Telling film from digital ...

[Sean Reid]

Two comments:

1) I think it's worthwhile to separate one's feelings about the medium from one's feelings about camera designs and systems. I very much like digital (as a capture medium) but I'm not crazy about the modern AF SLR (film or digital). The R-D1 is the best example, that I can think of, of a camera that combines traditional design and controls with digital capture. It would be good to see more. The pros and cons of AF and other various modern camera systems should be independent of the pros and cons of capture medium.

2) As a poster mentioned above, the deep (perceived) DOF in small-sensor cameras comes from the very short focal-length lenses they're paired with. Of course, if subject distance and size remains the same, the shorter the lens the greater the apparent DOF. The Leica Digilux 2 gets it's (approximately) 28mm-on-a-35mm-camera FOV from an actual focal length of about 7mm.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[GeneW]

No matter which photographic medium you prefer, there's an economic Darwinism in the photography industry. Things that make a healthy profit survive and continue to be produced. Things that don't go extinct. Aesthetics are fun to debate, but have little to do with economic reality.

Gene

 

[Bertram2]

Things that don't go extinct. Aesthetics are fun to debate, but have little to do with economic reality.
Gene

Sorry Gene, but this sounds a bit professorial and quite hopeless too.

The so called economic reality is a system of producing and consuming goods and it fights permanently against saturated markets with so called innovation circles, which shall make buy us new stuff because it is "better" than the old stuff.
Nothing wrong so far, nobody has invented a better system up 'til today.

Unfortunately however it seems that each step into a new innovation period causes loss of quality ! One photography related example only: 35mm system looked pretty poor compared to 6X9 MF in the first years and it took a lot effort and quite a long time to make it achieve a comparable quality level.

Digital imaging is still far away from giving better results than film for a comparable price and the handling of the cameras is a real PIA compared to a analog RF for example. So what reason could I have to be one of the frontrunners now?

The so called economic reality is also the fact, that all markets have niches.
And these niches get served as long as they produce demand.And that's the only thing we still can talk about. Will this niche survive ?
I say yes, it will at least survive as long as digital cameras and digital pics don't get better than film, maybe even longer.

No reason to give up I'd say, you sounded a bit as if you would have given up already ?

Best,
Bertram

 

[Andy K]

The so called economic reality is also the fact, that all markets have niches.
And these niches get served as long as they produce demand.And that's the only thing we still can talk about. Will this niche survive ?
I say yes, it will at least survive as long as digital cameras and digital pics don't get better than film, maybe even longer.

Our 'niche' will survive for a long, long time.

Digital cameras will only be as good as traditional film cameras when they work without batteries and don't need $1000s worth of computer and software to produce 'hardcopy'.

I can get results from all of my analog cameras without a single battery. Show me a digital camera that can do the same and I'll buy it.

 

[GeneW]

Bertram, it's neither professorial nor hopeless -- just logical. If there's a strong enough niche to make it economically worthwhile for a business (large or small) to manufacture a product, the product will survive. Some products have better staying power than others. 4x5" film is still currently available, but Instamatic cartridges are not. Film is in decline. It's not yet an endangered species, but it's on the watch list. It may never go extinct, but it will also never thrive again as it once did. All the arguments about how much better film is (and I'm in some though not total agreement with the sentiment) do not add up to more buyers for the product. Someone's gotta make it, and for that to happen, someone's gotta buy it. Enough someones to make it profitable.

Gene

 

[Kin Lau]

...snip... the handling of the cameras is a real PIA compared to a analog RF for example. So what reason could I have to be one of the frontrunners now?

Sorry, that is not a digital vs film argument but a modern SLR vs traditional RF argument. BTW the Epson RD1 handles just like a traditional film RF.

I find that most people are simply throwing in modern vs tradtional, slr vs rf into the argument. Every modern SLR for the last 20 years has pretty worked the same way, yet suddenly, it's "digital's" fault. Every modern AF film P&S has worked the same way but suddenly we blame it on "digital".

OTOH, every type of film suddenly is lumped together, as if the archival qualities of trad B&W are suddenly applicable to c41. That the great latitude of c41 is now applicable to e6, and every type of c41 film now has the colour, saturation and contrast of Velvia... of course, the beauty of film is that I can shoot all of the above in the same camera, not all at the same time obviously... but isn't that why we have GAS 😀

As for the "Photographic film" market, we're just a sideline of the "Motion Picture Film" market. That's where the future of film lies, not here. We _already_ are the "niche" market.... we always were. I'm glad to see some smaller companies diving into the niche market for b&w. I think the future of e6 will almost entirely rest with Fujifilm.

I think we simply need to stop thinking in terms of "better or worse", "good vs bad". Each medium whether it's E6, Kodachrome, C41, B&W or digital all have it's own advantages and disadvantages. Use whatever you like, prefer or afford. Or just do it because they said it couldn't be done or was too hard ... like shooting a wedding with Velvia or Tech Pan, or CLA'ing your first FSU RF 🙂.

