Do We Shoot Film Now for The Grain?

[wattsy]

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Doc I beg to differ, TX400 is a good film, fine grain too but it doesn't have the same pallettes of grey shades BW400CN had

 

I agree. I don't find TX400 and BW400CN as interchangeable as I might like. That said, despite the discontinuation announcement, the latter remains easily obtainable so I don't yet have to consider TX400 as a substitute for BW400CN.

[Cuthbert]

There is no "undo" button when you accidently leave the negatives in the developer too long.  As simple as you make it sound, it still requires skill and attention to detail to develop negatives and prints.

 

I am relatively young and I don't think I can be accused to be a grumpy old man on the matter, but IMO film photography makes you a better photographer because...essentially you have 1 chance to shoot a correct picture, you can't see it immediately, throw it away and take another one, or shoot thinking "allright I'm gonna fix it in pp" and things like that.

 

There's only that moment and you have to give your best.

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[250swb]

There is no "undo" button when you accidently leave the negatives in the developer too long.  As simple as you make it sound, it still requires skill and attention to detail to develop negatives and prints.

 

If you take it that looking at a clock needs 'skill and attention' then OK, I shouldn't be criticising you. Perhaps I exaggerate how easy it all is. Even after many years I still find it exciting to develop a film and my concentration doesn't wander, but if it did I'd try using an alarm clock.

 

In reality processing a film shouldn't be skilful, it should be a known process working with facts, a series of actions that lead to an expected result. Of course every now and again you try a new developer or film and experience can be a factor in determining an initial development regime, but putting film into chemicals is all about datum points and discipline. The skilful aspect of development comes when the film has just been loaded into the camera, it is envisioning what you want the picture to look like before you make the first exposure. You have an image in your minds eye, you choose a film, you plan ahead what developer to use, you make exposures to suit the film and the developer, you process it, then continue the skilful work by printing the results to match your original image that you had in your minds eye. When loaded into the developing tank processing should be as routine as you can possibly make it, but feeling that processing 36 negatives is an heroic event just means you are out of your comfort zone. 

 

Steve

[250swb]

 

There's only that moment and you have to give your best.

 

As countless photographers show through their contact sheets there are 36 'moments'. A good reference is the 'Magnum Contact Sheets' book

 

http://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/magnum-contact-sheets-hardcover-1

 

In the context of 35mm or roll film it clearly shows that rather than fixing things later in post processing a film photographer doesn't stop working and nearly all the famous pictures have before and after alternatives.

 

Steve

[Cuthbert]

As countless photographers show through their contact sheets there are 36 'moments'. A good reference is the 'Magnum Contact Sheets' book

 

http://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/magnum-contact-sheets-hardcover-1

 

In the context of 35mm or roll film it clearly shows that rather than fixing things later in post processing a film photographer doesn't stop working and nearly all the famous pictures have before and after alternatives.

 

Steve

 

Yes 36 moments, not 360, or 3600.

 

Today even professionals taken thousand of digital pics and pick the right one. As a mere statistical process sooner or late you'll find a good shot.

[Doc Henry]

Yes 36 moments, not 360, or 3600.

 

Today even professionals taken thousand of digital pics and pick the right one. As a mere statistical process sooner or late you'll find a good shot.

Cuthbert

look at this post

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/205842-i-like-filmopen-thread/?p=2803686

Best

Henry

[250swb]

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Yes 36 moments, not 360, or 3600.

 

Today even professionals taken thousand of digital pics and pick the right one. As a mere statistical process sooner or late you'll find a good shot.

 

You only need to read a few posts about digital post processing to realize some naïve people think they have 360 images from 360 exposures, and then complain about the time post processing takes. Editing your own work is a bit more skilful than a statistic but I think the hit rate should be about the same whether using digital or film. I mean you don't get more creative using one or the other, but it may be that one or the other allows a different aspect of creativity to come through better. If I get one picture from a roll of 36 I'm very happy, if I get one picture from 100 digital exposures I'm even more happy because it generally doesn't suit me, but if I'm feeling at one with the camera it could be about three, which is on a par with my film expectations.

 

Steve

[Cuthbert]

You only need to read a few posts about digital post processing to realize some naïve people think they have 360 images from 360 exposures, and then complain about the time post processing takes. Editing your own work is a bit more skilful than a statistic but I think the hit rate should be about the same whether using digital or film. I mean you don't get more creative using one or the other, but it may be that one or the other allows a different aspect of creativity to come through better. If I get one picture from a roll of 36 I'm very happy, if I get one picture from 100 digital exposures I'm even more happy because it generally doesn't suit me, but if I'm feeling at one with the camera it could be about three, which is on a par with my film expectations.

