sblitz Posted May 31, 2012 Share #61 Posted May 31, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) I like that -- Artisanal photographer -- and with a black camera. All set to shoot and charge 20% more! Marketing, it's a wonderful thing Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted May 31, 2012 Posted May 31, 2012 Hi sblitz, Take a look here Why don't you just switch to digital?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
AlanG Posted May 31, 2012 Share #62 Posted May 31, 2012 This is completely and utterly WRONG. Film grain is absolutely not 'on' or 'off'. Read the following blog post. Photo Utopia: Clumps and Chumps (or why film isn't binary) I'm frankly sick and tired of seeing this lie bandied about - even printed by a so-called 'expert' in LFI. It's totally incorrect. I just looked at processed Tri-X though a microscope. I only saw black grains and clear areas with different ratios of grain to space. If it were continuous tone, why would we see dark grain against white in areas? Whether fully on or fully off, Does this look analogue to you? Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/179247-why-dont-you-just-switch-to-digital/?do=findComment&comment=2028362'>More sharing options...
too old to care Posted June 1, 2012 Share #63 Posted June 1, 2012 Doesn't look like this. Which is a blow up of the wood on the following photo. Changing it B&W would only change the tint of the squares, not the texture. Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/179247-why-dont-you-just-switch-to-digital/?do=findComment&comment=2028437'>More sharing options...
pico Posted June 1, 2012 Share #64 Posted June 1, 2012 Are you questioning the science, the research or the conclusion of the blogpost? Do you think that film is binary? Is a film grain only 'on' or 'off'? If you have an issue with the chemistry in the blogpost then I'm willing to hear it, but the author would be a better and more qualified person to discuss with (he used to post here, but for some obscure reason he no longer bothers). Let me know. I know film damned well, and I know it is not binary. I was wondering where GOLD came into the emulsion. Gold! Get it? Let me know. And Alan - are you teasing us, Sir? You know that the depth of the image in a microscope is too shallow to include the layers. Naughty boy. Besides, I see white and grey on just that depth. Grain particles clump together and the space between the grain particles make the image. The spacing is random, and not a uniform phenomena. Somehow I rather wish that film were binary at the microscopic level, just to keep the irony at a high level, but it is not. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Messsucherkamera Posted June 1, 2012 Share #65 Posted June 1, 2012 Real film photographers mine their own silver and make their own gelatin. The rest of you are just phonies! :D LMAO! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted June 1, 2012 Share #66 Posted June 1, 2012 I'm not sure of the point of any of this but in my mind for film to be continuous tone at the grain level then large areas of light gray would have to be made up of light gray grains. And darker gray areas would be comprised of darker grain. That clearly is not the case when you observe it through a microscope. I don't know what percentage of grains are fully converted. By the way, the layer of emulsion is not too thick so you can clearly see all of the grain in focus. I don't see why anyone cares how the grains make the image. Is the terminology so important for some reason? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlatkob Posted June 1, 2012 Share #67 Posted June 1, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) I disagree with the article. Photography is about the photograph, -- not the process, not the gear, not the feel. It's not about the thing you hold to make the photograph. Photography is the process of making a picture with light. A digital photograph is as real and potentially wonderful as any photograph made from film. When pixels are too small for the human eye to see, the digital part of the photograph disappears, and all that is left is ... the photograph. Digital is just another way of recording light, just another means to a photograph. I also disagree with the statement in this thread that "Film is Caravaggio. Digital is Norman Rockwell." This metaphor so utterly confuses the process with the artist, and couldn't be more wrong. Film is film. Caravaggio is Caravaggio. Caravaggio and Rockwell both used paint. The artist uses the process. The process isn't the artist. The process doesn't make the artist. Choosing a process doesn't make one an artist, or confer an artistic skill. If film were Caravaggio, then there would be a heck of a lot of Caravaggios around. Many great photographs were made with film, but we forget that millions upon millions of crummy and artless photographs were made with film too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted June 1, 2012 Share #68 Posted June 1, 2012 I'm not sure of the point of any of this but in my mind for film to be continuous tone at the grain level then large areas of light gray would have to be made up of light gray grains. And darker gray areas would be comprised of darker grain. That clearly is not the case when you observe it through a microscope. I don't know what percentage of grains are fully converted. By the way, the layer of emulsion is not too thick so you can clearly see all of the grain in focus. I don't see why anyone cares how the grains make the image. Is the terminology so important for some reason? Once again, the printed image in black & white (we can go to dye clouds later) is made from light passing through the most empty areas of the grain clusters, IOW, the space between grain clusters. 