Do you believe that digital black & white has now reached the quality of black & white film?
— Mark Olwick
This wins the award for the most succinct question of the decade. I wish my answer could be as clear and straightforward.
Yes — assuming you are talking small film negatives and relatively small prints.
No — if you are comparing large format negatives (4x5 or larger) and/or large scale prints.
There are many who will disagree.
For me, it all boils down to reverse engineering. In my work, I tend to be interested in photographing images that look best in a small scale — typically hand-held work in the 8x10" print size or even smaller. I simply do not make large prints. A really big one for me is 11x14. With this as my criteria for prints, digital capture has plenty of resolution, detail, and all the technology I need. With today's papers (as of about late-2007 or so), I'm very happy with the prints I can make, too — relative to detail, texture, black densities, etc.
So, with all these caveats in mind, yes, digital b/w has now reached the quality I used to achieve with film and gelatin silver prints. I would compare any of my results from 2¼x3¼ negatives on gelatin silver to my current images made with digital cameras and printed on Epson printers and call it a pretty even horse race — if the prints are the hand-held size I've always made.
In fact, in some regards digital has exceeded my analog efforts — in areas like tonal versatility (so many brown tones to choose from!), ease of production and reproduction, physical comfort for the producer (me!), and fine control and finesse of image manipulation (i.e., dodging and burning and the like in the process of making a final print.)
I am incredibly lucky that my interests in printmaking do not motivate me to create large scale prints. If I wanted to make 20x24 or larger prints, I'd be hard-pressed to forego an 8x10" view camera. The detail and tonalities possible in such large scale negatives are to drool over when making large prints. There is just so much information encapsulated in an 8x10" negative that a digital camera has a hard time competing with it.
Having said that, there are digital solutions that people are using that make some pretty spectacular results. Stitching images comes to mind. Large format digital sensors are pretty amazing if you have the bank account for them. Large format Epson printers make giant prints that are pretty special. I don't have any personal experience in using any of these tools because they simply do not match well with my interests in making prints, so I'm not really qualified to compare digital to analog with any authority. But from the results I've seen of others work, I'd have to admit that there is some very nice work being done digitally in large scale prints. Comparable? I'm not even sure how to begin such comparisons.
What I do know for sure is that any equipment handled with the knowledge and care of a meticulous craftsman is better than better equipment in the hands of the sloppy and careless. Can one make great photographs with analog equipment? No doubt. Can one make great photographs with digital equipment? You bet. Can the exact same equipment and tools make lousy photographs? Far too often, and far too easily. Can one choose any tool to make any kind of photograph? Well, that's a question that is far too prejudiced by the type of final print and result one wants to make to be a meaningful question.
Sorry my answer is not as precise as the question, but it's simply too complicated an answer to distill into a simple yes or no.
