8 ms·

Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

77 points by reisub 13y ago

harrytuttle 13y ago
Pretty cool idea but unless you knock the focus off on the enlarger, it's going to look like shit. If you consider photo paper to be around 300dpi then your 400x480 cheap ass smartphone display is going to be pretty obvious. So blurry or pixelated. Your choice :) N.B this might be desirable from an artistic point of view though.
- MarkNederhoed 13y ago
  Is it really that bad? Web designers have been taking pictures of their screens for years. You still have the original 'negative' if you need the extra image quality. Edit: There should really be a couple sample images on the project page.
  - BashiBazouk 13y ago
    Yes it's really that bad. Us print people have been holding our noses with web screen shots for years. They really look bad when printed at 300dpi on paper. I would have to see the results with the even finer chemical grain of photo paper, but I would expect it to look even worse.
- Trezoid 13y ago
  The iPhone 4S (so, the one in all the demo photos) has a screen resolution of 640×960 at 326 ppi, and the Enfojer uses plastic "toy camera" lenses similar to the ones in Lomography cameras, so the results are always going to be slightly blurred.
luscious 13y ago
because your time is worth less than your money. we are fully descended into the first level of mediocrity. I think I must be getting time-trolled. People come up with ideas to deliver me 5 minutes of hate on a Monday morning. Let's put together cheap things to waste massive amounts of time in the pursuit of crap, disposable techno-folk-art. Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  "Strange how much human progress & accomplishment comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim
  - luscious 13y ago
    "Online quotes are vacant appeals to authority. I wish they would stop doing it to me." - Scott Kim Such a quote is not a talisman. Focusing on the good coming from irrelevant pursuits is confirmation bias and applying such a quote broadly is a slacker's crutch. Let's look at all the semi-self-serious stoners, punks, drunks, libertarians, etc. contemplating the irrelevant... accomplishments? Only if we want to say "do no harm" is better than what they'd do with a bit more ambition.
    - hnriot 13y ago
      you mean like many writers and painters of the twentieth century? Hmmm, yeah, can't think of anything they've ever done. James Joyce, never accomplished anything, I guess Kerouac, Faulkner and Hemingway never did anything. And as for Dostoyevsky, Beethoven and van Gogh, total slackers, not a single accomplishment between them.
    - ctdonath 13y ago
      Well excuse me for reiterating and crediting a concise appealing statement of a notion I share. I quote not as a talisman, but as making a point without reinventing the verbiage for it. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone on this site that the reference to "irrelevant" activities was not celebrating harmful behavior. You're seriously equating "retro home photo printing" with "stoners, punks & drunks" just because it's "irrelevant"? Really? Is the difference not obvious? Do I really have to spell it out? BTW: the USA was created by a bunch of libertarians.
- Robin_Message 13y ago
  > Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear. Is this a film reference? It seemed like a total non-sequiter, except I think I watched the referenced film just yesterday.
privong 13y ago
The next logical step is to create a mount for the back of a holga to replace the film plane with a smartphone camera. Or, to create a holga look-alike that interfaces with a smartphone's camera.
plg 13y ago
That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen ... speaking as someone who used to spend hours and hours as a kid in the 1980s in our garage, making prints in our home-made darkroom. If one is already going to go to the trouble of printing on photographic paper in a darkroom, then why not just go out and get a real enlarger, a real film camera and use real negative film? The quality will be so much better. Also you can buy professional film cameras that used to cost thousands of dollars for peanuts these days. You can send your film out to be developed if you don't want to do that step yourself, e.g indiefilmlab.com or ilfordlab-us.com. Slightly off topic but I hate to see another lower-quality digital "reinvention" of a highly developed, high quality analog thing again (think audio).
- JonnieCache 13y ago
  What are you referring to with audio there? The current trend for colour vinyl pressings of music made on laptops?
  - nwh 13y ago
    Probably the obsession with vinyl records "sounding warmer".
    - JonnieCache 13y ago
