Al Kaplan
Veteran
I doubt if HCB or Gene Smith would be shooting much of anything these days in their styles of yore, film or digital. The market is no longer there.
A film look? A digital look?
- Thread starter Bill Pierce
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emraphoto
Veteran
"I hope Sebastio Salgado, Noah Addis or James Nachtwey don't hear of this. I tend to equate them with the vision or style of Gene Smith with a bit of HCB tossed-in."
wow! Noah is keeping some fine company these days! i will have to point him to this as i am sure he will be very flattered!
wow! Noah is keeping some fine company these days! i will have to point him to this as i am sure he will be very flattered!
Bike Tourist
Well-known
Yeah, I have to agree, Al. Not only have the materials and processes moved on, but the demand for this kind of work, too. Oh, some people are still doing it and maybe a very few can make a living without any external augmentation of funds from another source, but not many.
Today, it's reality TV, short-attention-span theater and dumbed-down bits of prose and pictures. Images are everywhere. Nobody cares where they came from.
MCTuomey
Veteran
To Bill's question re postprocessing of digi files: I don't know anyone who doesn't apply some processing to out-of-camera files, even those who shoot mostly jpg format. I'm sure most if not all digi shooters think of the out-of-camera file as a digital negative needing "development."
And every digi camera I've used required different file processing. Generalizations are pretty useless, given all the variation.
And every digi camera I've used required different file processing. Generalizations are pretty useless, given all the variation.
quadtones
Established
Al--I think Smith would be shooting, and instead of printing down and bleaching back highlights [where are my Q-tips?], he'd be working in adjustment layers in photoshop. As to whether the stuff would get shown, published, I suspect that the only options would be self-publishing [would Minimata or the Pittsburgh photos have had to be published by Blurb?]. The loft pictures are themselves an indication of some great [and some so-so] work surfacing only years later, and even then not getting very wide distribution.
Harry Lime
Practitioner
I believe what Puts is getting at is as follows.
Digital cameras reproduce color very accurately. Far more accurate than anything we could do with film. Just taking a few shots of a MacBeth color chart illustrates this quite clearly. What you see is pretty much what you get and most digital cameras are capable of performing this feat. The metering and response curves are also geared to be very neutral and true to the scene photographed. The lack of grain doesn't help the clinical feel either. Therefore I consider digital RAW files to be 'look neutral'. Apart from high ISO noise performance the differences between nearly all DSLR is pretty subtle, since everyone is aiming to make as neutral an image as possible.
Film on the other hand always has a certain look already built in and color accuracy is nothing to write home about either. Kodachrome doesn't look like Velvia or Agfachrome. Across the entire product line Fuji and Kodak have a distinct difference in color balance. Kodak Portra doesn't look like Kodak's consumer films and even Portra 400 doesn't look exactly like Portra 160. Even black and white films have distinct personalities. Tri-X does not look anything like TMAX. Short of scanning film and manipulating the image digitally you are somewhat stuck with the 'baked' in look of a particular film stock.
Depending on how you process your digital RAW files they either retain that neutral perfection or receive additional processing. The problem with the additional processing is that if everyone is using the same plugin or same methodology in Photoshop everything once again will look the same, regardless of what camera you shot it with. Computers compound this problem, because they all produce numerically identical results, if they are using the same software and you punch in the same settings.
Yes, it is true that something shot on Velvia will look like Velvia. But Velvia looks very different than Kodachrome or Agfachrome. The difference between Canon and Nikon is almost not there.
An additional thing to note is that the look of film isn't as much in your face, as some of the stuff we are seeing with digital that is totally over processed and looks like it was art directed by a 16 year old with a hormone disorder.
I really dislike the look of over-processed digital. On the other hand neutral digital is too perfect for my taste. The perfection aspect is one thing that has always bothered me about digital. And the better the camera, the worse it gets.
What is missing for me is how the imperfection of film tends to remove the image one step from reality and makes it a photo, instead of a clinically perfect and 'dead' reproduction like digital produces. It is very difficult to describe, but I'm sure that several people here know what I mean. It's like how a sketch can often better describe an emotion or mood, than a photorealistic rendering. It is this step of abstraction that seems to concentrate the essence of the subject etc in to a more potent form. I'm not really sure if I am making myself very clear here. I would need to sit down sometime and really try to figure out how to verbally describe this phenomenon.
