What does "filmlike" mean?

[RichC]

I often hear this word bandied around to describe certain digital-camera photos and hardware (usually lenses) - mostly without the writer giving any explanation whatsoever.

So, what does "filmlike" mean to you - beyond the rather unhelpful "looks like it was shot on film". That is, exactly what gives a digital photo this filmlike quality? In fact, is there a difference today?

Sure, when zooming right into a photo on your computer screen, it's obvious whether you're looking at a scan of film or a digital image. So, let's even the playing field, and consider prints only - both images on either inkjet or C-type paper.

There are obvious things that photos taken with film have - like grain. However, many properties said to be associated only with film and not digital may have been true a decade or two ago - but not for today's advanced digital cameras.

An example of a widely quoted film-only quality that's wrong is that film handles highlights and shadows more gracefully than digital's brutal cutting off at extremes of brightness. This was true with early digital cameras, but modern high-end digital cameras have gentle tone curves like film: DP Review provides tone curves showing this (Ins and outs of ISO: where ISO gets complex).

Personally, I think telling prints of digital photos from prints of film photos can be impossible, and am somewhat sceptical of the difference between the two.

These are C-type prints of mine made 10 years ago for my MA degree final exhibition. They were taken with a Nikon D800E camera (36 MP). My tutors (one a Magnum photographer) waxed lyrical about how medium-format film really suited the subject. I'd begun the project with my Mamiya 645 film camera, but due to cost and time I used my digital camera instead - my tutors forgot this, and I didn't have the heart to tell them (esp. the Magnum photographer) they couldn't tell film from digital despite them looking at two massive prints!

 

[RichC]

PS: This is just about appearance, not preference. And definitely not about film or digital being "better"!

 

[lynnb]

One thing for starters, a digital photograph may appear to have a film-like quality when the tonal mapping in the digital print correlates with what one expects from the tonal relationships between light and shadow in a film print. Getting the tonal balances and transitions right takes a good eye, and skill.

 

[JoeV]

“Film-like” should mean:

1) You can’t get the files off your card for a week;
2) The preview function is broken;
3) When you do get the files off your camera they’re in an obscure format that only people with special equipment can handle;
4) Scratches, The pictures have scratches;
5) Ditto for dust.

 

[das]

I consider digital camera bodies just a sort of "prepaid film." Spend $2,000 or more in advance to get unlimited digital photos.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

It is very easy if you are film shooter.
You look at photo and it looks like it was taken on film.
Or some of its technical characteristics.
For example, noise looks like grain. Or M43 lack of resolution on 1:1 view looks similar to lack of resolution at 135 film scans.
Or range of tonality from Monochrome reminds darkroom prints for some or LF to others.

As for prints. BW darkroom prints are next to indistinguishable from pigments print of the scan, if print is under glass. The only significant difference if you hold prints in hands and darkroom ones are on old, very heavy single grade, fiber based papers. Like AGFA Brovira from seventies. Current Ilford has nothing close to it, but ripoff price.

Yet, nothing is close to analog color prints, but those are history now. So, to me as ex film shooter and all kind of color film developer, with only scanning... Here is no point to bring "film look" in to discussion if color is involved. It just some not important differences between digital colors of film or digital colors.

 

[Godfrey]

I often hear this word bandied around to describe certain digital-camera photos and hardware (usually lenses) - mostly without the writer giving any explanation whatsoever.

So, what does "filmlike" mean to you - beyond the rather unhelpful "looks like it was shot on film". That is, exactly what gives a digital photo this filmlike quality? In fact, is there a difference today?
...

Nothing. I see no point in trying to emulate a different recording medium with my digital cameras, I see value only in making satisfying photographs. Whatever constitutes a satisfying photograph is all I think about when I'm making photographs with whatever camera.

When I want the "look" of film, I use a camera that records on the film with characteristics that (I hope) match what I want in my photographs.

G

 

[jsrockit]

To me, people are talking about 35mm film when they say this. That means, film grain, smoother blown highlights, funky color balance, etc. I think it is easier to focus on these things than making compelling photographs.

 

[Vince Lupo]

About 9 or 10 years ago I was hanging a solo show of mine at a local arts center, and a seasoned photography instructor there (who BTW also worked for National Geographic at the time) stuck her nose against some of the framed prints that were already on the walls and hesitatingly asked: "Are these....darkroom prints?" My answer was no, they are inkjet (people were still using the lofty term 'giclée' at the time -- hmm are they still???). She was quite surprised and I've had that same thing happen a few times since.

Other side of the coin: Earlier this year I brought two large matted/framed gelatin silver prints by a deceased well-known regional photographer to a local gallery that handled his work, hoping that the longtime gallery owner would purchase them. She looked closely at them and was thoroughly convinced they were digital prints (he had moved to digital printing about a year before his death in 2006). I had to tell her a number of times that these were in fact earlier gelatin silver prints that he personally made at my request, as he and I were acquaintances when he was alive.

So you see it can go both ways. Can I tell you the difference and what that term you refer to means? Heck I'm still trying to figure what I'm doing after all these years, so far be it from me to even attempt it. I just keep wandering along doing my thing...now where'd I put my keys?

 

[JeffS7444]

What I notice on some older digital cameras is: Weaker dynamic range, limited high ISO performance, muddier color rendition. When viewing raw files, those from modern high dynamic range cameras look flat and sort of "blah" with default profiles applied. And to me, that's exactly what a good raw file is supposed to look like as interpreted to fit the color space of a typical computer monitor. But others may disagree.