 

Steve

 

IMO if you spend more time in PP than shooting it means you aren't a photographer but a CGI expert, which is NOT a bad job per se (they made quite a lot of good movies with CGI from Jurassic Park to today) but it's something VERY different from the former.

 

On another board I've seen "professionals" reviewing the work of beginners with clear flaws (the horizon not horizontal, errors in composition like a shot of a plane with the tail of another breaking the profile) and giving them not advices like "try to stabilise your camera before shooting" or "turn around your subject in order to find out the best shooting position for the subject" but they were saying "tilt the pic in PP" and "cut the tail of the other plane and increase the halo of the sun" with the result that in the background there was a tailless plane!

 

Just few examples on how digital photography is ruining the mind of the professionals IMO, it's like cinema, if you watch a good movie from the 80s with practical effects (Indiana Jones,the Thing,Conan, Goonies et...) they still look good, while we assist to steaming pile of CGI crap like Transformers (the third one was from a visual point of view one of the ugliest movie I've ever seen, especially the last 30 minutes) that are soon to be forgotten.

[KM-25]

There is really no point in pitting film against digital and vice versa, the film is dead song has been sung and is truly the thing that is dead. What we have are choices and those choices can define and be the result of a mood, day, year or lifespan and need not be exclusive of one another.

 

I use each medium for it's strengths, try to create systems that work with both mediums at the same time if need be although often it is not. I don't use film because it is technically better, I use it because it is personally better.

 

But digital photography...digital anything for that matter...it has it's certain downfalls in terms of commercial value, social value and how one values being connected to the journey on a personal level. It's not a bad thing...it's just that when society at large considers the artisan and hand made outcome of personal expression...well, digital anything is less and less special the easier it becomes for nearly anyone to play in the sandbox.

 

And that is always the way it should be, valuing the human touch over the software touch.

Edited April 24, 2015 by KM-25

[pico]

On another board a guy asked me if I use a "noise suppressor" to sharpen my pictures.

 

Now you guys are helping me to understand what he meant...so they can add "noise" to their XXX megapixel sensors to simulate grain? It sounds like a joke!!!    

 

Did you know that grain can enhance acutance in film photography? It can, so why shouldn't it do the same in digital? Acutance is not intuitive.

[Guest]

Did you know that grain can enhance acutance in film photography? It can, so why shouldn't it do the same in digital? Acutance is not intuitive.

Isn't there an English word for "acutance"? All these neologisms...

In case you're interested, the German word for it is: Konturenschaerfe.

In all due respect for your photographic achievements, Pico: what does grain have to do with it?

[Cuthbert]

Did you know that grain can enhance acutance in film photography? It can, so why shouldn't it do the same in digital? Acutance is not intuitive.

 

No, I didn't know and I think I can live without knowing it....I don't even know what "acutance" is and I'm fine with that as well.

 

Let me live in peace in my ignorance!

Edited April 24, 2015 by Cuthbert

[250swb]

 what does grain have to do with it?

 

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sharpness.htm

 

as becomes apparent from the tutorial acutance is often confused with sharpness, or sharpness confused with acutance. Which is probably why Rodinal is so popular, it makes everything appear sharper than a high resolution fine grain developer, so your new lens is always 'awesome' (if posting on RFF).

 

Steve

Edited April 25, 2015 by 250swb

[MarkP]

I agree. I don't find TX400 and BW400CN as interchangeable as I might like. That said, despite the discontinuation announcement, the latter remains easily obtainable so I don't yet have to consider TX400 as a substitute for BW400CN.

I find BW400CN to be less grainy and to have a more subtle tonal range especially with those lovely velvety shadows & blacks whilst TX400 to be more in your face with grain & contrast.

 

And despite stocking up on BW400CN myself stock is indeed still readily available.

[adan]

Nice link, Steve!

 

Which is why I always take MTF charts with a (small) grain of salt: they measure contrast at a given resolution(s), and thus graph acutance, more than resolution per se.

 

BTW: many "fine grain" developers actually reduce acutance (and film speed), because they achieve fine grain by using a silver solvent (most commonly sodium sulfite) to dissolve the edges of the silver grains, softening the transitions (less acutance) while reducing the grain size (less grain), resulting in less overall silver content for a given exposure (lower ISO).