'Grain' is a human perceptual phenomena. Our eyes simply cannot resolve well enough to see anything but gross differences. Working in the darkroom I, and most others, use a grain scope (sometimes with a blue filter in the magnifier), and while we see grain, we still do not see the real grain below that. What we do is adequate because we are using our eyes to appease what only our eyes can see in the final presentation, be it a CRT (exceptionally crude) or a print with its own degradation. Regarding the terminology, it is important in order to study to an adequate depth just exactly what we are seeing, and how grain effects our perception. In some images grain enhances 'acutance' which is human perceived sharpness. I would have to be home to point you to an excellent reference and photo of that. In all, high resolution is more important to spooks (reconnaissance types) than the rest of us. We are interested in acutance. FWIW, if you were to have great enough magnification you would find the silver remains in b&w film as filaments of arbitrary shapes. But nothing we have in print technology can resolve to that level: we cannot see outcomes to that degree anyway. I have some interesting figures here regarding the degradation of any image from its fundamental sensor (film or digital) to print. Suffice to say that 300ppi to 360ppi is just about all the eye can appreciate depending, of course, upon viewing distance and enlargement. Ach! We can go on to no end with this. Not much more for me, thank you. . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted June 1, 2012 Share #69 Posted June 1, 2012 Once again, the printed image in black & white (we can go to dye clouds later) is made from light passing through the most empty areas of the grain clusters, IOW, the space between grain clusters. 'Grain' is a human perceptual phenomena. Our eyes simply cannot resolve well enough to see anything but gross differences. Working in the darkroom I, and most others, use a grain scope (sometimes with a blue filter in the magnifier), and while we see grain, we still do not see the real grain below that. What we do is adequate because we are using our eyes to appease what only our eyes can see. Regarding the terminology, it is important in order to study to an adequate depth just exactly what we are seeing, and how grain effects our perception. In some images grain enhances 'acutance' which is human perceived sharpness. I would have to be home to point you to an excellent reference and photo of that. In all, high resolution is more important to spooks (reconnaissance types) than the rest of us. We are interested in acutance. FWIW, if you were to have great enough magnification you would find the silver remains in b&w film as filaments of arbitrary shapes. But nothing we have in print technology can resolve to that level, and besides we cannot see outcomes to that degree anyway. I have some interesting figures here regarding the degradation of any image from its fundamental sensor (film or digital) to print. Suffice to say that 300ppi to 360ppi is just about all the eye can appreciate depending, of course, upon viewing distance and enlargement. Ach! We can go on to no end with this. Not much more for me, thank you. . I am not sure what the above has to do with this thread. I know how film works and how we perceive grain. And I really don't care if some think of grain as digital and some think of it as analogue. If you are getting at that film is made up of particles that give the appearance of continuous tone, we are in agreement. And as Zlatkob said, once you can't see the dots or the grain, or the halftone screen for that matter, I think it is just a picture. But grain is silver halide that the development processed has converted to silver. And my understanding is that the silver grains are opaque. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted June 1, 2012 Share #70 Posted June 1, 2012 I am not sure what the above has to do with this thread. I know how film works and how we perceive grain. And I really don't care if some think of grain as digital and some think of it as analogue. If you are getting at that film is made up of particles that give the appearance of continuous tone, we are in agreement. But grain is silver halide that the development processed has converted to silver. And my understanding is that the silver grains are opaque. Silver 'grains' are shown in most articles as distinct forms which are opaque, but it is not the opaque 'grains' (clusters, really) but the random space between them that pass light to make the image. Grain cannot be seen by the eye but clusters are distinct enough for us. Light passing through film is determined by the grains' proximity in clumps or clusters. Showing only fairly high (but not very high) resolution is adequate for our purposes. In a higher magnification, the 'grains' would show highly organic form filaments growing from the edges at the edge of grain. But I digress. I always digress. Slap me, Alan! Film offers profound gradation if used to achieve such. It is organic. Arbitrary. Random. But our level of perception doesn't care, and that is where you and I agree. But film is not binary. Neither is a pixel. Software for interpreting pixels approximates the same human-driven method of interpreting light that film does because humans invented each to humans' ends. Too philosophical, perhaps. Blame Oxford for ruining me. Like you, I just take pictures and leave this kind of digression to odd occasions as this thread. My head hurts. I'm on the road. Peace, Pico Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJP Posted June 1, 2012 Share #71 Posted June 1, 2012 This is completely and utterly WRONG. Film grain is absolutely not 'on' or 'off'. Read the following blog post. Photo Utopia: Clumps and Chumps (or why film isn't binary) I'm frankly sick and tired of seeing this lie bandied about - even printed by a so-called 'expert' in LFI. It's totally incorrect. Another point of view here. A single silver halide crystal in a film emulsion can only have two states, unexposed or exposed. As more light strikes the film, more crystals make this “transition” from unexposed to exposed. The development process eliminates those unexposed, leaving only those that are exposed. Wikipedia and other sites confirm that a latent image at the grain level is a binary process, you need four or more silver atoms in a sensitivity speck to allow the developer to start converting the silver halide crystal. If you activate more of such specs in the same crystal it will develop faster. So there is a lower threshold (binary). The rate of development can vary depending on the number of activated sites (analogue) - so it actually is a combination of both. The photo-utopia site does provide more & very interesting information, certainly well worth reading. