I am unable to find the price of a new Lamba printer - perhaps Durst has discontinued it. However, used units are going for $10,000 USD and up. Add to that the not inconsiderable costs of ink and/or maintenance and it's not even a close comparison
A Lambda printer is a giant of a machine which most people would not be able to find room for in a domestic setting. It takes 50" wide roll paper and uses its lasers to expose silver halide paper, which is then passed through a conventional wet process development and fixing. You would need, at least, a double garage to house it.
All of which is why there are only a few labs that offer this service, usually by asking clients to upload their files and returning the prints in a tube.
To me, this is analogous to people spending 10,000 Euro for a Digital Leica and lens only to discover that a fairly pedestrian 5x4 view camera shooting well processed film eclipses it in terms of tonality, rendering power, and dynamic range. This whole business feels like making three lefthand turns to make a right. To be sure, digital imaging has a place, but one does not have to spend multiples of 5 digits to make great prints.
I think you have misunderstood what Lambda printing involves and costs. From Harman, a 20" x 24" print only costs around £30. See their site for more details
https://www.harmanlab.com/page/86/NEW-B-W-PRINTING-SERVICES.htm
Digital isn't better. It's different, and it's more efficient for commercial purposes. Most of all, at best, it is an artform unto itself only peripherally related to traditional photography. The Moog synth did not displace the Steinway concert grand, and digital isn't a viable replacement for silver. It's just a new branch in a very big tree.
Don't forget that we are not necessarily talking about a digital capture, it's the process of getting a print from a negative or transparency.
There is every bit as much an art form in carefully crafting a digital scan into a file that will be Lambda printed on silver halide paper as there is in producing a darkroom print on silver halide paper through an enlarger or contact print.
In the darkroom you use multigrade paper and filters, test strips and create a printing plan and dodge and burn with paddles to achieve an optimal print. On a computer, I use a calibrated screen and software to dodge and burn areas of the image in exactly the same way to create a perfect file that will then be printed.
Ian and Martin have provided all sorts of tutorials on what they refer to as "contrast grading" but is, in fact, dodging and burning.
What I prefer is more digital control of a negative by being able to dodge, burn, locally change contrast and exposure and even tint and tone in a way that is non destructive and doesn't waste materials like a wet darkroom. I fall into the @Joanna Carter camp I'm afraid. I love the quality and permanence of a large negative over a digital file - but having printed professionally during my career I'm not overly sentimental about the wet process. I'm totally happy with the quality of the prints I get after I send away my files to be printed - to me, photography it's about manipulating my view of reality and presenting that to the viewer - how I get there is less important than the end destination.
Indeed. I have done darkroom printing - I needed to create a darkroom, either temporary or permanent, and spend hours and, more importantly, a lot of money producing test strips, printing plans and trial prints in order to get something that approached what I wanted. Now, I waste the same time but nowhere near as much money, as I am able to create a perfectly worked image for only the cost of the electricity to run the computer. Then it's a case of pressing "print" for a digital print, or sending the file to Harman for a silver print, knowing that, most of the time, that is the only time I will have to spend out on printing.
Of course, another advantage of the hybrid approach is that I don't have to go through the entire multiple exposure process that dodging and burning from a printing plan involves, all over again for every print.
Is digital printing of scans an art form? Well, if you consider that some B&W prints I have prepared have taken 3 or more days to work on, adjusting, assessing, leaving overnight for consideration and reflection, reworking, etc., it's certainly nowhere near an instant process and, as Ian, Martin and others here will testify, it's far from the everyday simple process that calling it "just digital" would infer.
