M8 vs B&W film - examples

[mwilliamsphotography]

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Sorry Sir, whites are not blown on my monitor or the weekly calibrated one at my ad agency. Maybe that's why your stuff looks flat? And as far as the compositional aspects are concerned if you don't get the implication of the old lady leaving the scene, explaining it is futile.

 

I again say that if your chief purpose in life is to post sub-one meg images on the internet, a Leica M8 is beyond over-kill. Content can be appreciated, but a $500.Canon Powershot will look just as good aesthetically.

 

"You can do a scan of 30,000x20,000 pixels but the detail in the negative is fully extracted with a much smaller pixel matrix"

 

Of course it is. Who said anything about 30,000 X 20,000 pixel scans?

 

Scanning at high resolution 8000 ppi depends on the film being scanned. I don't scan Tri-X at that resolution, but have scanned Kodachrome, Chromogenics, ISO 160 and higher color neg films, and some other fine grain B&W films at 8000. Depends on the exposure of the neg also.

 

I do however completely appreciate that a person's circumstances may lead to a desire to just use digital B&W. Just don't push the notion that it's superior to B&W film as justification for that use. They are different mediums, enjoy them for that.

[tashley]

Tim - for information, 2 and 4 were taken with film - probably Provia 400 pushed 2 stops or Provia 1600 (can't remember which). Lens for #3 was the 28 ASPH - such a good lens.

 

M8 images were all RAW converted in Lightroom and sharpened / resized in CS2.

 

Thank you Chris. I do like the 28 - my new one is due any day now. Must give that Provia a try too, though I suspect I should send it away to get processed. The look is very fine!

 

Tim

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[hankg]

Well in terms of the amount of information in the files there is more in the M8 by a good bit. If you neutralize the film files, hike the contrast of the M8 crop so it is closer to the film curves and sharpen the M8 crop (as the scanner sharpening seemed quite a bit more then the M8 sharpening) it is easier to see.

 

These are from the jpgs posted at the beginning of the thread.

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[tashley]

Sorry Sir, whites are not blown on my monitor or the weekly calibrated one at my ad agency. Maybe that's why your stuff looks flat? And as far as the compositional aspects are concerned if you don't get the implication of the old lady leaving the scene, explaining it is futile.

 

I again say that if your chief purpose in life is to post sub-one meg images on the internet, a Leica M8 is beyond over-kill. Content can be appreciated, but a $500.Canon Powershot will look just as good aesthetically.

 

"You can do a scan of 30,000x20,000 pixels but the detail in the negative is fully extracted with a much smaller pixel matrix"

 

Of course it is. Who said anything about 30,000 X 20,000 pixel scans?

 

Scanning at high resolution 8000 ppi depends on the film being scanned. I don't scan Tri-X at that resolution, but have scanned Kodachrome, Chromogenics, ISO 160 and higher color neg films, and some other fine grain B&W films at 8000. Depends on the exposure of the neg also.

 

I do however completely appreciate that a person's circumstances may lead to a desire to just use digital B&W. Just don't push the notion that it's superior to B&W film as justification for that use. They are different mediums, enjoy them for that.

 

 

Then we are in full agreement. My point was never to claim that one is better than the other (I didn't) and frankly I don't have the equipment or the patience or the desire to find out: the M8 is perfectly good enough for me at B&W and the incremental benefits of becoming expert in current B&W emulsions, chemistry and scanning would be disproportionate to my needs.

 

As for the composition of your image - I certainly think it is excellent and the significance of the older lady leaving the scene was in no way lost on me. I was attempting to be ironical by pointing out that the composition breaks some orthodoxies, and is the better for it. And the reason I did that was that I felt certain other orthodoxies were being pushed at me. I do apologise if the attempt at humour failed or was misguided, or both.

 

As for the whites being blown: they are. I dragged them into Lightroom and looked at the histogram's clipping warning. My monitor is calibrated to within an inch of its life. I made the point for the reasons above relating to orthodoxy and FWIW I don't care if they are blown or not. I blow whites all the time, on purpose, when it suits my needs!

 

As to whether my stuff is flat, maybe you're being humorous or maybe you're referring only to my stuff in this thread, hardly art, or maybe you looked at my galleries - in which case do please tell me because I don't like flat!

