Digital loses its shine

[AlanJW]

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I'm not sure what a "punter" is. I see very few P&S film cameras anywhere anymore. Most people seem to prefer digital, and the big film companies understand this. For me, I started in photography in 1959 with 35mm and have used mostly 35mm since (certainly not the range of equipment used by Alan Goldsetin, but lots of different cameras). I resisted digital for the longest time. It was strange to me. I didn't understand how it worked, and the processing was totally different. Then I found that I could shoot film and scan it and make my own prints, but still resisted digital cameras on the ground that the quality was not as good as film. Finally, I bought a digital SLR and then bounced from Nikons to Nikons (which I had used for 25 years) to Canon. Now I use a Leica M8 and a Canon 5D and there is no longer a debate about quality -- digital is as good or better -- and if I look at my work over the last 10 years, its better now because I have more control from beginning to end. So my F3 (still have it, along with some others) sits in a drawer unused. I love the digital way of working, and for me there is no esthetic deficiency in digital. Photographers have shot plastic looking junk with film too. Its not at all about the camera. Its about the person using it and what's between their ears. If its fluff, you'll see fluff, and if is substance you'll see substance whether its film or digital. Sort if a silly debate anyhow.

[AlanG]

With all your qualification mentioned above, I still don't understand why you think that digital will have the same result with the difference in the light angle.

 

Don't get me wrong. I think it is fine if people prefer film or any specific technique for any reason. I just don't like hearing blanket statements that something only works this way on film and can't work that way on digital or vice versa. I think a good photographer can do pretty much whatever he/she wants with either. I know I can.

 

I never said that digital will have the exact same result as film when you drastically change the angle that you shoot in relation to the illumination. What I did say was that in the example you posted, the main reason the two images look so different is a result of the angle of the light. The color balance of the two images are also quite different. This can be from the change in light or from the scanning. If the color shift is from the change in light and the digital camera is not set on auto white balance, then it will have a color change too. (Of course this can be altered in the raw conversion just as it can be changed when you scan film.)

 

What I think I could do, if I had been there with you, is shoot the same subjects and produce very similar results in both situations with a digital camera - should I want to try to match your images. But it wouldn't be a result of any accident.

 

See how different a building can look as the light changes. (These were made with a digital camera but they could have looked pretty similar if I had shot them on 6x9 film. In my opinion.)

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[AlanG]

This also explain why I'm still shooting film aside from my digital cameras.

It may take more time to scan film, but with the result above it will take weeks to PS a digital image and not even come close to get the result of film.

 

-Ron

 

I took the liberty of adjusting your sun image to look more like your shade image. (I really hope you don't mind but it makes for a nice demonstration.) Not weeks, more like 5 minutes of work for anyone with proficiency. It probably would be hard if not impossible to make it look like it was taken in the shade. But the color, contrast and sky were a snap.

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[Guest stnami]

First reaction Alan............ yep digital you can tell by the eveness of the colour and how all is smothered to uniformity. sure same sam ebut different!!

[ron110n]

As shot from one angle on a Kodak Ektachrome 100G.

 

10 mins after on a different angle of the Plaza on the same camera and roll of film.

 

 

Let me xfer it here first and see... then I'll 'just edit the additional text.

 

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Pretty close... except for the #2 reflection which is another "film thing", But that's a different angle of light, It should be different.

Though I agree that there are digital thing that cannot be captured in film.

Don't we think so?

That's why I shoot both media.

I never say film is dead for my requirement.

That belongs to NKOB (if you remember the singing group) or picture takers who's taste in art is dead.

But I know for your case, you have a requirement and dead-line by your client.

All they wanted is what is expected.

 

 

First reaction Alan............ yep digital you can tell by the eveness of the colour and how all is smothered to uniformity. sure same sam ebut different!!

 

Different media cannot be the same.

I don't know if you agree with that Allan.

 

-Ron

[AlanG]

But I know for your case, you have a requirement and dead-line by your client.

All they wanted is what is expected.

