Epson Fiber Base Photo Paper

I’m often asked by many of my clients and friends… whether digital images photographed with a digital SLR is as good as to an equivalent film camera. Should we switch? Should we hire film photographers only? I usually say…”In my humble opinion, I believe the images produced by the current digital SLRs and Digital backs for medium format cameras are as good it not better than film cameras; Perhaps, with the exception of Black & White Photography.”

Of course, I’m a traditionalist with a bias opinion toward the traditional black & white photography process… the zone system, mixing my own developer to control the output of my prints, and finally printing on fiber base photo papers to produce a fine art, archival, gallery prints. I'm a big fan of Ansel Adams.

With the recent emergent of Epson Photo printers such as Stylus 2400, 3800, 4800 (now 4880), 7600, employing UltraChrome K3 archival ink which includes three levels of black and sets a new standard in fine art photography and black and white prints. I thought it was a good effort on Epson’s part to move the digital image concept closer to the traditional photography concept. However, digital photo papers were still lacking in fine art gallery quality.

Well it is until today, Epson made a press release of their latest creation… fiber base digital photo papers. They call it “Signature Worthy” Exhibition Fiber Paper. These papers are phenomenal. Scott Kelby already talked about this on his blog. To read more, click here to access Epson’s press release.

So now, I can surely say that digital photography is every bit as good as film photography. I can't wait get my paws on these digital photo papers and tryout some of my own black & white images.