Digital is dead?

It's just all the kids wanting to be hip and retro and all that. They make a photo look like it was taken 30 years ago in a holga, the print left in the sun and several glasses of wine spilt over it throughout the years and suddenly it's just WAAAAAY cooler looking!
 
Neare said:
It's just all the kids wanting to be hip and retro and all that. They make a photo look like it was taken 30 years ago in a holga, the print left in the sun and several glasses of wine spilt over it throughout the years and suddenly it's just WAAAAAY cooler looking!
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And honestly, I have no issue with that. It's much better than them abondoning photography altogether. To each his (her) own. It's a great time in Photography... we have so many options.
 
we appreciates different things as our age grows. when we are young boys we like the latest toys and the coolest gadgets often high tech and digital. when we become older, we appreciate the simple things in live like a film camera. we are drawn to things that we can relate to the most. like old people with old film cameras. haha
 
Digital is a puppy. How can it be dead? It will grow up like film did. And then it will pass like film does. World goes through cycles.
 
CNNY said:
For me the question isn't not whether these look ok, or if you can tell that it is not film in an 8x10 print. The question is; what was wrong with these images straight out of the camera?
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with the exception of Polaroid stuff, I don't think anything is "straight out of the camera" whatever medium one chooses
 
Sparrow said:
with the exception of Polaroid stuff, I don't think anything is "straight out of the camera" whatever medium one chooses
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Of course not, but there is a difference between just making what you have look it's best and turning it into something entirely different. I don't have a problem with manipulation. I in most cases just don't understand why it was considered necessary.
 
CNNY said:
I don't have a problem with manipulation. I in most cases just don't understand why it was considered necessary.
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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.
 
starless said:
There are so many photographers, professional and amateur alike, who try to emulate a "film look" with their digital cameras. For example: converting to B/W, adding grain or any other effects that simulate analog capture, HDR (which always looks ridiculous anyway), the hipstamatic app craze, etc.

Isn't it better, and more effective, to just pick up a film camera? For the fraction of the price of an average digital setup they can get REAL film look.

So my question is to those who shoot digital and try to achieve an analog effect: why do you do it?
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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. There is no high iso color option in film. For the B&W, you're stuck....you shot it on Kodak 3200, and you're stuck with it.

One way, you use Silver Efex and redo the iamge to use the Tri-X plugin. The other, you're stuck with something you don't like. Now you tell me, how much better off were you by "just picking up a film camera?"

Don't get me wrong, I prefer film. But sometimes, it makes far more sense to begin with a digital camera.
 
starless said:
So my question is to those who shoot digital and try to achieve an analog effect: why do you do it?
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Like those who order pineapple on their pizza, add sugar to their coffee, have their Martinis stirred and not shaken, write with a pencil and paper instead of an iPad, use an iPad as if they were using pencil and paper, and, specially, those who order caffeine-free Diet Coke: because you can.

It's all a matter of taste.
 
CNNY said:
Of course not, but there is a difference between just making what you have look it's best and turning it into something entirely different. I don't have a problem with manipulation. I in most cases just don't understand why it was considered necessary.
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No, I don't either. But every decision I make in the post-processing is base on aesthetics not on fidelity.

Still if I make a major alteration I make it clear what I have done, but I realise "truth" in this respect is arbitrary.
 
Well, sir or ma'am, as the case may be, the thing is that time doesn't go backwards, and there will be no real return to film. Digital is the future, like it or not.

As to your question about capturing a "film look": I don't go for that on MOST of my digital images--happy with the way they look as they are. But SOME photos look even better in my mind as a black and white--and I didn't realize that FILM has a monopoly on B&W, given that digital can be shot that way if you wish, or can be converted that way from a color image, just like you could do with color film.🙂

And what's wrong about giving certain of my digital images a "film look?" Just a matter of style. Just like painters will give their work a certain look, in order to achieve a certain effect. I mean, people used to manipulate their film images to achieve a certain look...like posterization, for instance.....
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
Like those who order pineapple on their pizza, add sugar to their coffee, have their Martinis stirred and not shaken, write with a pencil and paper instead of an iPad, use an iPad as if they were using pencil and paper, and, specially, those who order caffeine-free Diet Coke: because you can.

It's all a matter of taste.
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The diet coke thing is because they're fat, it can't be the taste
 
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. There is no high iso color option in film. For the B&W, you're stuck....you shot it on Kodak 3200, and you're stuck with it.

One way, you use Silver Efex and redo the iamge to use the Tri-X plugin. The other, you're stuck with something you don't like. Now you tell me, how much better off were you by "just picking up a film camera?"

Don't get me wrong, I prefer film. But sometimes, it makes far more sense to begin with a digital camera.
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Honestly, I would have shot it in digital and never bothered to convert them to look like Tri-X. I am not disputing the fact that digital is more convenient, especially for low-light situations.

However, I cannot relate to the problem of having to convert a photograph to look like something else, because it might look better if you apply a certain filter. I believe my vision as a photographer is as important as everything else and it should be part of the process of taking the photograph, not part of the post-production.
 
Also you have to factor in film, processing and scanning. This is the dilemma I'm in at the moment. I shoot so much film that an x100, or something in that range , is looking cheaper and cheaper.
 
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