 

[Socke]

I can get results from all of my analog cameras without a single battery. Show me a digital camera that can do the same and I'll buy it.

Ok, development without electricity is no problem, but do you enlarge with a candle or do you use an oil lamp?


For me a computer is very convenient, it needs less space than a traditional darkroom and you can work in daylight.
Sending my scans to a lab I can get prints on any paper from baryt to metallic, only thing I need is a color managed setup.
Retouching and color matching is so much easyer on a PC that I don't miss a darkroom at all.

 

[Kevin]

Kevin I understand your reasoning!

And for long term storage I prefer pyramids! See what happend to all that papyrus stuff in the library of Alexandria

:angel:

I think digital will become more attractive when stable holographic persistence is widespread and cheap. You will be able to store tens of thousands of your 25 megapixel images on a holographic cube the size of a sugar lump.

As it stands now, film + processing + an archival negative page is more inexpensive, stable and compact than the same amount of archived RAW image files.

It just goes to reason. You may enjoy the convinience of digital now, just wait until you lose everything because your hard disk crashes. My friend Georg just lost 5000 mp3 files two months ago. He was too lazy to make backups.

Do I make my point? Horses do not have air conditioning and they make poo everywhere.

 

[Kin Lau]

Ok, development without electricity is no problem, but do you enlarge with a candle or do you use an oil lamp?

I suppose Andy could do contact sheets the old way by window light 🙂 I think a Polaroid would be the best way to go if one were to go battery-less.

My old Kodak No.1 Autographic could do 6x9 negs which would be suitable for contact prints. I should try that one of these days, just to say I've done like they did in the 1920's.

 

[Socke]

Kevin, I have to admit it, I do Document Management Systems and thus have an unfair advantage 🙂

My scans aren't that big as I have an old Canon FS2710 scanner with 2700dpi so I get away with one CD-R per roll which I usualy store together with the original in a binder and have a copy to work from. Every time I have roughly 4GB I burn two DVDs, one at my home and one at my mothers.

I use the same DMS to index my data which I install and maintain at customers, it is a proven system and I know it inside out since 1993.

Even with cheap ATA drives MTBF is around 200,000 hours as long as you don't run them longer than 11 hours a day and keep them reasonably cool. External cases for harddisks are to small and lack cooling fans, so take the slower 5,400 UPM disks which are fast enough for the purpose and don't overheat as fast as the faster drives.
Then mirror your disks and your reasonably save until it is time to upgrade to bigger disks.

I have an old Pentium III 700MHz PC running linux where I mirror two sets of two 120GB drives, this gives me 240GB of online storage in my homenetwork.



But we're far away from the topic of this thread.

 

[cp_ste.croix]

i'm not so sure about all this talk about tradition. For me, the tools i use are because they suit my needs and provide me enjoyment. Tradition is really just the repetition of something for no other reason than it was done before...

Now, of course I subscribe to some traditions, but only if they meet the above requirements and never because they are merely 'traditional'.

I get great enjoyment out of the older, manual cameras I own, as well as my ultra modern film slr. I find Film is a tool I prefer, so I use it. I have very little control of the economics that might influence it's availability, but see some analagous hope in the LP/CD comparrison.

 

[dmr]

Tradition is really just the repetition of something for no other reason than it was done before...

IMAO, one of the stupidest reasons for doing something a certain way is the "well, we've always done it that way" argument.

Of course when you are on the other side of the argument, phrases like "It's standard practice" seem to work quite well. 🙂

 

[Andy K]

Kevin, I have to admit it, I do Document Management Systems and thus have an unfair advantage 🙂

My scans aren't that big as I have an old Canon FS2710 scanner with 2700dpi so I get away with one CD-R per roll which I usualy store together with the original in a binder and have a copy to work from. Every time I have roughly 4GB I burn two DVDs, one at my home and one at my mothers.

I use the same DMS to index my data which I install and maintain at customers, it is a proven system and I know it inside out since 1993.

Even with cheap ATA drives MTBF is around 200,000 hours as long as you don't run them longer than 11 hours a day and keep them reasonably cool. External cases for harddisks are to small and lack cooling fans, so take the slower 5,400 UPM disks which are fast enough for the purpose and don't overheat as fast as the faster drives.
Then mirror your disks and your reasonably save until it is time to upgrade to bigger disks.

I have an old Pentium III 700MHz PC running linux where I mirror two sets of two 120GB drives, this gives me 240GB of online storage in my homenetwork.

Sounds like a hell of a lot of farting about. I put my negatives in neg sleeves, in a box file, in a filing cabinet. Job done.
No upgrading or the expense of having to do everything twice and then having to do it all again a few years from now.

As for making prints without electricity, I can make contact prints, from 6x6 negs from my Isolette, by the light from a window. Darkroom work may not be as convenient as playing with a computer, but it is 1000% more satisfying when you see the end result, because I did it all myself, with my own eyes and hands and not with some computer doing it all for me.

