Has Fake Digital Black and White Gotten Better Than Tradional?

[jwc57]

I've found some skin tones do not translate well from digital color to D-B&W...spray on tans in particular, but some dark natural tans also. Film still has that beat. I also don't believe that D-B&W has or will get any better for some photographers...because they don't have enough experience in traditional black & white. Too many professionals in my area think desaturate is all there is to it. These are the folks who rarely shot film except for a P&S, graduated to a digital P&S, then bought a DSLR and decided they could sell their "work".

I stopped film altogether a couple of years ago, but I've been going back to film recently. I have to admit, there was a moment of doubt about four weeks ago. I received some of my D-B&W prints from a lab and I"ll admit, I did a fine job on them. If I hadn't take them myself, I wouldn't have believed the photos began with digital.

But, I want to continue with film, it's just in my blood.

 

[J. Borger]

If Digital B&W comes close to real B&W i just wonder why prints from B&W film look always better than prints from the M8/ M9 when looking in LFI Magazine??

Is it in the repro process producing the magazine??

 

[tensai]

I have to say these look really really good. Like others mentioned these are very much alike (although they don't have to be of course, and I'm sure there are scenarios where one or the other does better).

Was there a lot of editing involved? I've been using the D700 with NX2 occasionally but don't get close to a film look unless I go into photoshop. Would love to hear some essential points or steps if you remember them..

Just for fun a few months ago, I decided to see if, in my hands with my set of equipment, and for my purposes, film and digital output could be made similar for the average photo I might take. I liked the look of film but loved the convenience and cost of digital. Again, this was just for fun and to see if I could get my digital output to look like the films I liked to use, including the grain - I’m not out to debate the DR and merits of one medium over another as these “tests” were not meant to do that. What I did was carry around my D700 and M6 and take a shot side by side with the same focal length and exposure - Nikon 50mm f/1.4D vs 50mm f/2 Summicron. Films were Portra 400NC and Arista Premium 400. Output with Capture NX2/ACDsee.

Again, this exercise was just for fun so please take it as it is (I know there are way too many variables to make this a technically useful test, you can't tell anything on the computer screen etc.). In the end, I found that I could get pretty close to the look I liked on film and as I set up a batch process for each film type I liked, it took just a few seconds to go from RAW to “film” ouput. However, as I’m a mere hobbyist doing photography for fun, I found I actually missed the film process as others have mentioned, and the film equipment... except this week, I’m tired of processing film so digital it is. Until next week when I miss my film equipment...

Digital

Arista 400

Digital

Portra 400NC

Digital

Arista 400

Digital

Arista 400

 

[Santtu Määttänen]

I like to keep my digital black and whites simple, get the exposure right, adjust contrast (curves), decide which color filter to use and then turn it into black and white. I'm no expert and my work needs some developing for sure but for now I'm rather pleased with the results. Oh and I don't use any noise reduction when photos end up in B&W, on the contrary most times I up the ISO a bit to get some "digital grain" to speak, since for my eyes it looks sharper in the prints (not on screen though).

 

[bigeye]

I'm shallow and buy labels.

I've been buying lenses that are labelled "Distagon" on them for the same price as ones that say "Coolpix".

I have noticed the ones that say Distagon seem to take better pictures.

.

 

[NickTrop]

I like to keep my digital black and whites simple, get the exposure right, adjust contrast (curves), decide which color filter to use and then turn it into black and white. I'm no expert and my work needs some developing for sure but for now I'm rather pleased with the results. Oh and I don't use any noise reduction when photos end up in B&W, on the contrary most times I up the ISO a bit to get some "digital grain" to speak, since for my eyes it looks sharper in the prints (not on screen though).

A great example of my point. Great pictures... And you would have fooled me if you said these were Tri-X, it has nothing to do with screen resolution, and they would look essentially the same if they were printed. Those who are intellectually dishonest would say they look "plastic-y", "noisy" and have "blown highlights" if they knew these were digital in advance.

Another advantage? I can get 5X7 digital black and whites for $0.25 a pop at Winkflash ($0.08 6X4's) - which I'm sure are fine for small(ish) prints of small format black and white... To hell with injets. I bypass the whole shoot, develop, scan thing and upload straight to this service. (Haven't used yet, but samples I've seen are more than satisfactory).

I think some folks confuse styles of photography - "street" or "rangefinder"-style photograhy - candid, prolific, do your best technically - but subject matter matters more, and speed matters a lot. Small cameras - the faster the better. More important than shooting with "Biogons". Prolific = $$$$. Quick and economical for this - which is why digital has "come of age" (only recently, imo). For film? Now looking at cheap point-n-shooters. Yep.

HCB would have shot with an autofocus point-n-shoot or a digital camera (probably a digital) today, I bet. Leicas were the best he could do at the time. Remember - he was about "moments" not tonality. He'd be an autofocus shooter.

Again - medium format and above is an entirely different matter. Techincal - portraits, still lifes, landscapes...

