Film or digital

Status
Not open for further replies.
Ukko Heikkinen said:
Put a pure carbon inkjet print on a fine art rag paper and a silver print on a sunlit windowsill. Look at the both again in a couple of weeks. :bang:

Ukko Heikkinen
Click to expand...


If you are going to make comparisons put your carbon pigment inkjet print next to a carbon print on a sunlit windowsill. i guarantee you the inkjet print will fade, at the end of the day it is ink regardless of any fancy name the marketing men may give it.
 
Andy K said:
<snip>

Then there is the constant 'need to upgrade' urged by manufacturers. My analogue cameras do today what they were designed to do when they were new. They weren't obsolete 18 months after purchase.

If you wish to buy a camera for the same cost of a car knowing that in 18 months to 2 years it will no longer be 'cutting edge' and will be worth a fraction of what you paid for it and that you may have to buy another camera for the same cost as a car, then that is your choice. Personally I figure I could buy several decades worth of photographic materials for the cost of a Dslr.
Click to expand...
Well, if people far for the marketing hype, that's their problem. My problem is with the built-in obsolescence. Should a camera "go down", repairs are very expensive relative to the purchase price of a current model. We could say the same thing about older RFs, but once a repair is made to a mechanical film camera, it is likely to function well for another long period, indeed.

But none of this has anything to do with the image, just the business of photo gear. There will always be lots of "bad photographers" who will make a mess of anything in their hands. Some of them realize they need help, others will blame the equipment. Sometimes the latter are right. A better design would have helped at least a little.

Earl
 
Like the ink used to write the dead sea rolls? I have yet to see a 2000 year old silver print!
 
Socke said:
Like the ink used to write the dead sea rolls? I have yet to see a 2000 year old silver print!
Click to expand...

The Dead Sea Scrolls were stored rolled up, in sealed urns, in caves, in a desert. How well would that ink have fared in the open air, even in a building? Books are not a good comparison as they are stored closed. Leave a book open for any length of time and the ink WILL fade.
 
Cute kid 🙂

My guess was film. It is devoid of grain, but I've seen 5400 scans from velvia/provia that look like that as well.

Your point is well taken though. Either it is a good photo or not, and that doesn't depend on film or digital.
 
The ink used to write the dead sea rolls was iron based. It was invented around 300 B.C. But even the old egyptian papyrii written mostly with a mixture from water, carbon black and gummi arabicum stood very well.
The handwritten books made before Guthenberg invented the printing press were mostly written with an ink made out of the bark of blackthorn.
It didn't bleach as fast (fast meaning a couple of decades) from exposure to light like the iron based ink and wasn't as hardly soluble in water.

The problem with books is not the ink used, it is the paper! Especialy those printed from the end of the 19th century up to the middle 20th century are on paper containing aggressive chemicals and decompose pretty fast.

I have a bibliopegist working on my, actualy my great grandfathers, copy of "Der blaue Reiter" for exactly that reason.
If they'd used papyrus or vellum to print it, it would be fine for another century :-(

Come to think of that, I gave most of my great grandfathers and grandfathers negatives to a museum, the nitrocellulose base can ignite at 38°C and is considered an explosive substance in germany. I kept some glas negatives and all the newer stuff from the mid 50s on.
 
vincentbenoit said:
My point was, there are people who find that the look they get from digitally captured images suit their photographic vision. (The term "vision" being understood in a broad sense here, e.g. taking pictures of one's kids riding their bike 😉
Cheers
Vincent
Click to expand...

Vincent,
to be honest I am not sure at this point. All DSLR shooters I know just accept that look as beeing unavoidable if you WANT to shoot digital, from what reasons ever.
I met nobody who said he really likes that look (it's not the grain issue, only) and prefers it to film.
Those who like digital more than film I met only among the P&S users, mainly because the highly saturated colours and the sharpening seem to be a quality proof for them.
The real pro cams from $4000;- on are much better, no doubt, but still nothing that could convince me to use.

Best ,
Bertram
 
Socke said:
The ink used to write the dead sea rolls was iron based. .
Click to expand...

Socke ,

when you said for you it is mainly about printing you did not exaggerate as I see.
Outstanding knowledges, chapeau ! I read it with real interest , knowing myself almost nothing about printing in general !!! 🙂

Regards,
Bertram
 
The big IF here is aesthetics, which is inherently substantially habit, prejudice, chatter and personal opinion.

For example, I think hardly any "street photography" has merit. It's not similar to photojournalism. On forums it is rarely technically competent. But it's obviously self-satisfying and maybe even of interest to other street photographers, especially if someone actually does snap something amusing or in some way informative.

Similarly, "nature photography" is rarely more than cliche'.

I could go on like this, damning portraits, weddings, doggies and cats, baby pictures, one's kids at play, the inevitable homeless old man, sports, nudes (well, maybe not nudes!), sunsets etc etc etc. WTF. Who cares? My views are certainly as "well informed" as others, and equally irrelevant. Do we like a photo? It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

I sometimes like grain. It can add a sense of sharpness, gives the eye something to hook on. For that reason I don't like C41 B&W. But I do, paradoxically, love the ability of Provia to be scanned at 4000ppi (maximum for Nikon V AND for alleged 5400 of Minolta) and enlarged to my maximum 12X18, without evidence of grain. Those big Provia shots would look as good if they were shot digitally with 10MP/APS.
 
