what's the big knock against digital b&w?

[hlockwood]

Im hoping that the "big knock" is a small thud. Up until now, I've shot only B&W film, mostly with the M7; color images hold no attraction for me. But now, I've acquired an M9-P, and the captured image is color, one that I'll be converting to B&W.

My prints (the end product that counts) are made with Jon Cone's carbon pigment inks and have beautifully smooth transitions and capture all the tones available.

It's too soon to tell how the digital capture will compare. But the few prints I've made do look quite good. I hope to make many more from shots taken over the next few months. (I'm mostly a warm-weather shooter.)

The first thing immediately apparent to me has been that the digitally captured image, as opposed to a scanned image, needs far less sharpening. If one simply applies the same sharpening workflow to the digitally captured file, the result does indeed look artificial. I've printed some images from the M9 with no sharpening at all; sharpening would have degraded the print.

Harry

 

[Teuthida]

I love digital b&w. But I don't confuse it with film. The two have a different look, and no amount of post will change that.

That being said, I can get effects in digital I couldn't dream of getting in a wet darkroom, unless I wanted to slave away for days and weeks burning paper for that "perfect" print. I can give it a exposure curve to match the look of any given film; Ican easily swap filter efftects to see what works best; dodging and burning become extremely precise in a way not available in the darkroom.

 

[jsrockit]

The key is to make a good image period. I see an awful lot of bad images in black and white digital as well as black and white film. But

Exactly! I'm not sure when people will get this through their heads. I'm shocked that "soul" hasn't come up yet... 😉 Once it does, I may puke.

One has to wonder whether those on both sides of the extreme are just inexperienced with one process or the other (or just too old / young to change).

 

[bigeye]

It tastes like Stevia.

.

 

[sdotkling]

It's fake. That's the whole thing in a nutshell.

 

[Teuthida]

It's fake. That's the whole thing in a nutshell.

Ten years ago I was mouthing the same innanities.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

It's not the medium, it's the high rate of evident "who cares!" treatment in those files. And good luck pointing it out because then you're an "elitist".

As mentioned previously in this thread, there are many variables.

Take Turkish coffee, for example: if one knows nothing about it, you'd be tempted to stir that cup and chug it down, giving you the impression that "Turkish coffee is bad", even if it was prepared to perfection. I'm sure some people without taste buds would say "who cares!", though.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

It is hard to convert a color image to black and white and get good tonality. This is not really a film vs digital thing, because the problem is the same when converting color film images to black and white. They tend to look muddy and flat, even when there is a full range of tones from pure black to pure white. The midtones need a lot of expansion (but without increasing the overall contrast, which would blow out highlights and block shadows). I have done hundreds of excellent digital BW photos. Most people who claim to hate digital BW just don't know how to get good results, and seeing most of the conversions others have done online just reinforces the view that digital BW 'sucks' because so few can do it right.

I think that digital BW will not really hit its stride until a true monochrome digital camera is introduced at a price working photographers can afford. Until then, BW film generally gives better tonality for most people, and for those of us who do know how to do BW conversions from color, film is still a hell of a lot easier to get good results with.

Here's a recent one I like

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Too clean, and cheap. Some people add grain during PP, yet it's still fake - also showing the author's contempt, or at least lack of confidence toward the clean digital look, one of the media's very own property.

😱 Yikes.


I didn't know this was my contempt, and lack of confidence toward the "clean digital look".


Lumix GF1 + Panasonic 20mm f/1.7


The lack of confidence is due to ISO 1600 (or is it the other way around?), and all contempt exercised in Lightroom.

 

[gavinlg]

It is hard to convert a color image to black and white and get good tonality. This is not really a film vs digital thing, because the problem is the same when converting color film images to black and white. They tend to look muddy and flat, even when there is a full range of tones from pure black to pure white. The midtones need a lot of expansion (but without increasing the overall contrast, which would blow out highlights and block shadows). I have done hundreds of excellent digital BW photos. Most people who claim to hate digital BW just don't know how to get good results, and seeing most of the conversions others have done online just reinforces the view that digital BW 'sucks' because so few can do it right.

