Digital is dead?

Faintandfuzzy said:
Let me ask you what you do in this situation:

- You're at an event. You wish to photograph the event in color. It is very dark and you don't want to use flash. What do you do?

- You're at the same event, and you wish to use B&W film. It's dark enough that you need to use Ilford Delta 3200 or Kodak PMZ3200. Now, when viewing the photographs, you wish instead that you could have used Tri-X, because you'd have liked the look better.

In either situation, from digital capture, you could use high iso for the color work without issue.
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factual errors aside, looks like your problems would go away if you removed this strange insistence on "want," "wish" and "without issue"

personally, i would have shot what i got in the fridge in both scenarios and be very very happy with the results. and so would be everyone concerned

:cool:
 
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This conversion 'to look like film' reference is kinda missing the point. it is not about 'film vs digital' but analogue vs digitial. Film just happens to be analogue and human beings tend to be prefer analogue thingies to digital thingies in many respects. They are somehow more real because they are imperfect, just like the real world. thats my theory anyway. Lots of things both now and in the future are made perfect and then 'roughed up' to look more 'real' and carry some more of what we humans love in them - imperfect history connecting them to humankind:

Vintage prints, vintage styled prints, antique tables, vintage cars, retro cars, the list goes on forever really.

Clean digital perfection is not tethered to anything we can relate to and even in colour form it can be painful to look at. Thats because it looks like an edited, cleaned up simulation of the imperfect world we know. From getting up in the morning we see asymmetrical faces, moles on arms, trees leaning to one side, wonder why are left arm is never as good as our right when we work out, no matter what we do... This is the natural world and it messes with our heads when images that are supposed to be a reflection of that look like it but somehow 'more perfect.' Human beings get freaked out when human faces are made perfectly symmetrical, especially if they know the face. They cannot detect what has changed, but will generally select (prefer) the slightly asymmetric faces to the ones the computer has made perfectly symmetrical.

This goes to say that it is not about making digital look like film, but making digital or anything else feel more organic/analogue/real. Few people have issues with leaving out the grain on photos of modern architecture or abstracts etc do they? Funny that it tends to be more prevalent with more organic subjects or those with more human nostalgia connected to them. I think what this all means to me is that there is nothing wrong with it. Film has this quality to it naturally, but with digital it can be added. Surely thats OK, because if they made film without such a quality, people might use coarser developers or avoid them entirely, or use them for certain subjects. So, why is it I don't use Acros, Tmax 100 etc again? Because they look synthetic to my eyes. Oh, they look like digital ;)
 
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Turtle said:
This conversion 'to look like film' reference is kinda missing the point. it is not about 'film vs digital' but analogue vs digitial. Film just happens to be analogue and human beings tend to be prefer analogue thingies to digital thingies in many respects. They are somehow more real because they are imperfect, just like the real world. thats my theory anyway. Lots of things both now and in the future and made perfect and then 'roughed up' to look more 'real' and carry some more of what we humans love in them - imperfect history connecting them to humankind:

Vintage prints, vintage styled prints, antique tables, vintage cars, retro cars, the list goes on forever really.

Clean digital perfection is not toethered to anything we can relate to. From getting up in the morning we see asymmetrical faces, moles on arms, trees leaning to one side, wonder why are left arm is never as good as our right when we work out, no matter what we do... This is the natural world and we belong in it.
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I think that's a really good point. The analogue process is prone to accidents and unexpected results, at least in my experience. Some of those "errors" are what make a photograph. I think Winogrand said something along those lines but I have to look it up.
 
Digital totally has it's place.. Like when you want to shoot your nephew's 3rd bday party and aunt Nancy wants you to email the pictures to her. Film has it's place in the same party, but they are for usually for yourself, not for aunt Nancy.
 
David Bailey, in an interview on the Beeb last year said something like "the art is in the errors, and I make more errors with film"
 
I really don't understand why this should be puzzling.
Film photographers have always used various darkroom tricks to accentuate or minimize grain. They do things to increase or lower contrast in developing.
Look at all the film choices that are available even today. Photographers have long enjoyed the freedom of matching their subject matter with different film characteristics.

Digital post-processing allows that same freedom - on the back-end, rather than the front-end.
 
Dave Jenkins said:
By far the best explanation I've heard for the use of that abominable term "capture" for making a photograph.
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I am not challenging those of you who are offended with the term 'capture' being applied to photography, I'm sure you have your own reasons. I'd be interested to know if you're willing to elaborate a bit.

But to me, using the word 'capture' emphasizes the effort that it takes to frame an elusive moment. Which is apt in context of something like street-photography or journalism or wedding/event photography.

The word 'take' somehow to me does not have the same weight, but I used it often enough.