 

[dfoo]

Another advantage? I can get 5X7 digital black and whites for $0.25 a pop at Winkflash ($0.08 6X4's) - which I'm sure are fine for small(ish) prints of small format black and white... To hell with injets. I bypass the whole shoot, develop, scan thing and upload straight to this service. (Haven't used yet, but samples I've seen are more than satisfactory).

I've gotten so called B&W 6x4 and 5x7's from costco and other fuji frontier outlets and they look terrible. Among other things they have color casts.

 

[Paul Roark]

I've gotten so called B&W 6x4 and 5x7's from costco and other fuji frontier outlets and they look terrible. Among other things they have color casts.

One simply cannot make good B&W prints from materials designed for color -- which is where the huge market is that all sellers cater to. Although I designed many B&W inksets for MIS Associates (for free), these inksets usually had some color pigments in them to offset the warmth of the carbon pigments. Due to the problems I ran into whenever color is in the print, I now use and strongly recommend 100% carbon pigment printing as the best solution for B&W output in the digital age. Shutterbug reviewed one of these approaches at
http://www.shutterbug.net/equipmentreviews/scanners_printers/0208winkjet/


This inkset is in fade testing at Aardenburg Imaging -- http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/ -- and has turned in the best ever results. Aardenburg is, in my view, the best third party, independent fade testing outfit there is. While the OEM B&W prints do fairly well in these tests, the rate of fade + color shift, as measured by delta-e, for the 100% carbon inkset is about half that of the OEM approaches. So, it's not a small margin.

In addition to almost no fade or tone shift, the 100% carbon prints have no metamerism and are the cheapest to make.

Achieving neutral, matte B&W with this approach is easy. Epson's new Hot Press Natural prints almost dead neutral with the "3-MK" approach.

So, for me, "real" B&W has little to do with the image capture technology, but with respect to output, 100% carbon is the real thing.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/

 

[bwcolor]

I would like to comment, but I haven't a leg to stand on. I shoot film and then scan. Not much analog in that chain. I'm doing digital the hard way.

 

[bigeye]

NickTrop, you're trying to say that P&S cams have good enough B&W quality for PJ and streetshooting?

 

[ederek]

^^ Paul, your website and info about carbon inks has been very helpful, thank you.

One thing I took away from this and other recent threads regarding film and digital, was to focus more on the final print. I don't have a darkroom, but do have an Epson 3800, putting it to heavy use over the past couple weeks (mix of 5x7, 8x10, A3, and 17x22).

Last night I printed this at various sizes up to 17x22, and just fell in love with the smooth tones, especially on matte paper.

Nick - do you really think a little P&S digital is "good enough" for prints of this size? Or just for web images such as shared in this thread? Guess I'll have to take some snaps with the LX3 and play a bit..

 

[dfoo]

One simply cannot make good B&W prints from materials designed for color -- which is where the huge market is that all sellers cater to. ...

If you read earlier in this thread I described how I use UT14 and an Epson 1400. I get good prints from that setup, but nowhere near as good as I get in my darkroom (something which others, such as Chris, objected too). I also think that the prints are not that cheap compared with darkroom prints. When I consider the overall picture (quality, price and convenience) for inkjet for FILM isn't a very good solution.

 

[Santtu Määttänen]

A great example of my point. Great pictures... And you would have fooled me if you said these were Tri-X, it has nothing to do with screen resolution, and they would look essentially the same if they were printed. Those who are intellectually dishonest would say they look "plastic-y", "noisy" and have "blown highlights" if they knew these were digital in advance.

Thanks for your kind words and I have to agree. You can't imagine how many times people have mistaken my prints from digital camera as wet prints (including photographers who deal a lot in darkroom). I'm not saying that the quality is identical or that you couldn't achieve amazing results in darkroom, I just ain't that good in darkroom but I have learned at least somewhat on how to work on Lightroom / Photoshop. With out direct comparision and behind the glass framing it's really difficult to tell the differences.

Another advantage? I can get 5X7 digital black and whites for $0.25 a pop at Winkflash ($0.08 6X4's) - which I'm sure are fine for small(ish) prints of small format black and white... To hell with injets. I bypass the whole shoot, develop, scan thing and upload straight to this service. (Haven't used yet, but samples I've seen are more than satisfactory).

Easiest way to me to get prints is from Agfa D-Lab2 and when done on some good paper the quality is more then satisfactory, besides the 30x45cm pictures are large enough most times When not, then I turn to pro labs and get my prints in ready to hang condition (aluminium back and acrylic glass, high quality paper in between).

I also shoot film, mainly medium format but I run a roll of 135 every now and then (mostly through my Nikons or Olympus 35RC which is always loaded and with me but gets a full roll of shooting every month or so). With large format I understand the difference between it and digital, easily, since there are no real digital backs at least in any sort of affordable range, even to a pro (not talking about scan backs). With medium format, reason to use film is money and equipment, digital backs are expensive and they don't do one for my Yashica-Mat for example

But to the point of this discussion, digital B&W in my eyes is there already. Is there a difference, in print for sure (talking about wet printing), in web usage.. nah it's all about post processing and the skill involved (and the interest to make your digital look exactly like film). And even in prints the difference is very small if prints are professionally made.