This is 100% true in my experience, and I'm one of those who find it difficult to get the appropriate midetone 'separation' in digital files without going overboard in contrast. There are those who are VERY good at it though, and their digital b&w work is either indistinguishable from low-grain film, or just looks superb without needing to be compared to anything.

For sure as well, true silver film is much easier to get a good contrast result from, even if the process is more intensive.

 

[BobYIL]

Take Turkish coffee, for example: if one knows nothing about it, you'd be tempted to stir that cup and chug it down, giving you the impression that "Turkish coffee is bad", even if it was prepared to perfection. I'm sure some people without taste buds would say "who cares!", though.

Impressive example... I have heard the same from some other coffee-addicts too..

 

[jsrockit]

It's fake. That's the whole thing in a nutshell.

It's fake compared to what?

 

[gns]

No knock. As a couple have said, it's all photography.

To me it's funny when people talk about the film look. Really? Which film look? I've seen a lot of pictures and I've seen film look a million different ways. Ditto for digital.

It's less about the tool and more about what you do with it, if you ask me.

Gary

 

[Speedfreak]

is it that it looks too clean? no grain?

Exactly. Thats why I am adding a touch of texture in Silver FX.

Also, with digital you have to watch for highlight clipping.

 

[Speedfreak]

It is very simple, the digital B&W is plain ugly, and if you don't see that, then don't worry about it.

Whenever I posted scans from b/w negatives next to digital capture no one was able to clearly pick which was which.

Yes, it´s easy to generate a poor black and white picture out of a camera JPG but with proper treatment there is no difference to a b/w negative. Especially not printed on inkjet, which is how most of the "art" prints are made today.

 

[bigeye]

Gabreil, I'd like to see what you could do with that shot on film. Direct comparisons reveal the strength and weakness.

Also, bring the coffee to boil 3 times to build the foam...

-Charlie

 

[dcsang]

I would side with Chris Crawford on this one...

I have tried to explain this before and, well, I guess none of you guys read what I say or have me blocked or something - regardless, as Dolly Parton once sang, here I go again 😀 😀 😀 (the below is merely opinion and I have no science to "prove" it so take it for what it's worth... no monetary value 😀 😀 😀 )

Digital (regardless of B&W or colour) noise is far less random and is more structured/orderly than any grain within film. Film grain, regardless of ISO, tends to be more random in structure versus digital noise. Therefore, digital B&W, while just fine, will always look "different" (for lack of better wording) than film.

For example:
From the Olympus EP-2

From rebranded Superia converted to B&W

From Tri-X:

Cheers,
Dave

 

[jippiejee]

Since some of us live in small apartments without the space for a darkroom, scanning film and shooting digital will have to do for us poor city dwellers. Yes we're fake, and we look up in admiration to those of you doing the real thing every day. Please don't ban us from the boards for being cheap copyists of the real photo artists here.

 

[mdarnton]

I can't really fault it on any substantive basis. To me it looks a lot like large format film; if I wanted that look, I'd shoot digital or large format, but I don't, so I shoot 35mm film.

I see a lot of good digital B&W. Dirk Steffen's, for instance, and jurgen-vt's (that's digital, right? I haven't checked).

I'm not a film totalitarian: I rarely print anything, and when I do, it's digital conversions from film, not silver. Mostly, I like seeing my Tri-X on a monitor, though.

Usually I'm too busy looking at the image to worry about where it came from, unless the processing really stands in the way. If you're making the processing part bigger to you than the image, if you're staring at the grain pattern and ignoring the picture, well . . . . too bad for you.

 

[paulfish4570]

good point, jj. my next big photo related purchase will be a printer. no room for anything but film developing/scanning - and an x100.