Not yet convinced

[TJV]

I've been shooting the M8 for practice (without filters that's all the M8 is good for in colour...) in between film stuff for about a month now and I'm yet to be convinced I can "get" what I would with a good film. The reasons for this are many, not to mention my experivence in digi capture post processing. Fitstly, like many people who migrate from film to digital, I'm yet to replicate the same sense of light and shade with digi in a way that I can do with film. Images seem flat and beside a well exposed slide rather lifeless. From what I've seen in my images about 50% of this is due to the IR issue putting casts and unwanted detail into shadow areas or effecting colours negatively in general. The rest is due to the way digital capture seems to show bias to the highlights, where as film and the human eye is the opposite. Also the tonal areas in which grain is apparent is reversed. Film grain shows more readily in the highlights and digital the opposite. Also digi grain is next to nothing at 640iso and below...

Now, before this is taken to be a digi vs film post, it's not. Here's the catch. Times change and now is a good time for me to move with them! I've been thinking a lot about how to best exploit the traits of digital capture in a way that may break a few personal boundaries and open new doors in visual communication. That may sound rather silly to some, but when I look at work by people like Loretta Lux or Alex Majoli (sp?) I think "here are people who are choosing to work with these digital tools (for the most part) and are doing a good job in exploiting its pro's and con's to further the impact of their work. My biggest gripe with digital is that when people treat it as a tool exactly like they would a film camera, in many instances, the resulting images look plain bad. Some would call the look "plastic." I don't think this is the case. I just think it is different, and it is a look that I'm not used to seeing. I mostly shoot slide at 100asa and find if you were critiquing it's reproduction of reality you'd surely conclude that it's not sooooo life like and infact the contast is generally far higher than reality (eg slide has less of a tonal range.) Good examples of this were Jaap's hotly debated slide vs digi comparisons of the ski slope. Irrespective of the fact they were not taken under the exact same circumstances etc, most people concluded that while the M8 shot was closer to the real colours and scene of the time, the slide shot was, for many reasons, more engaging. (lets not reignite THAT debate here... It's not where I'm going with this!) My point is that like me, and most people who grew up on film, Jaap just illustrated in an around about way that digi capture requires a lot more of us than film did / does. It requires more vision.

I'm out of steam and forgotten where I was going with this.
Comments?

Tim

PS. This is in the M8 forum because that's what I'm using and I'm interested in other user thoughts. The potential for this camera is massive but may require a bit of lateral thinking to exploit.

 

[HAnkg]

In the film world you can look at prints by someone like John Sexton. Whether or not you are a fan of his aesthetic, the guy is a master printer. The amount of "post-processing" is phenomenal and requires great skill -staining negs to hold highlights, dodging, burning, etc. By comparison the average Joe's B+W prints look flat and lifeless.

It's pretty much the same story in digital and it's not helped by the fact that a lot of the digital raw processors, in camera software and post "enhancement" software do great damage to detail and modeling with things like poorly executed noise reduction and sharpening. -wiping out detail and giving microdetail that digital watercolor look.

Just as in film 1/2 the battle is in the capture the other half is in post, finding a way to make the technology produce what you envision and just like film few will acquire the skills to be master printers.

 

[Trius]

thanks to this forum and others, when it comes to digital I will/would "invest" (OK, digital depreciates at a rate that disqualifies it as an investment) in an inexpensive yet high quality digicam, not a digital system. Barrett has made a good case for the Oly C8080, GeneW does great work with the Canon S3 is (not sure how he avoids Canon-plastic), and there are others. It's too early to be the farm on high end digital for me.

Yeah, it's about the light.

 

[TJV]

In the film world you can look at prints by someone like John Sexton. Whether or not you are a fan of his aesthetic, the guy is a master printer. The amount of "post-processing" is phenomenal and requires great skill -staining negs to hold highlights, dodging, burning, etc. By comparison the average Joe's B+W prints look flat and lifeless.

It's pretty much the same story in digital and it's not helped by the fact that a lot of the digital raw processors, in camera software and post "enhancement" software do great damage to detail and modeling with things like poorly executed noise reduction and sharpening. -wiping out detail and giving microdetail that digital watercolor look.

