My First Digital Photography Impressions

[gnuyork]

I agree with many points of the OP on love/hate for digital. I shoot both and if I had to choose one, I'd prefer film, if nothing else it's because it's more of a challenge to me, but fully agree with the points about selective shooting due to film scarcity and costs. Often I choose not to bring a film camera somewhere because I don't want to waste my precious film. With digital that leads to more freely shooting and experimentation.

One thing I do try to do is make my images not look digital. I'm not sure I succeed, because that is quite subjective. But I do like the flexibility with digital and I enjoy the post work in Lightroom.

Here are a few of my digital black and whites...

and here is a scan of a film version of the last pic...completely different days, and angle:

One thing where I find digital still fails is very large prints. A prime example, just yesterday I was at a gallery and saw very large 64x96" photo of one of my favorite trees in a local location...and when I got up close enough to it, you could just see the image fall apart...purple fringing around all of the branches, lack of detail... I was disgusted. And mainly because that's my tree, how dare he (joking)...but it was listed for $16,000!! If that were shot on 8x10 or 4x5 even it would be so much better.

 

[Axel]

... What I hate about digital:

• Technology is distracting: tons of information in the viewfinder that distract from framing. Tons of buttons and flashing lights. The worse is the display on the back: no matter how disciplined you are, you will always look at the photo that you just took, for no apparent reason other than confirming that it is there. The display is too small, the resolution too low, and the dynamic range too narrow to make any judgements. In direct sunlight it is a waste of time to look at the display, but you will. All you see in the end is if the picture was stored. I finally get why the M10-P has no display, I want that in a digital camera! Plus, you always worry about the battery status. I ended charging the camera in my rental car each time between shots because one battery would have never taken me through the day. So now I carry extra batteries, chargers, cables ... what happened to the "not much gear" argument?

I carry as much batteries as I aspect to take photos. Same was with film. In this days batteries are smaller (and sometimes cheaper) than film rolls.

• Too much of a good thing? I took hundreds of photos within two days. Way too much and I ended spending another day sorting through the photos which all looked the same. With film, you are more selective, frame more properly (less cropping!), decide whether the scene is actually worth burning it on film. With film you quickly become a more critical photographer, because film costs money, because you can't carry an endless amount of rolls with you, and because getting from pressing the shutter to seeing the actually image costs time.

The amount of my taken photos does not depend on the medium. More photos are more costs of time and money anyway. So I go to take a picture.
Wouldn´t rant my car for that is so nice that I drive more kilometers as I do with my bike either

• No distance between you and your art: since you see the results instantaneously, you rush to decisions. I prefer not seeing the photos right way: you press the shutter on an analog film camera, you forget what you just shot and think ahead what you can shoot next. With digital you constantly go back & forth in time, which disrupts the flow. Days (sometimes weeks) later you finally develop the film, put the negatives on a light table, make a selection and start scanning. When the scan builds up on your screen, you see the scene again for the first time and make better decisions if the photo is good or not because you are emotionally detached from the experience of taking the photos.

I don´t want to see my photos immediately also. So the function is disabled and the back screen is closed on my camera.

• Lifeless? Here's my main concern: the photos are extremely sharp, the sensor is flawless to the point where it seems unnatural! My eye doesn't resolve all the detail of the landscape when I look at it, so why does my camera give me more information I can see & process? The totanality is so smooth that the photos are lacking micro-contras that you get with grain. Oh how I miss grain!

Maybe it is a huge process to find out so much when trying digital as a long term film user. I remember it was similar for me when I began to switch nearly 15 years ago.

But in the end there is a huge extension in creative possibilities in the new technologies. Sure I can do my photography like it was in the 60s or 70s. It does not depend on the question of "digital or film?". It only depends on my personal wishes and skills.

Have a look at our wonderful gallery here! There is nothing you can count on "digital" or "film". Sometimes you see grain, sometimes you see sharp or soft. But you will fail quickly if you try match the photos to one of your categories.

 

[Shac]

That look comes from over-sharpening then overdoing the noise reduction. When processed correctly, digital images look natural and beautiful.

Totally agree Chris

 

[Michael Markey]

Sorry film fans but I much prefer the digital rendition in this instance at least.

