Digital Capture vs. Film Capture...the PRINTS...

[tgtaylor]

Boy isn't that the truth!!!!

I'm not a digitial guy yet so my question is: Is really true that digital workflow can correct fluorescent lighting? I recently read somewhere that it really couldn't.

Also, why shoot transparencies when color negative give you more latitude and dynamic range and color correction is a snap?

Thomas

[Kirk Gittings]

I'm not a digitial guy yet so my question is: Is really true that digital workflow can correct fluorescent lighting? I recently read somewhere that it really couldn't.

Also, why shoot transparencies when color negative give you more latitude and dynamic range and color correction is a snap?

Thomas

In the 90's color negs became more forgiving than transparencies in mixed light situations. I don't remeber what the innovation was a fourth dye layer or something by Fuji, but no one knew how to scan it. Digital is much more forgiving than color negatives in mixed light situations. We have to light spaces much much less with digital as a result. In pure fluorescent settings you just do a custom white balance.

I did shoot color negatives almost exclusively for about three years commercially before going digital. By then I could do my own scanning in house. Then Polaroid was still readily available and economical to test the lighting, but you had to scan the film for clients. Heck many magazines these days don't know what to with a transparency even much less a color negative. I was spending half my week scanning. A digital work flow is far superior when the deliverable is digital.

[Kirk Gittings]

Interesting in todays news that Kodak digitial profits dropped almost as much as the film profits.

Frank Bagbey

I'm not sure what that really means. Yesterday Canon reported their quarterly and yearly earnings and they were way down, photography products as well as office products. The economy is profoundly impacting all aspects of the photography market. Nikon will report next week.

[Findingmyway4ever]

Maybe you are looking at work from people who don't know how to prepare and print very well. Take a look at http://www.chuckkimmerle.com/ and see if this looks good to you on the monitor. I have seen Chucks prints and they look like 'real' prints to me even though pixelograph. I even have some.

Try ordering a few of the Lens Work prints and see if your generalization still holds up.

I shoot 8x10 because I like it and I like the results I get with it. Doesn't mean pixelographs can't look good too.

Chuck's stuff is very well composed. My favorite shot of the Landscape 1 section is the all fog and tree only one. On monitor, the person's shots that I mentioned looked good, no worst or better than Chuck's...but in person, it is a different story. I do need to find someone that has/is a reference so to speak of digital prints so I can have what is about the best acheived via digital. It would be nice to get some prints that the better artists out there are willing to send since they will not be used for exhibition/sales/etc...even under some contract with the photographer that states I do nothing with the photographs but examen them, etc. I know the US is into sueing and lawyers so a photographer that makes a living or has had his/her stuff stolen by some publication may be concerned about just sending prints to someone they do not know even though I would send my prints without concern-just how I am about things, though I do understand and respect others that feel otherwise about print exchange, etc.

[Findingmyway4ever]

All those are subjective and don't have much to do with print size. However, all I can say is that without extensive processing, in my eyes, the color straight out of a Canon (in RAW) does not compare favorably to that out of a good film scan. This alone can make a print feel less "alive" or "artistic".

Hi,

Didn't mean to reference print size, but that many often use print size as a means to say where 35mm film will show issues of grain or lack of this/that where a FF camera will not show this until X print size, etc.

The person takes a lot of pride in their work and of course post-processed these prints to the best that he could possibly see them as he saw them in life. None are just raw shots and he actually was working a lot with new programs to counter the issues that Canon and people that have shot with Canon have had in terms of Canon's color reproduction.

My film scan was off a 24 hour machine which is probably at something like 1500spi if it's even pushing that. I know working with even a Nikon 35mm Scanner (the type below the 5000 model), I was able to pull out a ton more information and manipulate the images far more than anything I ever had printed from this place.

As I have mentioned redundantly, I think I need to see what are call exhibition based artists or what people around here would consider a reference go to person for digital output and see these prints in person or somehow get my hands on some they will never use, but are are still considered representative of what the person acheives using digital, etc. etc.