      They do sound warmer. This is undisputed. Same applies (even more) to magnetic recording tape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion#Harmonic_distortion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion#Harmonic_distortion As the word "distortion" in that link implies, where audiophiles go wrong is confusing "nicer" with "better." 70s dub-reggae records and the like would undoubtably sound worse if they were recorded straight to digital and pressed to CD. Similarly, lots of 21st century music would lose its edge if it were printed to tape and pressed to vinyl. Most of this confusion stems from audiophiles borrowing terms and ideas from music engineers and artists, much like the neverending stream of badness from managers/MBAs taking ideas and terms they don't understand from engineers. If you are listening to music, it is none of your business to decide that it needs to be "warmer." The people who made the record spent a lot of time and effort making it exactly as warm as they wanted it to be. Pushing it through a tube amp to make it warmer before you listen to it is like retouching a Monet print in photoshop before you hang it on your wall. As you can imagine, I'm not a fan of the EQ settings on ipods either. When optimising your playback system, go for maximum transparency, and stop there. If you don't like how the record sounds, listen to better records. If you're making records OTOH, it is entirely proper for you to be worrying endlessly about "warmth". Buy up crazy 70s gear from ebay, have the track pressed to 60g vinyl at a boutique german cutting house, whatever it takes. Warmth is tricky :)
jhund 13y ago
I used to own a B&W enlarger and made prints from my own negatives. I remember the bulb in the enlarger having significantly more power (photons emitted/sec) than a smart phone display has. I wonder by how much this will increase exposure times, and if it works at all...
- nwh 13y ago
  I'm not sure that's true of all enlargers. The one I used in school was quite dim; the brightness of my iPhone screen would definitely out power it.
moron4hire 13y ago
Who is this for? Any serious photographer would not want this as the results are going to be complete crap. Any casual photographer would not want this because it does nothing to get their shitty photos onto Facebook. The only people who would like this would be pseudo-intellectual hipsters who think they are "keeping it old school". This is a scene straight out of Portlandia. Let's open an "artisanal" cupcake shop that makes everything in an original, 1963 Hasbro Easy-Bake Oven!
- sp332 13y ago
  If you can't relate, that's fine. Don't buy it! But your lack of empathy doesn't mean you get to make fun of people who feel differently from you.
nakedrobot2 13y ago
This is so goddam stupid. "Because you can" does not mean "you should ever" create, sell, or buy such a thing. Maybe if the iPhone screen had an 8K screen, it could be interesting. But come on. Why don't we photocopy ourselves, take a picture of that, and fax it instead?
ebbv 13y ago
What a dumb idea. There is no reason to do this other than it can be done, which is not a good reason. This is like trying to make a gourmet sandwich out of a Hot Pocket.
- HPLovecraft 13y ago
  lol: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hot-pockets-gourmet-makeover-foodie-fillings-article-1.1400078 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hot-pockets-gourmet...
- sp332 13y ago
  You're right, we should immediately ban kids from playing with crayons because they are incapable of making good art. It's a total waste of our nation's colored wax resources!
pmelendez 13y ago
Wow, A casual reader might get confused with these comments and think that HN means Haters News. Here we have a product that a curious person (like myself) interested in learning how photography used to work would buy in a heartbeat, and still the top three comments (as I write) are " Who is this for?", "This is so goddam stupid." and "That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen". If these guys are doing this is because they would buy it. It doesn't matter if the size of their potential market is ridiculously small, it is still a market and they want to test it. There is no need to verbally destroy somebody else ideas. Sometimes we should keep in mind that phrase : "If you don't have any positive thing to say, don't say anything"
- lttlrck 13y ago
  Right! If nothing else this is a couple of hours of fun mucking around with optics and chemicals. What's not to like? This is the kind of stuff I would have loved to try when I was a kid. Even now, if I had the ingredients lying around I'd probably give it a shot, who cares if the results are rubbish?
- dsimms 13y ago
  wonkblog covered this recently: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/27/researchers-take-on-crucial-question-are-haters-gonna-hate/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/27/r...
- yardie 13y ago
  This teaches you nothing about how photography used to work (it works the same damn way). What it is is how things sorta worked before negative scanners and photoshop. The iPhone has a 8MP sensor, the screen is 0.6MP why would you intentionally handicap yourself like this? So you use it to develop the results and realize the picture looks like shit. So why bother.
bigdubs 13y ago
Not commenting on the article, just want to comment on the title for a sec. "The King is dead, long live the king!" is a special phrase used only when a ruler is dead and there is an immediate and available heir to assume the throne. It implies uninterrupted line of accession. "Analog photography is dead, long live analog photography" is not a correct usage of this phrase. A better way to phrase it would be : "Photography is dead, long live photography!" Implying that the old way is dead (analog) but the new way (digital) will immediately succeed it.
- adcoelho 13y ago
  But the article itself is about a specific characteristic of analog photography. The old way is dead in some aspects but through the usage of new technologies(in this case smartphones) it can live on with its nuances. Its about the preservation of analog photography and not photography as a whole.
- DigitalJack 13y ago
  I'd rather be "wrong" and have people understand me.
