The biggest difference I have noticed with the whole film vs digital look has to do with the response curve of each medium to light. For instance, film traditionally has a curve where the shoulder (highlights) gradually roll off and the toe (shadows) block up a bit. Sort of like this:
With digital, the response to light is exactly linear so the \'curve\' is a straight line. Visually, this means that with digital, we can often get a very harsh look in the highlights and quickly see them blow out to pure white with the sort of manipulation one might try to mimic the film look. This is of course a fairly general observation and digital camera and software manufactures masage this straight line response to give us something that looks more natural but inherently this is what is going on with the actual capture. I do know that with a number of digital systems, if you want to have the headroom to manipulate the image to more closely resemble the film look, your best NOT to expose to the extreme right based on the histogram in the camera. This will vary system by system. My Sony a900, for instance, seems to not require this technique to the degree my older Canon 5D required and I think that\'s why some say the files have more of a film look about them.
The biggest difference I have noticed with the whole film vs digital look has to do with the response curve of each medium to light. For instance, film traditionally has a curve where the shoulder (highlights) gradually roll off and the toe (shadows) block up a bit. Sort of like this:
With digital, the response to light is exactly linear so the \'curve\' is a straight line. Visually, this means that with digital, we can often get a very harsh look in the highlights and quickly see them blow out to pure white with the sort of manipulation one might try to mimic the film look. This is of course a fairly general observation and digital camera and software manufactures message this straight line response to give us something that looks more natural but inherently this is what is going on with the actual capture. I do know that with a number of digital systems, if you want to have the headroom to manipulate the image to more closely resemble the film look, your best NOT to expose to the extreme right based on the histogram in the camera. This will vary system by system. My Sony a900, for instance, seems to not require this technique to the degree my older Canon 5D required and I think that\'s why some say the files have more of a film look about them.
Dec 23, 2010 at 09:40 AM
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