Thoughts about digital black and white.

[Keith]

I think I'm going to opt out of shooting digital with the intention of converting it to black and white for personal reasons. I'm genuinely concerned with what is happening with film at the moment. The way options are being reduced and smaller manufacturers (Efke) going under ... the thin end of the wedge possibly!

I accept that digital has won the battle on all fronts and I don't take issue with that but I do want my favourite medium (black and white film) to survive and offer me more than a couple of choices. I'll shoot digital exclusively for colour because to be honest the range of colour film available these days is limited, pricey and seems to be dwindling at an exponential rate. E-6 will fairly obviously be totally gone soon ... the way of Kodachrome!

I've seen some impressive results from the M9M tonality wise but they still don't have texture ... that has to be software added and it's not inherent at the point of capture. This (texture) is important to me! The new Leica Monochrom could be the beginning of the end if other manufacturers follow it even in a minor way with smaller, cheaper, dedicated mono cameras ... X100M anybody? Black and white photography will probably become highly fashionable, trendy, call it what you want!

If the new Plustek is reality and can deliver what it promises that will my my next major purchase for my black and white future. Not a camera or a piece of software!

 

[Vics]

Well put, Keith. I agree with all that, but I also hate to see black and white used as a gimick, trick digital photography. I watched someone's flickr page with their holiday pictures, M8+Sumilux 35 &50, I think, and the pictures were quite good, but then there came the color picture, followed by its B&W "version" and the whole thing lost me right there. It just becomes self-referential.
Also, I love the smell opf Tri-X.

 

[Keith]

If you scan a negative, aren't you at least halfway practicing digital photography?

Perhaps I'm being argumentative, but not confrontational.

I've printed my 6x7 negs done in the last year, haven't ever bothered to scan the negs. If I am going to make the effort to obtain the quality of medium format, I feel I should complete the effort with a darkroom print. I prefer the tone manipulation I achieve in darkroom printing to my efforts in digital post.

In my spare time I have been scanning old prints as well as family snapshots and other personal photos. I've scanned some 35mm negs that I also have printed and scanned, if I have nailed the print I prefer the final digital file to one that is a scan and manipulated in post.

It all comes down to available time and motivation, at times digital is just so easy and quick.

Definitely ... and it's not the final digital result that that causes me any problem. And I'll quite happily print that scan on my R2400.

The way things are going there will be a plug in for digital that mimmicks grain so perfectly I won't be able to distinguish between a scanned negative and well done digital conversion.

I desperately want the other way to survive also.

Modern traffic systems no longer cater for the horse and cart ... I've always though this was very unfair! 😛

 

[Contarama]

The hell they don't you must not have any Amish people down under or cowboys like here in Oklahoma.

In America we no longer cater to the automobile. Our bridges are falling down.

When you ride horses you have to walk them across the bridge so they don't freak out and buck you off the overpass into a speeding semi.

 

[traveler_101]

The way things are going there will be a plug in for digital that mimmicks grain so perfectly I won't be able to distinguish between a scanned negative and well done digital conversion.

Really? I guess I am not up-to-date then. What I see is that my film scans look very distinct from digital images--and certainly different from MY digital images.

Anyway, I appreciate and agree with your inclination to draw a line and create a boundary between the to forms, Keith. I have already decided to use digital exclusively for color, but beyond that distinction of use, I feel there is a distinction in representation. There is something artificial--as in too perfect--about digital, b&w or color. Now I've decided to treat this "artificiality" as digital's character and I often exaggerate it by various in-camera manipulations. (I shoot jpg anyway).

I also agree with JSU: making wet prints with your negatives "answers" the question once and for all--you end up with a real representation of an image that can't be imitated. My problem having JUST gotten IN to doing my own film shooting and developing, as everyone else is going OUT, is the space needed to establish a dark room--as well as the time. But if I had the space, I'd find the time. I LIKE developing film, and I'm sure I would like printing. What I dislike is scanning and anything to do with computer-based pp.

 

[back alley]

so, you want to shoot black and white film so that black and white film does not go away.
admirable...support what you believe in puts action behind the words.

 

[Keith]

Really? I guess I am not up-to-date then. What I see is that my film scans look very distinct from digital images--and certainly different from MY digital images.

That is the case currently but I only see it as a matter of time before the software can distribute the simulated grain in the same way a negative does. As you say at this time it doesn't and the two are easy to distinguish between ... especially when using 135mm film.

I don't have a problem with scanning ... it's never bothered me and the costs involved in printing 'wet' don't really appeal to me. It's a learning curve that I choose not to undertake currently.

 

[Keith]

so, you want to shoot black and white film so that black and white film does not go away.
admirable...support what you believe in puts action behind the words.

I don't really expect to be shooting any less digital ... my work stuff is all digital. I do tend to get tied up in shooting digital images and converting them to black and white ... and I'll try to make them look like as much like film as I can.

I don't want to become a film zealot because they can be really annoying ... it's more a personal decision based on trying to preserve my own attitudes along with the medium.

 

[redisburning]

I don't care about grain.

if I could load characteristic curves into the camera and they really meant something (i.e. I load the "acros" setting in and I get reduced red sensitivity or I put "hp5+" in and I get lower contrast with no shoulder) that would mean a lot more to me than grain.

I have about zero interest in color photography these days, to be honest, but it feels wrong to convert to b&w for me.

 

[hausen]

I think you a right to do what you want Keith. I am primarily film these days both B&W and E6 and mainly 6x6. I have both scanned and wet print the B&W I like. But if I look through my keepers about 80% are film and 20% from M9. I will mourn Velvia when it goes and much as I will Tri-X. But head in sand film or nothing zealot I am not. If film does go I will adjust to whatever is available and my film cams will sit behind glass in a cabinet somewhere🙂

 

[traveler_101]

If film does go I will adjust to whatever is available and my film cams will sit behind glass in a cabinet somewhere🙂

An admirable ethic affirming what is, but also a chilling image of mortality--machines, techniques and men . . .

 

[Vincent.G]

I don't mind grainy film photos but I dislike noise in digital photos.