I find these threads a bit odd in 2019 .
Does it really matter ?
I use both film and digital.
I found film to be pretty useless for my sports shots though.

Never liked darkroom or film processing and after 50 years on and off I`ve called it a day.
Much admire those that do but its not for me.

Developing and printing now done by Ilford


PS
I prefer the first shot too and by a wide margin.

 

[nzeeman]

everything that is made from stone looks like plastic in nowadays cameras-too much detail in new sensors... i like a bit more older digital sensors... and fully agree with OP about film vs digital...

 

[Richard G]

It is not Acros. When they released it Fuji explained why they couldn't bring that to the earlier generations of cameras as they needed the higher resolution sensor and more powerful processor that went along with it. I had an X Pro 2 and Acros and Monochrome had different looks to them.

https://fujifilm-x.com/en-us/stories/the-newest-film-simulation-acros/

Shawn

Thanks for the information: I’ve fallen behind in my knowledge of these. I was trying not to upgrade to the X100F. Here’s one reason to consider it.

 

[Godfrey]

I shoot with both film and digital cameras. And with instant film, which are different from either. It's all good to me. I get good quality from all of them.

Of course, that's not a "first impression". I've been shooting, processing, and presenting, selling film and instant film work since 1968. I've been scanning and rendering that same work since 1984. I've been working digital images out of consumer cameras since 2001 (longer for scientific instruments, but that's not applicable to the subject of artistic photography). So, over time, I've developed a lot of techniques that get me the results I want from all of them.

As with everything, first impressions are just that: first, not final. If you don't put the time and work in to learn the medium, the processing, etc, you'll be stuck with a first impression forever... Don't let a first impression be your last.

G

 

[farlymac]

I've found that it takes a bit of experimenting to get the look you want with digital files, Mark. Possibly also shooting everything in RAW, which I've yet to do. And if you have a lab do your film scanning, they could be doing corrections that are giving you a false sense of accomplishment. I always tell them I want no corrections so I can tell when the camera or myself are to blame for over and under exposures and such. Especially since they could always over tweek a roll so that it's impossible to correct the scan back to a more neutral state.


PF

 

[helen.HH]

Agreed. Take a look at @helenhill’s latest addition to the X100 images thread. Beautiful black and white digital.

Helen's work is gorgeous. There's a few others in that thread with nice BW images, too.

This was the one I was thinking about. Beautiful. I wish I could do that with any camera.
https://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2876853&postcount=2471

Just saw this...
Extraordinarily Kind, Touched indeed !
Thanks ever so much Michael and Chris

Overall I still prefer the Imperfections of Film but as of late have really been Enjoying digital. Certaiinly it has a look all it’s own, thats the Beauty so I try and bring out it’s own rather special atmosphere.
Oddly , I treat it not that much different than PP with film... nail expisure, a tweak in hilight, a tweak in shadow, sometimes a tweak in contrast
I don’t touch much else in PP. Just go for the way I ‘saw’ the Photo, the way I want it to ‘feel’.
All in Good Fun

 

[Godfrey]

Just saw this...
Extraordinarily Kind, Touched indeed !
Thanks ever so much Michael and Chris

Overall I still prefer the Imperfections of Film but as of late have really been Enjoying digital. Certaiinly it has a look all it’s own, thats the Beauty so I try and bring out it’s own rather special atmosphere.
Oddly , I treat it not that much different than PP with film... nail exposure, a tweak in hilight, a tweak in shadow, sometimes a tweak in contrast
I don’t touch much else in PP. Just go for the way I ‘saw’ the Photo, the way I want it to ‘feel’.
All in Good Fun

Yes.
Good to hear from you, Helen! I always love your photos!

G

 

[willie_901]

This is the crux of the issue: film has be to be converted to digital, so on the internet film cannot reasonably be compared to digital. However hard one tries film converted to digital is one step removed from its origin.

...

This is a fundamental, important point.

Internet image viewing is a nightmare. The effective MTF50 is significantly degraded by compression requirements. But this is trivial compared to the unavoidable, unknowable variations in viewing circumstances.

Eliminating compression effects and optimized screen viewing cannot eliminate the core problem.

