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Re: [OM] Great Idea - but not today

Subject: Re: [OM] Great Idea - but not today
From: Bob Whitmire <bwhitmire@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 07:16:18 -0400
<Poking Caged Bear with Stick Alert!>

Now why would it matter, once you go high-end DSLR? All you need is a copy of 
Nik Software's Silver Effex Pro v2 and Adobe Photoshop CS5 and you have what 
you need to make genuinely cosmic black and white prints. Combine good 
technique with the software with Epson's 3880 printer and Epson Exhibition 
Fiber paper, and you can produce prints that are virtually (used advisedly) 
indistinguishable from silver gelatin. Use some of the premium velvet and 
watercolor matte papers, and, well, it's just pure magic. You'll even acquire 
groupies. Trust me on this!

SFX is a fairly intuitive program, and the degree of control you have as a 
photographer is light years (again, used advisedly) ahead of mixing different 
batches of chemicals and waving your hands around under an enlarger lamp. It's 
astonishing what you can do. That said, it requires some fairly serious 
dedication of time and effort, just like a wet darkroom. There is an 
auto-pilot, and it gives better results than you're likely to get going the 
straight Photoshop B&W conversion, but once you start learning what all those 
controls will do, you're ability to interpret your image goes from, oh, say, a 
kit f/5.6-f/8 lens to the best f/1.2 prime.

Those who are happiest in the wet darkroom have no need to change. I salute 
them and would not disparage them (except for AG, and that's just for sport 
<g>). But for those who like or would like to like black and white and who 
shoot digital exclusively, there's no need anymore to feel like you're Aunt 
Sally's bastard love child. You, too, can do black and white, and you can do it 
well. So well, in fact, that with enough practice, I suspect it would take 
trained and experienced eyes to tell the difference between their chemicals and 
your pixels. In a few more years, no one will be able to tell.

--B&W Bob

 
On May 9, 2011, at 5:48 PM, Ken Norton wrote:

> That's very specific to my DSLR
> needs and has no bearing on my dedication to the OM system which will
> live on as long as I can get B&W film.

-- 
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