This Film vs. Digital - a resolution?

[pico]

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What if Leica put a mico-thin layer over the digital sensor so that light rays were scatted to mimic film? So many people say the direct, depthless capture of digital signals makes digital not look like film. It might also mitigate the alleged focus issues of film lenses over the Leica sensor.

 

If it were possible, would you be happy?

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[maurometallo]

I believe that Digital should be Digital and Film should be film. The more we try to make one medium look like the other, the uglier things will get.

[zlatkob]

I agree with Mauro. Digital is its own medium and, although it can be improved, it would not be made better by looking like film.

[pico]

I agree with Mauro. Digital is its own medium and, although it can be improved, it would not be made better by looking like film.

 

Rationalize that statement, please.

[01af]

What if Leica put a mico-thin layer over the digital sensor so that light rays were scattered to mimic film?

Such a kind of layer is called an anti-aliasing filter, and Leica has deliberately decided against it ... similar to most high-end digital medium-format backs. An anti-aliasing filter prevents or reduces moiré but at the price of reduced detail resolution. In any case, it neither makes digital look like film nor increases focus tolerances.

 

 

So many people say the direct, depthless capture of digital signals makes digital not look like film. It might also mitigate the alleged focus issues of film lenses over the Leica sensor.

So many people have no idea what they are talking about.

 

 

If it were possible, would you be happy?

No.

[tobey bilek]

There are ways to make digital look exactly like film. Digital capture is a straight line line linear response and if not changed can often look dead or flat.

 

You can alter the shape of the curve, add color or monochromatic grain, make the grain soft or sharp, confine the grain to middle tones with proper use of the "blend if" option in photoshop.

 

Or you can just use film and get this built in.

 

The funny thing is I have watched people spend years trying different developers to minimize grain. They use large format and make contact prints. Now we can get it with little effort and we are trying to go back to the film look.

 

I say use what you want and enjoy.

[dachs]

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There are ways to make digital look exactly like film. Digital capture is a straight line line linear response and if not changed can often look dead or flat.

 

You can alter the shape of the curve, add color or monochromatic grain, make the grain soft or sharp, confine the grain to middle tones with proper use of the "blend if" option in photoshop.

 

Or you can just use film and get this built in.

 

The funny thing is I have watched people spend years trying different developers to minimize grain. They use large format and make contact prints. Now we can get it with little effort and we are trying to go back to the film look.

 

I say use what you want and enjoy.

 

I agree the above quote entirely; I do not care what is a picture so long as it 'works' - I even quite like Turner oil paintings.........how the shot is done is of interest of course, to appreciate the labours involved, but only if the impact is there. But I am not 'Erfahrene' so what would I know?

[Xmas]

There are ways to make digital look exactly like film. Digital capture is a straight line line linear response and if not changed can often look dead or flat.

it is straight lne compared with film toe and shoulder, but...

with nicely burnt high lights...

I use soft lenses to compress film shots dynamic range, or/and soft devs

You can alter the shape of the curve, add color or monochromatic grain, make the grain soft or sharp, confine the grain to middle tones with proper use of the "blend if" option in photoshop.

 

Or you can just use film and get this built in.

I keep being told it is dissappearing?

 

The funny thing is I have watched people spend years trying different developers to minimize grain. They use large format and make contact prints. Now we can get it with little effort and we are trying to go back to the film look.

some people dont like grain but I allus use Rodinal, except when a shot is too wide range.

others used to use sharpness as a critical developer parameter, ignoring additional grain size.

I say use what you want and enjoy.

Suggest you need to say this on a digital forum, otherwise it smacks of trolling... like the little boy who cried wolf too many times, and I know this is not a dedicated sub fora.

 

Think an anti aliasing filter is (would be) normally digital i.e. a math transform... Think it is good to leave it out you can always do it post processing, cannot undo it if done in camera, the DSLR people want to print from camera their users are more impatient or ... but since anti alias is not a pshop plug in I'd need I'm not sure.

 

Noel

[250swb]

It seems to me the only reason to make a digital image look like film out of the camera is because you don't do any post processing. A simple amount of work in Photoshop could otherwise do the same thing, make a digital image look like a film image. Its only a user preference, there is nothing intrinsically about film that can't be replicated in a digital image. Whats holding people back is the absurd fear they are going to blow the myth that film is somehow special and can do things to the eye a digital image can't.