 

All-around developers like D-76 and ID-11 have a moderate amount of Na₂SO₃ to slightly hold back grain (it is also an anti-oxidant and preservative, added to some wines and other fruit juices).

 

Fine-gain developers like Microdol-X and Ilfosol (thus the name) have a higher percentage of solvent, and thus produce finer grain (usually with the warning of somewhat reduced film speed).

 

Rodinal has a small amount of K₂S₂O₅ (Potassium metabisulfite) as a preservative, which is diluted to virtual nothingness @ 1:50, and thus produces little solvent action, high acutance, and larger grain. Some photographers add their own sodium sulfite to their Rodinal working solution (~9%), to reduce grain while keeping Rodinal's nice compensating effects at 1:50.

 

http://www.apug.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-12420.html

Edited April 26, 2015 by adan

[250swb]

BTW: many "fine grain" developers actually reduce acutance (and film speed), because they achieve fine grain by using a silver solvent (most commonly sodium sulfite) to dissolve the edges of the silver grains, softening the transitions (less acutance) while reducing the grain size (less grain), resulting in less overall silver content for a given exposure (lower ISO).

 

 

 

 

Thank you Andy for you acuity in expanding on acutance.

 

Yes I should have made it clearer, when I said 'high resolution fine grain developer' it was meant to imply 'and low acutance' in my comparison with Rodinal. But it just goes to show how choosing a developer is a skill an experienced photographer can use to refine the image on the negative.

 

Steve

[imsilly]

Personally I think grain is an important factor when choosing to shoot film over digital. To date the grain of films is the hardest to aspect of film photography to replicate. Grain is not just important for its uniqueness it is also important for it's general aesthetic and how we perceive and image, whether it has a nice textual effect on skin, skies or other surfaces or other perceptual effects like acutance.

 

I shoot a lot of film and how I alter the grain determines a lot of my shooting technique and processing. I select the film, developer, development regime, paper and printing techniques to alter it as I feel fit.

 

It's one reason why I rarely if ever shoot digitally. If I do that I know later I can do nothing to effect grain outside add a horrible layer of artificial grain to an image.

 

Grain has been and will always be an integral part of film photography to be embraced rather then ignored or rejected.

 

[pico]

Isn't there an English word for "acutance"? All these neologisms...

In case you're interested, the German word for it is: Konturenschaerfe.

In all due respect for your photographic achievements, Pico: what does grain have to do with it?

 

How new must a word be to be called a neologism? We have been using the term in English for  a hundred years to mean "impression of sharpness".

 

Grain definitely has something to do with acutance.  Greater acutance through grain comes from greater contrast in fine lines due to a lack of grain in transitioned edges. Demonstration of the same on a monitor is difficult, but maybe I can find examples. Meanwhile, if you can put your hands on a copy of Edge of Darkness by Barry Thornton, check out pages #23, #24. (I happened to have the book beside me.)

[chrism]

I think the concept of 'dithering' has a lot to do with the perception of some grain adding to sharpness. I don't see why adding fake grain digitally shouldn't do the same, but it certainly won't look the same as the algorithms used won't exactly mimic the summed effect of chemical emulsion, plus developer, plus agitation etc. All the same, in the old days we used to try to avoid or minimise grain as it wasn't considered to be something one would want. I can understand that some might want grain now as a way of showing that they are using film, but I tend to stick to my usual habits.

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[Alberti]

What I like is not the grain as such; even though it is pleasing; and also not for its ability to convey contours and shades of formes, of texture.

At one time I made a 'point light source'  for my enlarger, a friend used that with great success to 'enlarge the structure of the grain'. 

Enlargements can then be made on any size: with very hard development the grain stands out. Terrific on TRI-X for instance.

 

This means the grain becomes the texture by itself.

 

Example.

I went to the Cobijn exhibition in The Hague, and there were two "styles" of pictures; old ones shot in 24x36, all hard and grainy. Each grain can be seen; has its own texture.

Them later for some reason het 'reinvented' his style, went 6x6, and all those pictures have been printed in a blurred way, the grain was not tangible, it was softened, compressed almost.

 

And that word 'compressed'  is the effect we also get when we develop in EFEX and have to deliver in JPG in order to print. 

I would guess a whole different compression algorithm would be needed to publish and distribute 'grainy' black and white pictures. Maybe then those results would be nice too.

Same for upscaling as it should not look at forms and shades but at that 'grain'.