appeal of film over digital?

[Bill Clark]

Looks like I already posted to this thread!

 

[ellisson]

For me personally, shooting both film and digital (more of the latter now), there is a certain quality to film. I take similar amounts of time composing for film and digital, so I don't think it's about the shooting process for me, personally. Film emulsions versus pixels. It's an overall rendering. Unless I'm pixel peeping, it's not about sharpness.

 

[pixie79]

Your camera is defective. Probably only good for parts. Send it to me, and I will dispose of it, because I'm a nice guy and I want to be helpful.

The day that happens, will be your last. We kimd of happy together! AI was told on a Leica site NOT to post images of such a worn camera!

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Hmmm... Reading this thread, "Non-Linear Response Curve".
Digital is Linear, film has Curves.
I like curves.

 

[DownUnder]

Looks like I already posted to this thread!

Do feel free to post again. As often as you like.

In this seemingly crazy nutty purposeless senseless whacko AI-everything era, anything written and posted by humans is to be cherished!!

 

[DownUnder]

Yep. Sky King - Wikipedia

I'm from Florida, so quoting Jimmy Buffett, you guys are speaking my language. Sky King was a bit before my time though. I never bothered to look up the reference before, but Penny was cute!

My daughter likes watching old TV shows on YouTube or whatever other channels of streaming nonsense they're on. Reminded me what a crush I had on Samantha from Bewitched and Morticia Addams.

Me too. Way, way back when as a seven year old I greatly upset my parents (good Catholic French Canadians) by declaring my undying love for the luscious Arlene Francis on What's My Line?

Many of my vintage will surely recall this TV series which was aired on Sunday nights out of New York in the 1950s and 1960s. For the younger'uns the good news is much of this series (which ran almost unchanged from 1950 to 1967) is on YouTube. Well worth watching but the high verbosity and at times razor-sharp wit of the moderator and panelists calls for due warning to the verbally challenged to exercise due caution.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I prefer film. An album with all the negatives in chronological order is much more convenient to look up the images than searching a in file on the computer. The images on film are also much nicer than digital ones, but that is a question of taste.

gelatin silver print (s skopar 50mm f2.5) contax 1

Amsterdam, 2016

 

[willie_901]

Hmmm... Reading this thread, "Non-Linear Response Curve".
Digital is Linear, film has Curves.
I like curves.

Perhaps someday there will be technologies available to apply Curves to digital images. Hopefully camera manufacturers will see the wisdom of providing in-camera Curves photographers can choose they render in-camera JPEGs. I suspect it may even be possible to apply different Curves to the to the same raw file.

I don't know why there's no way to apply Curves to linear raw files during post production rendering. That would be really convenient.

 

[Leon C]

Hmmm... Reading this thread, "Non-Linear Response Curve".
Digital is Linear, film has Curves.
I like curves.

Have to agree....End of year College Show, many moons ago. [20 x 16 Test Strip]

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (summilux 50mm f1.4 v1 chrome) leica mp

Amsterdam, 2017

 

[Erik van Straten]

silver gelatine print (summicron 50mm rigid) leica m2

Amsterdam, 2018

 

[Erik van Straten]

Film will last longer.

Soon there will be a new type of digital that will make the older digital types useless. This will happen because otherwise the producers of digital will become unemployed.

It is also a bit like acrylic paint against oil paint. The oil paintings of Jan van Eyck still look like new after 8 centuries. Modern acrylic paintings do not last longer than ten years.

 

[santino]

What new type of digital camera?

 

[Erik van Straten]

What new type of digital camera?

I don´t know, I´ve never used digital. But it will happen.

 

[Freakscene]

Perhaps someday there will be technologies available to apply Curves to digital images. Hopefully camera manufacturers will see the wisdom of providing in-camera Curves photographers can choose they render in-camera JPEGs. I suspect it may even be possible to apply different Curves to the to the same raw file.

I don't know why there's no way to apply Curves to linear raw files during post production rendering. That would be really convenient.

The Zeiss ZX1 could do this, but it never became available.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I do add a gamma curve to my M Monochrom files and convert 14-bit to 16-bit DNG. It pulls detail out of the shadows that gets clipped due to the "black-level" written to the original DNG file. Fortran.

When detectors are available with much higher saturation count and even lower noise figures, some type of non-linear amplifier could be used to translate the signal into a manageable number of bits. I've used (long ago) log-amps for converting signals from optical detectors to a manageable 14-bit A/D. Others exist.

 

[wlewisiii]

Oh, my...

First I got a Yashica FX7 with a Yashica ML 50/1.4 the other day.

Then a Canon IID with a very nice chrome Canon 50/1.8 from the Christmas thread.

Now last night I ordered a Pentax PZ-1P as well to go along with the K-3 digital camera I bought at the beginning of the month.

Guess I like both! 🤣 🤣 🤣

 

[Godfrey]

The Zeiss ZX1 could do this, but it never became available.

The Light L16 camera includes a complete image processing app (curves, cropping, etc etc) built-in, and I have also loaded SnapSeed and Flickr apps for even more capability. Any iPhone or Android based device has similar capabilities ... The technology to do this has been available for some time, the question is what camera manufacturers deem as useful features to incorporate into cameras.

As to steadfast holdouts to one recording medium or the other and "their inevitable decline" ... Feh! My 23 year old Olympus E-1 still makes lovely digital images, and I imagine my Leica M10-M/-R will last at least as long. No camera manufacturer, either film or digital, ever makes a dime on a camera past the initial sale anyway, other than in sales of accessories and batteries. Digital cameras have about the same number of mechanical bits to go wrong as electronically controlled shutter film cameras, and are repairable on about the same footing. What shortens the life of any camera are the users, who either simply want something new more often than is necessary and/or they abuse the camera until it can no longer function. Or they just get bored and stop using it.

None of the digital cameras I've owned, used, and sold on have ever stopped working, and only one or two have ever required a service. ALL of the use film cameras I've bought in the past 20 years have required a service before they worked to spec.

I doubt that, if i posted photos and didn't include the tech info of their making, anyone here would ever be able to say which of them were made with a film camera or a digital camera.

G

 

[joe bosak]

I'm not getting the point in this discussion about curves and digital - don't most raw conversion tools have curve adjustments? Or do you mean curves being applied in-camera before it even saves a raw file? How would you even know?

(That said I'm also a bit baffled by Affinity wanting to confirm certain kinds of adjustments before it will "develop" certain kinds of raw file and let you use the rest of the tools in the develop persona that you can otherwise use immediately on other kinds of raw files... so there seem to be degrees of raw?).

 

[Godfrey]

First photo post of 2025 ... And no, I actually don't remember which camera I took it with.
I doubt that it matters... 😉

Utility Box Surfaces - Santa Clara 2024​

enjoy!
G
—
No matter where you go, there you are.