  - bigdubs 13y ago
    This statement seems specious. I'd rather understand the idioms I'm using, otherwise their meaning and effectiveness becomes diluted.
- icecreampain 13y ago
  Came here just to say that I utterly hate such phrases, to the point of wishing the most terrible ills on the people who, thinking it's cute and quirky, willingly use the phrase. I refuse to visit the link and will, if possible, downvote the whole article just because of the headline. Were it more truthful and descriptive, "guy does something with analog photography" I would have nothing to complain about, but now? Time to call up some russians and arrange a DDOS.
JulianMorrison 13y ago
That is not dead which can hipster lie.
BetaCygni 13y ago
It does look like fun! Someone should put some designs online to build your own. I would only be using it once or twice so buying it seems wasteful, but it would be a nice project to put together on a rainy day.
spiritplumber 13y ago
I gotta wonder -- is a photograph that was on physical support end-to-end a more reliable witness than a digital photo? It's harder to edit.
- moron4hire 13y ago
  It is not hard to edit.
BashiBazouk 13y ago
Seems like the fun part of developing prints is taken out of the process. It would be at least educational to have a guide where you make the adjustments to the photo on screen then the app gives you the choice to make those adjustments before exposing the film or give instructions on how to dodge and burn during exposure to get the same results. One big problem I see is photo chemical disposal. We have gotten to the point in understanding the chemistry of photo chemicals and it's effects down the line that you really shouldn't pour most of it down the drain any more. The stop bath is usually equivalent of vinegar but the developer and fix have some mildly toxic stuff in them as well as trace amounts of silver. I would think the hobbyist with a dedicated darkroom would have a better chance of knowing this as opposed to something like this meant for a more causal user.
decasteve 13y ago
Analog vs Digital: A photo sensor in a digital camera is an analog device. The "digital" camera requires an ADC (Analog to digital Converter). Camera film records information digitally, the light sensitive film (silver halide) either lets light through, or it doesn't. Basically the silver halide crystal is either "on" or "off".
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  >A photo sensor in a digital camera is an analog device. The "digital" camera requires an ADC (Analog to digital Converter). Correct! >Camera film records information digitally, the light sensitive film (silver halide) either lets light through, or it doesn't. Basically the silver halide crystal is either "on" or "off". Uh, no. There is a continuous range of the amount of light that is blocked by the film negative (for each layer). What you're describing would be something like 1bit color depth RGB.
throwaway1979 13y ago
What is the source of "X is dead. Love live X" posts? I know about the historical chant where X=the king. But who started the first blogpost with such a title? IMHO it is now a cliche. I get a twang of pain when I reach such titles on HN.
inertia 13y ago
A big part of my dislike for this is that this isn't going to teach anyone how photography "used to work" or anything like that. It's a toy. I work in a darkroom, I have a lot of experience processing film by hand and making prints. I know a bit about it. This seriously looks designed by someone who has never spent more than two hours in a darkroom. Encouraging people to set up tiny darkrooms in closets or wherever they can with trays of open chemistry, is a bit irresponsible. Here's the MSDS for Ilford Multigrade, the developer they recommend: http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2007117133512849.pdf http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2007117133512849.pdf And for the Rapid Fix: http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2012430120381541.pdf http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2012430120381541.pdf It's not super dangerous stuff, but you still need to take some reasonable precautions with it. And that tray rack? Anyone who has ever worked in a darkroom would never think of stacking trays like that. You need to pick up the print from the chemistry and let the excess drip off before moving to the next tray--this setup is going to be having people spilling photo chemistry all over the place, in a room with no ventilation. Smart. All the text on the indiegogo site just sets off my rage. Everything at Ilford is not "vintage technology", they have been churning out new products for years. And this? "Old school print development makes every print slightly different, due to microscopic imperfections in the silver halide coating on paper and the chemical reaction that turns parts of the coating black or grey." This is just plain wrong. This isn't preserving analogue photography. It's trying to sell the idea of being a darkroom. The indiegogo has lots of text about red light bulbs (most darkrooms use amber lights, but I digress), prints hanging on a line, the smell of chemicals, but almost no examples of what the prints made with this thing look like. Why? Because that's not the point.
kawera 13y ago
Devere has been selling digital enlargers for at least 10 years[1]. Results on fiber based papers are very very good. [1] http://www.de-vere.com/products.htm http://www.de-vere.com/products.htm

