Has digital changed how you view B&W Photography?

[Benjamin Marks]

In the past year, I bought a copy of Alien Skin Exposure 2, because I liked some of the BW conversion samples that I saw here on RFF. I liked them better than the results of the "convert to BW" set of actions in CS3 that I was using. But a funny thing happened:

In film, I am strictly an ISO 400 kind of guy. I like the grain, I like the tonal response -- in fact the only thing I didn't like was reciprocity failure exposure times (for which TMax 100 is actually "faster" (if you can call it that) than Tri-X).

But when converting my essentially grainless M8 and D3 files to BW, I started drifting inexorably towards the Delta100 option in AE2, as if unwilling to "see" digital even with a simulacrum of film grain. Has this happened to anybody else? I really would not have reached for TMax100 or Delta 100 in my all-film days, unless there was nothing else in the house.

BTW: I also find, when I load up a roll of film these days, that I have absolutely become dependent on what thes FF DSLRs do at ISO's over 400. I think 1250 is my "default" indoor ISO with the D3 and 640 with the M8.

So here's the question: has digital morphed your view of your own photography over the last 10 years (or more specifically B&W photography)? In my case, I would have sworn "no" but the choices that I am actually making (and the look of the picture that I am actually producing) suggest otherwise.

Ben Marks

 

[Krzys]

People are now so attached to high contrast B&W being the norm, totally lacking in tonality and richness.

 

[dcsang]

Since I use digital for weddings and events; it's become quite clear to me the only reason I do so is because this is what the clientele want. They want files, on CD/DVD to print. They want colour & B&W of the same image. They expect, at least that's the impression I get, noise free images.

The reason for this? They are savvy to the point that "uncle bob's" now have the same equipment that many "pro's" use. They know what can be done and what cannot.

This is one reason I'm actually considering moving back towards film. My first test wedding will be this weekend. My intent is to shoot mainly B&W (Tri-X and maybe some Delta 3200 or Tmax 3200 if I can get it) with a dash of colour (Fuji NPZ/NPH) thrown in.

Digital B&W, as I had mentioned in another thread here, while it is coming awfully close to film still lacks the randomness in the grain structure in my opinion. Digital noise is not random. There is, to me, a pattern in the digital noise. That said, an image without some grain can be, I don't know, lifeless..

I've become a lot more, due to digital, appreciative of grain structure and b&w film - although I grew up on the stuff - digital has made me value it more and more as time goes on..

Cheers,
Dave

 

[retnull]

People are now so attached to high contrast B&W being the norm, totally lacking in tonality and richness.

Agreed, there has been a shift in taste. For a lot of people, B&W now means "50% black and 50% white" ! 🙂

At the Cartier-Bresson show at MoMA in NYC, there's a few photos they display two versions of: one printed in the 1930s, and one post-WW2. The pre-war prints are low-contrast with no deep blacks; the post-war print much punchier -- but still, not as punchy as modern tastes.

Personally, I prefer the grays, and can do without absolute white and black.

 

[ronaldhooberman]

Agreed, there has been a shift in taste. For a lot of people, B&W now means "50% black and 50% white" ! 🙂

At the Cartier-Bresson show at MoMA in NYC, there's a few photos they display two versions of: one printed in the 1930s, and one post-WW2. The pre-war prints are low-contrast with no deep blacks; the post-war print much punchier -- but still, not as punchy as modern tastes.

Personally, I prefer the grays, and can do without absolute white and black.

HCB used a top printer in Paris but at his retrospective in the Hayward in London some years back I found the prints to be disappointingly grey and flat, so I suppose it is a matter of taste. Conversely though, a significant factor in vintage prints is the higher sliver content in the paper which provides a glow - I found this very noticeable in a recent show of vintage and modern prints of Weejee's work side by side, to the detriment of the latter.

 

[Krzys]

Heh. Back in the 80's I was really addicted to lith film. Making a positive and a negative, sandwiching them together just slightly out of register (think "drop shadow") and exposing that as a contact print. It made for black OR white images (absolutely no grays at all) that were reminiscent of ink drawings. Cool stuff.