[willwilson]

This subject film vs digital has been discussed ad nauseam. I actually hear a lot of this same debate in the audio world, but less and less frequently. I don't feel either debate is relevant today considering the current state of digital technology in both fields.

Audio Engineers say tape - Photographers say film
Audio Engineers say warmth - Photographers say tone
Audio Engineers say punch - Photographers say contrast
Audio Engineers say Air - Photographers say Highlight Detail

In the audio world the digital vs analog debate used to matter because digital recording technology had not caught up with analog recording technology. This is no longer the case as was stated quite well in another thread on film vs digital by paulr, see below.

the world of music went through this decades ago. when digital recording first emerged everyone hated it but technologists. then it got better. now there are so many different recording media, both digital and analog, that smart people know that blanket statements are meaningless. how good can analog recording sound? you can always use fatter tape, fewer tracks, slower tape speed. at least as long as you can afford it. how good can digital sound? you can always use higher quality a/d converters, higher sample rates, and longer word lengths ... again, at least as long as you can afford it.

at the highest end they both sound amazing, better than anything you've ever heard at home. neither sounds intrinsically digital, or intrinsically analog, for that matter. they both eventually just sound like music, as the artifacts of the medium drop away.

the biggest difference is the working methods and working style. these things are often important to the artists and technicians, but increasingly irrelevant to the audience.

In the audio world good analog recording equipment and media is ridiculously expensive and difficult to maintain, which basically puts it out of reach for amateurs and semi-professionals. In the world of photography it is the opposite, film is cheap and film cameras are affordable for almost everyone. This makes comparisons easier for everyone to do and it also makes deciding between formats harder. In the audio world everyone records to digital and dreams about recording to analog, mostly because digital is the only thing that most working musicians and engineers can afford, and everybody loves what they can't have.

With the introduction of 20+ megapixel DSLR cameras and 60+ megapixel medium format backs the playing field is very close to level. I think exceptional prints can now be made with both digital and film. I personally choose film because I like it, I print wet, and I am poor and like big prints. I also don't have any commercial clients to please.

I can make a 40"x50" print in my darkroom for about $35.00. If anyone has my $31,500 US for an Epson 9900, Betterlight Super 8K-HS or drum scanner, mac book pro, and mac pro, let me know so I can start printing those 40x50 digitally

[Allen in Montreal]

I'm not a digitial guy yet so my question is: Is really true that digital workflow can correct fluorescent lighting? I recently read somewhere that it really couldn't.........

Thomas

Shoot RAW, use the Raw format plug in to tweak before importing, and you clearly understand why the greatest E6 lab ever to run film in Montreal closed it's doors last fall! (Dafo Eclair, R.I.P. , we miss you!)


Shoot film when you shoot from the heart,
Shoot Digi when you shoot for work.

[Drew Wiley]

Sometimes we are forced to take a path that isn't completely comfortable. I've spent
a fair amount of time and money learning how to make affordable large C-prints just in
case Ilfochrome outright disappears or becomes unaffordable to clients. But I'm allergic
to RA-4, so can only do a few prints a week. Maybe I'll be forced into digital printing,
but then I'd have to set aside darkroom gear which would be functional for the rest of
my life and well beyond, and take a risk in the tech segment which seems to be fueled
by deliberate rapid obsolescene. Black-and-white is less problematic, although one must always be testing films and papers to keep up with the changes there too. So I
do keep an eye on what is happening. But things are only going to get more complicated with all the economic turmoil in the corporate world. I'd hate to be in a
position of investing in expensive new equipment right now, just to see the roof cave
in. I know several otherwise successful lab owners who bankrupted jumping onto the digital bandwagon too soon. I also personally don't care much for the look of digital prints or the non-tactile method of making them. But to each his own. If I was doing
commercial work, I don't think I'd have a choice.

[Findingmyway4ever]

"Don't want this to be a digital vs. film debate . . . "

Then what's the point of your post? If you want to pretend that 35mm film is inherently more "artistic" than anything done digitally, or that 35mm is somehow inherently superior to anything done digitally . . . well, I'll leave you with your fantasies.