77 points by reisub 13y ago

Pretty cool idea but unless you knock the focus off on the enlarger, it's going to look like shit. If you consider photo paper to be around 300dpi then your 400x480 cheap ass smartphone display is going to be pretty obvious. So blurry or pixelated. Your choice :) N.B this might be desirable from an artistic point of view though.

MarkNederhoed 13y ago
Is it really that bad? Web designers have been taking pictures of their screens for years. You still have the original 'negative' if you need the extra image quality. Edit: There should really be a couple sample images on the project page.
- BashiBazouk 13y ago
  Yes it's really that bad. Us print people have been holding our noses with web screen shots for years. They really look bad when printed at 300dpi on paper. I would have to see the results with the even finer chemical grain of photo paper, but I would expect it to look even worse.
Trezoid 13y ago
The iPhone 4S (so, the one in all the demo photos) has a screen resolution of 640×960 at 326 ppi, and the Enfojer uses plastic "toy camera" lenses similar to the ones in Lomography cameras, so the results are always going to be slightly blurred.

luscious 13y ago

because your time is worth less than your money. we are fully descended into the first level of mediocrity. I think I must be getting time-trolled. People come up with ideas to deliver me 5 minutes of hate on a Monday morning. Let's put together cheap things to waste massive amounts of time in the pursuit of crap, disposable techno-folk-art. Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear.

ctdonath 13y ago
"Strange how much human progress & accomplishment comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim
- luscious 13y ago
  "Online quotes are vacant appeals to authority. I wish they would stop doing it to me." - Scott Kim Such a quote is not a talisman. Focusing on the good coming from irrelevant pursuits is confirmation bias and applying such a quote broadly is a slacker's crutch. Let's look at all the semi-self-serious stoners, punks, drunks, libertarians, etc. contemplating the irrelevant... accomplishments? Only if we want to say "do no harm" is better than what they'd do with a bit more ambition.
  - hnriot 13y ago
    you mean like many writers and painters of the twentieth century? Hmmm, yeah, can't think of anything they've ever done. James Joyce, never accomplished anything, I guess Kerouac, Faulkner and Hemingway never did anything. And as for Dostoyevsky, Beethoven and van Gogh, total slackers, not a single accomplishment between them.
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    Well excuse me for reiterating and crediting a concise appealing statement of a notion I share. I quote not as a talisman, but as making a point without reinventing the verbiage for it. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone on this site that the reference to "irrelevant" activities was not celebrating harmful behavior. You're seriously equating "retro home photo printing" with "stoners, punks & drunks" just because it's "irrelevant"? Really? Is the difference not obvious? Do I really have to spell it out? BTW: the USA was created by a bunch of libertarians.
Robin_Message 13y ago
> Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear. Is this a film reference? It seemed like a total non-sequiter, except I think I watched the referenced film just yesterday.

privong 13y ago

The next logical step is to create a mount for the back of a holga to replace the film plane with a smartphone camera. Or, to create a holga look-alike that interfaces with a smartphone's camera.

plg 13y ago

That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen ... speaking as someone who used to spend hours and hours as a kid in the 1980s in our garage, making prints in our home-made darkroom. If one is already going to go to the trouble of printing on photographic paper in a darkroom, then why not just go out and get a real enlarger, a real film camera and use real negative film? The quality will be so much better. Also you can buy professional film cameras that used to cost thousands of dollars for peanuts these days. You can send your film out to be developed if you don't want to do that step yourself, e.g indiefilmlab.com or ilfordlab-us.com. Slightly off topic but I hate to see another lower-quality digital "reinvention" of a highly developed, high quality analog thing again (think audio).

JonnieCache 13y ago
What are you referring to with audio there? The current trend for colour vinyl pressings of music made on laptops?
- nwh 13y ago
  Probably the obsession with vinyl records "sounding warmer".
  - JonnieCache 13y ago
    They do sound warmer. This is undisputed. Same applies (even more) to magnetic recording tape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion#Harmonic_distortion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion#Harmonic_distortion As the word "distortion" in that link implies, where audiophiles go wrong is confusing "nicer" with "better." 70s dub-reggae records and the like would undoubtably sound worse if they were recorded straight to digital and pressed to CD. Similarly, lots of 21st century music would lose its edge if it were printed to tape and pressed to vinyl. Most of this confusion stems from audiophiles borrowing terms and ideas from music engineers and artists, much like the neverending stream of badness from managers/MBAs taking ideas and terms they don't understand from engineers. If you are listening to music, it is none of your business to decide that it needs to be "warmer." The people who made the record spent a lot of time and effort making it exactly as warm as they wanted it to be. Pushing it through a tube amp to make it warmer before you listen to it is like retouching a Monet print in photoshop before you hang it on your wall. As you can imagine, I'm not a fan of the EQ settings on ipods either. When optimising your playback system, go for maximum transparency, and stop there. If you don't like how the record sounds, listen to better records. If you're making records OTOH, it is entirely proper for you to be worrying endlessly about "warmth". Buy up crazy 70s gear from ebay, have the track pressed to 60g vinyl at a boutique german cutting house, whatever it takes. Warmth is tricky :)

