Studio58 Posted May 23, 2012 Share #81 Â Posted May 23, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) Ultimately it is inevitable that digital will completely supersede film. To deny that is to suggest that the manufacturers are somehow limited in their ability to make great technological advances. Maybe the new M has taken a major step in that direction. Vive Le Revolution !!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted May 23, 2012 Posted May 23, 2012 Hi Studio58, Take a look here Is it time to stop regarding film as the benchmark for B&W?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
bill Posted May 23, 2012 Share #82  Posted May 23, 2012 In the same way that...  cars have superceded horses ballpoints have superceded fountain pens photography has superceded painting automatics have superceded manual gearboxes ...etc.  Yeah whatever  Regards,  Bill Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Studio58 Posted May 23, 2012 Share #83 Â Posted May 23, 2012 in the same way that.. Â Â Luddites refused to acknowledge the advances of their day... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasticman Posted May 23, 2012 Share #84 Â Posted May 23, 2012 in the same way that..Luddites refused to acknowledge the advances of their day... Â This pathetic Luddite insult. Is that the best you can do? Really? I've read it about one-million times in these sorts of discussions. How does it apply to those of us (the majority on fora like this, I should imagine) who work with computers, programming, and digital media every single day but still prefer the aesthetic of the film image over that of a sensor capture? Â Come on - you surely can do better than the worn-out Luddite thing? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Studio58 Posted May 23, 2012 Share #85 Â Posted May 23, 2012 Do you take it as an insult ? Interesting. It is merely an historical reflection applied to the post modern world. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgk Posted May 23, 2012 Share #86 Â Posted May 23, 2012 I hate to tell you this but digital HAS superseded film. Just look around you. The vast, vast majority of images are now shot digitally, so film has in effect been superseded (replaced). As I said in an early post, there are now many photographers out there who have never shot a film image - and many others who have had their interest in photography rekindled by the digital revolution. Â On this forum we are likely to see more discussion about film than most because it is likely that a significant proportion of Leica photographers are traditionalists with a greater grasp of the historical perspective of Leica, and photographic process in general, than are say dSLR users. For those of us who grew up with film there is an inevitability about the way we view digital imagery and compare it with what we were brought up with. But if anyone thinks that today's digitally reared photographers are honestly going to go back to a technology which they are unfamiliar with, and then utilise it as a benchmark for their familiar technology, then they are kidding nobody but themselves. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted May 23, 2012 Share #87  Posted May 23, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration)  cars have superceded horses ballpoints have superceded fountain pens photography has superceded painting automatics have superceded manual gearboxes ...etc.  Not that I have anything against film but the statements above are true for the most part.  Definition of SUPERSEDE transitive verb 1 a : to cause to be set aside b : to force out of use as inferior 2 : to take the place or position of 3 : to displace in favor of another  After thinking about the MM and also about conversions from color digital images, I think an important thing that negative film still has is retention of highlight detail that can be burned in when printing.  I think the only solution for digital shooters in situations of wide brightness range is to underexpose and pull up what might be grainy detail as a result, or shoot bracketed exposures and combine sections to recover detail that is blown out in one of the shots. I think more digital cameras will include fast HDR shooting capability and at worst you can stack the individual frames and selectively combine the images.  On the other hand, the high ISO of digital is leaving film in the dust when speed is needed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted May 23, 2012 Share #88 Â Posted May 23, 2012 Alan, you miss the point. the phrase used by the poster to which I responded was "...it is inevitable that digital will completely supercede film". I can't abide thoughtless sweeping generalisations. Â Regards, Â Bill Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brunom Posted May 23, 2012 Share #89 Â Posted May 23, 2012 We may have 'a lost generation' that doesn't know film and hasn't shot with it, but I doubt very much that, that generation also hasn't looked at film based prints in books magazines other media, as well as prints themselves. Â Therefore I believe they still have the opportunit to compare digital and film images to see hopefully (?) the differences. Â Bruno Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted May 23, 2012 Share #90  Posted May 23, 2012 The history of technology is an interesting study. Technology was for a long time very limited in the possibilities it offered. Want a better flint axe? Progress was painfully slow. What could be done was only a very small subset of what cried out to be done. So whenever the opportunity came to do something new, that new thing was nearly always desirable. Especially if it increased your profits or helped you to kill your enemies faster ('you' being always some kind of potentate; the wants of the common people were left for the common people to take care of.)  Therefore, a new technology was mostly a better way to do the same thing as before, thank you. So the better new way superseded the worse old one. This continued until quite recently, and is still deeply embedded in our thinking. So we spontaneously think that the new gadget will replace the old gadget on a one-to-one basis, so that the sum of all gadgets remains constant.  But sometime toward the end of the 19th century, the fusion of an expanding natural science with an expanding industrial system started to expand the number of possible gadgets exponentially. A complete shift of priorities has become necessary: The question is no longer what we can do, but what is socially desirable – or even marketable. We now have a choice of alternative technologies or solutions in an increasingly larger field.  Including of course photography. This is part of the larger field of imaging, which was enormously expanded with the advent of photography. But – painting, drawing are not obsolete. Not even the lowly woodcut is obsolete! It is just that formerly, one or a few technologies had to be pressed into service to do a lot of things that they were often not very good at – but there was no choice. No we do have a choice and we can choose the technology that we find appropriate.  So some people find painting appropriate to their needs. And some people find chemical photography appropriate to their needs. Just as others find digital the most appropriate.  