Film Like

[helen.HH]

With black and white I seem to try to make film images more 'clean' and digital more 'grainy' haha!

Haha, Brilliant !
Agreed...
Count me in this club

Lovely set of photos 😉

 

[Dogman]

I've always felt digital should be treated like transparency film. A little under doesn't hurt and usually helps. I don't try to emulate film, I'm just trying to get the picture to look like I want it to look. That can vary from photo to photo.

 

[grouchos_tash]

Haha, Brilliant !
Agreed...
Count me in this club

Lovely set of photos 😉

Thanks Helen. I also remember wanting my converse to be dirty when I was 17 and now trying to keep them clean at 35 😀

 

[icebear]

I use a MM and never tried to emulate film ... ok at the very beginning I played around with SFX and it just looked artificial to me and I never used it again. To maximize the potential of digital bw, you need to optimize your exposure to the limits of the sensor. Generally "just underexpose" is frankly stupid. The camera has the ability to show you the raw histogram of the exposure. You maximize the exposure (to the right) and judge if anything relevant in the highlights is blown. Use a light yellow filter.
Shoot in raw, use a calibrated monitor that has a good bw rendering (EIZO, NEC). Carefully process each image to optimze contrast over the entire range. Use a specific print tool for bw printing. Use a dedicated bw ink set. Choose a high quality paper and use a high res printer with a secure paper feeding mechanism. Ok ... there might be something that I forgot but I think I covered most of it. There are a lot of steps and the crucial issue with digital is that you must take care of every one of you don't get the best possible result.

You can work a little sloppy with film exposure, development and printing and still end up with prints that have "film character".
Just my $0.02 😉

 

[Bill Clark]

To make images look film like, use film!

I only make black and white photographs with film.

I’m going to take another look at printers available for black and white.

 

[willie_901]

...
...What can you do to make black-and-white digital images more film like?

Use Raw Files

Retaining all the original data means post-production image rendering benefits from maximum flexibility. Rendering options are un-compromised when all of the data are available.

Camera Operartion - Optimize Exposure

In order to optimize exposure I automatically bracket aperture for three exposures. For my cameras I meter to set aperture and shutter time and make three images - 0 and ±2/3 stops. In very bright light I use 0 ± 1 stops. When DOF control is a priority, I bracket shutter time.

In post production I use the raw file with optimum highlight region exposure and delete the other two.

In dynamic situations I ignore the light meter and set my ISO invariant camera to base ISO and choose shutter time and aperture based on experience. When the meter indicates underexposure I simply take three aperture-bracketed exposures. Now I only have to concentrate on composition and focus. It is not necessary to check the meter again. In bright light it is necessary to avoid sensor underexposure. So checking the meter is required often. In the first case bracketing serves to maximize highlight exposure. For the later bracketing serves to minimize sensor overexposure.

For my camera with a dual conversion-gain sensor I use two camera ISO settings - ISO 200 in bright light and ISO 800 when more intentional underexposure is required.

These methods often produce in-camera JPEGs that are too dark to review in camera. This can be a disadvantage. Of course the raw files also initially render too dark as well. This is remedied by increasing rendered image brightness.

What about camera ISO setting? Since camera ISO setting affects the data after the shutter closes, it has no direct impact on exposure. When using raw files, bracketing ISO is pointless.

Post Production

I use Lightroom Classic and Nik Silver Efex Pro II (Google version) for image rendering. There are many alternatives. Regardless of the post-production platform it takes time to discover a workflow that produces “silver like” rendering.

For prints, many variables are important to emulate a “silver like” image. Giclee print perception depends highly on the inks and paper properties. Laser and LCD printers are used to make digital silver gelatin bromide black and white prints. This Digital Black and White web site is a valuable information source for black and white printing methods.

Details

In digital imaging it is important to maximize sensor exposure. Sensor exposure creates the signal(s) which in turn become the information used to render an image. Optimizing exposure optimizes the signal-to-noise ratio.

Optimum exposure attempts to avoid unnecessary underexpose. The goal is to maximize the analog data signal-to-noise ratio when the shutter is open. Exposure determines the signal level while the noise we can control depends on the camera electronics.[1] The shutter time and aperture determine the exposure level. The maximum sensor exposure (and dynamic range) is limited to using a camera's native (base) ISO setting.

Setting the camera ISO setting based on the light meter can be useful when sensor underexposure is unavoidable due to camera and, or subject motion. But camera ISO setting modifies the data after the shutter closes. Image brightness and exposure are different considerations unless the camera is set to base ISO.

How To Attain Optimum Exposure

Optimum exposure is achieved by avoiding unnecessary sensor underexposure.

There are three limitations to achieving maximum sensor exposure.

o Depth of field - narrow apertures reduce exposure to optimize DOF.

o Freezing motion - shorter shutter times reduce exposure to optimize perceived image sharpness.

o Retain all the information for relevant highlight regions - For example, the sky is important. If the brightest sky regions are overexposed, some (or all) of the information content for these regions is destroyed when the shutter is open. Regions with direct sunlight reflections are usually not important because they contain almost no information. This means overexposure of these regions does not degrade image aesthetics. Bright street-lamp bulbs and vehicle headlights in night scenes are other examples where unimportant regions can be intentionally overexposed. [2]


1.Cameras have different data path designs. Older cameras relied on signal amplification (camera ISO setting) to minimize noise levels when sensor underexposure is unavoidable. Newer ISO invariant designs have very low noise levels at all camera ISO settings. Some cameras use dual conversion-gain sensors that maximize dynamic range at low ISO settings and maximize señor sensitivity at high settings (where underexposure is unavoidable). These designs require different strategies to maximize raw-file information content.

2. Older camera designs can generate image artifacts when unneeded highlight regions are intentionally overexposed. Artifact production is non-linear, so small changes in shutter time and, or aperture can result in large differences.

 

[hap]

grain is like randomness. We are hard wired to react to it in the details.

 

[hap]

its very weird....I have a relatively new Samsung U HD TV (not 4K). these TV's make all scenes look like studio sets (which they are)...and not pleasing reasonable simulations of "reality". they are hyper real. If you watch TCM for any length of time on a digital TV, the original look of movies is disfigured.

 

[markjwyatt]

grain is like randomness. We are hard wired to react to it in the details.

Grain in a film image is the image, similar to pointillist painting. It may appear to us as random noise when grain is coarse. Grain added to a digital image is usually noise.