 

[Santtu Määttänen]

Last night I printed this at various sizes up to 17x22, and just fell in love with the smooth tones, especially on matte paper.

Amazing shot and I love the tonality, smooth and creamy. And I bet the print is amazing. I printed a 50cmx50cm digital print from this photo below, altho the original file came from a scanner (Imagon X1) and Yashica-Mat Kodak BW400CN combo. But still the digital print is amazing. Could I have taken it with a digital camera, for sure, did I, no I didn't not at this time at least..

 

[IK13]

I didn't read the whole thread, but you do realize that you actually have a B&W sensor with a bayer filter in front of it. I think I've seen someplace that was actually taking the AA filter for even better B&W pictures (and it will be even better if the RAW processing software has a "native" way of handling B&W)...

 

[Gazzah]

Gigital B&W camera?

Gigital B&W camera?

There was a discussion on another site some time back on the benifits of a dedicated B&W digital camera. The experts all agreed that the resolution would increase dramatically due to the absence of the bayer layer, that the AA filter could be reduced conciderably and (for reasons I dont understand) the DR would also be a lot better.
Given all these there was a vote for who would buy such a camera, about 2% said they would buy it - about 40% asked why would anyone these days shoot in B&W... guess they were the digkids never even seen film!
I would jump at the camera if it was full frame and had all those advantages!

In the meantime I use my GRD1 and D1H for B&W... if Im in a digital frame of mind.

Gary H

 

[NickTrop]

NickTrop, you're trying to say that P&S cams have good enough B&W quality for PJ and streetshooting?

Essentially, yes. Same is true for prints. 35mm is small format. Street photography is not about sharpness, tonality, and these technical aspects - it seems to me, are often overemphasized. Rangefinder-syle is documentarian in nature - just get the friggin' shot. F5.6 and be there, I think used to be the motto. And it's about composition. The other stuff - tonality, hyper-sharpness, dynamic range is more important in studio stuff, landscape photography - large/medium format stuff.

Digital point and shoot let you shoot nearly unlimited, the cameras are smaller - truly pocketable, some now they do a decent job at higher ISOs, they auto focus, have built-in flash and (importantly) have collapsible lenses so they can be taken anywhere. Battery life has improved dramatically... These are better tools now for this type of photography. The utility that these tools bring to the table are more important for this style of photography than "how sharp the lens is" or "this gives you 1.5 more stops of dynamic range". I wouldn't use a digital point and shoot as a studio camera, though.

If your goal is to be a street shooter, you would realize this, ditch your Leica, and get an $80 used Fuji Finepix F20. Leica and other RFs were the best for this style of photography from 1950 until fairly recently.

The fastest technology (shriek - autofocus!) and most discreet and smallest cameras (shriek! p-n-s for film! shriek! widdle digitals cameras!) that let you fire off shot after shot after shot that autofocus are best suited for this purpose - modern technology achieves this better than something that, essentially, hasn't changed since the 50's.

Also - black and white, fake or otherwise, is overused, especially indoors. Was this initially used because color films were too slow and blechy looking when pushed and filters cut the speed and had color cast - so black and white was the only option "back then"? Now we can set the white balance, shoot at ISO 800-1000 (whatever) and get color photos, no cast, no stop-reducing filters, no blech-y ness. Those constraints imposed by film are now gone. Why persist imposing such constraints? If a scene "looks better" in black and white we can make such aesthetic decisions after the fact. Similarly, we can choose to reduce saturation and contrast if color overpowers the subject.

What are RF's good for now? General purpose film cameras. Shooting old school - for fun. Fondling, collecting... All good, valid reasons. Nothing wrong with this. They are charming - digitals are not. But tools shouldn't be chosen based on how "charming" they are.

 

[NickTrop]

I've gotten so called B&W 6x4 and 5x7's from costco and other fuji frontier outlets and they look terrible. Among other things they have color casts.

Disagree - and I'm sure they're fine:

* Black and White: Winkflash avoided making our black and white photo too yellow like some other services. The photo felt like a true black and white image and didn’t favor one color of the spectrum over the other, but the picture did seem a little dark. Take a look at our comparative shots from Winkflash.
http://digital-photo-printing-review.toptenreviews.com/winkflash-review.html

The link has a comparison between the digital file submitted and the returned print. They're differences but it looks good to my eye. $0.08 for a 6X4, $.25 for 5X7. Looking forward to getting my first prints back. I;m sure they'll be fine.

 

[Gazzah]

What are RF's good for now? General purpose film cameras. Shooting old school - for fun. Fondling, collecting... All good, valid reasons. Nothing wrong with this. They are charming - digitals are not. But tools shouldn't be chosen based on how "charming" they are.

I would disagree with this - the tool used has a major effect on the outcome - if it feels good to the user then they will probably take better images.
I do a lot of woodturning and use tools that are 20 years old because they are "charming" rather than some of the modern versions that I also own.

 

[dfoo]

Disagree - and I'm sure they're fine

Whilst I haven't seen the images, I suspect you have very low standards.