Nothing is ever 'obsolete' except for a very specified purpose – never across the board! This is how simple it is. What the numbers people think will be a profitable business, may of course be a different matter; that is a reservation we must always make as long as we live in a capitalist society.  The old man who came in from History Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasticman Posted May 23, 2012 Share #91 Â Posted May 23, 2012 I hate to tell you this but digital HAS superseded film. Just look around you. The vast, vast majority of images are now shot digitally, so film has in effect been superseded (replaced)... Â Not sure if this is aimed at my comment(?) but I was talking purely about the qualitative nature of the comparison, not the quantitive.The original 'supersede' comment in the thread was about the supposed qualitative advances of digital sensors superseding the quality of film. Â As someone who's been working with digital media for pretty much all my adult life I genuinely don't need lessons in the ubiquitous nature of digital photography. Â Do you take it as an insult ? Interesting. It is merely an historical reflection applied to the post modern world. Â I loathe these sorts of internet stratagems: "ah - you took it as an insult when i called you an idiot? Interesting. You must be very sensitive about [insert choice of topic]". As I said, the Luddite comment simply isn't applicable to what is an aesthetic preference, nor is film an 'outdated' technology. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted May 23, 2012 Share #92  Posted May 23, 2012 in the same way that.. Luddites refused to acknowledge the advances of their day...  The Luddites destroyed machinery that threatened their livelihood. Do you feel threatened by film so much that you would use the word Luddite so recklessly? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgk Posted May 23, 2012 Share #93 Â Posted May 23, 2012 Not sure if this is aimed at my comment(?) but I was talking purely about the qualitative nature of the comparison, not the quantitive.The original 'supersede' comment in the thread was about the supposed qualitative advances of digital sensors superseding the quality of film. As I see it, the baseline shifts when a new technology becomes the norm. Once people are used to a new technology and the way it works - and in the case of digital photography this the way that images are digitally rendered - then the benchmark is that new technology because that it what they are familiar with. Film has a different way of rendering images, but I do not believe that it can be assumed that photographers brought up purely digitally will perceive the rendering of film images to be better qualitatively - even now. Â I'm not in the business of giving lessons in the ubiquitous nature of digital photography, merely suggesting that that very ubiquitousness will result in changes in people's perceptions, especially if they have little exposure to film based imagery (no pun intended). I have shot film for the majority of my working life but I can already see that its 'virtues' are not appreciated by many digital only photographers. I may not agree but then I have a film baseline, they have a digital baseline. Â If you can't see what I'm getting at then so be it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted May 23, 2012 Share #94  Posted May 23, 2012 Alan, you miss the point. the phrase used by the poster to which I responded was "...it is inevitable that digital will completely supercede film". I can't abide thoughtless sweeping generalisations. Regards,  Bill  Digital has completely superseded film in all but a handful of applications and this is illustrated by some films being discontinued. (Kodak does not even make transparency film any more.) It will probably last for some time for use by artists... just as there are many horse lovers. But horses are not used for basic transportation very much these days. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted May 23, 2012 Share #95  Posted May 23, 2012 Hmmm... Picture of the Amish buggy-Amish horse drawn wagon, black horse buggy, spring, cab or market wagon  I bet they use film as well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgk Posted May 23, 2012 Share #96 Â Posted May 23, 2012 Hmmm...I bet they use film as well. But do they judge cars on their experience of buggies I wonder? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted May 23, 2012 Share #97 Â Posted May 23, 2012 The points regarding those who grew up in a certain paradigm is correct, but that does not mean that complete resignation or acceptance of the paradigm is best, or even good. For example, when the GUI came to the most common operating systems, users and even system administrators were clueless about the command-line interface (CLI). When I transitioned our large system to the next-gen admins, I could do almost everything much faster and with greater efficiency from the CLI. The new admins scoffed. Today, about 12 years later, the only administrators that rose to certain competence (and greater pay), have mastered the CLI and several programming interfaces, and they use it because it must be used for complete mastery and control. Â It similar to the conundrum students faced when taking a media course (aka: photography) and had a challenge that a digital camera could not adequately perform. I would reassure them that those who would accept the challenge professionally would learn 'film' or retain their current expectations. It was their choice: be marginalized or become an expert. Most chose to be marginalized, to be willfully ignorant, in their own sense of bliss. Â This is similar to those who spit out 'Luddite' rather than becoming informed, learning what the word means. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted May 23, 2012 Share #98  Posted May 23, 2012 Hmmm...Picture of the Amish buggy-Amish horse drawn wagon, black horse buggy, spring, cab or market wagon  I bet they use film as well.  Yeah the Amish are big photography buffs. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted May 23, 2012 Share #99 Â Posted May 23, 2012 Film is Caravaggio. Digital is Norman Rockwell. Â So film is troubled, unreliable, violent, always getting into fights, never more than a minority interest and generally a nightmare to deal with. Digital just delivers. Sounds about right! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted May 23, 2012 Share #100 Â Posted May 23, 2012 It similar to the conundrum students faced when taking a media course (aka: photography) and had a challenge that a digital camera could not adequately perform. I would reassure them that those who would accept the challenge professionally would learn 'film' or retain their current expectations. It was their choice: be marginalized or become an expert. Most chose to be marginalized, to be willfully ignorant, in their own sense of bliss. Â Â Do you care to innumerate what specific aspects of film photography are required to master in order to make one a better digital photographer? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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