Just came across the photo web site of Roger and Frances. They have a semi-commercial site containing around 40 articles about photography, mostly technique. A number of these articles (I haven’t counted them), are free, and at first looked interesting, but after skimming through some of them, it I wasn’t all that convinced.

First of all, if you’re not into silver, just skip the whole site. They do write a few words about digital, but only to tell you that it is a funny toy. Well, let’s say that silver is your thing. After reading a couple of the articles, I hard pressed to identify anything that I couldn’t find in the two or three books I already own about photo, and darkroom technique from the 80s. And if you don’t own any, go to the local library, they probably have a collection gathering dust. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the articles had been well written. Most of them uses a fairly fragmented language, and extensive use of bullet- or numbered lists.

Back to the issue of silver vs digital, they were quite insisting on the supremacy of silver, saying something like 18-20MP being equal to a 35mm negative. A fairly bold statement considering that most of the online community compares the results from a 12-16MP dSLR (Like Canon 5D or 1DsII) with silver medium format. Back in the days, medium format being way beyond my budget, I used to shoot Kodak Technical pan developed in Tetenal Neofin doku. It resulted in extraordinary resolution, probably the best you could achieve using 35mm film, but still I get better results with my 5D. Of course, silver has other fine qualities, but in my opinion, the number are quite clear when it comes to pure technical quality. They also have this really amusing statement that the cost is lower as well. I couldn’t agree less.

Anyway, there are some really fine images in their gallery section.