A film 'look' in the near future?

[pgk]

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16 minutes ago, plasticman said:

..... I always go back to this classic 2007 post .....

And even this is simplistic. I can't remember just how many layers some films have, but its considerably more than three, and all vary in sensitivity, base and spectral. Emulating this with a 3 colour sensor and software is fine but when you start adding complex lighting with varying spectral outputs it becomes difficult to emulate anything.

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[ianman]

24 minutes ago, plasticman said:

ink that some sensor breakthrough might someday provide the solution, I always go back to this classic 2007 post from a (ex?) member of the forum:

http://photo-utopia.blogspot.com/2007/10/chumps-and-clumps.html

So pretty much covers both points I have been banging on about since post #4 😇 

[evikne]

1 minute ago, Steven said:

If you get an M7, you dont have much to learn.

I would love to see the pictures you'd get of your kids with you 35 pre asph and 50 e46 on a roll of Portra400. Would be magic. 

Thank you! If there was an easy way to send in the film and get back scanned digital files, maybe …

[pedaes]

7 minutes ago, Steven said:

Can you tell me more about what's so special with it? 

It's in the eye of the beholder. This might help (or you could star at Part 1 if you have time) https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2015/03/the-great-debate-ccd-vs-cmos-part-3/

[pgk]

5 minutes ago, Steven said:

Everyone talks about the M9 look and I've never had a chance to try it. Can you tell me more about what's so special with it? 

It uses a CCD sensor which has noise which looks more like film grain than CMOS cameras. You can shoot at base ISO and adjust afterwards for underexposure, or at least that's the way I use mine. Depends on how you shoot though and its not quite as simple as that. But I do find the M9 files to be surprisingly flexible and still highly usable. In fact I still prefer its output to much more 'advanced' cameras but again that may be because I have been using the M9 long enough to be very familar with just what I can get out of it.

[evikne]

4 minutes ago, Steven said:

Everyone talks about the M9 look and I've never had a chance to try it. Can you tell me more about what's so special with it? 

When I look back at my M9 pictures, I always miss it. To me, the M9 was the missing link between analog and digital. I could put on modern lenses and still have much of that look I've tried to recreate ever since with my M10, by using older lenses and/or presets in LR.

[plasticman]

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33 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

Same sensor as the Nikon D100. 

Yeah I know - these sensors were extensively discussed on this forum at the time.

I never used a Nikon D100, but otoh I did have a couple of other Nikon digital cameras afterwards - the D70 was one of them (if I recall correctly) - and I found the images to be horribly plasticky and not in the least 'film-like'. Hated those cameras actually.

I have no idea what made the Epson images look film-like to me - I still think they look filmic when I look at them again (been a while though). Could just be that I pretty much only used a Noctilux at the time, and the Nikon had some generic Nikon lens on it (have no idea what). 

 

[gabrielaszalos]

If I were to be radically honest, if I were after a specific look, I'd shoot digital. The amount of detail and flexibility in obtaining *any* look is unbeatable. After a lot of practice and experience you can easily pull out any look you want. I am always impressed when I look back on old digital photos from years ago, taken with a top-end DSLR camera and a prime. It blows me away every time, it's like it's almost 3D and I can see my family in great detail as they were many years ago. You can't get that with film. Maybe slides come close, but nothing else.

However, I found that the reason I shoot film for is the experience. The fact that I DON'T see the photo, the fact that I use a purely mechanical camera (+/- a meter) and the whole chemical process involved. It just feels like "making" a photograph whereas digital feels more like a smartphone photo for me (made abstraction of the result). That magical moment after developing the film, and later scanning it...

This is my own subjective opinion.

Edited May 26, 2021 by gabrielaszalos

[adan]

I guess my first reaction to this thread is, "Who on Earth decided that "Portra" was any kind of a standard reference for "film?"