I still primarily shoot b/w film, but dabble with digital. I really don't like the way color digital images look for all of the reasons above. My favorite color film used to be Kodachrome. My all time favorite color process is three strip Technicolor. So, with a little help from a friend I built a Technicolor simulator in a high end image-processing program. It works really well, even down to the fact that it doesn't like certain colors. Back when Technicolor was still used for movie production all colors on set had to be tested to see if they were 'Technicolor legal', because certain colors simply didn't work very well with the process.
Here is a sample from my simulator using a test image from DPREVIEW.com. I add a little grain and the results are quite pleasing to my eye. The simulator also has several knobs to tweak things like the blooming around highlights, chromatic aberrations, selective color manipulation, grain, correction for TC Illegal Colors etc.
This is not just a desaturation / color tweak. The footage is actually virtually 're-photographed' via the 3-strip camera process and then reassembled, as it would have been in the lab. The result in this test image is a little subtle, but if you look closely you can see it.
For some time I've wondered if one could get away with using a similar process for photojournalistic editorial work. I am adamantly against the manipulation of news images, but does running your RAW images through something like a Kodachrome or Portriga converter constitute a violation of protocol?
Digital cameras reproduce color very accurately. Far more accurate than anything we could do with film. Just taking a few shots of a MacBeth color chart illustrates this quite clearly. What you see is pretty much what you get and most digital cameras are capable of performing this feat. The metering and response curves are also geared to be very neutral and true to the scene photographed. The lack of grain doesn't help the clinical feel either. Therefore I consider digital RAW files to be 'look neutral'. Apart from high ISO noise performance the differences between nearly all DSLR is pretty subtle, since everyone is aiming to make as neutral an image as possible.
Film on the other hand always has a certain look already built in and color accuracy is nothing to write home about either. Kodachrome doesn't look like Velvia or Agfachrome. Across the entire product line Fuji and Kodak have a distinct difference in color balance. Kodak Portra doesn't look like Kodak's consumer films and even Portra 400 doesn't look exactly like Portra 160. Even black and white films have distinct personalities. Tri-X does not look anything like TMAX. Short of scanning film and manipulating the image digitally you are somewhat stuck with the 'baked' in look of a particular film stock.
Depending on how you process your digital RAW files they either retain that neutral perfection or receive additional processing. The problem with the additional processing is that if everyone is using the same plugin or same methodology in Photoshop everything once again will look the same, regardless of what camera you shot it with. Computers compound this problem, because they all produce numerically identical results, if they are using the same software and you punch in the same settings.
Yes, it is true that something shot on Velvia will look like Velvia. But Velvia looks very different than Kodachrome or Agfachrome. The difference between Canon and Nikon is almost not there.
An additional thing to note is that the look of film isn't as much in your face, as some of the stuff we are seeing with digital that is totally over processed and looks like it was art directed by a 16 year old with a hormone disorder.
I really dislike the look of over-processed digital. On the other hand neutral digital is too perfect for my taste. The perfection aspect is one thing that has always bothered me about digital. And the better the camera, the worse it gets.
What is missing for me is how the imperfection of film tends to remove the image one step from reality and makes it a photo, instead of a clinically perfect and 'dead' reproduction like digital produces. It is very difficult to describe, but I'm sure that several people here know what I mean. It's like how a sketch can often better describe an emotion or mood, than a photorealistic rendering. It is this step of abstraction that seems to concentrate the essence of the subject etc in to a more potent form. I'm not really sure if I am making myself very clear here. I would need to sit down sometime and really try to figure out how to verbally describe this phenomenon.
I still primarily shoot b/w film, but dabble with digital. I really don't like the way color digital images look for all of the reasons above. My favorite color film used to be Kodachrome. My all time favorite color process is three strip Technicolor. So, with a little help from a friend I built a Technicolor simulator in a high end image-processing program. It works really well, even down to the fact that it doesn't like certain colors. Back when Technicolor was still used for movie production all colors on set had to be tested to see if they were 'Technicolor legal', because certain colors simply didn't work very well with the process.