Just as in film 1/2 the battle is in the capture the other half is in post, finding a way to make the technology produce what you envision and just like film few will acquire the skills to be master printers.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I mean when I say my thought processes need to change to accomidate the new technology. It's funny, because I kind of learnt how to wet print in a darkroom by figuring out how to use photoshops layers. I pre-planned my entire last show (all b/w) on cumputer, making plans for dodge and burns off medium res neg scans, and working backwards (looking at the layers pallete) when in the darkroom to remind myself how and why I did certain manipulations. Like most people in the doco field, I'm generally against heavy manipulation (read dishonest trickery) but always use traditional darkroom techniques to a great extent. Colour printing is different. When you're doing hand prints in a pitch black room there isn't a heck of a lot you can do. That's where photoshop comes in. From scanned negs/positives the b/w world of printing techniques opens up new possabilities. You can dodge, burn etc. With digital I'm getting dissappointed because I expect to see the light represented in a certain way, like a flat neg scan, straight away in the c1 preview. At this point it takes a lot of imagination and knowhow to know the best way to interpret the raw data to best fit your intentions. Because I'm used to shooting slide I guess I've become used to the fact that what you see is basically what you get - learn to live with it and exploit it's characteristics. What I'm saying is that I'm yet to really find out what the limits of this M8 sensor are and how to push it in the right direction for me. If someone has said "you will be shooting digi in Jan 07" as little as six months ago I would have nearly cried with laughter then punched them for insulting me! Now I think it's the smart person who explores the possabilites of new technology and learns to live with AND explore it's limits as a creative tool. I see digital as an exciting area. There are definatly things that have not been done yet or explored in all the various genres of photography. Just listen to Constantine Manos and the excitement in his voice when talking about shooting in Time Square ant night at a 1/1000th of a second! For him, using the camera and film combo's he was using (kodachrome?), that was previously impossible.

Tim

 

[RML]

A course in digital post-processing might teach you a thing or two. Before long you'll realise what it takes to make those flat, even RAW files into living photos. Just like with film, things don't come easy, for free or without effort and knowledge.

 

[StuartR]

One problem with the way people treat digital is that they assume it is like slide film, when it is really like negative film. When you are shooting RAW with a good camera, it tends to come out fairly flat. There is plenty of room for you to modify the file and increase the contrast. If you want it to look like slide film, just crank up the contrast and saturation. Learning how to use the curves or levels function well will go a long way towards improving your look. If you have any hangups about "straight photography" and modifying your image, lose them because no photography is straight. It is about creating something that replicates (or expands upon) what you saw. Since slide film has pretty much one look, you might not be used to this type of thinking. Here is an example of an unedited RAW file out of the DMR and the resulting high contrast edit. This is an extreme example, but you get the idea.

 

[Ben Z]

For 40 years I shot slides, had them developed, and projected them on screen and they looked great. With digital I no longer project because a digital projector that has the same kind of resolution is way out of my budget. So now I show on a big-screen HDTV. But before I can burn that DVD, I have a lot of computer work (whether I shoot digitally or scan film) and am still on the upward slope of the steep learning curve that is digital post-processing. At my age I needed this like a hole in the head, but E6 processing is getting spotty even in the big city, and whether or not slide film actually dies out or not, I felt I should get started learning digital sooner than later.

I'm "not yet convinced" either, that digital technology is mature enough that I want to sink more than $1000-1500 into any digital camera. That's one reason I'm not altogether that horribly disappointed the M8 is still a wounded duck, and why even getting a 5D for $2100 with the double-rebates hasn't tempted me.

 

[Sailor Ted]

Stuart,
Excellent points and may I ask what steps you took to correct the above image?

Thanks,
Ted

 

[StuartR]

Thanks Ted,

I believe that all I really did in this image was adjust the levels so that the black point was darker. From there I would have tweaked the midpoint and white point a bit. If I still was not satisfied, I might have made a selection and adjusted the top and bottom separately. If I were doing it today, I would probably use the shadow/highlight function or curves to boost the highlights and darken the shadows a bit. It is all just about revealing the light in the photo.
Here is another example of the same thing. I just did a levels adjustment to increase the contrast and darken the midpoint, and then I think I adjusted the color balance to make it more green (which it was in person). Anyway, the photos can have a very different look without too much trouble. It is also a much more slide film like look...more contrasty...

 

[Sailor Ted]

Thanks so much Stuart. This is what I'm learning every day and it's refreshing to be able to handle the "dark room" myself. Having control of this "half" of the process makes one a better photographer over time. In the past I sent my work away and often times could not afford to do it justice at pro lab prices- any recommendations on a top flight printer to say 11x14?