This is "film" also (Velvia in an M4-2: top row, 35 Summicron v.4; bottom row, 90mm Summicron pre-APO, 21 Super-Angulon). It is, of course, digitalized to show here - but adjusted to match the original film in tone and color. Made in my brief "intersection" of Leica M and film, 2001-2003

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I grew up in photography when these were the artists making the big day-rates (and with film, of course, although Pete Turner was an early adopter of digital, so check his dates - same for Jay Maisel, although I think this "favorites" selection is mostly film).

Kodachrome II "under by 1/2 stop" was the standard for illustrative 35mm color back then.

https://www.peteturner.com/Jazz1/index.html

https://www.snapgalleries.com/portfolio-items/art-kane/

http://ernst-haas.com/color-america/

https://www.jaymaisel.com/collections/favorites

and from a B&W tonal perspective, these pix, which have already survived in the human archives of great photos for 65 years (and are brought to us by a site titled "C41 Magazine.")

https://www.c41magazine.com/w-eugene-smith-pittsburgh-portrait-industrial-city/

But if all one is looking for is "high-key, green-skied color," there is this (M10 and 90 Summicron III - trivially adjusted):

from this original

Taste non est disputandum - but I hope to Bog my digital (and film) photos NEVER look like the examples linked in the first post.

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by adan

[plasticman]

You forgot to mention Saul Leiter @adan

In any case, the discussion didn't really start out as the 'film' look so much as this 'over-exposed Portra' look which is very fashionable right now. When it's done well I really like it. The instagram linked at the beginning doesn't do it well (imo of course).

[ianman]

29 minutes ago, adan said:

I guess my first reaction to this thread is, "Who on Earth decided that "Portra" was any kind of a standard reference for "film?"

err, nobody?  Not in this thread anyway.

[Einst_Stein]

2 hours ago, Steven said:

Everyone talks about the M9 look and I've never had a chance to try it. Can you tell me more about what's so special with it? 

LOL, you are serious about these claims!

Maybe I should say Digilux 2, instead!

Edited May 26, 2021 by Einst_Stein
typo

[Einst_Stein]

3 hours ago, ianman said:

I'm not going to argue with Eins_Stein about physics  I thought the double slit experiment showed that light behaves simultaneously as a discrete particle (digital) and a wave (analog). Though I'm probably wrong about that.

I understand what you mean, and of course you are right, there is the same phenomenon for audio where there is a threshold sampling rate (96kHz?) which is sufficient to outperform our hearing abilities.

Actually, your post made me think about the hypothetical "analog" sensor I suggested in a previous post. If there are enough pixels, (many more than 24MP for a 35mm FF), they could be randomly switched on/off to mimic a random silver halide pattern. But it would be ludicrous to build such a sensor. Resolution is just one of the properties of the medium, so again ...  just use film.

 

edit: I'm not trying to suggest one method is better than another. Quite naturally and thank god, we each have our preferences.

If I understand you right, it's easy. Just take a raw image from a 47mp camera, do your algorithm to create a random pixel mask, there you go!

Without much ado, see what you'll get?

The so call "film look" is nothing but the color rendering  due to the limitation of film chemical that some people are depended upon.    

[Pyrogallol]

Simple, if you want film look, use film.

[Einst_Stein]

1 hour ago, Pyrogallol said:

Simple, if you want film look, use film.

exactly

[evikne]

2 hours ago, Pyrogallol said:

Simple, if you want film look, use film.

It's not that simple. 😢

[plasticman]

13 minutes ago, evikne said:

It's not that simple. 😢

There’s always a way. Film isn’t as expensive as some people seem to think - there are plenty of good online stores in Europe.

Then there simply must be somewhere in Norway you can get film developed. And if there isn’t, then you can mail it to the place I use in Stockholm.

[ianman]

20 minutes ago, evikne said:

It's not that simple. 😢

It really really is!

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[evikne]

1 minute ago, ianman said:

It really really is!

But it's scary when you've never used film before … 😬😄

[ianman]

1 minute ago, evikne said:

But it's scary when you've never used film before … 😬😄

Ah, scary is a different matter... we are all here to hold you hand as you take your first agitations

I'm pretty sure that you'll love it and once you start you'll be hooked!!