Here is a sample from my simulator using a test image from DPREVIEW.com. I add a little grain and the results are quite pleasing to my eye. The simulator also has several knobs to tweak things like the blooming around highlights, chromatic aberrations, selective color manipulation, grain, correction for TC Illegal Colors etc.
This is not just a desaturation / color tweak. The footage is actually virtually 're-photographed' via the 3-strip camera process and then reassembled, as it would have been in the lab. The result in this test image is a little subtle, but if you look closely you can see it.
For some time I've wondered if one could get away with using a similar process for photojournalistic editorial work. I am adamantly against the manipulation of news images, but does running your RAW images through something like a Kodachrome or Portriga converter constitute a violation of protocol?
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AnalogForever
Guest
redpony
Member
To me, the most interesting digital work is coming from photographers who are not trying to recreate a film look. I don't see what the point is in trying to make digital look like film. If you like the film look, shoot film.
A raw digital file is indeed a bland beast. The plasticity of a digital file is both a blessing and a curse. Since digital files can be almost anything they are more like clay than a sculpture. Again, this is good and bad.
An unintended side effect is that digital has highlighted some of the things we took, and take, for granted using film. Serendipity and the winnowing process of photographic choice, for starters. I think this, in part, explains the appeal of toy film cameras: you load some film, maybe cross-process, and out comes an image that is pleasantly surprising, with an aesthetic quality that is appealing and satisfying. In other words, it's an exercise in the magic of photography.
You could say that film is subtractive and digital additive. I think they are each a valid approach to image making. I think this position will only become more true in time as digital continues to progress and become less traditionally photographic--i.e. when an image become a "grab" from a video file and focus (and perhaps focal length) is attained post capture.
A raw digital file is indeed a bland beast. The plasticity of a digital file is both a blessing and a curse. Since digital files can be almost anything they are more like clay than a sculpture. Again, this is good and bad.
An unintended side effect is that digital has highlighted some of the things we took, and take, for granted using film. Serendipity and the winnowing process of photographic choice, for starters. I think this, in part, explains the appeal of toy film cameras: you load some film, maybe cross-process, and out comes an image that is pleasantly surprising, with an aesthetic quality that is appealing and satisfying. In other words, it's an exercise in the magic of photography.
You could say that film is subtractive and digital additive. I think they are each a valid approach to image making. I think this position will only become more true in time as digital continues to progress and become less traditionally photographic--i.e. when an image become a "grab" from a video file and focus (and perhaps focal length) is attained post capture.
semordnilap
Well-known
It sounds something like the Uncanny Valley, a theory from robotics which holds that there is a certain threshold where a robot looks 'too close' to being human, causing revulsion in the viewer.
But I wonder if we just expect photographs to look a certain way–we're accustomed to a specific aesthetic, and a different one just doesn't touch us in the same way.
That's a great 'simulator' you've got... I really like the look you've achieved!
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40oz
...
I understand the point you are making but disagree with this conclusion. What taking a few shots of a MacBeth color shows you is a digital camera has been designed to accurately capture the shades represented on a MacBeth color chart when carefully illuminated under controlled conditions.
You might ask what's the difference? The difference is that any shade in real life that doesn't match an existing color in the camera's pre-defined limited gamut will get pushed to the nearest color. Engineers designing an imaging system can ensure the device's color gamut contains values for each shade on a given chart, but must simply hope you pictures of your lush green grass taken at sunset result in an image you find pleasing. In my experience a digital camera rarely delivers accurate colors under poor lighting. And it's probably safe to say subjective judgements of image "pleasingness" would be a foreign concept to a Canon DSLR development engineer.
I most definitely agree with the idea that different films capture colors differently is one of the reasons film is preferrable to digital imaging. The fact that color representation depends on the film is intentional - why make a film that looks exactly like Velvia when customers can already buy Velvia? Better to develop several different films, take numerous test shots with each, and decide which to bring to market based on subjective preference for the resulting images. Color accuracy is non-relevant if it doesn't result in a pleasing image.
Distilled water doesn't taste better than well water, despite being technically the "most accurate" water.