Now we've gone off-tangent :)
 
starless said:
Yes, this is exactly what I am trying to figure out.

I know it's popular to convert digital to B/W (and the photos posted by aperture64 look quite good on a computer display at least) but surely if the film look is THAT important you're better off shooting B/W film in the first place.
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I think you mistakenly feel everyone one who converts digital colour to B&W wants to emulate the B&W film look and that it is "THAT" important. Thing is, it is not "THAT important to me and I only want to produce a B&W image that I like be it film or digital. OTH, if it is "THAT" important to you that is good too.

Bob
 
Digital images are made to be manipulated to get a certain look... is there anything wrong with that??? ;)
 
If you are shooting digital to emulate film you are missing the boat. Film looks like film because of the polyester base and embedded silver crystals. Digital simply doesn't have the physical ability to look like film. If you want it to look like film, only film can do that. But why would you want that? As has been said, innovation moves forward and digital is the medium of now and the foreseeable future. How many of you make (or have ever made) platinum prints? In his Daybooks Edward Weston complains bitterly and at length about how photographs will never be as beautiful as the platinum prints he used to make. Listening to Weston, the whole process of photography was being degraded by these new silver prints. But, then came Ansel Adams who made silver prints that knocked everybody's socks off. The paradigm changed. Today, platinum prints (including Weston's) look dull and flat. This is what is happening with digital today. We are still waiting for the digital equivalent of Uncle Ansel. But, have no doubt, he or she will come forward with digital images that change the paradigm, agian.
 
John Rountree said:
If you are shooting digital to emulate film you are missing the boat. Film looks like film because of the polyester base and embedded silver crystals. Digital simply doesn't have the physical ability to look like film. If you want it to look like film, only film can do that. But why would you want that? As has been said, innovation moves forward and digital is the medium of now and the foreseeable future. How many of you make (or have ever made) platinum prints? In his Daybooks Edward Weston complains bitterly and at length about how photographs will never be as beautiful as the platinum prints he used to make. Listening to Weston, the whole process of photography was being degraded by these new silver prints. But, then came Ansel Adams who made silver prints that knocked everybody's socks off. The paradigm changed. Today, platinum prints (including Weston's) look dull and flat. This is what is happening with digital today. We are still waiting for the digital equivalent of Uncle Ansel. But, have no doubt, he or she will come forward with digital images that change the paradigm, agian.
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Those statements (underlined) are subjective personal opinions, correct?
Just want to make sure :)
 
@Shadowfox "Those statements (underlined) are subjective personal opinions, correct?
Just want to make sure."

There is a bit of subjectivity in the statement. But, objectively, a silver print in the manner of Ansel Adams does have more contrast and dynamic range than any platinum print I have seen. Sorry, I missed the first underline. Yes, that is purely subjective and probably couldn't be interpreted any other way.
 
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But the only reason to convert a a digital image to B&W is to make it look like film/analog.

After all B&W is property of black and white film.
 
starless said:
But the only reason to convert a a digital image to B&W is to make it look like film/analog.

After all B&W is property of black and white film.
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Are you too young to remember B+W television?

I fully take your point about the joke of digital pretending to be what it's not, and agree, but I don't think that your post above is your strongest argument.

Cheers,

R.
 
The reason many people manipulate digital photos to look like film is that it gives them something to aim for. A known objective to work towards. Certain film looks will give an atmosphere or a hint of an historic time period etc. It's usually not difficult to do, and dare I say it, can be fun.

Here is one of my efforts to get a daguerreotype look:

4731425692_e2ef1ffa4d.jpg


Sure, it has none of the qualities of a daguerreotype picture and bears only a vague resemblance to the real thing. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery as the saying goes.

On the subject of daguerreotypes: here we have one of the oldest forms of photographic recording, which is arguable capable of rendering more detail then any process which has succeeded it. Often it seems to come down to convenience over quality. Same with film vs digital, vinyl vs Cds (and mp3s).
 
starless said:
But the only reason to convert a a digital image to B&W is to make it look like film/analog.

After all B&W is property of black and white film.
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I thought that the main reason for bw is that there are no colors that distract from the content. So using a bw-film or converting a digital image to bw has the same goal.
 
I remember B&W television when I was a kid, but aren't we discussing photography now?

What I meant is that in photography B&W or sepia was (obviously not anymore) associated with film. This is due to the very chemical process of photography - silver halides and all. That is why B&W is inherently a property of film.

The aesthetics of the B&W image are appealing to most of us because of our exposure to B/W photography.
 
tom.w.bn said:
I thought that the main reason for bw is that there are no colors that distract from the content. So using a bw-film or converting a digital image to bw has the same goal.
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From an artist's perspective yes.

But why film was B&W and looked like this in the first place, was due to the way it was made and the chemicals that were used in the process.
 
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