 

I am not sure what you mean by this. I am the one who decides how I am going to photograph a subject and what I'll present to the client. In the case of the building that I illustrated above, I probably gave them more than 30 different exterior views shot over 2 days in all kinds of light and angles. I explored the subject and nothing was expected or discussed in advance. I was simply hired to go shoot the outside and inside of this building in Atlanta for three or four days. I had to find the right hotel that overlooked it and also persuade them to let me spend an evening on the exterior balcony of the hotel's "Governor Suite" to get what I wanted. My subject was surounded by other buildings that greatly limited the possibliities of shots from a distance. Securing a vantage point is often more work than the actual photography. To shoot film in any format or digital was entirely up to me. I had no deadline. Another example is below.

 

When I shoot film I also hope to get what I expect. But that is from experience. I don't want surprises because many times they are bad. (Such as blurry pictures from using a view camera on a windy day.) For instance I knew that my transparency film would shift to magenta in long dusk exposures. (This is a film only reciprocity failure effect that doesn't happen with digital.) Maybe you'd like it and maybe you wouldn't. I knew I could keep that effect if I thought it would help or I could use a filter on my camera to prevent it. Here's that magenta sky on a picture that was blurred - Surprise!

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[ron110n]

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???

[craigrmurray]

Guys I am talking about the everyday punter not a photographer or very interested amateur, people who buy a digital point and shoot and found out the images are crap compared to their film stuff.

 

Imants:

A little light on the lingo, up here in Kansas. Is a "punter" Aussie slang, or Stami slang ?

[Guest stnami]

Fair crack of the sav there murreee, the everyday punter is a betting man, the guy who goes and has a bet on weekends, serious enough to read a guide but never beyond that.................mind you knows everything about his wife's camera but she lets him believe that.....

[jaapv]

Imants:

A little light on the lingo, up here in Kansas. Is a "punter" Aussie slang, or Stami slang ?

 

From Wikipedia:

 

 

The word punter may refer to:

• Someone who uses a Punt (boat).
  
• Punter (football position), a position in American or Canadian football
  
• The Punters, a traditional Newfoundland music group.
  
• A player in the game of Baccarat.
  
• Punter (protocol), a file-transfer protocol.
  
• Ricky Ponting aka "Punter", Australian cricket legend.
  
• Christopher Ponton aka "Punter", famous Canberra, Australia socialite, basketball coach. Died of overdose 5/12/2006.

In slang or colloquial use:

• In British English, a customer of a business, the usage being primarily found in London and Essex.
  
• In both British and Australian English, a gambler, particularly an amateur betting on horse racing.
  
• Punter also means a "dude" in Hindi. For example "Punter hai re ekdum", meaning "He is a cool dude".
  
• A beginner skier or snowboarder or one with particularly bad style.

 

[Guest stnami]

Jaap not all of life is according to Wikipedia,..................Wikipedia contains too much made up crap, no regulation complete bullshit lives with what could be true

[jaapv]

Jaap not all of life is according to Wikipedia,..................Wikipedia contains too much made up crap, no regulation complete bullshit lives with what could be true

 

True, very true. But for a dictionary-like entry not too bad and lazily googled

[Guest stnami]

Most schools in OZ tell the kids it a load of crap and go to a reliable source

[steve kessel]

My google source says punter can specifically refer to a customer of a brothel. Perhaps a touch of irony then to the term "your average punter" and perhaps appropriate in the context of this thread?

[MJLogan]

In our current context, a "punter" is an average, non-specialist/non-hobbyist/non-obsessive, casual user of the product or class of products being discussed. I see that usage quite often from British and Commonwealth posters on a variety of online forums. Maybe I should update the wiki...

[ennjott]

I'm 30 and I started to use film a while ago, 2 years after I had gotten into "serious" photography. It's astounding for me how quickly people who have been using film for decades are now dismissing it, because I am seeing many small (and some not so small) improvements over the often "video-like" image of digital sensors.

 

I disagree with AlanG's statement that his shots wouldn't necessarily look differently with a 6x9 - because there is posterization in the sky in all of them! Very well visible in some, less obvious in others, but always there.

