jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
From time to time there are posts exclaiming : "That looks digital", meaning "not good". Now I start to wonder. I won't contest that many, if not nearly all, images captured on sensors look different from film-captures. But since when is different a value judgement? Negative film looks different from slide film, black and white certainly from colour, Tri-X from ISO25 recording film, acrylic paints from watercolours or oil paint etc.
I just want to say : so what!
Great images are being made on film, great images are being made on digital. Let's use the different renderings creatively and let's get digital photography into its own as a seperate medium and not a stupid imitation of "film" (which film???)
I just want to say : so what!
Great images are being made on film, great images are being made on digital. Let's use the different renderings creatively and let's get digital photography into its own as a seperate medium and not a stupid imitation of "film" (which film???)
R
ray_g
Guest
I hate to say it, Jaap, but I can't agree with you more. 
jan normandale
Film is the other way
I don't have any issue with digital images except images that are small and used for printing, then the shortcomings are clear. You do get a poorer quality image in 8x10. However for the internet where the images are small and people use either 'digitized' film images or images directly from a digital camera, which then is digitally resized there is little qualitative difference even on a quality monitor.
Do I care? Not if it is on the net. If it is in a gallery and the images are greater than 8x10 ... sometimes I do.
After all that, I only upload digitized film images at RFF. Why? Because that's what this particular forum is all about.
Do I care? Not if it is on the net. If it is in a gallery and the images are greater than 8x10 ... sometimes I do.
After all that, I only upload digitized film images at RFF. Why? Because that's what this particular forum is all about.
ywenz
Veteran
Jaap, you were always slamming Canons' plastic "digital look". A chance of heart for you? Investing $5K on an M8 will do that to ya. However, in all the M8 excitment, I can imagine how easy it is for people to loose their minds, perhaps we'll see the old Jaap return after a brief hiatus with the M8 and its "digital image goodness"
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=261624&postcount=4
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=261624&postcount=4
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=129546&postcount=42
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sebastel
coarse art umbrascriptor
What is wrong with the "digital Look"?
nothing's wrong with it. it's just different in the making.
nothing's wrong with it. it's just different in the making.
M
Magnus
Guest
I seem to remember well what Ywenz mentioned about Jaaps views on canon DSLR's ....
furhtermore I agree with Ywenz' conclusion.
Maybe Jaap would like to elaborate ?
furhtermore I agree with Ywenz' conclusion.
Maybe Jaap would like to elaborate ?
M
Magnus
Guest
as for the Leica M8 results, I have had one in my possesion for the 48 hours or so, they are not any different than the D5 results, they are good, not complaining at all, but no different and nobody could tell the difference if put to the choice. The M8 is just a lot smaller, and lighter, and nicer (i find) but the results are quality Digital images, just like many others on the market today.
Jamie123
Veteran
Personally, I'm not a big fan of the "digital look" most of the times but I'm not anti-digital. There are some people that really impress me with their digital work( and their post-processing!).
I may someday buy a dSLR but if I do it's definitely going to be a full-frame one like the Canon 5D. At the moment I don't have the money for it, though, and if I had I'd rather spend it on a Leica M or some new Hasselblad lenses.
I may someday buy a dSLR but if I do it's definitely going to be a full-frame one like the Canon 5D. At the moment I don't have the money for it, though, and if I had I'd rather spend it on a Leica M or some new Hasselblad lenses.
Gid
Well-known
ywenz said:
I was wondering when this would come up
Will some of the anti digital brigade now be singing the praises of digital with the advent of the M8? Not looking to start a war, just find the prospect amusing. I don't have a problem with digital or film - I use both, so no axe to grind on that front. Which is better? I'll leave that up to others.
RayPA
Ignore It (It'll go away)
ywenz said:
LOL. My first thought too.
You don't have to justify your purchase, Jaapv. Most of us at one time or another stated that we preferred film and rangefinders, but that doesn't mean we hate digital images and slr's. I agree. Digital is a different look. I think the difference is greater than say that between film speeds. It's really a matter of conditioning. Us old guys have a lifetime of looking at images made from film. In the end that's a good thing.
Nachkebia
Well-known
Oh my, don`t get me started here... will pass this topic okey?
