I, for one, am still committed to slides and slide projection. I want to make fullest use of the (finite) dynamic range. Correct exposure, with careful attention to highlights, is critical - much like digital. Even in 135 format, the impact of a good slide show is beyond digital. Now, keeping your audience awake is another matter!
A quick attempt at comparing what the average (yup, that would be me) digital user ends up with from the get go:
From the above I would like to make another attempt to compare it with a simulated "slide (con)version" of the above, basically an attempt to show the not-so-minute differences from the starting point one could have.
In the case of the "slide" vs the "digital original" the end result has no particular correlation between these two in terms of what it should look like. To me, personally, digital more often than not has a somewhat more artificial look to it; all from a milky haze to colors being oversaturated or misinterpreted. Or simply put, a flat look. All of this can be fixed to a certain degree in post pro but I sometimes find the lack of a "slide original" to compare it with makes it hard for me to judge nuances and colors like I used to do.
I think a lot of slide shooters can agree to this, whether you shot slides "to taste" or not.
With Velvia you knew the difference between "reality" and the Velvia interpretation of it. Some liked Provia or Astia better, some preferred Ektachrome, Agfachrome and some did not really care and shot whatever they got their hands on. But, if you wanted a slight warm tint to your slides you could choose a film that was like that, knewing you had that tint to it. With digital it seems more people are lost. But it could be because more people shoot and display their work with digital thanks to easy access/flickr and the likes. The primary interest with those people might not be accurate color reproduction and less than five percent probably work on a well calibrated screen.
Basically, I think most people don't care.
Last shot I left off at the shop (I was fresh out of ink...) was a digital file from my Ricoh GXR and since it was a rush job I was concerned their output would not match up with my screen as my printing does and I had no time to make repeat trips to the shop. So I paid extra special attention to colors (church shot, mixed light, no flash = nightmare) and told them I wanted no color adjustment, straight output. To my relief the enlargements matched the screen at home almost perfectly in both color and contrast.
Since I was framing them I had them printed on a larger paper size and asked for the option of "no resize" so I could cut and trim them to size at home but as it turned out they accidentally set them on "fill in" so I got a size larger than what I had bargained for.
So, I had to rush out to get bigger frames but the client was very happy with that. Ah, well. At least the upsizing didn't knock off the apparent image resolution in print.
At a lecture I held (topic was New Zealand) for over a hundred people I showed X-pan slides on a Rollei 6x6 projector. I narrowed it down to fifteen slides as I was concerned people would start yawning but afterwards the peope that stayed to chat after the lecture had wanted to see more.
I had hung some twentyfive enlargements on the walls but since the conference room was fit for forty people only the first twenty got to enjoy them. After that people were back up against the wall and the whole lecture turned into a joke. I was expecting elbow room at least but less than two meters in front of me was a wall of people. That was nerve wrecking but as soon as I got started I did alright.
Jorge; 160NC is a fine film, it handles contrasty light well. My personal preference is Fuji Reala.
On medum format I shot Reala, 160VC and NC.
I am having the time of my life shooting film. With a home darkroom equipped for color I can do it all in house, which keeps quality high and expenses low(er). The only thing that is a bit of a downer is that some materials are becoming harder to come by. (Kodak Endura in sheets for example). But the upside is great emulsions like reala, Ektar 100 and others. And film gear is at or close to as cheap as it's ever been. I've been able to put together medium format systems for 10cents on the dollar vs. retail prices back "in the day", when I could never afford that gear.
I shoot a little digital (Canon G10) but most all my work is on film. It's a little effort, but ultimately I like the results better, and I've grown up with the whole film/darkroom workflow so it feels natural to me.
I shot a lot of slides when shooting professionally (advertising/sports/photojournalism) but for my own work, with prints as an end product, shooting color neg is the easiest these days I think.
Great question OP. I always thought it was stupid to go through the AD or DA process. If you want a digital file in the end, start with a digital based capture. If you want an analog product in the end, start with an analog capture. You LOSE when you convert from Analog to Digital. If you take film and scan it, it's NOT film anymore. ANYTHING you THINK you're getting with film can be reproduced in Photoshop starting with a digital caputure. Anything. Period.
For me film is pretty much out of the question. I think it's because I see just too much beauty in the world. So when I'm shooting I want to photograph those things that look beautiful to me and those things that I think will look good through a camera lens. That means just stepping out the door with a film camera is going to cost me about $300 - and everytime I go out too - which is almost everyday. That's like $7,000 a month. If I was much more selective and additionally didn't bracket anything I suppose I could cut that down to $1k or something but that's still pretty crazy to me. Shooting film would mean that I would have to give up photography as a hobby for the most part and just use it as a tool for recording events and such. I certainly couldn't afford to "test" lenses and such which is a large percentage of what I do now. I thought the $300 I spent for the current camera I'm using was on the ridiculous side - without winning the lottery, spending that much every day or even once a week simply isn't in the cards.
I think my GH1 beats the crap out of most/all 35mm film - and in all regards. I also think MF and LF kicks it's arse clean off the planet - but digital cameras that come even kinda close to matching up with MF/LF cost as much as a house and not being a commercial photographer are not a consideration for me.
