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To: Don Joe
No problem...I went digital. Kodak is the like Lockheed coming out with the Electra while Boeing was coming out with the 707. Very few people remember the Electra.
56 posted on 03/12/2002 9:32:41 PM PST by AlaskaErik
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To: AlaskaErik
"No problem...I went digital."

Um, right, "no problem". As long, that is, as there's "no problem" with snapshot quality prints of 8x10 or smaller, or, the inclination and ability to fork out 50 grand or so for a LF scanning back.

The only way that Mere Mortals can "go digital" and retain some of the intensely dense data packed into even a 24x36 mm silverworld image is to use a decent slide scanner. Go to MF or LF and you're talking about a pro grade drum scanner, and bingo, you're back to the 50 grand range again.

Digital as a replacement for film is Really Great Stuff for the same folks who find P&S "quality" to be just super, or for newspaper photographers for whom the "defining" issue is the size of the screen mask their halftone press guys use. (Or, for magazine photographers whose output never goes beyond the size of the inkprints on the page.)

For any application where traditional photography shines, digital has a long way to go. And there's no reasonable expectation that it'll get there any time soon, particularly when price is a factor.

The main driving force behind the popular acceptance of digital is the popular acceptance of mediocre snapshot-grade images produced by the dominant combination of mediocre P&S cameras and mediocre slackjaw-run minilabs. That cheap digital can produce work competitive with crap-on-crap traditional images is more of an indictment of the current state of the traditional image world than a vindication of digital.

57 posted on 03/13/2002 8:12:00 AM PST by Don Joe
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