gdanmitchell
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Perhaps we’re not as far apart as it might seem.
I think your point about going from those early APS-C cameras in the 6MP-8MP range to the 12 MP FF sensor on the 5D made a significant difference. I know that when I go back to my early files from those APS-C cameras from that era I clearly see quite a few issues, particularly when it comes to color, luminosity and chroma noise, and more. But when I go back to the 5D files (as long as I overlook all the dust spots!) the file quality is noticeably higher.
Whether or not “higher file quality” equates to “more film like” is a question we might disagree on, but we agree on the underlying point about the increment of improvement over previous cameras.
There’s a second aspect to the “5D was film-like” notion that I disagree with. (Remember, I’m not arguing with the points you make about the improvements that the camera brought.) The claim that I see and disagree with is that somehow the 5D was not only “film-like,” but that it was and is more film-like than cameras that came afterwards.
I really can’t see that at all. while it may have marked a transition to what some choose to describe as “film-like” quality, it was not the only or the last camera to possess the qualities that evoke that description for some.
I’ve had and extensively used three cameras in the 5D line — the 5D, the 5DII, and (currently) the 5DsR. All three produce image quality that is quite good, and each one improved on the image quality of the previous one.
The 5D was (as I have long held) a remarkable and even ground-breaking camera when it was introduced all those years ago. It will, as I like to say, work as well now as it worked when it was introduced. But cameras since that time have continued to improve on the standard it set, and photographers won’t get better images by going back to it instead of using later cameras.
And I still hold (strongly!) the idea that what impresses viewers as being film-like in a photograph, especially a print, is not much at all about the camera used and a whole lot about how the photographer handles the entire process of making and processing the image.
Dan
Note: The post immediately above mine mentions vignetting. That’s an excellent example of the sort of thing I’m talking about. We’ve had a tendency to flatted out such “flaws” in photographs since the advent of digital post, along with the demand for lenses that don’t vignette much at all. But one of the characteristics of old-school film photography (and especially typical darkroom work) was to embrace things like that.
moondigger wrote:
I'm not talking about post-processing, though I agree with your reminiscences about how over-processed and over-saturated a lot of digital images from 15-20 years ago were.
I'm saying the 5D's raw files out of camera, prior to any adjustments, were much more film-like than the 20D's raw files. Again, I think one significant reason for that is because the full image circle of my EF lenses were being used again, whereas only an APS-C sized piece out of the center had been used with the 20D. So light-falloff became a thing again, which can be good or bad depending on the image.
I think another factor is that the 12.7 megapixel files that the 5D produced were the first ones that seemed to deliver something close to film-like resolution, at least to my eyes. I remember a frequent topic of conversation on photography forums was about what number of megapixels were "equivalent" to scanned film. These were largely pointless discussions, because digital capture was inherently different than analog. Nonetheless, I could plainly see that the level of detail in 5D images was much closer to my Astia, Reala, and Velvia images than what the 20D could produce.
True, and these factors may also have contributed to my sense that the 5D files were more film-like than prior digital cameras.
I take your point that the way a photographer does post-processing can lead to more or less film-like final images. But that doesn't mean that one camera's raw files aren't a closer starting point than another's....Show more →
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