Bertram2 said:
Your statement sounds a bit like the devil in diguise, trying to seduce people to do IT, the unspeakable, the worst of all sins so to say.

If the efforts of delimitation get so fundamental it's at the limits to religion and it sounds already like that. We all know where fundamentalism leads to., TV tells us daily, that is simpy the worst way to deal with your own convictions isn't it ?

BTW the digital darkroom , as a learning tool, which is not a real darkroom of course, otherwise it would not be called digital (trivial), gave me a chance to learn more within 2 years than I had learned during the 20 years before.
It lead me back to photography, to film, not to chip imaging.

Maybe this excludes me forever from the holy grail, but should that really bother me ?

Bertram
Click to expand...

I've disagreed with you a number of times, but I'm happy to agree with the above.

I think we should all be forced to do some cave wall painting with our bare fingers and mixing our own paints.
 
This is quite the interesting thread. It took me about 1/2 hour to get thru it completely.

To get back to the original subject, I couldn't tell. I know that Jorge uses both digitals and real cameras <vbfg> so there was really no clue as to what it really was. Yes, it was crisp with no visible grain (on this monitor over the web at least) and the colors were vivid, just like digital or any of several films.

Tomorrow I'm going to show this to a guy at work, one who says he can almost always tell, and see what he thinks. This is the guy who swore one of my night shots was digital until I showed him the negative. 🙂

Now on one subject I'm going to play devil's advocate, and that is the digital darkroom. Although I never use that term (jumbo shrimp, small crowd, freezer burn, inside out, pretty ugly, forest lawn, digital darkroom) you can say that the PC and the printer are in fact my darkroom. They helped renew my interest in photography by letting me do things I don't have the equipment or skill or patience to do, and that is to make decent prints of my photos in my apartment on my own time the way I want to, and without tons of icky chemicals, fumes, temperature control, drying, etc.

Learning to properly use the scanner, Photoshop, and the printer is one of the best things that's happened to me as far as photography is concerned. I can now do my own color prints without waiting hours or days, and without paying several dollars per print.

Lately I print more of what I take, and I've found out this inspires me to take more, and to enjoy it more.

That's my $.02 on this topic, anyway. 🙂
 
It is relatively easy to produce a file from a negative that looks like digital..
Click to expand...

Bertram2 said:
Would you mind to explain how you do it ? I never tried it and I am not THAT familiar with PS that would know which switches and knobs you must turn to get such a result ?
Thanks !
Bertra,m
Click to expand...
Click to expand...


1. Start with a good scan.
2. Use a program like Noise Ninja or (the one I prefer) Neat Image to either reduce OR totally eliminate grain. The useful thing about both these programs is that you can reduce EXACTLY the amount of grain you want to produce the effect you are looking for.
3. Modify the tonal range to simulate the film to digital 'look' you want, usually by the application of the 'Curves' tool.
3. Sharpen depending on the output desired. This is a MOST important part. ALL digital images need some sharpening, it is just a necessary part of the process. BUT, the sharpening needs to be tailored to the output. You would use different sharpening techniques for a photo being prepped for the web compared to one being prepped for a hard copy print.

This is greatly simplified, but is a start.

Sometimes I want the smooth 'digital' look, sometimes I don't.

Tom
 
vincentbenoit said:
Hi Tom,
I know this method, I've tried it and found the "simulated grain" to look quite good in the lower midtones, but not in the upper midtones and highlights. I really like the grainy highlights I get from Tri-X...
Cheers
Vincent
Click to expand...


Me too. 🙂

TX, PX and Ilford HP and FP emulsions are about all the B&W film I use nowadays. I used to shoot more color than I do now (for pleasure, not on a job, still shoot all color digital on the job), and the Fuji NPS and Reala films were fine, along with Provia chromes.

Tom
 
Kin Lau said:
I've disagreed with you a number of times, but I'm happy to agree with the above.
Click to expand...

Kin Lau,

glad to hear that. It seems to be my fate never to be completely part of one group, I always agree only partly with the people I know, my seat is always somewhere between two damn chairs I both do not like absolutely. Aarrghh !

On the other hand i also disagree only partly with the people in my personal environment and so it is just a matter of time 'til everybody finds something he likes in my shoebox. 😀 😀

A compensation for the lack of blind enthusiasm or blind hate ? 😉
Maybe but nonrtheless sometimes I'd like to be really STRAIGHT ! It is so much easier, isn't it ? So much easier than all these never ending nitpicking differentiations!! 😀 😀


Regards,
bertram
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Rob-F
AI is helping me decide whether to buy a Leica M10!
2 3 4
Replies
62
Views
2K
Rob-F
Rob-F
T
Film versus Digital, and vice versa
2 3
Replies
42
Views
4K
Tim Murphy
T
B
appeal of film over digital?
22 23 24
Replies
462
Views
32K
PetPhoto
P
K
Canonet Scratches
Replies
5
Views
477
Mackinaw
M
J
  • Article Article
What's happening with Photographic Film in 2025? Is this robust niche still growing?
2 3 4
Replies
72
Views
11K
Erik van Straten
Erik van Straten
Back
Top Bottom