sensor/film choices have an impact on final image as does lens choice... is it an overriding impact? Certainly not (in most cases), but how many times do people around here claim that it is their L-lens that brings "magic" to their digital images? ALL THE TIME. Lens/film/sensor choices all have an impact and people who mentally have committed to one or the other tend to claim that it doesn't matter... but at some level it had to for them to make this choice... even if it is only based on convenience...
>>Why on earth would a photographer want to think that it's his Zeiss lens or her Leica M7 that gives their image that extra "je ne sais quoi?" Frankly that's the last thing I care about when I see a photographer's work in a gallery.
mh2000 wrote:
HAHAHA!!! You obviously don't know anything about painting! Get into the acrylic vs oil argument between painters and it may get even uglier than digital vs. film... samee arguements... oil is more organic, the acrylics more plastic (well... technically it is...).
>>It's curious because painters do not go around claiming that their choice of pigments is what makes their painting good.
Okay, point taken.
But let me ask you then, since you were so kind and polite in pointing out that painters can be just as inane...do you think that it makes a difference?
If galleries or museums do not exist for you then just continue comparing things online... I didn't say that galleries, museums or physical prints had to be meaningful to you or anyone else, but this is the only place that the differences between film and digital matter IMO.
The vast majority of "iconic" photographic images made that status through the printed medium, not through gallery display.
As a painter, yes... much more so than digital/film/lens choices in photography... but as in photography, it is mostly the artist's ability to manipulate the medium that leads to success...
(in case it isn't clear, I am more or less agreeing with you, just more accepting the secondary effects of a medium and tools)
wickerprints wrote:
Okay, point taken.
But let me ask you then, since you were so kind and polite in pointing out that painters can be just as inane...do you think that it makes a difference?
true enough... but the printed medium used has generally been close to "print quality" and far better than low rez web images... and they convey the *feeling* of the medium used...
RDKirk wrote:
The vast majority of "iconic" photographic images made that status through the printed medium, not through gallery display.
mh2000 wrote:
You are not going to see it in low rez screen posts, sorry. Go to an art gallery showing photos that are both digital and film, you will see it in the prints.
I've seen stunning prints made both ways. And don't forget that until very recently (when many of them began switching to MF digital) even LF film photographs generally scanned their images to digital and did the post and printing in the digital domain.
RDKirk wrote:
And for years photographers slavishly tried to meet the standards of painting ("Pictorialism") before the Realists decided that the characteristics of photography could stand as elements of an artistic medium of its own. Anyone who insists today that film photography must be compared to painting would rightly be declared to be blowing smoke up someone's fanny.
And they're just blowing smoke up someeone's fanny.
I think that the second comment here, in light of the first, might just be my all time FM forum comment. I'm actually laughing out loud as I write this! :-)
mh2000 wrote:
Art/photography is usually most successful when it achieves an *illusion* of reality.
>>Totally agree with this. Reality is a bad standard of reference for photography. Photography is an art and like most great art, the goods ones have little to do with reality.
On Adams:
"His black-and-white images were not 'realistic' documents of nature.
Instead, they sought an intensification and purification of the
psychological experience of natural beauty. He created a sense of the
...sublime magnificence of nature that infused the viewer with the
emotional equivalent of wilderness, often more powerful than the actual
thing."
Photography is quite incapable of "capturing" something called "objective reality." It is always subjective. If you really want "reality," put the camera away and just look. As soon as you capture it, "reality" is not a possibility any more. A photograph is not the real thing, and the point of view of the photographer -by definition subjective - is inherent in the image. And, in the end, we are actually more interested in "seeing" what this photographer saw than in seeing what was "really" there. For this and a bunch of other reasons, using "reality" as a standard of reference for photography is bizarre.
By the way, the folks that resent the push-back on the "film is superior" claims should understand that those who don't buy this are emphatically not saying anything negative about photographs that have been made with film. Quite the contrary. During the era when film was the only game in town many of the best examples of photography we know of were created. Film is obviously a technology that can be used to create excellent photographic work. Who doubts that?
The issue here is not "which is best" as much as "why are folks so stuck on claiming that their [old] method is better?" These claims can fall into several categories:
1. Familiarity. There are plenty of photographers who make outstanding photographs and prefer to do so using chemical processes. In many cases this is largely because they know very well how to use those process but they don't know or care to learn the digital alternatives. I don't have any problem with this preference of theirs.
2. Nostalgia. Among some there is always a belief that things were better in the past - but in most cases not too far in the past - and that the most modern thing is necessarily cheaper and less capable. I don't deny the warm feelings evoked for these people by the smell of fixer (or the glow of vacuum tubes, period instruments, antique cars, etc.).
3. Distinction. If "everyone else" uses the new thing, one way to set yourself apart is to use an older thing. You can set yourself apart even more if you also believe that this choice makes you "special" and "more serious."