Keep the advice coming, as I'm sure like myself, many of us are noobs in the digital darkroom.

 

[RML]

any recommendations on a top flight printer to say 11x14?

That's about A4 size, right? I, too, have been pondering purchasing a printer. At that time the Epson R1800 (or perhaps it was the R2400 or R4800. I don't recall exactly) looked interesting. But after I did the sums, I ended up sticking with my (semi-pro) lab. At 2.50 euro for an A4 sized mat print (or 2 euro for a glossy print, which I personally don't like) on Fuji Chrystal Archive paper it beats any home printing I might be doing. For that money it would take my 500 prints just to get even on the purchase price of the printer. Ink would make that number even larger.

 

[Sailor Ted]

RML,
Thanks for the advice and nice blogspot and photos. I hope to make the pilgrimage to Northern China later this year- we’ll see how the M8 and R-D1 hold up : )

Ted

 

[jlw]

That's about A4 size, right? I, too, have been pondering purchasing a printer. At that time the Epson R1800 (or perhaps it was the R2400 or R4800. I don't recall exactly) looked interesting. But after I did the sums, I ended up sticking with my (semi-pro) lab. At 2.50 euro for an A4 sized mat print (or 2 euro for a glossy print, which I personally don't like) on Fuji Chrystal Archive paper it beats any home printing I might be doing.

Good points, but a couple of points on the other side worth considering:

-- If you make prints yourself (never mind how) you can get them exactly the way you want them without repeated trips back to the lab.

-- If you like to display your best pictures by hanging them on the wall, the latest pigment-based printers outlast wet-lab color neg prints by a substantial margin. The latest Wilhelm Research figures give Fuji Crystal Archive paper an estimated display life of only 40 years, while prints from the Epson R1800 rate at 150-200 years depending on what paper you use, and some other printers (e.g. the HP 9180) are rated at more than 250 years. (You might say that 40 years is long enough, and maybe it is -- but I'm vain enough that I like to imagine my friends' grandchildren might enjoy seeing my pictures of them after the friends and I are dead.)

Note that we're talking color prints here -- for b&w imagery, well-processed traditional wet prints are still a great way to go in terms of permanence. My mother has family-heirloom photos that have been continuously on display in one relative's house or another for nearly a century, and they still look fine.

 

[RML]

Valid points. Let me respond.

-- If you make prints yourself (never mind how) you can get them exactly the way you want them without repeated trips back to the lab.

Maybe I've been lucky but so far all of my prints have been exactly like I perceived them on screen. My lab is cheap but not one of those 1-hr 13-in-a-dozen main street labs. They do a good job, at a more than reasonable price.

-- If you like to display your best pictures by hanging them on the wall, the latest pigment-based printers outlast wet-lab color neg prints by a substantial margin. The latest Wilhelm Research figures give Fuji Crystal Archive paper an estimated display life of only 40 years, while prints from the Epson R1800 rate at 150-200 years depending on what paper you use, and some other printers (e.g. the HP 9180) are rated at more than 250 years. (You might say that 40 years is long enough, and maybe it is -- but I'm vain enough that I like to imagine my friends' grandchildren might enjoy seeing my pictures of them after the friends and I are dead.)

Yes, I guess 40 years is enough for me. In 40 years time we'll have printing techniques that outlast the 150-200 years expectancy of those Epson dyes. For me, right now, it's not worth the amount of money involved to invest in an expensive printer, expensive inks, expensive calibration tools, etc. Of course, that's just me.

Note that we're talking color prints here -- for b&w imagery, well-processed traditional wet prints are still a great way to go in terms of permanence. My mother has family-heirloom photos that have been continuously on display in one relative's house or another for nearly a century, and they still look fine.

I like that argument but is it really valid? Most prints haven't lasted 100 years or more since they were taken. To wet print a B&W neg takes skill and patience, and to print them at archival or exhibition quality is very very expensive as it can take many trials and errors just to get close to what you want. Digital printing is king in that regard. Having my lab do the printing for me, is for me the way to go right now. I doubt whether I'll ever go the home printing way as I doubt whether the inks will get cheaper in the future.