 

To re-iterate, I am very envious of that shot. It is extremely fine and I wish I had taken it myself.

 

Best

 

Tim

[larry]

Tim,

 

For what it's worth, I got the point of what you doing. However, from the tone of some of the responses, I'm afraid that others may not have realized that they weren't still logged onto a DPReview forum. ;-)

 

My reality for making a B&W print is to scan the neg with my Nikon Coolscan V, or desaturate an M8 file in Photoshop. To avoid angry denouncements of my methodology, I won't post any examples.

 

Larry

[jonoslack]

Why is it that any film/digital comparisons generate so much heat!

 

The interesting thing about this is that Tim really didn't make ANY value judgements - and everyone seems to assume that he's saying that the M8 is better (because, of course, it IS better than a cheap scan from a high street processor).

 

I suppose that everyone has a vested interest in one direction or another, but there is so much garbage spoken by so many sensible people when the subject comes up. It seems to me that the only really valid way to make a comparison is to wet print from negatives and produce a high quality print from the digital file - after all, that's the point of the media isn't it?

 

As an exercise, and before my M8 arrived, I spent a month shooting film on an M6. I even bought a Nikon 5000 scanner for it (because I was told in no uncertain terms that anything less wasn't good enough). At an exhibition in December I did post an A2 sized film print, and asked any photographer who turned up to find it (nobody did - but there were lots of guesses which revealed a lot about each person's attitude). The only conclusion I came to was that scanning with the Nikon wasn't good enough (not because of the resolution, but because it wasn't good enough). Maybe Marc's imacon scanner does the job properly? I liked the feel of the film - but then I also liked the feel of the digital. In the end I stopped shooting film because:

1. What a hassle!

2. I couldn't afford £15,000 on a scanner which would do it justice

3. I wasn't going back to having my own darkroom.

4. I like the ability to see whether I've got the shot (child that I am).

5. I don't like watching $100's going through airport xray machines.

 

Talking to an 'art' professional of some standing and many times her own weight of coffee table books, she was completely adamant that digital was rubbish - but then she simply handed her films over and had A3 sized prints back as proofs to scribble on the picks were then drum scanned (by someone else) and modified in photoshop for her approval. - If I had that kind of facility, then maybe I'd start really trying to come to some conclusion about qualitive advantages - but I'm afraid I don't! But even then, wet prints are not the final result - so maybe the perfect comparison is just academic.

 

Let's face it, you can get great exhibition sized prints from an M8 file - and you can get great exhibition sized prints from an M7. Saying one is better than the other is like saying that Smoked Salmon is better than Gravadlax . . . . . . when you haven't got any dill sauce! On the other hand, a tasting session is a fine thing, and as far as I can see that's all that Tim offered.

 

Ohhell - I thought there was a funny smell. I just realised that I stepped in a dog mess on the way out to the barn - euch - off for a cleaning session.

[tashley]

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Tim,

 

For what it's worth, I got the point of what you doing. However, from the tone of some of the responses, I'm afraid that others may not have realized that they weren't still logged onto a DPReview forum. ;-)

 

My reality for making a B&W print is to scan the neg with my Nikon Coolscan V, or desaturate an M8 file in Photoshop. To avoid angry denouncements of my methodology, I won't post any examples.

 

Larry

 

Thank you Larry! Actually the Leica forum on DPreview is like a Royal Garden party compared to what's been going on here!

 

As for your decision not to post examples: I commend it. Discretion and valour in perfect balance...

 

;-)

 

Tim

[hankg]

One of the advantages of shooting color and then converting to B+W is you can alter the spectral response of the media to suit the shot. I pulled a lot more from the green channel to make this conversion from Tim's color jpeg. A little tone curve alteration and some burning in on the grass and you can get a very different result. I have also neutralized the Contax file for comparison as this really changes the way the look.

 

Order: M8, Contax. I haven't shot film in a while and I don't do much B+W anymore and if you really wanted to make a comparison you would want to look at prints made from a silver based B+W emulsion compared to prints made from the M8. I will defer to someone who still does use B+W film and shoots a lot of it for an opinion:

 

In comparing actual prints from the M8 and M2 (lens perspective and spatial quality aside) I have little preference for one or the other. The M8, shot at high ISO (usually 640), with characteristic and chromatic response curves applied in BW conversion the M8 is very difficult to distinguish from the M2/Tri-X combination. The tonal scale is printable, legible and beautiful in both and very similar.

