What makes digital identifiably digital?

[Gabriel M.A.]

>i find it pretty easy to be honest..

Poppycock. I could put particular 11x17" prints from an Epson R-D1 RAW file in front of you and tell you it was from a 35mm film scan and you'd never know I was lying to you.

Depends on the print and person making it...

True. I could tell you I'm the Marquis de Sade and show you a Certificate of Authenticity, and you'd never know I was lying to you, unless, of course, you knew better.

And the Earth is is identifiably not quite round, but oblong, like an onion (a good, tasty onion, not one bought from W@lM*rt...)

 

[RayPA]

Shooting digital reminds me a lot of shooting slides, and some scanned slides look like digital to me. But as far as distinguishing between the two, I think it can be difficult at times. Other times it's incredibly easy, usually because of the post processing (as Steve wrote). For me digital seems to give itself up in protraiture and nudes, with that airbrushed look, and in transitions between light and dark, which seems super elongated and smooth. I think the linked image is an example of the latter. Beautiful image, nonetheless.

Good thread.

🙂

 

[Bosk]

The usual indicators of a digital shot for me are blown highlights, very narrow dynamic range, total absence of grain, colours that are either washed out or grossly over-saturated, over-sharpening, and a distinct lack of 3-dimensionality.

I won't argue that digital done right can look very good indeed, but on the flipside it goes without saying that digital done wrong can look utterly atrocious. (HDR anyone?)
Sadly there seems to be so much more of the latter than the former floating around the internet nowdays! 🙄


EDIT: Oh, and the shot mentioned in the first post (which is pretty incredible!) is definately digital because if you get your nose right up against your monitor you can tell that it isn't made up of grain, which any film shot would be.
Film shots have an 'organic' element that digital shots lack, which I believe becomes easier to spot when you know what to look for.

 

[ncd_photo]

For me its usually the specular high-lights, on close inspection my digital shots (10MP) have a slight metallic quality but they are only really evident when pixel peeping.
I also think current high end digital looks almost too good. If the image looks very clean and sharp from front to back its probably digital or well scanned MF.
I prefer the look of 35mm B&W for its organic feel and I love grain - interestingly I've just found out that a well converted Nef shot at ISO 1600 has similar characteristics to HP5+ at 400 ISO so its getting harder to tell when it comes to B&W