 

[StuartR]

I agree with jlw here with two caveats. The first is that if you understand color management, have a color managed workflow and a lab that can claim the same, then you will probably get better results through them than you will at home. They will probably be using either an Epson 9600 or 4000 with a custom RIP so that it consistently produces excellent output. Better yet, they might be using a Chromira or Lightjet continuous tone printer. My personal opinion is that the continous tone printers look "better". The simply look more realistic and "photographic" to me. If you like printing matte though, inkjet is hard to beat. Jlw is right that the inkjets have longer lives than the Fuji Crystal Archive that the Lightjet/Chromira use, and if that is an important consideration to you then I suggest you go inkjet.

As for an inkjet suggestion, I think the best choice is the R2400 unless you want to print 16x20 and larger. Every serious (professional or semi-professional)photographer that I know who uses an inkjet uses Epsons...they are just the best right now. The international center of photography has tons of printers, all R2400's or larger, and they certainly know what they are talking about. Personally, I use a 2200 from a few years ago and like it, but for critical work I print it at a lab for color or in the dark room for black and white. I live in New York, so I am lucky in that there are tons of good pro labs. For black and white however, I have never seen anything from an inkjet or a Chromira/lightjet that can compete with a good fiber print. And if you use good technique, the fiber print has the longest archival life of anything too...

 

[TJV]

Really good pictures and examples of what I've been struggling to explain myself. I played around a bit last night and started to get used to what I wanted after raw conversion. Time will tell if I pick it up. Thanks.

Tim

 

[Sailor Ted]

if you understand color management, have a color managed workflow and a lab that can claim the same

Well articulated Surart only I have a few questions (noobness here). Can you please explain color management and workflow? My files are all over the place and I have trouble staying on top of this as I fill up hard drive after hard drive. I am sure I'm missing something and I'll bet you have answers.

Thanks,
Ted

 

[StuartR]

Color management is pretty complicated, but what it all boils down to is making sure that the color of your camera is tagged, the color of your monitor is quantified, your photo-editing software has access to both of those profiles, and wherever you send your files (to the lab or the printer) can either read your profiles or you can send them files that are already converted to their specifications.

Color profiles are what define the color of that device. I think the M8 outputs files in Adobe RGB or Prophoto RGB (like the DMR), but if it has its own profile, it should be listed in the menu. If you plan on editing them on your screen with any sort of accuracy, you will need to either purchase or borrow a monitor calibration tool and software. It is a spectrophotometer that, in conjunction with the software, reads color patches on the screen and compares them to their actual color. Once it reads how your monitor displays color, it saves it as a profile which can tell software like photoshop what is happening. So when the file comes in from the camera, photoshop will know how to display it on your monitor so that it best approximates its actual colors. You need to turn on color management in photoshop too, as it is not on by default. I believe it is under color settings. You can probably just choose "US prepress defaults".

The problem is that our eyes and our cameras are capable of seeing colors that our monitors cannot display. This is why slides still often look better than the best prints...they simply have a much greater color range. Anyway, once in photoshop, you do all your editing and then you need to make sure that the profile of the file matches the profile of your output. So if you want to put a photo on the web, you choose "convert to profile" and choose sRGB, because that is the most common color space for monitors and people surfing the web.

But if you want to make a print on a printer, you would choose "print with preview". From there, you would go to the dialog box that lets you choose the output profile. So let's say you want to print on Epson Premium Luster paper. You go to the dialog box and choose the profile named "Epson Premium Luster" (which you already downloaded from Epson's website). Then you choose "Let photoshop determine the colors". From there, you hit print and your printer software will come up. Click on the color management tab and select "no color management" (photoshop is doing the conversion for the printer, so if they are both turned on the colors will come out very weird).

Assuming you have done everything correctly, you should get a print that looks very similar to what you see on screen. It will still look different since prints are reflected light while monitors are backlit, but you get the idea. If it sounds complex, it is because it is. But it is a reality that you have to deal with in a digital world. Eventually we will have monitors that can display everything that our eyes can see (actually, Eizo makes one that comes very close but it is 6000 dollars), but until then we need to mess with all this.

My advice would be to get Martin Evening's "Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographers". It has two chapters on color management, and also covers pretty much everything else a photographer needs to know about photoshop. It is very well-written and has great sample photos. He is a working commercial photographer, so he knows what he is talking about from the photography end as well as from the software end. Beyond that, it is really just practice and training your eye to recognize what is wrong with a photo and what it needs to be improved.

 

[Sailor Ted]

Thank You!!!

 

[mwooten]

Well done Stuart.