in something else or just decided they don’t really need a new camera? I hope it is the latter.

The image at the top was shot on my Leica M6 with a 35mm Summicron wide open or thereabouts. Really slow shutter speed – like 1/8th-ish, hand held in very very low light – very low backlight. A nightmare of an exposure situation when you need to shoot quickly. I kind of like the image  - it is interesting to me. Yea I know that everything is not in focus that is what happens when you shoot about wide open and close. Yea I know there is a little flare – that is what happens when you shoot into your light source in a big big way wide open. Yea I know there is subject motion. It is still interesting to me – I love the expressions on each of there faces – this was the moment when the wedding planner let the bride and her best friends know 5 minutes before the wedding was supposed to start that A) The flowers were not here and could not be located and B) The best man was not here with another one of the ushers and could not be located. Priceless and a great example of why you do not want me as your wedding photographer.

RB

I recently acquired a HUGE box of Kodak Ektalure black and white paper – I had big plans for this if it were “good”. Kodak stopped making this stuff a long long time ago and although I did not use it as a standard – there were some images that were made for this paper. It had a unique surface texture – not to much but unique. It had a unique base color and it had a very unique and malleable emulsion color that you could tweak to very different hues with development, toning, etc.

Long story short – I have a small stock pile of good Ektalure but not really enough to do a serious large project. I was hoping this “new” box would give me some breathing room. As you can tell from the attached image it is badly fogged and not too useful for general purposes but…

I kind of liked the image that this produced with my a test image that I use to evaluate a lot of graded and multi-contrast papers for a lot of reasons that I will not go into here. It got me thinking that I may want to try to “Lith” this paper. No amount of restrainer or anti-fog agent will let this paper work well with normal exposure – the fog is too dense but…. I can see clearly based on knowing my test negative that the fog will not even be in the realm of usable exposure for a Lith print so my next order from Freestyle has a couple of different Lith type developers to see what I can do with this paper.

I will let you know how it turns out.

RB

I say this all the time and really mean it – you have to see it in person to appreciate it. Words and stupid web images do not cut it. If I could afford to be a wealthy philanthropist I swear I would send out actual samples of various materials to anyone that was interested. I am not so here is stupid product idea #17 that may eventually morph into something else if there is any interest whatsoever. Ta Da.

Samples of stuff that I happen to use without making an investment in any of it. Samples of some of the various fiber based papers that I happen to use – real fiber silver paper – not inkjet. With actual 8×10 prints on them. I am not talking about “art” with ridiculous prices like $600 for a print. I am talking about a work grade print on materials that I happen to use priced at the cost of materials + shipping in a “do not bend fold or mutilate” envelope. Like 5 or 10 bucks.

I may even give you a choice of a couple different formats of negative or something like that. I figure it might be worthwhile for those that are interested in “real” analog photography and what it looks like from a home darkroom AND people that already know but want a sample of a particular material they want to try without investing in 100 sheets of the stuff.

Thoughts?

RB

Ps. If anyone is interested in this I may actually expand the idea to a sample book of paper and even some big sheet film negative/developer/paper sample packages or something like that. I really believe in this stuff and want to make it more accessible to others if I can.