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasticman Posted June 1, 2012 Share #72 Posted June 1, 2012 I was wondering where GOLD came into the emulsion. Gold! Get it? Let me know. Well I guess you missed Pete's post. But I'm glad we agree about film not being binary. Wayne Fox (in Stephen's post) is simply mistaken. Funny to see how the sig i started using a few weeks ago (the idea, I confess, was to be provocative), has finally started bearing fruit. I've gradually grown tired of people who pop-up in film discussions (often with no connection to digital) simply to say something like: 'Why bother? just use Silver Efex - it's exactly the same" or similar variants in an infinite variety of boorishness. To me this is the equivalent of someone persistently trolling the Leica forum with random remarks about how Canon or Nikon are 'better' than the M9. Somehow digital trolls in the film forum are an accepted phenomenon. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted June 1, 2012 Share #73 Posted June 1, 2012 Wikipedia and other sites confirm that a latent image at the grain level is a binary process, you need four or more silver atoms in a sensitivity speck to allow the developer to start converting the silver halide crystal. If you activate more of such specs in the same crystal it will develop faster. So there is a lower threshold (binary). The rate of development can vary depending on the number of activated sites (analogue) - so it actually is a combination of both [...]. That is a pretty good explanation. Near the infinitesimal level many phenomena can be called binary, but that goes to the level of absurdity in this case and viewing the behavior of exposing film at that level obviates so many factors that make the image visible - useful to us. I can enumerate the factors if necessary. To throw a wrench into the whole binary/analog paradox, read just a couple hundred pages of Stephen Wolfram's book, A New Kind of Science. His thesis is that all of nature can be understood as the behavior of a few elementary rules applied to binary/bits. At first one might look at the behavior in a two-dimensional way as portrayed in the two-dimensional book or CRT and find it perfectly binary, but take the leap and imagine intersections of various rules being carried out in three dimensions. The third dimension is where randomness is evinced. If it is not randomness, then it is at least so complex that viewing the outcomes is only possible in the aggregate. That's where we are with how film works. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CalArts 99 Posted June 1, 2012 Share #74 Posted June 1, 2012 Caravaggio and Rockwell both used paint. The artist uses the process. The process isn't the artist. The process doesn't make the artist. And as the wise man on the hill once told me, "you are what you photograph." Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJP Posted June 1, 2012 Share #75 Posted June 1, 2012 That is a pretty good explanation. ...... That's where we are with how film works.Thanks if you liked the explanation, I think it is close to the way film behaves. Anyway, much of this is a non issue as far as I am concerned. Surely we have better things to do than film/digital or binary/16bits or similar types of discussion. They all have their pros/cons. If I build a car from wood it will look and feel like wood. While it still might be a great performer. The same applies to aluminium, steel, composites - the material provides a context/feel/texture/handling etc. Also when comparing film/electronic photography - the medium imparts a certain flavor to the result. This may be for better or for worse - or whatever takes your fancy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double Negative Posted June 4, 2012 Share #76 Posted June 4, 2012 I always find it funny that so many look at it as film VS. digital, or suggest "switching." Thankfully, there's a place for both. Shoot whatever floats your boat that day. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulus Posted June 4, 2012 Share #77 Posted June 4, 2012 Slow-photography becomes over and over, and most recently (to me) through James Bowey who proselytizes just that in his lectures, classes and public talks. Oh, and he is strictly a digital photographer. It can work in both worlds, as Toby suggested earlier.. What I really like about " slow photography" is that I only develope them when I want to. Some time it last for months. The films just waiting for the moment in the fridge. And then on a day, I develope them and the next day I print them and see the nice baryta paper shining. It's still more beautiful to me than seeing the captures on a screen. The second thing is, that I see memories from some months ago, instead of a day ago. I sold my scanner, so that I only can print them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonycamco Posted June 5, 2012 Share #78 Posted June 5, 2012 my . .02 cents film has soul !!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted June 5, 2012 Share #79 Posted June 5, 2012 my . .02 cents film has soul !!! I remain agnostic. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KM-25 Posted June 7, 2012 Share #80 Posted June 7, 2012 Nice article, always a welcome read to hear what many of us know and feel echoed... The phrase "Switch to Digital" is one that almost always gets me.... It's as if when you start using digital, you are no longer allowed to use film. Or better yet, when people see me shooting film, they just assume I don't shoot digital, LOL! I want to stock up on 4x5 black and white, but I have no more room in a 6 foot tall freezer...:-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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