jhund 13y ago

I used to own a B&W enlarger and made prints from my own negatives. I remember the bulb in the enlarger having significantly more power (photons emitted/sec) than a smart phone display has. I wonder by how much this will increase exposure times, and if it works at all...

nwh 13y ago
I'm not sure that's true of all enlargers. The one I used in school was quite dim; the brightness of my iPhone screen would definitely out power it.

moron4hire 13y ago

Who is this for? Any serious photographer would not want this as the results are going to be complete crap. Any casual photographer would not want this because it does nothing to get their shitty photos onto Facebook. The only people who would like this would be pseudo-intellectual hipsters who think they are "keeping it old school". This is a scene straight out of Portlandia. Let's open an "artisanal" cupcake shop that makes everything in an original, 1963 Hasbro Easy-Bake Oven!

sp332 13y ago
If you can't relate, that's fine. Don't buy it! But your lack of empathy doesn't mean you get to make fun of people who feel differently from you.

nakedrobot2 13y ago

This is so goddam stupid. "Because you can" does not mean "you should ever" create, sell, or buy such a thing. Maybe if the iPhone screen had an 8K screen, it could be interesting. But come on. Why don't we photocopy ourselves, take a picture of that, and fax it instead?

ebbv 13y ago

What a dumb idea. There is no reason to do this other than it can be done, which is not a good reason. This is like trying to make a gourmet sandwich out of a Hot Pocket.

HPLovecraft 13y ago
lol: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hot-pockets-gourmet-makeover-foodie-fillings-article-1.1400078 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hot-pockets-gourmet...
sp332 13y ago
You're right, we should immediately ban kids from playing with crayons because they are incapable of making good art. It's a total waste of our nation's colored wax resources!

pmelendez 13y ago

Wow, A casual reader might get confused with these comments and think that HN means Haters News. Here we have a product that a curious person (like myself) interested in learning how photography used to work would buy in a heartbeat, and still the top three comments (as I write) are " Who is this for?", "This is so goddam stupid." and "That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen". If these guys are doing this is because they would buy it. It doesn't matter if the size of their potential market is ridiculously small, it is still a market and they want to test it. There is no need to verbally destroy somebody else ideas. Sometimes we should keep in mind that phrase : "If you don't have any positive thing to say, don't say anything"

lttlrck 13y ago
Right! If nothing else this is a couple of hours of fun mucking around with optics and chemicals. What's not to like? This is the kind of stuff I would have loved to try when I was a kid. Even now, if I had the ingredients lying around I'd probably give it a shot, who cares if the results are rubbish?
dsimms 13y ago
wonkblog covered this recently: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/27/researchers-take-on-crucial-question-are-haters-gonna-hate/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/27/r...
yardie 13y ago
This teaches you nothing about how photography used to work (it works the same damn way). What it is is how things sorta worked before negative scanners and photoshop. The iPhone has a 8MP sensor, the screen is 0.6MP why would you intentionally handicap yourself like this? So you use it to develop the results and realize the picture looks like shit. So why bother.

bigdubs 13y ago

Not commenting on the article, just want to comment on the title for a sec. "The King is dead, long live the king!" is a special phrase used only when a ruler is dead and there is an immediate and available heir to assume the throne. It implies uninterrupted line of accession. "Analog photography is dead, long live analog photography" is not a correct usage of this phrase. A better way to phrase it would be : "Photography is dead, long live photography!" Implying that the old way is dead (analog) but the new way (digital) will immediately succeed it.

adcoelho 13y ago
But the article itself is about a specific characteristic of analog photography. The old way is dead in some aspects but through the usage of new technologies(in this case smartphones) it can live on with its nuances. Its about the preservation of analog photography and not photography as a whole.
DigitalJack 13y ago
I'd rather be "wrong" and have people understand me.
- bigdubs 13y ago
  This statement seems specious. I'd rather understand the idioms I'm using, otherwise their meaning and effectiveness becomes diluted.
icecreampain 13y ago
Came here just to say that I utterly hate such phrases, to the point of wishing the most terrible ills on the people who, thinking it's cute and quirky, willingly use the phrase. I refuse to visit the link and will, if possible, downvote the whole article just because of the headline. Were it more truthful and descriptive, "guy does something with analog photography" I would have nothing to complain about, but now? Time to call up some russians and arrange a DDOS.