Hey! I'm into lith too. What ****s me is photos taken in flat light then pushed into high contrast in post processing. Looks rubbish. It seems that folks cant accept that the flat photo was taken in flat light.

 

[tbarker13]

I can't say that is has changed much, if anything, about the way I approach shooting. Before digital, 90 percent of my stuff was shot on B&W film. Now with digital, I shoot raw, and convert 90 percent of it to B&W.
I'm very happy with the results I get from Silver Efex. I like the various film emulators. Does it actually look like film? I don't really care. I just like the way the images turn out.
I see little difference between this approach and the old way of choosing developers, times, etc. to change the look of the film during the processing. It's just that with digital, I can try many different looks with he same image before deciding which I like best.

 

[ampguy]

Usually I take advantage of the color channels so I can apply a color filter to the b/w image, which I can't do if captured in monochrome.

However, if I'm in the dark, literally, at ISO 2500, f1.4, and slow shutter speed, I will use b/w mode, and chimp, to ensure I get the best exposure for b/w.

 

[Arjay]

Interesting views here, with telltale traces of the various writers perspectives:

I agree that it is hard to emulate film grain in originally digital pictures. Digital noise clearly doesn't look the way we were used to in alalog times. However, it is possible to emulate film grain in the digital darkroom: Just take a sample file of film grain of an all-neutral gray picture and superimpose that to a digital picture. I guess you'll love the effect if it is being done right.

But there's another thing that bugs me when I compare original BW pictures derived from BW film to those derived from a digital color picture: The amount of creative freedom in converting that color picture into a BW version by dialling in various color base filters during the conversion process. Don't know what I'm talking about? Well - then start some experiments in Photoshop using the channel mixer. You'll be surprised about how much you can influence the contrast rendition and the distribution of tonal values in relation to the original colors. You'll have hundreds of variants of your picture to choose from. This kind of influence is very hard to emulate when processing BW pictures that originated from a scan of a BW film - you'll have to do a hell of a lot of dodging and burning before you even get close to what you can get using the channel mixer in Photoshop.

And there's one more pont: From my perspective (having moved back from digital to film), many of the traditional BW film pictures exhibit a shocking lack of detail in the tonal regions of the darker shadows. This is actually something that comes to me first when I see BW pictures that were derived from BW film, and I see that as a deficiency. But - of course you could also see that as a characteristic of a film-based BW picture. So - is that a bug or a feature?

 

[jsrockit]

Does it actually look like film? I don't really care. I just like the way the images turn out. I see little difference between this approach and the old way of choosing developers, times, etc. to change the look of the film during the processing. It's just that with digital, I can try many different looks with he same image before deciding which I like best.

I agree completely. I'm loving digital more every day and I've printed B&W, C-Prints, and Cibachromes in a wet darkroom. With digital, now I can watch TV while prints print and develop my prints a lot faster. 😀 Sure, they look different, but I'm ok with the look.

 

[bmasonoh]

I would have to say yes in a way. I'm the opposite of many here. I've been shooting digital for a long time and just recently got back into film because digital b&w just didn't look authentic to me. There's just something unique about film grain and tonality that I could never achieve in a convincing fashion with digital despite all the software and plug-ins.

 

[Krzys]

I only wet print these days and couldn't be having more fun with photography unless I'm out taking photos. Scanning was a total drag.

 

[ampguy]

note on digital filters

note on digital filters

Yes, the digital filters can alter the contrast and tonality of the resulting b/w image significantly.

Although Picasa gives you a custom color palette, I limit myself to using the red or green filter, or none, as if I had these filters in the field to use. I don't use the custom 65K or 65M color palette of filter choices.

I also don't use photoshop.

Interesting views here, with telltale traces of the various writers perspectives:

I agree that it is hard to emulate film grain in originally digital pictures. Digital noise clearly doesn't look the way we were used to in alalog times. However, it is possible to emulate film grain in the digital darkroom: Just take a sample file of film grain of an all-neutral gray picture and superimpose that to a digital picture. I guess you'll love the effect if it is being done right.

