Aesthetic Implications of traditional versus digital negatives

[L Gebhardt]

FWIW I think your pricing is good. I assume that you have the cassettes for the 2080 so doing small or large batches shouldn't be an issue if you can put off souping them until you have a reasonable quantity.

The 2080 does have input and output cassettes. I tend not to load more than 1 sheet of film at a time however because sometimes the machine screws up and half pulls the sheet out. The has the potential to fog the rest since I don't have it in the darkroom. Also, I can only do 2 sheets of 11x14 in the Jobo. Thanks for the feedback on the pricing.

[Bob Carnie]

Hi Sandy
The Lambda is in our facility now. July14, I have sourced out a roll of 16inch x 100ft 100 ISO film from Jand&C . I will be ready to test with you and others that have agreed to help with other alternative end processes over the next few months. I will need to get my feet wet with the Lambda on the floor here ,but I am excited to try this out with you. Your observations of the paper is what I believe allows one to have equal sharpness.
I have always been a bit suspect of the inkjet digital negatives due to the opacity of the ink laying on the film . whereas using real film the transmission of light may be different and easier to control. Don't know I guess we will find out soon enough,

[jd callow]

The Lambda is in our facility now.

Its about time! Good luck Bob, life should get interesting for you now.

[sanking]

Hi Sandy
The Lambda is in our facility now. July14, I have sourced out a roll of 16inch x 100ft 100 ISO film from Jand&C . I will be ready to test with you and others that have agreed to help with other alternative end processes over the next few months. I will need to get my feet wet with the Lambda on the floor here ,but I am excited to try this out with you. Your observations of the paper is what I believe allows one to have equal sharpness.
I have always been a bit suspect of the inkjet digital negatives due to the opacity of the ink laying on the film . whereas using real film the transmission of light may be different and easier to control. Don't know I guess we will find out soon enough,

Great news. I am very excited about the potential of this printer for making top quality digital negatives, especially for AZO and carbon, and am really looking forward to the testing.

Sandy

[Jeremy]

What are the drawbacks from getting one of the smaller imagesetters to set-up for home use? I've been looking on ebay and if you can find one locally they can be had for <$500. Can someone enlighten me?

[Joe Lipka]

I would be concerned that I would become a slave to machine maintenance and would have to become an expert technician just to keep the machine in working order. That would take precious time away from the more important task of creating art.

I have just purchased Dan Burkholder's "Inkjet Negative Companion". One of the major points he makes about imagesetters is that unless your need is to digital negatives larger than an inkjet printer, you really don't need an image setter.

[sanking]

I would be concerned that I would become a slave to machine maintenance and would have to become an expert technician just to keep the machine in working order. That would take precious time away from the more important task of creating art.

I have just purchased Dan Burkholder's "Inkjet Negative Companion". One of the major points he makes about imagesetters is that unless your need is to digital negatives larger than an inkjet printer, you really don't need an image setter.

That would be be one my concerns as well. Plus, even the small image setters have a relatively large foot-print.

And based on work by others that I have seen image setter negatives offer very little if any advantage over negatives from inkjet printers, at least for alternative printing.


Sandy

[Jeremy]

Thanks for the info guys, I was just wondering with the dropping prices why it wasn't mentioned as an option, but now I know. Digital negatives make me spend enough time in front of the computer as it is that I wouldn't want to get stuck babysitting a tempermental machine all of the time.

[Roger Krueger]

I would be concerned that I would become a slave to machine maintenance and would have to become an expert technician just to keep the machine in working order. That would take precious time away from the more important task of creating art.

As someone who spent a few years as an imagesetter operator, I NEVER remember our Panther needing any maintenance. Our Agfa 9800 croaked a couple of times, but it was never user repairable (the service consisted of whole-board swaps). The processor (the wet end) was the source of all our grief, not the imagesetter itself.

Speaking of processing, how are you going to process? The roller processors most were used with originally are at least as big as the imagesetter itself. Also, count on wasting a lot of film if you're daylight loading/unloading and only printing 1 or 2 pages at a time. Wasting 8-10 inches of film film for each load and each unload isn't a big deal when you only do it every 20-30 feet, but it adds a lot to the cost of single 12 x 16s. Anything affordable is probably a 13" Agfa of Linotronic--is this really as wide as you intend to print?

Check for parts and service availability before you buy anything--a lot of older machines are orphans or have a service provider a great distance away (a lesson I learned the hard way as a drum scanner owner). Realize that these were $15K+ machines to start with; parts are priced accordingly. A $500 imagesetter will almost certainly be uneconomical to repair--at this stage in their life-cycle these are effectively disposable.