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[Guest stnami]

Why is it that any film/digital comparisons generate so much heat!

because..........

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[tashley]

Snip:

Why is it that any film/digital comparisons generate so much heat!

 

The interesting thing about this is that Tim really didn't make ANY value judgements - and everyone seems to assume that he's saying that the M8 is better (because, of course, it IS better than a cheap scan from a high street processor).

 

 

Jono, your kindness is as boundless as your humour. And thanks for that sanity check: I really didn't think I was making any value judgements, am still struggling to see how it could have been construed that way. Must get better at expressing myself.

 

Now go clean your shoes, I can smell it from here!

 

Best

 

Tim

[plasticman]

Good grief - what a self-righteous tone from everyone. If it's not too much for you sensitive souls, maybe someone can point me to the posts where "the tone of some of the responses" reminded them of the dpreview forums.

 

In any case when all's said and done, the point remains that the rhetorical nature of Tim's second post was really obvious:

 

"Now I know that there are too many variables for this to mean a lot - especially given that the B&W film was not exactly processed by Ansel Adams or scanned by a genius (it was all done on one of those machines that looks like a family car) but there are certain things I noticed. What do others think?"

(my italics)

 

No matter how great a camera the M8 actually is (and that's another debate altogether), the quality of a black-and-white photograph is not determined by how much detail-per-screen-pixel it exhibits.

 

If Tim wants to go to the effort of initiating this type of debate, then participants can at least have the courtesy of listening to what the other side actually has to say, instead of the patronizing, and often downright insulting tone that always pervades responses to anyone who even vaguely questions the holiest of cameras (god bless the almighty M8).

[jonoslack]

Good grief - what a self-righteous tone from everyone. If it's not too much for you sensitive souls, maybe someone can point me to the posts where "the tone of some of the responses" reminded them of the dpreview forums.

 

In any case when all's said and done, the point remains that the rhetorical nature of Tim's second post was really obvious:

 

"Now I know that there are too many variables for this to mean a lot - especially given that the B&W film was not exactly processed by Ansel Adams or scanned by a genius (it was all done on one of those machines that looks like a family car) but there are certain things I noticed. What do others think?"

(my italics)

I think you're showing your own attitude here - why is that obviously rhetorical? - he'd already said that it was unscientific. My instant response was that he liked the look of the film shots - not that he thought the M8 shot was 'better'.

 

I think you're putting your own answers here.

 

No matter how great a camera the M8 actually is (and that's another debate altogether), the quality of a black-and-white photograph is not determined by how much detail-per-screen-pixel it exhibits.

 

Has anyone for a second said anything to the contrary - I would have thought that was true of any photograph, obviously so.

 

If Tim wants to go to the effort of initiating this type of debate, then participants can at least have the courtesy of listening to what the other side actually has to say, instead of the patronizing, and often downright insulting tone that always pervades responses to anyone who even vaguely questions the holiest of cameras (god bless the almighty M8).

 

So why didn't you listen, rather than reading between the lines (and putting in stuff that wasn't there).

 

As for 'sides' - what sides?

c'mon Mani - now you're sounding grumpy - it was supposed to be 'a bit of fun on a Sunday afternoon'

[ddp]

.

 

 

As for the whites being blown: they are. I dragged them into Lightroom and looked at the histogram's clipping warning. My monitor is calibrated to within an inch of its life. I made the point for the reasons above relating to orthodoxy and FWIW I don't care if they are blown or not. I blow whites all the time, on purpose, when it suits my needs!

 

 

 

 

The whites aren't blown....what calibration system are you using? Seems well within acceptable boundries on my end.

[tashley]

The whites aren't blown....what calibration system are you using? Seems well within acceptable boundries on my end.

 

Just drag it into Lightroom and Photoshop and look at the clipping. Then we don't need to argue about calibration - they are blown, it's a scientific fact and one of the few things about which none of us needs to have an opinion! And as I clearly stated, it doesn't matter a jot because it is a great photo.