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
I have been musing about this in general terms. It seems to me that film more closely conveys the way we see in daily life. That is, we naturally and normally have a central focus, and the way our brain processes the image being captured by the eye/optic nerve system is to deemphasize the elements which are, at the moment, not of interest. So they become blurred or almost invisible.
The structure and quality of film is somewhat closer to this than a sensor, it seems to me. Yes, I know this is a large generalization and that other factors, particularly lens, aperture, shutter speed, etc., play a role. But still, film's analog nature is of prime influence, as opposed to the digital, brick wall filter nature of a sensor.
Due to the high resolution of the latest sensors, processing, whether in camera or post, can be applied to achieve a more analog/filmlike representation.
The structure and quality of film is somewhat closer to this than a sensor, it seems to me. Yes, I know this is a large generalization and that other factors, particularly lens, aperture, shutter speed, etc., play a role. But still, film's analog nature is of prime influence, as opposed to the digital, brick wall filter nature of a sensor.
Due to the high resolution of the latest sensors, processing, whether in camera or post, can be applied to achieve a more analog/filmlike representation.
NickTrop
Veteran
Photoshop introduces TOO many variables that can be manipulated. Therefore, pictures are tweaked on a one-off, case by case basis without the ability to develop a uniform sense of style. There are no constraints, therefore the temptation exists to overdo things. Because there are too many manipulatable variables, artists can only hope to become a "jack of all trades" and not a master of "a few" important ones. A flow is never developed because this, along with a uniform signature style in the body of work.
Film also provides an inherent stylistic baseline. This is especially true of black and white and film/developer combos. (Gibson is a great example of this with his love affair with TriX and Rodinal to name one example.) Over 1000's of frames, artists can vision/predict the "baseline" latent image based on the tonal characteristics of their preferred film stock, developer combo, and processing methods/style. Note there are "few" variables associated with this and mastery of them take years, a career, to perfect.
How can we expect to ever hope to master - not "be proficient" but truly master with the ability to predict, explain, and control with the intent of developing an evocative personal style, given all the variables that can be manipulated when the latent image is a series of ten million bytes of information, all of which can be manipulated in a number of ways and degrees that approach the infinite via Photoshop? How can the approach in digital be anything other that ad hoc, hit or miss, works or doesn't as opposed to the achievable mastery of technique because the inherent constraints of film offer a MANAGEABLE and therefore MASTERABLE (over years - if you are dedicated and have talent and motivation) number of "touch points" on the way to final output? Exaserbating this issue is the typical constraints associated with digital capture...
2. When shooting digital. /probably/ though not necessarily you are shooting with:
A. a slower lens
B. a zoom lens
C. the smaller film plane of a digital sensor
As a result, your image will most likely (though not necessarily) lack the illusion of depth and be flat - this is still difficult to achieve in post. "Bokeh" is only "Photoshopable" in simple scenes without many objects like portraits. It is difficult to gradiate this effect convincingly along the Z access.
Therefore - digital offers BAD constraints, usually, on the capture side that the artist and his post tool, Photoshop, for all its wonders is inadequate in dealing with. Yet, paradoxically, offer too many "choices" and ways to manipulate that eludes our capabilities.
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I have spoken. And, regardless of your opinion on this issue, I am correct. The extent you disagree with this assessment is the degree to which you are wrong.
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Film also provides an inherent stylistic baseline. This is especially true of black and white and film/developer combos. (Gibson is a great example of this with his love affair with TriX and Rodinal to name one example.) Over 1000's of frames, artists can vision/predict the "baseline" latent image based on the tonal characteristics of their preferred film stock, developer combo, and processing methods/style. Note there are "few" variables associated with this and mastery of them take years, a career, to perfect.
How can we expect to ever hope to master - not "be proficient" but truly master with the ability to predict, explain, and control with the intent of developing an evocative personal style, given all the variables that can be manipulated when the latent image is a series of ten million bytes of information, all of which can be manipulated in a number of ways and degrees that approach the infinite via Photoshop? How can the approach in digital be anything other that ad hoc, hit or miss, works or doesn't as opposed to the achievable mastery of technique because the inherent constraints of film offer a MANAGEABLE and therefore MASTERABLE (over years - if you are dedicated and have talent and motivation) number of "touch points" on the way to final output? Exaserbating this issue is the typical constraints associated with digital capture...