JulianMorrison 13y ago

That is not dead which can hipster lie.

BetaCygni 13y ago

It does look like fun! Someone should put some designs online to build your own. I would only be using it once or twice so buying it seems wasteful, but it would be a nice project to put together on a rainy day.

spiritplumber 13y ago

I gotta wonder -- is a photograph that was on physical support end-to-end a more reliable witness than a digital photo? It's harder to edit.

moron4hire 13y ago
It is not hard to edit.

BashiBazouk 13y ago

Seems like the fun part of developing prints is taken out of the process. It would be at least educational to have a guide where you make the adjustments to the photo on screen then the app gives you the choice to make those adjustments before exposing the film or give instructions on how to dodge and burn during exposure to get the same results. One big problem I see is photo chemical disposal. We have gotten to the point in understanding the chemistry of photo chemicals and it's effects down the line that you really shouldn't pour most of it down the drain any more. The stop bath is usually equivalent of vinegar but the developer and fix have some mildly toxic stuff in them as well as trace amounts of silver. I would think the hobbyist with a dedicated darkroom would have a better chance of knowing this as opposed to something like this meant for a more causal user.

decasteve 13y ago

Analog vs Digital: A photo sensor in a digital camera is an analog device. The "digital" camera requires an ADC (Analog to digital Converter). Camera film records information digitally, the light sensitive film (silver halide) either lets light through, or it doesn't. Basically the silver halide crystal is either "on" or "off".

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
>A photo sensor in a digital camera is an analog device. The "digital" camera requires an ADC (Analog to digital Converter). Correct! >Camera film records information digitally, the light sensitive film (silver halide) either lets light through, or it doesn't. Basically the silver halide crystal is either "on" or "off". Uh, no. There is a continuous range of the amount of light that is blocked by the film negative (for each layer). What you're describing would be something like 1bit color depth RGB.

throwaway1979 13y ago

What is the source of "X is dead. Love live X" posts? I know about the historical chant where X=the king. But who started the first blogpost with such a title? IMHO it is now a cliche. I get a twang of pain when I reach such titles on HN.

inertia 13y ago

A big part of my dislike for this is that this isn't going to teach anyone how photography "used to work" or anything like that. It's a toy. I work in a darkroom, I have a lot of experience processing film by hand and making prints. I know a bit about it. This seriously looks designed by someone who has never spent more than two hours in a darkroom. Encouraging people to set up tiny darkrooms in closets or wherever they can with trays of open chemistry, is a bit irresponsible. Here's the MSDS for Ilford Multigrade, the developer they recommend: http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2007117133512849.pdf http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2007117133512849.pdf And for the Rapid Fix: http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2012430120381541.pdf http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2012430120381541.pdf It's not super dangerous stuff, but you still need to take some reasonable precautions with it. And that tray rack? Anyone who has ever worked in a darkroom would never think of stacking trays like that. You need to pick up the print from the chemistry and let the excess drip off before moving to the next tray--this setup is going to be having people spilling photo chemistry all over the place, in a room with no ventilation. Smart. All the text on the indiegogo site just sets off my rage. Everything at Ilford is not "vintage technology", they have been churning out new products for years. And this? "Old school print development makes every print slightly different, due to microscopic imperfections in the silver halide coating on paper and the chemical reaction that turns parts of the coating black or grey." This is just plain wrong. This isn't preserving analogue photography. It's trying to sell the idea of being a darkroom. The indiegogo has lots of text about red light bulbs (most darkrooms use amber lights, but I digress), prints hanging on a line, the smell of chemicals, but almost no examples of what the prints made with this thing look like. Why? Because that's not the point.

kawera 13y ago

Devere has been selling digital enlargers for at least 10 years[1]. Results on fiber based papers are very very good. [1] http://www.de-vere.com/products.htm http://www.de-vere.com/products.htm