RE: filmscanners: why bother professionally ??

["Shough, Dean" <dean.shough@lmco.com>]

It seems that are hearing from two approaches to photography.  

One shoots thousands of images and uses standard processing to all images.
I would expect anyone shooting catalogs, weddings, and newspapers can not
afford to custom process each image, whether in the darkroom or on the
computer.  Exposures need to be consistent so that whoever is processing the
images does not have to (get to?) exert creative control.  This photographer
is done once the image has been captured on film (or silicon) and expects
someone else to do the grunt work.  Drum scanners (and an operator) are
ideal for this.

The other approach is to do small volume, high value photography where the
photographer wants to exert artistic control over each image from beginning
to end.  These image are likely to involve hard choices as to how the final
image appears.  I would image that many fine art photographers fall into
this category.  Either in the darkroom or at the computer they are dodging,
burning, adjusting output levels, and in general not satisfied with a
straight print.  Ansel Adams is a classic example - each negative was
individually processed to bring out the best contrast and then the print
required just the right set of manipulations.  This person would probably
want their own scanners in order to retain complete control.

Naturally, every real photographer falls somewhere between these two
extremes, perhaps varying on a photo by photo basis.  And either type of
photographer can be hacks or artists.