There are inherent flaws in all mathematical models that transform continuous phenomena into a binary framework. The impacts of this issue can be negligible. But they are not zero. Often digital images are unintentionally undermined by improper technique.[1] Still, anytime we digitize film media we have abandoned the analog domain. The result is not a copy. It is a only a model for the original. The compromises are usually acceptable compared to the advantages of digital image rendering, storage and distribution.

Avoiding analog media altogether does not eliminate the fundamental problems of modeling human visual perception using binary methods. It use to bother me it's possible to take a digital image with a very high system MTF50 and simulate film image properties such as grain, development induced contrast effects, base-plus fogging and handling blemishes. Simulation may be derivative and therefore inferior, but it is not pointless.

Digital printing is another step where the impossible is attempted. Binary information must be transformed to represent continuous information. Fortunately, viewing distance is a powerful equalizer. Advances in printer technologies, media and paper formulations are significant. But it is not a simple, convenient process to make an excellent digital print.

These issues are exacerbated by the relatively low IQ of 35 mm film. If large negative photography became the standard after WW-II, preferences for analog photography could be different because visual perception of large-negative images are more similar to contemporary digital images.


1. Here's a study that "...demonstrate methodologies, preferably analytical ones, for establishing and verifying digital imaging requirements for scanning resolution of photographic negatives and slides."

 

[markjwyatt]

This is a fundamental, important point.

Internet image viewing is a nightmare. The effective MTF50 is significantly degraded by compression requirements. But this is trivial compared to the unavoidable, unknowable variations in viewing circumstances.

Eliminating compression effects and optimized screen viewing cannot eliminate the core problem.

There are inherent flaws in all mathematical models that transform continuous phenomena into a binary framework. The impacts of this issue can be negligible. But they are not zero. Often digital images are unintentionally undermined by improper technique.[1] Still, anytime we digitize film media we have abandoned the analog domain. The result is not a copy. It is a only a model for the original. The compromises are usually acceptable compared to the advantages of digital image rendering, storage and distribution.

Avoiding analog media altogether does not eliminate the fundamental problems of modeling human visual perception using binary methods. It use to bother me it's possible to take a digital image with a very high system MTF50 and simulate film image properties such as grain, development induced contrast effects, base-plus fogging and handling blemishes. Simulation may be derivative and therefore inferior, but it is not pointless.

Digital printing is another step where the impossible is attempted. Binary information must be transformed to represent continuous information. Fortunately, viewing distance is a powerful equalizer. Advances in printer technologies, media and paper formulations are significant. But it is not a simple, convenient process to make an excellent digital print.

These issues are exacerbated by the relatively low IQ of 35 mm film. If large negative photography became the standard after WW-II, preferences for analog photography could be different because visual perception of large-negative images are more similar to contemporary digital images.


1. Here's a study that "...demonstrate methodologies, preferably analytical ones, for establishing and verifying digital imaging requirements for scanning resolution of photographic negatives and slides."

translation: it ain't easy, but it kind of works.

 

[Godfrey]

I suspect that where you used the term "binary" you really meant "discrete", because binary is not an antonym of continuous.

G

This is a fundamental, important point.

Internet image viewing is a nightmare. The effective MTF50 is significantly degraded by compression requirements. But this is trivial compared to the unavoidable, unknowable variations in viewing circumstances.

Eliminating compression effects and optimized screen viewing cannot eliminate the core problem.

There are inherent flaws in all mathematical models that transform continuous phenomena into a binary framework. The impacts of this issue can be negligible. But they are not zero. Often digital images are unintentionally undermined by improper technique.[1] Still, anytime we digitize film media we have abandoned the analog domain. The result is not a copy. It is a only a model for the original. The compromises are usually acceptable compared to the advantages of digital image rendering, storage and distribution.

Avoiding analog media altogether does not eliminate the fundamental problems of modeling human visual perception using binary methods. It use to bother me it's possible to take a digital image with a very high system MTF50 and simulate film image properties such as grain, development induced contrast effects, base-plus fogging and handling blemishes. Simulation may be derivative and therefore inferior, but it is not pointless.