 

I sometimes think that most people who didn't grow up with computers and digital imagery are less sensitive to digital artifacts than I am. I see bayer artefacts, limits of the linear->logarithmic conversion process with only 12-14 bits, color shifts, clipping of single channels etc. all the time in digital images.

I think before there is a sensor with logarithmic response to light, film will remain to have an edge with its soft clipping. Its anamorphic structure also leads to more naturally produced detail.

 

I don't even want to get into the paradox of digital supposedly resolving finer detail, yet actual cameras being measured to 40-50 lp/mm at best and decades old photo mags as well as internet discussions between ca. 1990 and 2000 talking about results of 70 lp/mm and more on the final print. Did they all have hallucinations?

 

An entirely different matter is that film simply has nicer cameras. Where is my digital Minolta Hi-Matic 7SII? Where is any digital P&S with a large sensor and something like the Minolta's fine Rokkor 1.7/40? Wouldn't be that fine with a sensor though with light striking at an acute angle - yet another shortcoming.

 

For me, digital does start to lose its shine because the basic problems of the technology are not going away, in spite of what was expected a few years ago. The incremental upgrades are not good enough.

[Guest stnami]

For me, digital does start to lose its shine because the basic problems of the technology are not going away, in spite of what was expected a few years ago. The incremental upgrades are not good enough.

Well said................that about sums it up, people do understand technology a lot better than the boards of companies give them credit for

[AlanG]

I disagree with AlanG's statement that his shots wouldn't necessarily look differently with a 6x9 - because there is posterization in the sky in all of them! Very well visible in some, less obvious in others, but always there.

 

 

The posterization in the sky is simply from low res jpegs to meet the site size requirements. I only posted them to show how different light affects the color of a subject on digital as it does on film. I should be more careful but I wasn't posting to show digital quality. (I'd have to use full size tiffs for that.) Here's a similar sized image with posterized sky made from scanned 6x12 film - The image with the boat in front. The original file was larger than 200 megabytes. You lose a lot when you scale it down. (The same with digitally captured files.) I've also included a digital image of Tampa that has less or no posterization. Do you want to see any of my digital or scanned images photos in full size?

 

I made 2x4 and 2x3 foot prints of these and other images (Digital captures and scanned 6x9 and 6x12 film.) When I get new clients I ask them if they are going to be needing large prints and if so I show them these images and ask them if they think they can see significant differences between them. I give them a choice of having me shoot with my digital camera or 6x9 and 6x12 or 4x5 film. So far in 4 years, nobody has asked for the film. The only comment so far has been that they can see the grain in the film shots.

 

On the lower shot of Tampa, I also shot 6x12 film at the same time. I did this a lot when I was transitioning to digital as I was trying to see its limitations and make sure my clients were learning with me. I showed it to the client and looked closely at it myself and we didn't bother to scan it. (And I have the best view camera and lenses plus good technique.) Please realize that when my clients send me all the way to Tampa or Miami, it is pretty important that I do a good job. So I didn't start shooting digital images cavalierly. And I still offer to shoot film if they want that. I scanned film for 8 years before I started shooting this kind of work on a digital camera.

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[ron110n]

I'm sorry Alan,

The image is flat.

I've seen 4x5 that's better than that.

 

Here's another one.

 

???

 

Post me one with a good depth.

It's a request.

 

-Ron

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[AlanG]

I'm sorry Alan,

The image is flat.

I've seen 4x5 that's better than that.

 

Here's another one.

 

???

 

Post me one with a good depth.

It's a request.

 

-Ron

 

Pretty funny.

 

Which one is flat or are they both flat, I can't tell.

 

Well 4x5 inches would be a bigger piece of film than 6x12 cm. The difference is really obvious on a 500 pixel high jpeg that's for sure. I'll try to use a 3D camera next time to provide more depth. Yeah my client thought the pictures were pretty bad too. I guess it's back to square one for me. Now I know why nobody calls.

 

In case vic vic is reading this, it's called sarcasm ;-)