I shoot with a Canon 5D and Leica M8, and some film. I'm usually not impressed with the Canon B&W files of people, they just don't have the punch of the M8. I'm wondering how Nikon B&W images compare to Canon B&W images? Can anyone post some comparisons?
Thanks,
WB
www.BenitezRivera.com
Sep 30, 2008 at 11:53 AM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
I agree with Lars. Even with film, the 'punch' comes from how you process/print the film, or when you're scanning, how you treat the levels and curves before printing. At least, that's what I've seen. Some lenses will provide a bit more contrast than others, some camera settings or film types will provide a different contrast curve, but it can all be tweaked, especially when it's digital, you can sit and watch the changes as you do them.
With my film scans, I scan them flat, so all the information is easily accessed with a curves layer. From there, I can leave it flat, I can make it very high contrast, I can give it deep/crisp shadows and lifted midtones and highlights, more contrast in the mid tones, softer rolloff on the highlights, lifted shadows, or whatever I want really.
If you aren't familiar with adjusting images with curves, I would suggest you sit down and play with it for a bit, with a few curves layers and some masking (if you want to control parts of the image separately) the curves adjustments can be very powerful
I'm familiar with all these techniques and still nothing is quite as good as a B&W Raw file from a Leica M8. I don't pay the subscription fee so I can't post any pictures here. I was just wondering if Nikon produced better B&W files than Canon? I shoot with both a Canon 5D and a Leica M8 (as well as film).
Perhaps this Leica M8 shot better illustrates my point. There is a certain texture/character that approaches film with the M8 I don't get from my Canon. I get this quality with the M8 even when I don't use Leica glass.
They all seem like nice shots. Maybe I'm missing what you're saying (or seeing).
I will say that the M8 has a CCD sensor while your Canon has a CMOS. They have different noise characteristics, and possible different noise reduction algorithms as a result. You just might like the CCD flavor of digital imaging more. Or I could just be talking out of my ass