Did I ever state anything about film being "inherently superior" to anything done digitally? I may have said it about my own personal work, but if I said it about the 5D prints vs. what I brought out for a basic comparison, I must not have been cohesive when I posted the thread.

I definitely have to be in a fantasy world with my infatutation of one being superior to another when I "redundantly" state that I want to see prints by photographers that are exceptional digital photographers and Kirk was one of the first I mentioned in this thread.

Given what you stated about "any" person that is heavily biased about something, why would such a person EVER even have a discussion about digital when it has absolutely NOTHING to do with them and their fairyland world of film?

In the end, I just want to be able to like digital prints and see that they are "equally" impressive as film prints if not better depending on the print, though I am looking for specifics and not composition/context/etc.

I really felt the 5D prints were going to be superior to "scrap" 35mm prints I had laying around that were nothing but simple point/shoot/handheld shots and would never be prints I'd put into an exhibit, just like this person may not consider putting the prints he had into an exhibit, though he did state that his work is admired by the photographers he knows.

I was very eager and excited to get these prints because I was hoping that 1) They didn't shame the work I have done and make me want to go out and buy the Canon which at that time was still selling for $1600 (down in price, but not nearly what it is right now), and 2) That I would finally see prints from a 5D which made me very happy since I had only seen some FF prints from personal work with different FF cameras and was thinking that this was a great opportunity to see what a FF camera would be able to pull off.

I hope that if you care to read anything I am writing here, you will see I have put the bold into emphasis because if someone says they will be sending me some digital prints and it is especially from a person that has expertise of a certain level to know how good their digital prints are compared to what I can expect as a reference based digital print, then I want to see these.

I know I continue to be redundant, but I never intended to get my 35mm garbage out to compare to the 5D prints...I did have an obvious curiousity, but I had no intention of getting it out until I saw the same basic fundamental elements of these prints that I saw in my own digital work that are simply not acceptable.

In the end, and where I stand now is...I want to see excellent digital prints and to know the digital stuff can look good to me so I can figure out what I need to be doing to replace my existing 35mm film gear since I can buy a fine digital camera w/manual lenses or even the Sigma DP1 Don recommended for what I have in my Contax gear. This would replace having to buy and scan small film which would also be a major bonus. Again, this goes back to my post/subject where I should have added, "if digital does have a different look, can I at least be happy with the look of it that I can replace the 35mm gear with it."...and this is where having to find good digital prints and figuring out how to acheive similar success with my own work will in fact eliminate the 35mm side of my shooting style...beyond 35mm which takes care of street/fast situations, I'll still keep a 120 cam because it is fast enough for other subjects/situations that LF doesn't keep up with or is impractical for, and of course LF where it would be the last camera I would have when I am buried.

[sanking]

Is there any way you can borrow or rent a decent DSLR, 12mp Canon 5D would be fine. If so, take it out for a couple of days and shoot a lot of different scenes with it and your 35mm camera. Be sure to compare both color and B&W, and medium speed and high speed film. Use prime lenses of equality quality for both cameras.

Making this type of direct comparison is the only way I have been able to satisfy my own curiosity re: DSLR and film.

If you make the comparison I think you will find that final image quality in prints up to about 13X18" size is more a factor of post-processing and printing than camera type.

Sandy King

In the end, and where I stand now is...I want to see excellent digital prints and to know the digital stuff can look good to me so I can figure out what I need to be doing to replace my existing 35mm film gear since I can buy a fine digital camera w/manual lenses or even the Sigma DP1 Don recommended for what I have in my Contax gear. This would replace having to buy and scan small film which would also be a major bonus. Again, this goes back to my post/subject where I should have added, "if digital does have a different look, can I at least be happy with the look of it that I can replace the 35mm gear with it."...and this is where having to find good digital prints and figuring out how to acheive similar success with my own work will in fact eliminate the 35mm side of my shooting style...beyond 35mm which takes care of street/fast situations, I'll still keep a 120 cam because it is fast enough for other subjects/situations that LF doesn't keep up with or is impractical for, and of course LF where it would be the last camera I would have when I am buried.