2. When shooting digital. /probably/ though not necessarily you are shooting with:
A. a slower lens
B. a zoom lens
C. the smaller film plane of a digital sensor
As a result, your image will most likely (though not necessarily) lack the illusion of depth and be flat - this is still difficult to achieve in post. "Bokeh" is only "Photoshopable" in simple scenes without many objects like portraits. It is difficult to gradiate this effect convincingly along the Z access.
Therefore - digital offers BAD constraints, usually, on the capture side that the artist and his post tool, Photoshop, for all its wonders is inadequate in dealing with. Yet, paradoxically, offer too many "choices" and ways to manipulate that eludes our capabilities.
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I have spoken. And, regardless of your opinion on this issue, I am correct. The extent you disagree with this assessment is the degree to which you are wrong.
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back alley
IMAGES
I have spoken. And, regardless of your opinion on this issue, I am correct. The extent you disagree with this assessment is the degree to which you are wrong.......
bill??
bill??
MCTuomey
Veteran
😀😀😀😀
and to harry, i like your ''technicolor" simulation very much. i would certainly pay for a plug-in that did that for me, no doubt.
Mcary
Well-known
amateriat
We're all light!
To expand on Nick's point a bit: the all-digital realm is a fast-moving target, since the hardware/software you are working with now most likely will not be what you'll be working with, say, five years from now. It's not at all in the "industry's" interest for you to do so. It's in their interest to put a new camera/computer/monitor/et cetera into your hands, with the close-but-not-quite-within-grasp promise of new and improved. Bits is supposed to be bits, I keep getting told, but what those bits end up looking like, on-screen and in-print, will vary more than a little. This, to me, anyway, is really a problem in regard to color, but can also be a pain in b/w using a purely-digital workflow.
On those occasions when I shoot digital color, any and all thoughts of creating something "film-like" go straight out the window. Other than the usual tweaks for the sake of overall image quality, I don't bother with "emulation" any more than I bother with toning my b/w prints when what I really want it as close to dead-neutral as possible (know how much hell I had to go through to get that via digital printing?). If the "look" matters to me, the answer is simple: I shoot film (including color), which happens to be what I do most of the time.
- Barrett
On those occasions when I shoot digital color, any and all thoughts of creating something "film-like" go straight out the window. Other than the usual tweaks for the sake of overall image quality, I don't bother with "emulation" any more than I bother with toning my b/w prints when what I really want it as close to dead-neutral as possible (know how much hell I had to go through to get that via digital printing?). If the "look" matters to me, the answer is simple: I shoot film (including color), which happens to be what I do most of the time.
- Barrett
Harry Lime
Practitioner
Photoshop may offer a lot of options, but only applies those that the user selects. PS itself does not force people to process their images to death.
It's more an issue of self-control and artistic ability.
I'm sorry, but I'm really going to have to disagree with this. If you have an artistic vision of what you want your image to look like, you are not going to uncontrollably apply PS filters and monkey around no matter how may options the program offers. You're going to dial in the look you want. That's what separates and artist from a civilian. Again, PS may offer a lot of options, but YOU control how much the image is manipulated.
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Harry Lime
Practitioner
The whole point of a MacBeth chart is to provide a wide spectrum of color reference patches that cover most situations encountered in the real world. If you can reproduce a MacBeth chart (in particular the big ones with more than a hundred chips)accurately, you stand a very high chance of accurately reproducing almost anything you encounter in the real world. They didn't just randomly choose a bunch of colors to place on that chart. Your limitations will end up being the spectral sensitivity of your capture device.
Harry Lime
Practitioner
It is a little weird. I sometimes see images in fashion mags where you can literally see the make up on the faces of the models. They end up looking like people dressed in costumes, instead of a woman dressed in an evening gown etc. It's like a badly dressed movie set that ends up looking like a showroom, instead of a place where an actual person lives.
That doesn't help, either.
Thanks.
Harry Lime
Practitioner
Thanks. The problem is that it's a script running in a high-end image processor that costs a few thousand dollars a copy..., so it's not really distributable.