 

[cp_ste.croix]

It is the danger of the forclosure of thought that labelling something a 'tradition' proposes which really puts me off the lable...though, standardization of practice has it's place as well. Meh, maybe i'm becoming a fuddy duddy... 😀

 

[Andy K]

I suppose Andy could do contact sheets the old way by window light 🙂 I think a Polaroid would be the best way to go if one were to go battery-less.

My old Kodak No.1 Autographic could do 6x9 negs which would be suitable for contact prints. I should try that one of these days, just to say I've done like they did in the 1920's.

Oops, just saw this. Yeah, what Kin Lau said! 😀

 

[Andy K]

Tradition is really just the repetition of something for no other reason than it was done before...
.

I do it the darkroom way because I WANT to. Digital does nothing for me, it leaves me cold. I don't want a computer doing it all for me, I don't want a camera second guessing what I want. I want to do it how I want to do it, in my own way, making my own choices.

Digital's sole purpose is the extermination of film and film cameras in order to make photography another part of the industry of built in obsolescence.

If some of us who like using film, who want to use film, who prefer film get defensive about our freedom of choice being deliberately taken away, is it any surprise?

 

[cp_ste.croix]

I do it the darkroom way because I WANT to. Digital does nothing for me, it leaves me cold. I don't want a computer doing it all for me, I don't want a camera second guessing what I want. I want to do it how I want to do it, in my own way, making my own choices.

I agree with you, and prefer film also, my point was only that tradition for tradition's sake makes little sense to me. I can see where some people would prefer digital over film as well as the contrary.

Digital's sole purpose is the extermination of film and film cameras in order to make photography another part of the industry of built in obsolescence.

I think camera marketers saw a market for their product and developed it. I'm not sure the erradication of film is on their agenda, profit is. Though I do think they probably have their meetings in dark, smokey, rooms with cool computerized, wall-size maps of the world blinking in the backgruond. 😉

 

[Kevin]

But we're far away from the topic of this thread.

Not at all, Socke. Digital photographers have to consider how they are going to properly archive their pics. Film users do not have to really think about this issue. The hard disk is the film itself, which does crash or require backups. Just stick the strips into sleeves, put them into binders and store those in a cool metal cabinet. Done. You already do it so you know how easy it is.

Pictures age like good wine. 10 to 20 years later comes the point at which they start to become very good. Digital-only photographers seem to be obsessed with that "now feeling." I have a little more patience than that.

Computer-savy people such as yourself can properly deal with backups of digital-only images. Scanning your negs is not really a backup per se because you are only doing it so you may view and share your images more conveniently and/or manipulate them in photoshop. Essentially you are not forced to scan your negs - you do it for the bonus effect and not for archiving purposes.

For all those non-IT-professionals, setting up measures to safeguard digital-only images can be a bit overwhelming. Usually people have only one modern PC onto which everything is stored. Setting up a system for mirroring and copying large amounts of RAW images onto other storage devices is complicated and time consuming. Although external USB drives can be dedicated for this purpose, these are still electronic units and not really "archival" for all practical purposes. Furthermore, they cost money.

On the other hand, I truly love to have digital images scanned from negs, which gives me the best of both worlds. I can have automatic archival (the negs), low resolution scanned copies for viewing and all the comforts of digital manipulation when I want or need it.

I just met a former analog photographer in Cologne who recently bought a Canon digicam. He said he mostly shoots in jpeg-compressed mode because he is only taking "snapshots". But what if he snaps a series of pics that are extremely good, so good that he wants to enlarge one to poster size? Bad luck, eh?

A case in point. There was a advertisement in Cologne ten years ago of two FH-students in a pub drinking Kölsch. It was an unposed snapshot, but a local brewery licensed the pic and used it on billboards for years - A huge sucess from a random snapshot in a bar. Because this was film, the quality was good enough for the huge enlargement. Jpeg-compression would never have worked out.

Decisions are sometimes hard to make. But with film, there is no choice beforehand. Film is always RAW archival quality with a full-frame copyright stamp and that is what makes it so great. 🙂

 

[Socke]

Sounds like a hell of a lot of farting about. I put my negatives in neg sleeves, in a box file, in a filing cabinet. Job done.
No upgrading or the expense of having to do everything twice and then having to do it all again a few years from now.

Upgrading the fileserver takes two days every couple of years, burning a CD from scans takes 10 minutes, the DVD one a month takes half an hour.

No problem if you're used to this type of work.

Scanning on the other hand takes around two hours per roll, I usualy do that while watching TV 🙂

Postprocessing is often more work, but with my digital darkroom I can do things I couldn't do without and I can step back when I made a mistake.

Only problem is the roll I just got back where they cut the slides in the right third of the frame :bang:

 

[Andy K]

... but with my digital darkroom ...

This is irritating too. Why are digital users so afraid to call it what it is?
It is NOT a digital darkroom, it's a computer and computer program.