 

Just use the post processing software, thats what its for, to make images the way you want them, don't wait for Leica to do if for you.

 

Steve

[M. Valdemar]

Anything but a direct image on a tintype plate is unacceptable. This "film" thing is shameful, there is nothing true to the original scene on film.

 

If you want to fool around enlarging muddy images saved on some transparent cow jelly, you're wasting your time.

[larsv]

You made me smile, just a little.

[AlanG]

Anything but a direct image on a tintype plate is unacceptable. This "film" thing is shameful, there is nothing true to the original scene on film.

 

If you want to fool around enlarging muddy images saved on some transparent cow jelly, you're wasting your time.

 

This gets to another point? What kind of film would you be trying to simulate if you were building the camera specifically to mimic "film."

[mjh]

What if Leica put a mico-thin layer over the digital sensor so that light rays were scatted to mimic film?

An antialiasing filter in other words? Some people are happy that their camera of choice does without.

[adli]

What if Leica put a mico-thin layer over the digital sensor so that light rays were scatted to mimic film? So many people say the direct, depthless capture of digital signals makes digital not look like film. It might also mitigate the alleged focus issues of film lenses over the Leica sensor.

 

If it were possible, would you be happy?

 

And to change film, I have to change sensor?

 

Sounds to me as get the film look in post processing is a better way to go...

[zlatkob]

Rationalize that statement, please.

 

Digital is a medium, just as film is, just as watercolor is. There is little point in making one medium always look like another. If the other medium is preferable, then one can simply use the other medium. It would be like a painter trying to make oils look like watercolor, or a musician trying to make a piano sound like a guitar.

 

Digital has many advantages, among them being greater efficiency and malleability. It can be shaped and transformed far more easily than film.

 

When done right, film has an undeniable beauty. But each film has its own look. Even if I were shooting film, there isn't one film that I would always choose. So there is no one film that I would want digital to emulate.

 

The beauty of digital is that the results are even more in the artist's hands than those of film were. Film was a construct of the chemical engineer. It could be adjusted and controlled in many ways, but not as much as digital can.

 

Granted, digital is the construct of engineering too. The defaults selected by the camera maker can be beautiful or dull or completely wrong. I think that photographers who see digital as very dull (or lifeless) don't appreciate that digital offers the raw material for the picture, not the finished result. It is up to the photographer to complete the process by expressing the image in a way that gives it life or vigor. That may be as simple as applying curves or color adjustments, or it can be much more complex.

 

Photographers who treat the camera-made jpeg as the finished result are bound to have many disappointments. But this is no different than photographers being disappointed by the results of a film stock or the choices of the processing lab. It's an illusion to think that film was somehow inherently better or inevitably more pleasing. There was plenty of disappointment in the film era too, with lots of consequent effort to control and improve the process.

 

Digital is a relatively young medium and is not finished in its development. It has gone through radical improvements in a relatively few years, and will no doubt see further improvement. But it is already at point where it can give great raw material as a starting point, and stunning results when handled well.

[plasticman]

Film is not finished in its development. It has gone through radical improvements in a relatively few years, and will no doubt see further improvement. But it is already at point where it can give great raw material as a starting point, and stunning results when handled well.

[jaapv]

That is true, Mani. But the main driver behind this development was the movie industry. Now that those large users are moving more and more to digital, the R&D needed for film research will become less attractive, resulting in technical stagnation. Not that that is the end of the world, as most film users appear to be very happy with the present palette.

[wattsy]

Its only a user preference, there is nothing intrinsically about film that can't be replicated in a digital image.

 

All you need is an "algorithm" (Mani will probably remember the discussion).

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[pgk]

In the days when film was dominant I can't remember endless discussions about how best to mimic Daguerrotypes when using film:D.

 

 

The daguerreotype's popularity was not threatened until photography was used to make imitation daguerreotypes on glass positives called ambrotypes, meaning "imperishable picture" (Newhall, 107).[

[plasticman]

That is true, Mani. But the main driver behind this development was the movie industry. Now that those large users are moving more and more to digital, the R&D needed for film research will become less attractive, resulting in technical stagnation. Not that that is the end of the world, as most film users appear to be very happy with the present palette.

 

What I'm hoping for is a film that can blow highlights, mimic purple blooming and give me a lovely over-saturated HDR-look. I'm sure Kodak must be working on it, because as far as I can see on the interwebs, that look seems to be 'in' right now.