A Summing up- and a Decision

What is it that says film or digital about your choices? Reasons not guesses. More saturation, depth dynamic range or what?
 
It is a feeling. I am a visual designer and the last two of each series look like photos that I have seen for years in the photo annuals.

The first two of each series feel like the photos that I have been taking with my Canon 20D and Canon glass. The way the camera deals with the lighting in these pictures reminds me of the digital work I see our staff photographer make. There is a silky quality to digital.

There, I may be talking out of my hat. I'm interested to see the results.
 
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X-ray, usually when digital is shot without much care, the digital-ness of the image is very apparent. All of your examples were shot with a lot of care and studio strobes, in these conditions, the difference between digital and film kind of cancels out. I can imagine all of the images to be digital. I know you said Ektachrome.. but I'm just sayin..
 
I go by overall appearance -aspect- a term I've borrowed from medieval manuscript studies. Sirius calls it a feeling, but I think it's an unconscious intelligence borne of experience.

The problem becomes one of level of experience. My scanned film photos look one way; someone else's might look different, same with my digital shots. In the end, the more experience you have with the many different modes of shooting, the more likely you'll guess correctly.
 
Well thought out answers and good reasons for your choices. I also feel the personality of the maker comes through even in the digital conversion. The point here is digital gives that ability over film. It is what you make it if you shoot and process raw. Process raw not to the default setting but to your individual vision of what the image should be. You ar in controll not a grup of engineers in Japan or who knows where. Film can exist side by side with digital. One is no better than the other but offer different options. Unfortunately in my work the weakest link is the CMYK printing process. In the end film with all of it's richness and depth looks just like digital with all of it's glass like tonality and clarity. Now we have options and tools for almost any job.

Answers to the question--- Left to right ---

group 1 ---
shot 1 Digital 1DsII 70-200mm might have been f3.5 exposed for about
15-20 seconds (can't remember without looking at exif data) using
only the modeling lights from my speedotrons / I think I used 8
with grids and large diffusers. Complex lighting - note the lack of
digital noise

shot 2 same as above

shot 3 8x10 ektachrome tungsten 19 inch red dot artar on a deardorff

shot 4 4x5 Provia shot with a Sinar Norma and 210 Symmar S

Group 2 ---

shot 1 1DsII and 24-70 canon

shot 2 1DsII and 24 TSE and long exposure

Shot 3 Rollei SL66 50 Distagon and provia - extensive lighting on the
7th floor of the 12 floor high worlds largest twin boilers --
many spot lights and 6 ft soft boxes -- around 20K of strobes

shot 4 Rollei SL66 and 120 S-Planar and provia - studio


group 3 ---

shot 1 1DsII and 70-200

shot 2 20D with 24 1.4 - dragging shutter hand held using slow sync
and popup flass on camera


Good answers!
 
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