4. Preference. Film is not identical to digital. There are differences. Keep in mind that "different" does not necessarily equate to "better." Some prefer the differences that accrue to users of film technology, while other prefer the differences that seem to favor digital technologies. This proves only that tastes vary.
In the end, I don't think it matters. One can make stunning and compelling photographic prints using chemical, digital, or a combination of the two technologies. When I look at a photograph that moves me I really care little which technology got the photographer there.
...and to make matters even worse, as a photographer you are stuck with reality as your source material without being able to actually capture it... so all the "warts and wrinkles" are there and none of the actual natural wonder... quite a challenge... which makes it hard and rewarding IMO.
mh2000 wrote:
...and to make matters even worse, as a photographer you are stuck with reality as your source material without being able to actually capture it... so all the "warts and wrinkles" are there and none of the actual natural wonder... quite a challenge... which makes it hard and rewarding IMO.
I'll paraphrase here, but Susan Sontag refers to this when she points out that photography has to answer to the competing demands that it be useful as a means of beautification and of creating evidence.
Photo equipment, favorite lenses, etc., are tools, and do make a difference to the extent that the photographer becomes familiar with their capabilities and adept at exploiting them. Painters have favorite brushes and brands of oil paint, archers have favorite bows, sailors know how their boats respond to wind and waves, etc., etc., etc.
wickerprints wrote:
These kinds of debates are a convenient way for a certain segment of enthusiasts to talk about photography without having to actually possess any creativity.
The surest sign of an insecure photographer is someone who thinks that it is somehow important--or even relevant--that an image should look "film-like" or "3D" or some other nebulous quality, in order to be a good photo.
This is a beautiful summation of this phenomenon... one I believe may be unique to photography. I have encountered few other groups of "artists" engaging in such asinine "debates."
pjbishop wrote:
Photo equipment, favorite lenses, etc., are tools, and do make a difference to the extent that the photographer becomes familiar with their capabilities and adept at exploiting them. Painters have favorite brushes and brands of oil paint, archers have favorite bows, sailors know how their boats respond to wind and waves, etc., etc., etc.
You'd be hard pressed to find a community of painters that waste much time or bandwidth talking about brushes or paint. Among painters, it's the work that matters, not how a particular brand of cadmium red makes a painting pop, or how a camel hair brush is superior to a synthetic...
Though if you do find a thread somewhere showing painters photographing their mixing palettes to compare Winsor & Newton v. Grumbacher paint tones, I would love to see it and laugh at it.
99.9% of an image has more to do with your choice of subject, exposure, composition, and aesthetics--in other words, who you are as a photographer, what it means to engage in the process of taking pictures, and what energy you bring to it--and that last 0.1% might have to do with these technical minutiae and navel-gazing discussions over "organic" vs. "digital" or "3D" vs. "everything else."
A well known, very highly regarded professor/artist of photography I know, at one of the country's top universities (i.e., he's very good), takes a group of students on a photographic summer school each summer to a fancy place in Europe. Guess what equipment he requires his students to use ... Venture a guess, and also an explanation as to *why*, before you look below for the answer.
and
the
answer
is
...
drum roll please
...
A pinhole camera.
Why?
Removing gadgetry from the equation focuses students on subject matter (and the bare bones of exposure), which, I guess, are what he thinks most important.
mh2000 wrote:
true enough... but the printed medium used has generally been close to "print quality" and far better than low rez web images... and they convey the *feeling* of the medium used...
What actually is your point in reference to what I said?
RD, from Canon's White Paper on the 5D II, see below:
Look up a few more of those white papers where Canon discusses in more detail that what we casually call a "pixel" is really what they call the "photo diode area"--the actual light-collection area of the total "pixel"--and that the "photo diode area" is the same size in both the 5D2 and the 5D.
kevinsullivan wrote:
..... Removing gadgetry from the equation focuses students on subject matter (and the bare bones of exposure), which, I guess, are what he thinks most important.
And — while not quite at the same level of simplicity — most if not all of the great photography schools I know of start their students off with manual focus film-based gear and classes, including darkroom technique. Some of these schools (and I'm talking college level) don't get into digital terrain until the junior year.
This may have changed a bit since I last looked, but not by much. I do believe Art Center College of Design's photography department (Pasadena, California) starts with film and stays with m/f film for 3 full semesters.
that in either high quality print media or a traditional print the differences between film and digital are evident. Most of us have seen iconic images at this level of print quality and have responded to the images being aware of the inherent properties of the media used. If you have only seen iconic images on the web, you may not be aware of the subtle differences between film and digital...
RDKirk wrote:
What actually is your point in reference to what I said?
I already told you, go to a gallery or museum... or even Borders book store and look at high quality photo books... if you can't see the difference between classic film images and current digital images... then you are a hopeless clod... if you see the differences and don't think it matters, that is fine... everyone responds to subtle properties differently... and if you prefer digital, that is fine too...
enjoy your journey!
yauyi wrote:
eerrr.....so.......can someone please show some samples what these organic shiznit looks like? 5 pages and still nothing to reference to?
