Glad I decided to get an M7 instead of the Fuji X-T1!

johnwolf said:
But what appeals to me more than shadow treatment is film's expression of lighter tones. I shoot BW only and am completely enamored with the way film handles the upper zones. I've owned many digital cameras, but none (the GR get's closest) has delivered the rich, creamy light grays and whites that I like to see. That, to me, is what sets film apart and has me interested.

John
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Yes. A sensor's wider dynamic range doesn't provide highlight dimensionality (detail, pearlescence, whatever it's called) like film, to my eye anyway. " ... film's expression of lighter tones ..." hasn't yet been replicated in digital capture, as far as I can tell. The best small format digital rendition of highlights in my experience is the Monochrom's, enhanced by yellow-orange filter use.

Metering to preserve the highlights for digital capture doesn't seem to yield the highlight quality common to B&W film. Sure, the histogram will tell you that the highlights aren't blown, but the digital highlights don't seem to hold what's there like film highlights do.
 
Yep film is great. M3 50mm 1.5 Nokton.

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Spanik said:
Or you could have doe the same metering with your digitals or you are compensating the exposure for the film in developping or printing. Incident or reflective of a grey card is essentially the same. There must be a reason photographers have been doing this for ages.
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If one pursues for the best OOC shot (whether it be JPEG or straight RAW conversion), meter at the right level (gray card) will produce the best image. But if one wishes to maximize processing space at the shadows while retaining sufficient highlight detail, then the metering level becomes important. Looking at Zebra levels is a poor indication under such circumstances - when the highlight indicator goes off, some detail has already been lost.
 
Thanks Thardy. This post kind of took off on its own there. Just checked back in and saw a lot of interesting commentary. I'm on roll 4 now and still having a blast.
Cheers!
 
Congratulations on discovering what all of us already knew... that rangefinders are fun to use.
 
Hi,

That comment about black and white (film) and grey and white (digital) is going to hit the nail on the head for a lot of people. Anyway, for me it's the ease of B&W film, camera and so on that does it.

Regards, David
 
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