Back to film?

David M

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This is not specifically large format, but it looked like an interesting straw in the wind.
We are all familiar with hybrid printing, where the image is captured on film and the print made digitally.
Firstcall are offering a service to do this in the opposite direction.They will convert your digital files to a negative, so you can print them in the darkroom. 35mm only at the moment.
Who would have predicted that?

http://www.firstcall-photographic.co.uk/transfer-36-digital-images-back-to-35mm-film/p7124
 
Well Sebastiao Salgado shoots digital and then had film negatives made for darkroom printing. I'm not sure if Simon Roberts did the same for "The Election Project" which was shot LF on C41 film, scanned - some manipulation combining elements from other negatives, and final output large RA-4 colour prints, I can;t remember if he had new negatives or went straight to RA-4 via a Durst Lambda printer.

I know Bob Carnie in Toronto makes large digital negatives using his Lambda printer, and David Woods of dR5 offers a digital to negative service, as do quite a few others.

This is the first consumer (as opposed to professional) service I've seen, thanks for posting David.

Ian
 
Whats the advantage of printing a digital negative in the darkroom when you can output it to a digital printer
 
People want conventional RA-4, Silver Gelatin (usually fibre based) or Alternative process prints.

Ian
 
People have long made internegatives, either for alternative processes or to gain some other advantage in the printing. A mural-sized enlargement from a 35mm neg might be printed from a corrected copy 10x8 neg. Some photographers and collectors prefer a wet print, too.
In this case, you get an undeveloped spool of film, so apart from the original click, you get the whole experience of darkroom work.
This makes it possible to have a taster of "real" photography before buying a "real" camera. It will probably be useful in education.
The other thing they mention is archiving selected shots. As we know, people do get nervous about the longevity of digital files.
 
Perhaps if one did all the dodging and burning in PS, then it's a lot easier to make a straight(er) print in the darkroom. Then you have a much easier time reproducing very similar images onto a,say, fibre-based medium that has a greater longevity attributed to it.
 
Jim,
I'm sure that's a possibility. People may apply all those very creative and very interesting filters that are built into modern cameras, before sending off the file.
It might be a handy way to store copies of important documents, as a sort of jumbo poor man's microfiche.
 
All of which you can do yourself from the desktop outputting to an Epson inkjet printer. I do this quite often for pt/pd prints made in the darkroom. I've never felt a need to produce digital negatives for silver printing.
 
All of which you can do yourself from the desktop outputting to an Epson inkjet printer. I do this quite often for pt/pd prints made in the darkroom. I've never felt a need to produce digital negatives for silver printing.


Only disadvantage is you can't enlarge Inkjet negatives, and you need different negatives for differing sized prints.

Ian
 
Yes, of course, but I suspect that it's not aimed at the battle-scarred LF veteran.
 
I toyed with the idea of buying a film recorder a few years ago, one that wrote to 5x4 film. I could see a use for it at the time.

In the past I did a lot of composite work adding text to images, stripping images together, work that these days is easy with image editing software. But I'm talking about pre PC's and Apple's so it was all darkroom work and then a copy negative.

Ian
 
Only disadvantage is you can't enlarge Inkjet negatives, and you need different negatives for differing sized prints.

Ian

No need. You can easily print a new negative for any size print you can handle in the darkroom. In my case, the largest printing frame I have is 12x15" so roughly 11x14" is the largest I can handle. I've never made a negative that large, but the capability is there. Also, I'm restricted to that largest frame size by my UV lightbox, too.
 
And then there's the copying of art work with my digital then having it output to E6 slides for submission to schools for admission.
 
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