Peter Klein
Well-known
Part of the "lifelessness" of digital is (at least in the case of Canon EOS) its lack of noise. This may seem counter-intuitive. But studies have shown that the brain detects a very faint audio signal better if there is a little noise on the channel than if the channel is totally quiet.
Similarly, I have observed that one of the reasons why film looks "better" and more "life-like" than digital is that film has grain, and the grain is what the image is made of. Up to a point, the grain gives the eye an impression of more sharpness, and more detail just beyond what you can actually see.
You can simulate a film look by adding some noise, and by converting to B&W using different proportions of RGB. From what I've read, about 10% blue, 60% green and 40% red works well. I use similar figures sometimes. It isn't exactly Tri-X, but it's a decent improvement over a straight conversion.
Since my DSLR is an Olympus E-1, I usually have no need to add noise.
It's visible at ISO 400 and up, and I'm usually trying to remove some of it with Neat Image, but not all of it. I find that if I remove all of the "digital-looking" color noise, but only 25% of the more film-like luminance noise, things look pretty good in real-life 5x7 and 8x10 prints (as opposed to pixel peeping at 200%).
I just shot a friend's wedding in B&W film, and a family gathering to celebrate my mother's 85th birthday with the E-1. Guess which pictures I like better? Film, film, film! On the other hand, with the birthday party I could edit and post over 200 pictures in a couple of days so that all my various aunts and uncles and cousins could see their relatives. No way would I scan that many myself. Sometimes convenience and cost matter. In each case everyone's happy.
Unfortunately, people sometimes believe that what is good is what they're told is good. A big selling point is that digital is "better" because it has no grain. So younger people with no film history start looking for grain, thinking it's bad and this "proves" digital is superior. Those of us with a film-look aesthetic are usually over 30 (...er, maybe 40...er, maybe 50), or diehards who have seen the light, or both. The average customer just wants it fast, cheap, and good enough. Yes, they spend more on the digicam than they'll ever spend on film, but they think the pictures are "free." Marketing: Fantasy and fiction in the service of commerce.
--Peter
Similarly, I have observed that one of the reasons why film looks "better" and more "life-like" than digital is that film has grain, and the grain is what the image is made of. Up to a point, the grain gives the eye an impression of more sharpness, and more detail just beyond what you can actually see.
You can simulate a film look by adding some noise, and by converting to B&W using different proportions of RGB. From what I've read, about 10% blue, 60% green and 40% red works well. I use similar figures sometimes. It isn't exactly Tri-X, but it's a decent improvement over a straight conversion.
Since my DSLR is an Olympus E-1, I usually have no need to add noise.
It's visible at ISO 400 and up, and I'm usually trying to remove some of it with Neat Image, but not all of it. I find that if I remove all of the "digital-looking" color noise, but only 25% of the more film-like luminance noise, things look pretty good in real-life 5x7 and 8x10 prints (as opposed to pixel peeping at 200%).I just shot a friend's wedding in B&W film, and a family gathering to celebrate my mother's 85th birthday with the E-1. Guess which pictures I like better? Film, film, film! On the other hand, with the birthday party I could edit and post over 200 pictures in a couple of days so that all my various aunts and uncles and cousins could see their relatives. No way would I scan that many myself. Sometimes convenience and cost matter. In each case everyone's happy.
Unfortunately, people sometimes believe that what is good is what they're told is good. A big selling point is that digital is "better" because it has no grain. So younger people with no film history start looking for grain, thinking it's bad and this "proves" digital is superior. Those of us with a film-look aesthetic are usually over 30 (...er, maybe 40...er, maybe 50), or diehards who have seen the light, or both. The average customer just wants it fast, cheap, and good enough. Yes, they spend more on the digicam than they'll ever spend on film, but they think the pictures are "free." Marketing: Fantasy and fiction in the service of commerce.
--Peter
Nachkebia
Well-known
nope you can not simulate, because noise on film is random noise on digital is patern.... fuji was planing to develope silver like crystal sensor...
kbg32
neo-romanticist
Fastfashn said:
As with anything, there is a learning curve. You really didn't expect to walk away from film and get instant results with digital did you? Digital CAN produce results that rival film. You just need to know what you are doing. I would suggest finding and taking a class in Photoshop and throw away all those independent raw converters. I would learn the converter in PS2 before moving on. Get a good noise reduction plugin like Noise Ninja. You'll be surprised. Take your time. If you understand film and traditional darkroom practices before, you'll figure the digital side out soon enough. Be patient. The results will be worth it.
Last edited:
S
Socke
Guest
Nachkebia said:
That's the easy part!
http://www.prime-junta.net/pont/How_to/n_Digital_BW/a_Digital_Black_and_White.html?page=5
Peter Klein
Well-known
Vladimer: You're right, you can't duplicate film's look because film vs digital capture really is apples vs. oranges. Random grain that is part of the image structure itself, as opposed to more regular noise that is superimpose on it. But you can make digital look quite a bit more film-like if you work at it.
Still, I feel similarly to you. When I shot my Mom's 85th birthday, I was looking for the quickest and easiest and least expensive way to make a good record of the event for family members. I also was dealing with weird mixed lighting, so it made sense to shoot digital, RAW, and make "acceptable" pictures via some batch postprocessing.
For my friend's wedding, I was looking for something more artistic. So I shot B&W film, had the lab scan them to ~6 megapixel JPGs, scanned slightly dark to keep highlight detail. I then did quite a bit more work on the better files myself. The results are beautiful, much more pleasing to my eyes than DSLR capture. I paid for this beauty by sitting at the computer for hours, and by paying about $200 for film and high-quality processing and scanning.
--Peter
Still, I feel similarly to you. When I shot my Mom's 85th birthday, I was looking for the quickest and easiest and least expensive way to make a good record of the event for family members. I also was dealing with weird mixed lighting, so it made sense to shoot digital, RAW, and make "acceptable" pictures via some batch postprocessing.
For my friend's wedding, I was looking for something more artistic. So I shot B&W film, had the lab scan them to ~6 megapixel JPGs, scanned slightly dark to keep highlight detail. I then did quite a bit more work on the better files myself. The results are beautiful, much more pleasing to my eyes than DSLR capture. I paid for this beauty by sitting at the computer for hours, and by paying about $200 for film and high-quality processing and scanning.
--Peter
Nachkebia
Well-known
Socke : that is such a rubish, sorry there is no way on earth you can simulate film in post, I mean there is but it will not look real, you may fool your fool clients, but not somebody who knows
there is no way on earth you can simulate film in post, I mean there is but it will not look real, you may fool your fool clients, but not somebody who knows Nachkebia
Well-known
And another thing is middle tones, they are so plain, highlights also have problem but they are fixable curving a bit (digital has 100% white) which on film hardly exists! with mid tones there is a big problem...
S
Socke
Guest
Nachkebia said:Socke : that is such a rubish, sorry
That's quite possible, luckily I have no clients for photos, not even fools.
ChrisN
Striving
shutterflower said:
But that is true of all consumer items. If digital was old and film was the new emerging technology, the same would true for film. That's just marketing and economics. That is environmental, and in the end has little to do with the image on the print, other than the fact that it is effecting the way you feel about the process by which you get there.
Edited to add: And of course how you feel about the process is a perfectly valid concern - after all that is part of why we use rangefinder cameras.
Last edited: