Ne Member from New Jersey, USA

TJersey41 · Jan 11, 2007

Hello all, I just joined this board. This website appears to be the one I've been searching for. I've been seriously into phtography for about 3 years now. I had taken the NY Institute of Photography's course in photography and highly recommend it.

I primarily shoot film and have recently really gotten into shooting B&W and have set up a home darkroom after taking a Darkroom course. I also recently acquired a digital SLR (Nikon D80) but have to confess I'm still more comfortable with film-I'm not crazy about all the post-processing necessary in Photoshop to get the images just right-I seem to prefer the Darkroom for B&W and love the look of color slides on a lightbox (easier to edit too, just throw away the bad ones). Guess I'm just old-fashioned that way.

Anyway, I've already posted a question on the Darkroom forum and look forward to sharing ideas, pics and learning fom all here.

TJersey41 (Tom)

Mitica100 · Jan 12, 2007

Hi Tom, welcome to TPF!

Alex_B · Jan 12, 2007

welcome to tpf, tom

ax-ax · Jan 12, 2007

Hi Tom

Ripnowell45 · Jan 12, 2007

Welcome!! Im from Jersey too

Orgnoi1 · Jan 13, 2007

Welcome!

Jeremy Z · Jan 13, 2007

Again, welcome.

Yes, a lot of people are more comfortable with film. Manufacturers try to make those people feel old fashioned. Digital people do too, but not on purpose.

The thing is that film is a perfected technology, it has been around for over a century.

The people who do a lot of post processing sometimes do it just because they can, or because it's fun. To get a realistic image from digital, or even slightly better than realistic (i.e. increase contrast, gamma, correct colors, or add color saturation) is not hard at all. I do all that with an excellent freeware program called Irfanview.

B&W is actually easier with digital than it is with film.

The people who shoot color who are really picky are happier now, because they can tweak things just the way they want them; no more arguing with the photo lab or giving up in dismay.

The one thing you might struggle with on your D80 is automatic white balance in artificial light. If you set it manually, it shouldn't be a problem. If it gets too frustrating, try B&W.