Digital printing is another step where the impossible is attempted. Binary information must be transformed to represent continuous information. Fortunately, viewing distance is a powerful equalizer. Advances in printer technologies, media and paper formulations are significant. But it is not a simple, convenient process to make an excellent digital print.

These issues are exacerbated by the relatively low IQ of 35 mm film. If large negative photography became the standard after WW-II, preferences for analog photography could be different because visual perception of large-negative images are more similar to contemporary digital images.


1. Here's a study that "...demonstrate methodologies, preferably analytical ones, for establishing and verifying digital imaging requirements for scanning resolution of photographic negatives and slides."

 

[helen.HH]

Yes.
Good to hear from you, Helen! I always love your photos!

G

Sweet, LOVE it G ... Good to 'see' YOU
xo !

 

[olifaunt]

everything that is made from stone looks like plastic in nowadays cameras-too much detail in new sensors... i like a bit more older digital sensors... and fully agree with OP about film vs digital...

Yeah I find digital imaging even today to be really bad at textures, especially in black and white. Plasticky or oily (as in rocks seemingly covered with grease) comes to mind. Even a clear sky never looks that faky smoothed over in real life, and indeed, the skies in all the sample images jump out as unacceptable to me. Tonalities just always look off. Color images are either too drab or some colors are too loud - I seldom see any digital image with pleasingly balanced colors.

I don't mean the grain you see in scans of film - good film prints seldom have visible grain, but they have tons more and better tonality. None of that plastic look.

Some older CCD sensors indeed have a rep as being a little better.

Sure one can massage digital images to look halfway decent and I do that - takes tons of work... Color film is work too but is pretty much effortless in comparison. The opportunity cost of digital (hours lost editing) makes it a more expensive option than film for me.

 

[retinax]

Yeah I find digital imaging even today to be really bad at textures, especially in black and white. Plasticky or oily (as in rocks seemingly covered with grease) comes to mind. Even a clear sky never looks that faky smoothed over in real life, and indeed, the skies in all the sample images jump out as unacceptable to me. Tonalities just always look off. Color images are either too drab or some colors are too loud - I seldom see any digital image with pleasingly balanced colors.

I don't mean the grain you see in scans of film - good film prints seldom have visible grain, but they have tons more and better tonality. None of that plastic look.

Some older CCD sensors indeed have a rep as being a little better.

Sure one can massage digital images to look halfway decent and I do that - takes tons of work... Color film is work too but is pretty much effortless in comparison. The opportunity cost of digital (hours lost editing) makes it a more expensive option than film for me.

I agree with your points about color. Getting digital color right is really really hard.
I can't follow your argument about black and white though. Especially if we're talking about looking at pictures on a computer screen, that only underwent different steps before they were digitized, but now are all digital. I, too, mostly prefer the appearance of film when things are printed but don't care for most scanned small formats because of grain aliasing. If it's not about grain, what is it then? Can you explain in more detail or better yet, give examples? I could understand if you mean effects of noise reduction, sharpening, "clarity" and jpeg compression, and contrast/dynamic range issues than can often be solved with exposure, processing and dodging and burning. Can you definitely rule these out? I do see some of these in some of the shots posted in this thread, but I don't see them as problems inherent to digital capture but rather is technical challenges.

I'm not trying to antagonize anyone, for disclosure, I only shoot film presently, but I'd like for us to get as concrete as possible about these things in order to learn something about perception, aesthetics and practical image processing.

 

[nzeeman]

i think he meant same as me-that we have more detail in digital than eye can resolve in reality so it comes unnatural... same giesy for 4k tv or biggest fps rates of video... our eyes work in lower frequencies so image with high fps look like they are sliding/slipping... hard to explain if you dont notice and especially since english is not my mother tongue ...

I agree with your points about color. Getting digital color right is really really hard.
I can't follow your argument about black and white though. Especially if we're talking about looking at pictures on a computer screen, that only underwent different steps before they were digitized, but now are all digital. I, too, mostly prefer the appearance of film when things are printed but don't care for most scanned small formats because of grain aliasing. If it's not about grain, what is it then? Can you explain in more detail or better yet, give examples? I could understand if you mean effects of noise reduction, sharpening, "clarity" and jpeg compression, and contrast/dynamic range issues than can often be solved with exposure, processing and dodging and burning. Can you definitely rule these out? I do see some of these in some of the shots posted in this thread, but I don't see them as problems inherent to digital capture but rather is technical challenges.