So for me it's all about cost. Digital is enabling, film is restrictive.
The biggest problem, imo, is finding a decent film developing lab that won't charge you an arm or a leg for processing. If anything has contributed to the demise of film I would say that film labs are one of the two primary culprits (primary culprit being camera manufacturers).
If you look at printing techniques of film labs today, the majority of them scan your negative then print it. Your final print is only as good as the lab's scanner is. Those one or two labs that are still using enlargers are charging a small fortune for processing and prints. Sadly, most of the mid tones and other fine details of film are lost in the scanning process.
pawlowski6132 wrote:
Great question OP. I always thought it was stupid to go through the AD or DA process. If you want a digital file in the end, start with a digital based capture. If you want an analog product in the end, start with an analog capture. You LOSE when you convert from Analog to Digital. If you take film and scan it, it's NOT film anymore. ANYTHING you THINK you're getting with film can be reproduced in Photoshop starting with a digital caputure. Anything. Period.
Don't hold back, now, tell us how you really feel!
I know what you're getting at, but you don't "lose" when you go from analog to digital. I can manipulate digital files to look more like my preferred stock (which I've recently started doing, with good results), or I can just shoot 160NC and call it a day. I think being 100% unrelenting and bias towards anything, like the way you're talking about scanning film like it's sacrilege, is a little over the top.
Color film these days almost always means the hybrid process of scanning.
Chemical large color prints, like Cibachrome (Ilfochrome), is very difficult to do well. Even done expertly there is not the creative control available with scanning.
I agree with Ben that there's a richness to printed film that can be lacking with digital capture. Although the benefit of film does seem to vary with subject matter. I find it hard to predict when film will be superior.
cgiff wrote:
Don't hold back, now, tell us how you really feel!
I know what you're getting at, but you don't "lose" when you go from analog to digital. I can manipulate digital files to look more like my preferred stock (which I've recently started doing, with good results), or I can just shoot 160NC and call it a day. I think being 100% unrelenting and bias towards anything, like the way you're talking about scanning film like it's sacrilege, is a little over the top.
The problem I see with digital is (and some of this has already been mentioned):
- ungraceful highlight transition to pure white and probably a narrower dynamic range than film
- user obsession with NR software to wipe out noise
- user inexperience in post production to get digital to look as envisioned
Film makes the last point easy because the emulsion has a certain set of characteristics and if you want that look, you're all set. But if you know what you're doing in post, digital will allow a lot more flexibility in changing the look as it suits your mood from shot to shot without having to carry a wide inventory of film on shoots. And I think therein lies a major challenge because most don't really feel comfortable manipulating images on the computer... or understand how to achieve a desired end result.
The second point is probably directly related to the point made by another poster about viewing on-screen vs. prints. Screens/displays, especially digital LCDs, have a tendency to over exaggerate minute tonal differences that in print tend to blend together. I always liked evaluating images on a high quality CRT better because of the way tonalities blended slightly.
Matken made a good point that film tends to offer a much higher contrast rendition. Look at digital originals and one of the reasons saturation and vibrancy tends to the low side is because the files are usually much lower in contrast. Adding an overlay or softlight layer in Photoshop is a fast way to resemble the feel of film.
Bifurcator wrote:
I think everything here in Japan still uses the old systems from the 70's and 80's.
I would be surprised.
There are different types of mini-lab machines. They all used to be direct optical printing from the negative onto paper and at some point scanning film and printing using an LED print head became the norm. Fuji Frontier labs are an example of the scan and print variety. My feeling, having worked briefly in a lab, is that direct optical printing offered sharper prints up to around 8x10/12 if the system was properly set up. The benefit of the scan and print design is the machine can be much more compact and still output to larger print sizes.
Even if, hypothetically, you could make your digital shots look exactly like film (I don't believe you can in print, although you can probably fool someone on a screen), wouldn't your artwork be based on a lie? Why shoot on one medium, only to try to pretend its something else?
Not arguing as to which is better or worse. I'm simply saying that for those who say "well I can just make my digital shots look like film," it seems that authenticity isn't a major concern. For a long time, my B&W conversions on digital have been based upon "film simulations" to achieve the look I like. However, I've become increasingly reluctant to do this, because I don't like the fact that my work is fake film. I want my work to be honest and authentic in whatever qualities are under my control.
I like how film looks, so I shoot film. Scanning is a necessary part of my work-flow for clients, but optical darkroom prints are the gold standard for important work for me.
I also love the process of film, and to me that matters more and more lately. Its the journey as much as the destination.
Paradoxically, if you shoot colour film for a digital workflow and scan your work, you better chain yourself to the PC, because *much* more work is involved...dust control, cutting film frames, using glass holders, no white balance, no profiles for negs (some for E6), quirky scan software, colour balance 'challenges', spotting, etc. Then start PP in Photoshop - no Raw Converter. No place for the faint-hearted...
All that made it very problematic for 35mm shooters, so it worked best for medium format guys. The large format guys either got enmeshed into poorly supported drum scanners with even more software issues or bought cheap Epson scanners, thereby nullifying some of the film 'real estate' advantage over MF. So MF became the sweet spot for DIY.
With well-scanned MF film (esp 6x7), potential prints for sharp, well-exposed frames are almost unlimited in size, because of the huge 16 bit files generated - many hundreds of megapixels at even moderate scan resolutions (3200ppi-400ppi).
Agree re 'analog' digital print output (Lambda, Lightjet, Chromira) being superior - inkjet prints are less tactile, less deep, more 'surface', less resistant to marking, and all round, just look less appealing.
Evan, perhaps it's seldom addressed because it's not a concern for most? It's certainly not something that bothers me. I don't consider faking a film look a lie, perhaps in part because I never claim to offer clients film based images. To me it's just one of the huge number of processing options in photography, which in itself is less about truth than most people want to believe. It's about personal vision and molding images to match what you want others to see, whether film or digital. Maybe some discerning clients care about the capture medium, which I could see with fine art perhaps, but obviously that's not the market I'm in.
There's one thing about which I agree with you 100%: Astroturf (and FieldTurf).
rscheffler wrote:
Evan, perhaps it's seldom addressed because it's not a concern for most? It's certainly not something that bothers me. I don't consider faking a film look a lie, perhaps in part because I never claim to offer clients film based images. To me it's just one of the huge number of processing options in photography, which in itself is less about truth than most people want to believe. It's about personal vision and molding images to match what you want others to see, whether film or digital. Maybe some discerning clients care about the capture medium, which I could see with fine art perhaps, but obviously that's not the market I'm in.
There's one thing about which I agree with you 100%: Astroturf (and FieldTurf).
For a long time I resisted going to Digtial. All my friends had digtial camera's, but being stuborn, I stuck to my film camera's. The breaking point was when I started to shoot hard news again and after a bad wreck the paper needed ASAP, I had to get the film scanned, and it was night mare. So I bought in and got a D2h. It's was okay except for the crop.
When I started to rebuild my Nikkor AIS lenses I was surprised and delighted to find that many of the lenses that I had lusted for my whole adult life where now availble and relatively cheap.
The film camera where getting used but only as back up.
When I heard the D3 was coming out I went all out and snagged all the Nikkor AIS glass I could.
The D3 was the first decent Digtial ever made if ask me.
And while it's not perfect it get the job done.
And yet still compared to film something is still missing
I dont know hoew to explain it but for me 'Film is photography"
Just today I talking to good pal and explained that the digtial experience is leaving me cold.
Don't get me wrong I still love my D3 but more and more I find myself dreaming in B+W.
The darkroom, negative sleeves, loading film, cutting negatives, and holding them up to the light dripping with photo flow.
I have been a big advocate of using both Digital and film but more and more I know I going to drop digital sooner rather than later.
I just can't get over the fact it looks like plastic. It's just not real.
I never understood how "process" the digtial files worth a damn. And frankly the idea of my life's work on a sitting in hard drives scares the fixer out of me.
I just don't trust it. It's got no soul.
I want to have a negative. Somthing my kids hold up to the light when Im gone.
Somthing I know will last..OO
Digital is zero and one's . The world is still anolog last time I checked.
Just last week I order 100 rolls of B+W 100 asa in 35mm 100 rolls in 400 B+W 35mm , 50 rolls of 120 B+W, and 100 sheets 4X5 in 100 asa B+W . I think right there my intentions are clear.
I just want to shoot B+W for all my personal work for a year. And I think the new year is as good a time as any to get back to B+W film 100%.
There are different types of mini-lab machines. They all used to be direct optical printing from the negative onto paper and at some point scanning film and printing using an LED print head became the norm. Fuji Frontier labs are an example of the scan and print variety. My feeling, having worked briefly in a lab, is that direct optical printing offered sharper prints up to around 8x10/12 if the system was properly set up. The benefit of the scan and print design is the machine can be much more compact and still output to larger print sizes....Show more →
Yeah, I know all that. I of course don't know every 1-hour photo store in Japan but of the 7 or 8 I've visited in the past 3 months or so (these places occasionally sell used camera equipment too ) all of them process and print via massive machines in plain sight. While a few of them offer a scanning to disc services their printing from neg is analogue (via light transmission onto photo-paper). This subject has come up here before so I've been checking and asking as I attempt hang out and become familiar with the store owners. Apparently gone are the days when lab-techs are hired. There's usually just one guy. Sometimes a wife (or cute daughter) running the register tho.
I'm sure there must be digital labs somewhere but none that I've seen.
I guess a good portion of their regular customers (20%?) insist on analogue or something - or why else?
I want to make fullest use of the (finite) dynamic range. Correct exposure, with careful attention to highlights, is critical - much like digital. Even in 135 format, the impact of a good slide show is beyond digital. Now, keeping your audience awake is another matter!
) all of them process and print via massive machines in plain sight. While a few of them offer a scanning to disc services their printing from neg is analogue (via light transmission onto photo-paper). This subject has come up here before so I've been checking and asking as I attempt hang out and become familiar with the store owners. Apparently gone are the days when lab-techs are hired. There's usually just one guy. Sometimes a wife (or cute daughter) running the register tho.