 

[agentlossing]

One thing for starters, a digital photograph may appear to have a film-like quality when the tonal mapping in the digital print correlates with what one expects from the tonal relationships between light and shadow in a film print. Getting the tonal balances and transitions right takes a good eye, and skill.

This is a great way to approach the topic in a way that's measurable, in my opinion. My gut response when presented with the term "film-like" in relation to digital is that the highlight rolloff is much gentler than typically found in your run-of-the-mill digital image. Also, robust midtones, especially in B&W (lots of digital B&W doesn't look much like film at all). Just because a modern digital sensor CAN reproduce extensive and gentle highlight rolloff does not mean that they always will by default. It takes an eye, and, often, post-processing rather than relying on in-camera default JPEG results.

A lot of the time, the novice idea of "film-like" is lots of added grain or pastel-like or tinted colors, but those things aren't constants in the film world by any means.

 

[Pál_K]

Well-done prints from digital, or even viewed on a screen, I think can be indistinguishable from a film. I cannot tell a difference in those cases.

In the first maybe 15 years of digital photography, websites and photo sharing sites had so much saturation, over-sharpening, HDR, and other manipulations of digital images that that came to represent the "digital look" and it was quite different from a film image. I think there is much less of that today.

As an analogy, daytime "soap operas" as well as many prime-time shows which were recorded on videotape looked at lot different than some shows, like Seinfeld, which were shot on film using Panavision equipment.

 

[Deleted member 82967]

I consider myself fortunate to own a very low image-count Sigma SD9 camera with the early Foveon F7 sensor.

Said Foveon works with layers just like film; ergo, it is film-like. And no Bayer trickery; ergo, no color moiré; hence more film-like.

 

[Bill Blackwell]

IMHO, shooting medium format (or larger) film is not a fair comparison to full-frame digital. They can be comparable, but I've found film in medium format or larger can produce a massive amount of detail; and color renditions can also blow away a comparable full-frame digital image.

For me personally, however, I only shoot 35mm film and "full-frame" digital formats, so I will say without hesitation my digital captures are far more impressive than any film I've used in recent years. Maybe it's the lab I'm using, I'm not sure, but in my experience film is usually far inferior (as to detail) compared to digital.

The following images were taken about a year apart - one was shot with film, the other with digital.



Leica M6 vs. M10-P.
Can you tell me which image is film and which is digital?

 

[CMur12]

I sometimes recognize digital images of a scene in artificial light by the more-accurate digital white balance.

- Murray

 

[pvdhaar]

Filmlike for me is when there's something for your eye to latch onto in regions of uniform color and brightness; grain is an obvious one. Without that texture, the eye skids this way and that.

Same way like when you paint a sky, you don't just slap a big glob of blue on the canvas and smear it out. Instead, you start by creating a dappled background over which you apply layers that still let some of that dappling shine through.

 

[Axel]

In my opinion "filmlike" means the absence of typically failures like oversharpening, blown highlights etc.
in a picture. But its a term more from the beginning of digital photography times I think.

 

[RichC]

I sometimes recognize digital images of a scene in artificial light by the more-accurate digital white balance.

- Murray

That's an interesting point. I generally leave my camera's white balance set to "sun" when shooting outdoors, for consistency of appearance (or perhaps "tungsten" or "fluorescent" if in artificial light). If I feel the photos are too warm or cold, I'll change the white balance to something else, say "cloudy". I rarely use auto white balance.

So, I'd agree that a consistent colour temperature across a series of photos makes them seem filmlike - as obvs you're stuck with daylight film or whatever! As I said, I do that because I dislike the colour balance/cast varying across a set of photos - not because I'm trying to deliberately emulate film with digital.

 

[Rick Waldroup]

IMHO, shooting medium format (or larger) film is not a fair comparison to full-frame digital. They can be comparable, but I've found film in medium format or larger can produce a massive amount of detail; and color renditions can also blow away a comparable full-frame digital image.

For me personally, however, I only shoot 35mm film and "full-frame" digital formats, so I will say without hesitation my digital captures are far more impressive than any film I've used in recent years. Maybe it's the lab I'm using, I'm not sure, but in my experience film is usually far inferior (as to detail) compared to digital.

The following images were taken about a year apart - one was shot with film, the other with digital.

View attachment 4825356
View attachment 4825357
Leica M6 vs. M10-P.
Can you tell me which image is film and which is digital?

I will take a guess and say the first image is film.

 

[Dogman]

I dunno. Maybe whatever you have a preconception of as film-ish. You know there have been more than one type of film over the years with more than one "look". Formats too. Color and B&W. So I really can't say what looks like film but ain't really film. Too many variables.

But I have my own preconceptions. I discovered photography with 35mm Tri-X and I used 35mm Tri-X for decades. Although there was also various color films in the mix as well as a few other B&W films, Tri-X was for me the ultimate film with the ultimate film look. I learned how to process it to get the look I liked while I saw Tri-X being shot by others that looked completely different from mine. A versatile film, no doubt.

Therefore, "film look" for me is a combination of grain, tone and detail. I shoot digital using a lot of automatic features on my cameras including Auto ISO with a default to 400 as the base ISO. Of course that's due to so many years of Tri-X shooting. I run the files through Silver Efex and Lightroom and tweak it until I like it. Most of the time, it looks pretty much like my tweaked 35mm Tri-X from 1972 to my fading eyesight. Which is fine. It's not perfect but....