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
I am not anti-digital (some would disagree!), but I think there are just so many digital shots/photos that it is inevitable there is a lot of dreck (technically speaking) published, especially on the net. In the hands of someone who really knows how to handle the post, I can see it can be very different. Most of the "digital look" shots that I see are so sharp and clean that texture and volume (3-dimensionality) are severely reduced if not totally obliterated, IMO of course. It is a lifeless look to me.
In the interview with Tod Papageorge referenced in another thread, Papageorge was asked about digital:
"We have a couple of huge digital prints up at Yale that were made from Walker Evans's negatives. I was uninterested in them the first moment I looked at them. They just don't have what, to me, makes Evans a great photographer, that sense that the lens has cut like an especially sharp knife into the light and drawn out a radiant fact."
This is in regard to monocrhome work, of course, and Papageorge does say that print quality for colour is pretty much there. I agree that the potential is there, but, of course, it really depends on the execution, both exposure and post.
Frankly, I think a lot of these discussions are based on web images, as Jan has indicated. To a certain extent, web images are irrelevant to me wrt photography as a documentary or artistic medium.
In the interview with Tod Papageorge referenced in another thread, Papageorge was asked about digital:
"We have a couple of huge digital prints up at Yale that were made from Walker Evans's negatives. I was uninterested in them the first moment I looked at them. They just don't have what, to me, makes Evans a great photographer, that sense that the lens has cut like an especially sharp knife into the light and drawn out a radiant fact."
This is in regard to monocrhome work, of course, and Papageorge does say that print quality for colour is pretty much there. I agree that the potential is there, but, of course, it really depends on the execution, both exposure and post.
Frankly, I think a lot of these discussions are based on web images, as Jan has indicated. To a certain extent, web images are irrelevant to me wrt photography as a documentary or artistic medium.
M
Magnus
Guest
you see this phenomena on all the (responsible) fori the Leica forum for instance, most would intelectually write digital photography into an early grave, now the M8 has come out their views start to change all of a sudden, BUT remebering their initial formulated dislike of digital they will come up with the most absurd excuses why M8 is the better digital camera.
One of the things that I miss on the M8 is autofocus, digital shooting is different than film, autofocus works with digital. For the rest it is a very decent camera, is it worth it's money ... no
One of the things that I miss on the M8 is autofocus, digital shooting is different than film, autofocus works with digital. For the rest it is a very decent camera, is it worth it's money ... no
rhogg
Member
"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." Walt Whitman
Come on - Give Jaap a break. He's entitled to leica his new purchase.
Come on - Give Jaap a break. He's entitled to leica his new purchase.
Toby
On the alert
People forget that digital photography is only approximately 10 years old as a mass medium, and much of the stylistic qualities are technologically, rather than artisitically driven (ooh look! isn't my new sensor sharper and cleaner than my old one - look at my new sharp/clean pictures).
Nachkebia
Well-known
They have to sell cameras, so they give crap so they can sell better years to come
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
ywenz said:
Where did I say I started to like the way Canon digital photographs look?
I still don't. So no contradiction there. if you look up my old posts you'll find me firmly on the fence with my feet planted on the ground on both sides where the old and new technology are concerned. Yes- I dislike Cmos sensors for their results, as I dislike the Leica Digilux3, what I've seen of it Plastic or vaseline both are useful only for Barbie ads imo. But- I have always liked the Digilux 2 and Nikons for the way they digitally rendered photo's. Having said that, the intention of this post was something quite different, a redefining of terms. I think that with the M8, and, let's be fair, the 5D, digital has come of age. And in that context I think the whole film vs digital debate is obsolete. Digital is a big boy now. It does not have to resemble Daddy any more.
DougK
This space left blank
I prefer shooting film, but there's nothing wrong with digital. I just think of it like shooting a different film emulsion and let it go at that. Ultimately, I can't usually tell how an image started (film or digital) and I don't really care as long as it's good/appealing/whatever.
Nachkebia
Well-known
Yes it is big, but it is chip looking clean and sharp mobile image with more colors and alot of details! how exiting is that?
R
rpsawin
Guest
The answer to "Can't we all just get along?" is "No...no we can't".
Bob
Bob