 

Best

 

Tim

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Tim stop having fun on Sunday afternoons, okay. LOL

 

man glad i missed this one , wahooy

[plasticman]

Just drag it into Lightroom and Photoshop and look at the clipping. Then we don't need to argue about calibration - they are blown, it's a scientific fact and one of the few things about which none of us needs to have an opinion! And as I clearly stated, it doesn't matter a jot because it is a great photo.

 

i'm sorry but

1. i'm smelling hypocrisy here, to be frank, because your first snide response was not quite this generous in artistic terms

2. i just checked the image in photoshop, and setting aside that it's a crappy web version of a film scan, i actually could only find a few isolated pixels that were 255-255-255

[tashley]

Tim stop having fun on Sunday afternoons, okay. LOL

 

man glad i missed this one , wahooy

 

Guy, I have a creeping sense that I may never have fun again. It clearly isn't allowed.

 

;-(

 

Tim

[plasticman]

Guy, I have a creeping sense that I may never have fun again. It clearly isn't allowed.

;-(

Tim

 

You guys say stuff - re-read your own extremely rude response to fotografz - then when someone picks you up on it, the typical response is to hold up your hands and say "i was just having fun - all these horrible, nasty people are picking on me!"

 

Yep - i'm also LOL just as Guy always is. The thread was obviously intended as a "my M8 is superior to film" and unfortunately there are people who disagree. As i see it, that's the way a forum is supposed to work.

 

Incidentally - in answer to jonoslack:

Originally Posted by plasticman

No matter how great a camera the M8 actually is (and that's another debate altogether), the quality of a black-and-white photograph is not determined by how much detail-per-screen-pixel it exhibits.

Has anyone for a second said anything to the contrary - I would have thought that was true of any photograph, obviously so.

you can look at hankg's post above.

[tashley]

i'm sorry but

1. i'm smelling hypocrisy here, to be frank, because your first snide response was not quite this generous in artistic terms

2. i just checked the image in photoshop, and setting aside that it's a crappy web version of a film scan, i actually could only find a few isolated pixels that were 255-255-255

 

I would like, for the sanity of myself and most others here, to make a public apology to Plasticman:

 

I, tashley, of West Sussex, formally add to the private apology I sent the aforementioned Plasticman via LUF PM system this morning (reproduced below), the following:

 

I categorically state that when I started this thread it was my sole and explicit intention to denigrate all users of film and all users of cameras other than the M8. When I clearly stated otherwise it was a trick. When I claimed to like the output from the Contax, it was a lie, designed to seduce the unwary.

 

Also, there is no clipping in the image referred to whatsoever: I commissioned a special version of Lightroom from Adobe at massive expense so as to perpetuate this lie with the so-called 'scientific' evidence of a 'histogram', also known as the Devil's work. I am a very bad boy.

 

In fact I have always been a very bad boy. I have always had it in for users of the evil film and those apostates who refuse to acknowledge the supremacy of the M8 - as anyone who has ever read any of my posts here or anywhere else can clearly tell.

 

I hereby submit myself for re-education. I will develop film in darkness for all time and I will enjoy 'the process'.

 

Tim Ashley

In The Year of Our Lord 2007

 

follows the PM I sent Plasticman earlier

 

<Quote>

Just to take this off-forum: I am genuinely sorry if you think I've been rude - I felt myself to be unfairly under attack! But just to assure you I have no doctrinaire views on the M8 - I love it and it also irritates the hell out of me with its fussy ways.

 

I always try to really <sic, should have read 'reply'> with a sense of humour but it really can get lost - the danger of a dry SOH. My ps to Fotograf's post was really really meant as a fairly gentle joke about the nature of orthodoxy but I do see how it might be read quite differently!

 

Have a great week,

 

Tim

<end quote>

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Look here: Leica M

[ddp]

Just drag it into Lightroom and Photoshop and look at the clipping. Then we don't need to argue about calibration - they are blown, it's a scientific fact and one of the few things about which none of us needs to have an opinion! And as I clearly stated, it doesn't matter a jot because it is a great photo.

 

Best

 

Tim

 

Okey dokey....I don't do Lightroom and I am basing my comments on what I see on screen. I just don't see it.

 

I simply don't understand why people don't get that it's not an apples to apples comparison. If you want the look of B&W film, shoot film. Duh. The attitudes I'm seeing displayed when it comes to defending M8 files are getting wacky - and we are forgetting about why we're here in the first place - taking pictures.