B&W

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (summar 50mm f2) leica III

Erik.

 

[jcb4718]

I'm not pro photog, but I'm technician who deals with digital images processing for decades now.
I switched to film, for my own eyes, from 2012 to 2020(1) simply because BW and color film are visually different.




Very wrong, miss-informative imagination. You can't emulate, get close to film by digital.
Even Leica monochrome is nowhere near to bw film. Not to mention laughable FujiNoFilm emulations. And Silver Efex and DxO ain't much different on faking the film.

You could get fooled by digital emulations only if you are not doing film for a while. Just pull out old dr prints and have a look then.

I agree with you 100% Ko.Fe. I can always tell (from looking at my images) which are film and which are digital. If I just use one medium, e.g. on a holiday, the images look OK because my eye adapts but the difference is still there. I prefer the look of film. The images (colour and B&W) just seem to have more impact.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

...The images (colour and B&W) just seem to have more impact.

Visual impact for sure. If I want to see something really pleasing for my eyes I watch movies on Kodak films or soviet ones on BW film, which are way better BW than so called noir movies.

I had discussion with one engineer in nineties about why films on film looks so different on TV.
It still is. They are trying to duplicate it with motion pictures HDR and some FujiNoFilm like, but odd colors presets, but it just makes it even more unnaturally looking.

But normal digital is all about clean and sharp, plus high ISO. Which is good enough on its own.
No reason to keep on bringing "you could emulate film" self-induced, blindlish nonsense.

 

[sjones]

As noted in the recent thread on film, many of the folks who use black & white film also like experiencing the overall process, using mechanical cameras, making darkroom prints, and/or other factors. That is, even if digital B&W emulation was a simple, cheap, fast, and perfect process, other factors exist as to why many people still stick with film.

 

[John Bragg]

I like the unique quality that film gives each and every photographer. Once you have dialled in your process, the look is always going to be there. Make small changes to the way you work and there can be a big change to the final result. No two people will make the same kind of images even with the same film and chemistry. It is kind of like dna in that each individual has a unique signature and that can be obvious to the trained eye. I used to slavishly follow the makers recommended tables for any given film and was never 100% satisfied. Only when I realised that these are only starting points did I gain satisfaction. Yes I scan my film these days, but I still see the development stage as crucial to the final image. I like deep shadows with detail and develop accordingly, hence discarding the shadow detail I have worked hard to obtain is anathema to me. Also I treasure my film cameras, having had some for over half a life time. Others I have bought as recently as last month, but I can pick one up and use it with minimal time to familiarise myself with it. Where digital processing shines for me is in post processing. In particular, dodging and burning a difficult image, which would have been laborious in a darkroom can be done once and for all and many identical copies made.

 

[David_Manning]

I use both, but there is something very grounded, real, and "romantic" about knowing the negatives (or positives) are a physical representation of what you experienced...the film was actually there with you.

 

[oldwino]

I will say first off that I love shooting film, and that it is different to digital in many small ways that add up to something. For me, B&W film seems to be about light, whereas B&W digital seems to be about shadows. There's a richness in the shadows that film doesn't do. Likewise, there is detail in the highlights that digital has issues with. I would say that in the last few years, the gap between film v digital (in the B&W realm) has narrowed quite a bit. The latest sensors are quite impressive. Digital certainly has the advantage in that you can process a single shot in so many ways (some even almost look like film!).

I know it's not the topic here, but I find a far greater divergence between the two mediums in color. Everyone say that digital is better for color, that the colors are truer, etc., but so far, I still feel color film has a look that I have never seen in digital. The way it represents light is unique.

 

[willie_901]

...

In other words, digital tonality is highly manipulable. It’s a pain in the butt, but you can make black-and-white digital images look like film images.

Your thoughts and - of course - any other tips you might have about making digital files look like b&w film.

Well producing analog B&W prints in the dark room was also a pain in the butt.

I think if one uses a consistent exposure technique, rendering raw files with a film aesthetic is efficient. As with all raw file rendering, image optimization for project keepers will take time and effort. Of course, making prints from different rolls of B&W film used over a period of time for a project also requires care and patience.

 

[willie_901]

I like split grade printing. I don't think there is a digital alternative for it.

...]

Combining a high contrast rendering with a low contrast rendering from a single raw file seems trivial with most post-production image platforms.

 

[Darthfeeble]

Darthfeedble - anything's possible - but as you might gather the fellow in the image 'aint me
Cheers

I was referring to the way of thinking rather than the picture.

 

[Hari]

There's still magic in seeing the print take form in the developer!
Stayed away from digital up to this point. My least favorite words
are 'software' and 'printers inks'.

 

[Erik van Straten]

Combining a high contrast rendering with a low contrast rendering from a single raw file seems trivial with most post-production image platforms.

I don't quite understand what you mean by this. Can you say this without using digital jargon such as "image platforms"? Thanks!

Erik.

 

[markjwyatt]

I don't quite understand what you mean by this. Can you say this without using digital jargon such as "image platforms"? Thanks!

Erik.

"masking"?

 

[Erik van Straten]

"masking"?

I still don't get it. I'm sure you can get somehow the effect of split-grade in a digital way, but then you still don't have a nice gelatine silver print! A silver gelatin print has a better shelf life than any other print.That's what matters to me.

Erik.

 

[Ricoh]

Here’s a radical thought: content trumps all.
I’ve been watching ‘Once upon a time in Iraq’, and I believe the (Australian) photographer used digital, and that was 2001/2004 vintage digital. The images are very moving. Not just records but impressions of war, the pain, suffering, blood and guts.
I own and use both digital and analogue cameras, and switch between the two as I feel on the day. But with film I’m tending more these days to make it do things difficult with digital, eg micro-click panoramas.

 

[willie_901]

I don't quite understand what you mean by this. Can you say this without using digital jargon such as "image platforms"? Thanks!

Erik.

An image platform is the primary software application used to render an image. Many rendering software applications conveniently access specialized, third party rendering tools, facilitate printing and image export for multiple purposes and serve as a data base for image organization. The word platform covers all these work flow aspects.

 

[willie_901]

I still don't get it. I'm sure you can get somehow the effect of split-grade in a digital way, but then you still don't have a nice gelatine silver print! A silver gelatin print has a better shelf life than any other print.That's what matters to me.

Erik.

It is possible to make a "nice gelatine silver print" from a digital file. Here is just one lab that offers this service.

 

[Erik van Straten]

Thank you, Willie, but what I want is to make the prints myself! I don't think that anybody else can do that for me. You don't ask a painter to make a painting for you that is made by someone else! I know that many photographers have their prints made by someone else, but that is not my way.

Erik.

 

[Darthfeeble]

I don't care to make my digital monochrome shots look like film, I like the look they have natively. I shoot some film but only because there are 4 cameras that I love to shoot and they are film and so I shoot it, still is the same pain in the putz that it's always been for me.

 

[Bill Blackwell]

In our last thread on shooting film, the majority of comments were about black-and-white with a general consensus that b&w film looked different from digital and, for most, film looked better. ...

That may have been the consensus, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Wonders can be worked on a digital image in Photoshop.

Leica M10-P
CV 40mm Nokton f/1.2
B&W via Nik