But there's another thing that bugs me when I compare original BW pictures derived from BW film to those derived from a digital color picture: The amount of creative freedom in converting that color picture into a BW version by dialling in various color base filters during the conversion process. Don't know what I'm talking about? Well - then start some experiments in Photoshop using the channel mixer. You'll be surprised about how much you can influence the contrast rendition and the distribution of tonal values in relation to the original colors. You'll have hundreds of variants of your picture to choose from. This kind of influence is very hard to emulate when processing BW pictures that originated from a scan of a BW film - you'll have to do a hell of a lot of dodging and burning before you even get close to what you can get using the channel mixer in Photoshop.

And there's one more pont: From my perspective (having moved back from digital to film), many of the traditional BW film pictures exhibit a shocking lack of detail in the tonal regions of the darker shadows. This is actually something that comes to me first when I see BW pictures that were derived from BW film, and I see that as a deficiency. But - of course you could also see that as a characteristic of a film-based BW picture. So - is that a bug or a feature?

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

No.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[dcsang]

And there's one more pont: From my perspective (having moved back from digital to film), many of the traditional BW film pictures exhibit a shocking lack of detail in the tonal regions of the darker shadows.

I would agree with Arjay's statement here.

Part of my "issue" with all things digital is the "need" or desire for the sensor to capture as much information as possible and thereby passing it along to the photographer.

This to me is seen as the Holy Grail of digital. The ability to have incredible detail in the shadow area when exposed correctly is something that digital seems to be incredible at.

That said, there are times when the photographer may not want all the detail. Sure you can try to get rid of it via photoshop but oft times you end up getting a lot of muddiness in those shadow areas thanks to digital.

The best way I can describe it is, for B&W, there is a lack of subtlety offered by digital images if not converted properly that is offered by and captured by film images of the same subject/exposure.


Cheers,
Dave

 

[Benjamin Marks]

I grew up on B&W prints and am used to a fairly fat "middle" of the tonal scale. The move to digital has always struck me like a mass world-wide conversion to slide film. More flexibility, of course, but a narrower dynamic range. But there are other differences too. I recently scanned some Neopan 400 and some Ilford XP1 on a Nikon 4000 and I was really surprised at the difference in micro-detail between either of these films and the sensor on my M8. The M8 really gave a file that was more like a MF scan from the film days than a scan of a 35mm film negative. Don't get me wrong, I really like the look of film. When my brother married last summer, I shot a ton of it as, for our family at least, film is the stuff of which memories are made. B&W too. But there is no doubt that digital processes have had a powerful effect on how I view the world photographically. It is odd to perceive oneself as living history.

Ben Marks

 

[semilog]

What a great, diverse set of responses. You folks rock!

 

[emraphoto]

good digital black and white takes an incredible amount of care and skill (my opinion). I have shot a LOT of neopan and tri-x over the past years and admittedly in the shooting end of things you can afford to be a little more "loosy goosy" as the transitions and highlights will inevitably be pretty smooth. as long as you don't totally ignore the shadows you will have a pretty useable image/file/whatever.

using digital requires a lot of thought and attention to details. specifically if you are a fan of contrast and deep blacks (of which i am). i find with digital i need to pay a lot more attention to reflections, windows, foreheads, clothing etc. etc. i need to really pay attention to exposure. if i am going to protect highlights by lifting shadows will the final grain structure suffer? and so on. all of this flies in the face of the "digital is easy" bit i so often hear but i suppose everyone has a different user experience.

given 100% choice, i would shoot all fim for the black and white world. hell, i would shoot 100% film if i could.

 

[pachuco]

For me, I never wanted my images to look the way they were "supposed" to look, I wanted them to look very much like what I had in mind. The process I used to get that look with film was vastly different in comparison to how I get there with digital, but in the end (and after allot of trial and error) I get the look that I want with film or digital. The end product is how I judge my view of B&W photography so ultimately my view has stayed the same.

 

[dfoo]

...
(Tri-X and maybe some Delta 3200 or Tmax 3200 if I can get it) with a dash of colour (Fuji NPZ/NPH) thrown in.
...

Did you consider neopan 1600? I bought a bunch of that at a photography shop in downtown Toronto in the fall... I find neopan kicks the pants off delta 3200. I've never tried tmax 3200.