And the winner is.........

Most of the photography I see online is pretty sad. But there are some gems out there. Even some older and long revered photographers have switched, at least in part, to using digital. I think the vast majority of working photojournalists today are digital shooters...by necessity if not by preference.

I recall a video about Saul Leiter that stated he shot several digital cameras the last few years of his life although I don't recall ever seeing any of his later work published or exhibited. Stephen Shore (famed for 8x10 format color work) now shoots digital. Maybe not totally but some of his more recent work has been with a digital Nikon. His book "Winslow, Arizona" looks a lot like his older large format work while he states he used digital for convenience and cost. I've always liked Shore's work.

I'm sure there are more but I seldom pay attention to what equipment was used as long as the photo is interesting. Film has advantages, digital has advantages. Good photographers will always get good photos.
 
maggieo said:
IME, film has more range in the highlights and digital in the shadows.

Digital can't bring out the detail in these flames:
Click to expand...

Maybe digital could... maybe not. It's impossible to know.

It could be true that optimizing exposure (shutter time and aperture) is much more critical for digital compared to film (especially negative film).

Digital imaging performance is highly dependent on the analog signal-to-noise ratio when the shutter is open. Any under exposure will certainly reduce the "range". And as mentioned above, over-exposure of important/required/desired highlights regions results in an irreversible loss of information.

When using raw files, the information loss is not necessarily catastrophic. Destroying 10% of the blue channel information does not make rendering an aesthetically acceptable sky impossible. There is very little, if any, sky detail in the blue channel. But the hue will have a cyan cast. This is trivial to counter. Obviously at some point overexposing the blue channel will be catastrophic. If the sky is the photograph's subject (i.e. a studies of cloud formations) then any loss of blue channel data would be have consequences.

Intentionally overexposing specular highlights or other bright, point-source lights is a practical way to maximize the "range". For static scenes one can automatically bracket exposures and render the one raw file that happens to have optimum highlight retention. (This is not exposure blending). When I started using digital raw files (D200) I bracketed on one-stop steps. With the D700 and X100 I switched to switched to 1/2 stops. With the X-T1 and X100T 1/3 stop brackets suffice.
 
And the whiner is...

All of these talks about formats and megapixels are relevant to something else, but not to photography which most of us are into. Get it printed at 8x10 or less. Have it on the screen. 8MP sensor and 135 film will do.
Who is enlarging, printing at posters size?
All of those notes about how deep range of MF and LF is are often, if not always comes from those who are taking boring pictures.

Jane Bown, Garry Winogrand, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Victor Kolar, George Zimbel. I have their books at home. Incredible photography with 135 bw film. 4x5 is totally useless for it.

I printed from 4x5 on 8x10 and honestly, it is not worth of the hassle. I'm getting much more vibrant prints with Leica.
 
I don't think anything digital has the look and range of a properly executed B&W zone system image from an 8X10 neg and a silver gelatin zone system print done by someone that really knows the system.
 
Nowhereman said:
airfrogusmc - perhaps, but maximum resolution and the smoothest gradation possible is not the necessarily the best thing. For myself, I've always preferred the "35mm aesthetic".
_______________
Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine
Click to expand...

I like both. I think it depends on subject and message. If we are talking tonal range and sharpness Adams Yosemite Clearing Storm or Westons Cypress Tree Ponit Lobos is pretty hard to beat. I think that they both have a place for sure but I think we were taking tonal range and if that's the criteria I stand by my statement. Preference is subjective but range and sharpness are far more objective. And as said I haven't seen anything digitally or from say a 135 format in B&W that can compare to a well executed zone negative and print by a photographer that has mastered the system when talking sharpness and regarding tonal range. That said I also love a gritty high contrast B&W print of subjects that lend themselves to that aesthetic. Proper tool for the job. Landscapes that require range and sharpness; 8X10 zone.
 
This has become a straight digital vs film debate, regardless of format. That's ok, it's still a civil discussion.
One thing that is rarely touched upon, if ever is the actual working of a digital camera vs a film one. I like getting away from the city and electricity as often as possible and I don't do it enough. I can carry several hundred years' worth of S76 cells in my bag for my Gossen Luna Pro, Nikon F3, Nikon F2AS, Nikonos V, Mamiya 6 pair and a soon-to-be-mine Nikon FA. That's all the electricity I need and if the batteries fail, I replace them. If it's too cold, I can put them in my pocket and use when necessary. Worst case scenario, I use my built-in Mk 1.1 eyeball light meter and the F2. Those are my cameras that need batteries for internal metering and shutter operation, to some extent.
The Kodak Retina IIa, Leica M4, Nikon F2 sans-meter, Nagaoka 4x5 and a pair of homemade pinhole cameras, can operate forever without electricity.
There aren't any digital cameras out there that will allow me a week of backpacking out in Canyonlands National Park, Utah nor a similar time frame on the Appalachian Trail, nor anywhere for that matter. Get cold weather involved and you have less than two days' shooting, even with carrying a plethora of spare batteries. Lithiums get very inefficient and drain fast in cold. I just hate being tied to radius near a wall socket for the purposes of capturing images.
For people who don't mind sitting next to the highway, within a few hours of a hotel room, this isn't a concern.
In a nutshell, I kind of hold up my camera kit to the standard of production I had when I was deployed with the Navy. I always had to have a backup that would work if my primary died. At the time, my primary camera (Nikon D2h) died quite a few times due to a number of reasons. My Leica M2 and M4 never stopped.
And back to large format film, there are few, if any digital or smaller than 6x8cm cameras that have the ability to move lens and film standards like a view camera does.

Phil Forrest
 
If were are talking smaller formats though I still love film in all formats my MM is my fav if talking smaller formats like 135 though if I still had a darkroom I would still be shooting film in some capacity.i They all have place. For color in smaller formats digital all the way. M-E and M 262....
 
airfrogusmc - Yes, there can be all types of landscapes. I happen to like the first one below, which shows something about a hybrid workflow: this was a Tri-X shot that a lab made a mistake on doing stand development; they used a two-roll tank that was too small for a 1:100 Rodinal dilution — the result was severe underdevelopment, so severe that the "TRI-X" lettering on the film was barely visible. The negative was so thin that, in the lab, one would never would have been able to make a print using an enlarger. In Lightroom the histogram was just a sliver, and moving the various sliders just one unit made huge changes. However, I was able, carefully, to tease the image below from this frame. This shows that using a hybrid workflow is something that can result in a look that one might not to be able to get in the darkroom.

One the other hand, the second and third shots below show the "medium-format look" that one may be able to approach with a full-frame digital camera, and possibly with an APS-C camera as well. That's enough "quality" for me, but I understand why people may want to shoot 4x5 film as well.


Leica M6 |Tri-X @ 400 | DR-Summicron-50 | Stand development in Rodinal 1:100

Wiang Pa Pao



Leica MM | Summicron-35v4 | ISO 640 | f/8 | 1/250 sec | Yellow filter

Wiang Pa Pao



Leica MM | Elmarit-21 ASPH | ISO 320 | f/8 | 1/750 sec

Hua Hin

_______________
Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine
 
I am not even going to comment on 100 KB compressed jpg s from a web site as far as tonality and sharpness go. These are all fine photographs but a 135 negative does not have the range and the detail of an 8X10 zone system negative that was shot and processed by an accomplished zone system photographer.
 
airfrogusmc said:
I am not even going to comment on 100 KB compressed jpg s from a web site as far as tonality and sharpness go.
Click to expand...

This is why I really want to find a low shutter count Nikon D2Hs. Pro-built camera that is more than enough for the tri-tone print and web use for news work. Nothing more. Tools for the job.

Phil Forrest
 
Nowhereman said:
Maggie - not so sure that digital cannot bring out sufficient highlight details, even when shooting directly into bright sunlight...
Click to expand...

It's OK, but in the bathtub shot, the wicks of the candles are very close to true black, whereas, in your shot, the tones of the building are lucky to get close to Zone II.

Actually, I think that the process that gets you the most dynamic range is a hybrid film/digital process, with silver-based film. You can let quite a lot of highlight silver build up on the negative, while exposing for the shadows, and after you've scanned the negs, processing can cut through the layers of built-up silver and bring out loads of detail in the highlights.

Hey, I think I've just come up with another good reason to shoot Tri-X!
 
:dance::dance:I was talking about midtone contrast, actually. It's a venn diagram, you'll be able to get some from each that look similar. That's not the point, the question is which is better as a photographic medium, and why.
 
maggieo said:
......Hey, I think I've just come up with another good reason to shoot Tri-X!
Click to expand...

Kind of related to this discussion. I entered three B&W prints in a recent photo contest in my small town. Strictly by coincidence, all three were taken with a film camera of some sort. The picture that I liked the most (taken with a Leica MP on Tri-X), received high marks for subject matter, originality, tones etc., but was marked down because it had grain. The judge, a youngish chap in his 30’s, was partial toward prints taken with a digital camera that had no grain.

Jim B.
 
Jim, way back in the 1970s, when I was in Junior High, I entered a bunch of photos in the Burt County Fair's photo contest.

Most folks who saw my photos thought they were a lock to win, but I was disqualified for developing and printing them myself.

Contests are humbug.
 
maggieo said:
It's OK, but in the bathtub shot, the wicks of the candles are very close to true black, whereas, in your shot, the tones of the building are lucky to get close to Zone II...
Click to expand...
Not a good comparison: you've got candles and my picture is straight into direct, strong sunlight, so strong that you squint your eyes...

_______________
Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine
 
Heres the large format zone system things I was referring to though this small JPG does the image no justice. I saw 4 ft by 5ft print of this in the mid 1990s at the Andrew Smith gallery in Santa Fe. Adams had printed himself and it had detail in the shadows and he held all the highlights and the detail was insane.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2008/11/14/opinion/Adams-LP-533.jpg

And I had a chance in 1997 t see this at the Weston Gallery in Carmel. I actually saw a loose print in a mat and over mat at the gallery without glass or plastic sleeve over it and it to is spectacular.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b8/Weston-lobos1946.jpg/200px-Weston-lobos1946.jpg

Nothing from small format film (135) can give you that kind of detail or tonality. Especially when done by someone that really knows large format and the zone system.
 
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