I'm not trying to antagonize anyone, for disclosure, I only shoot film presently, but I'd like for us to get as concrete as possible about these things in order to learn something about perception, aesthetics and practical image processing.

 

[retinax]

i think he meant same as me-that we have more detail in digital than eye can resolve in reality so it comes unnatural... same giesy for 4k tv or biggest fps rates of video... our eyes work in lower frequencies so image with high fps look like they are sliding/slipping... hard to explain if you dont notice and especially since english is not my mother tongue ...

Hmm motion picture aside, if you can see less detail in nature than in digital images in web resolution on a computer screen, you might need (new) glasses. Or are we talking about oversharpened detail that throws itself at the viewer? That's not inherent in the medium. It's a given that w.r.t. detail smaller digital formats look more like typical medium format film. Do larger film formats look equally unnatural for you? In any case, getting rid of detail is easy. Lens selection, digital blurring and fake grain in pp... I have little experience with simulating grain, but matching the grain aliasing from medium resolution film scans like in this thread is easy. These seem to be separate points from Olifaunt's who said it's not about the grain, though. And he talked about skies, so not about detail either.
I'm not sure why I as a film user find myself challenging arguments against digital here, I guess I want to hear the right arguments for film (and that the look can't be replicated digitally is't it IMHO), vagueness goes against my grain (ha!), as does when people don't fully explore the possibilities of the medium before judging it. Hope I'm not driving this thread further toward the dreaded film-vs-digital-debate.

 

[olifaunt]

I agree with your points about color. Getting digital color right is really really hard.
I can't follow your argument about black and white though. Especially if we're talking about looking at pictures on a computer screen, that only underwent different steps before they were digitized, but now are all digital. I, too, mostly prefer the appearance of film when things are printed but don't care for most scanned small formats because of grain aliasing. If it's not about grain, what is it then? Can you explain in more detail or better yet, give examples? I could understand if you mean effects of noise reduction, sharpening, "clarity" and jpeg compression, and contrast/dynamic range issues than can often be solved with exposure, processing and dodging and burning. Can you definitely rule these out? I do see some of these in some of the shots posted in this thread, but I don't see them as problems inherent to digital capture but rather is technical challenges.

I'm not trying to antagonize anyone, for disclosure, I only shoot film presently, but I'd like for us to get as concrete as possible about these things in order to learn something about perception, aesthetics and practical image processing.

This is all speculation:

I think bad scanning complicates things. The Capitol film picture posted here seems like a bad scan so it is not helpful. At that size you really shouldn't see any visible grain in a good scan of hp5-400 film, which I assume it is. My normally exposed and developed trix 400 or portra 400 don't show grain viewed at that size.

One big difference with digital I find is that, for example, in negative film there is always detail present in whites and you can see it in a good scan as slight tonality variation even in "blown-out" areas. If you magnify a good scan you can usually see some grain even in the whitest whites (meaning they are not "blown" as in digital), but I am not talking about this grain itself but rather slight variations on a larger scale in the grain density, which gives slight tonal variation. One doesn't usually pick up these variations consciously (it might just look like even white) but I tend to notice when it is not there, most obviously in blown areas of digital photos, but also in other smoothed areas of many digital photos. Not all digital photos...

Even the clearest blue sky, for example, is not smooth in real life - there are slight random local tonal variations. Some of it is the actual sky - after all, stars flicker at night because of constant random fluctuations in optical properties of air - and some is randomness in the visual system. I think film either reproduces this or has very slight random variations in texture that looks like this. Most digital photos I see have this NR-ed out of existence.

 

[Ronald M]

I have many digital and film cameras. Leica M, and Pro Nikons. F2 Nikons and M6 are fun and my skill comes out in the darkroom. Digital is nice for color and cookbook mono.

Any bozo can make digi photos and they can be acceptable. A decent darkroom mono print is an acquired skill mastered by only a few.