I sold all my digital cameras for film!

[imported_peter_m]

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Welcome to the forum Catherin!

 

Digital is handy for some things but film is real... you can touch it

 

Peter

[tobey bilek]

If you think having a digi cam makes pro photographs something anybody can do, you are wrong. The skill requirement is still there and the only thing changed is instant gratification, something clients are demanding. Paid pros had to switch.

 

Now if you shoot off 10,000 crummy photos a month, that really is your error.

[AlanG]

I think that you nailed it; with film it's think first shoot second. With digital it's shoot, shoot, shoot and then see if there's anything there worth thinking about.

 

Maybe true for someone with limited experience, skills, or direction.

 

That's not how I work, or how any pro I know works.

[Guest malland]

Well I'm not surprised Mitch, I'll tell you why.

 

Your film images have quite a high DR, a small random amount of grain more like HP5 than Tri-X, though its hard to tell; they aren't Neopan 400 and certainly not XP2.

 

But they have a certain quality.

Most of your digital stuff (not all) has quite low DR, very high contrast and sometimes a 'too sharp' look that is inconsistent with low light shots certainly for it to be film.

 

Its as if you are trying to PP to look like pushed Tri-X but starting with a digi P&S with low DR and bumping the contrast doesn't do it.

To me it looks false.

I don't want to pick on one shot (and I hope you don't mind)

But the 3rd shot the street scene with the motorbike, is way over PP'd for my taste and the grain/noise in the roof of the car/taxi on the left could only be from a digital P&S– really ugly.

Compared to the later shot from fast film the building looks too stark and tonally restricted, like the sinister biker with no face.

 

Don't be hurt by my critique I think the execution of your images is good, I'm not sure the equipment is as good as the photographer.

Regards

Mark

PS I'm having fun with a Rollei 35 at the moment, I'd MUCH rather use one than a digital P&S

No, Mark, I don't mind critique, or criticism for that matter. The 3rd picture you refer to was on of the first digital photos I wokrd on and it is very heavily worked ones. Since then I've gained facility in post-processing; but, then I have stopped worrying about bloqing our highlights after coming increasingly under the influence of Moriyama Daido's (film) photography. Moriyama who, since 1995, shoots mainly with Ricoh GR1 and GR21 cameras, regularly blows out highlights, going for high contrast and not wanting an "equisite" look. It would be interesting to see whether you think that my latest pictures (all digital) are as easy to classify as the earlier ones. You can find the latest pictures either in my Tokyo series referenced above, or on ,y flickr site whose url is below my signarture. I'll see whether I can find the 3 digital and 4 film pictures that placed some time ago on dpreview and try to post them in a new thread here to see whether you find it as easy to identify the digital ones.

 

—Mitch/Paris

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

[Guest malland]

Mark:

 

I guess I might as well post the 10 pictures taken with the Leica m6, the GR-D, GX100 and the D-Lux 3. Do you want to see whether you can tell which are film and which are digital as easily as you could in the first 20 of my Bangkok series?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest malland]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest malland]

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—Mitch/Paris

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

[fotohuis]

No, you won't be able to see it on a screen but you will when printing on photo paper and especially on a bigger format (>30x40cm) and even more clear when printed on fiber paper (If you would like to do the efforts and payment for that with a digital file).

 

Interesting how people can change in their mind.

When you're a great photographer it doesn't matter on which medium you're shooting. I prefer also film but that's only because I am missing the necessary knowledge to make the best out of a digital file.

After 40 years darkroom work, the fine tuning of a print in the darkroom is not a too much effort for me and much simpler than hours of work with Photoshop CS. But it all depends in which particular part of photography you are working (or not ).

 

Because the analog medium is different the photos can breath another atmosphere. But also in analog photography people are able to produce a lot of crap.

 

Best regards,

 

Robert

[Guest malland]

...No, you won't be able to see it on a screen but you will when printing on photo paper...

Yes, prints look different than JPGs on a monitor, but my experience is that a good JPG from a god TIFF file gives a very good indication to the practised eye of what the print is going to look like you; therefore, one can judge a print from from the monitor image.

 

—Mitch/Paris

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

[Mark Antony]

Mitch

I'll try your new 'digi challenge' later at the moment I'm at work and Symantec security blocks out most web image hosting sites, so at the moment all I get are boxes with crosses in them!

 

I can often tell digital from film on screen, its harder with high DR cameras, shooting subjects in a studio, where lighting can be controlled.

You say you like the highlights 'burned' well I guess I don't; and if you hadn't guessed that is one of the ways I can tell your images apart, harsh highlight transitions, smooth sharp highly detailed mid tones and open shadow with 'digital' noise.

 

Of course you can PP film to a certain extent to 'mimic' the above by blowing the highlights, pumping the contrast and adding random noise to the shadows on a layer, then suppressing mid tone noise and sharpening only the mid tone part of the picture.

 

I'm not sure it's worth doing that to a film image as it would render the images uglier to the eye making the tonal transitions deliberately less smooth.

Less 'exquisite' but more false and ultimately processed. and personally I stay away from processed things food, drink, etc

Hence why I feel 'organic' is the way to go

YMMV

Mark

[ylianos]

I ask you.

Is it only me that sold my digital for analogue?

c.chryss

 

congratulations on your decision!

No it's not only you, I did exactly the same thing as you, 2 years ago, first I got a nikon fm3 and now an m6.

 

Experienced analogue photographers can work with digital with fine results: because they have learned how to think in the analogue era. Now new digital photographers that have not worked with analogue are very confused they have not learned to think and usually produce mediocre results...

 

However I don't agree with you on this: a monkey will never make a bresson photo (making a good photo is not possibilities)

[tom0511]

I think that in some ways this sort of 'limitation' is one of the elements that paradoxically gives film it's strength: you may think you'd 'missed' a shot, but it may be that what was presented to you was an opportunity to creatively react to the subject in a different way than you first thought. This is one of the things that we mean about 'thinking first' with film - if you'd had the digital camera with you. then you would've pushed a couple of buttons and suddenly the camera has 'black&white' high ISO film and you press the shutter without needing to think anymore - but with the low ISO color film loaded, maybe you'd be forced to think some more and try another approach.

 

 

 

People often say this in defence of digital - but I personally feel that the knowledge does not go very deep. Mistakes are erased so easily that most digital photographers never learn anything more than how to dial exposures up or down randomly, depending on what they see from their previous shot on the LCD. Obviously I don't mean this applies to you.

 

1) not having the film I would want might lead in creativeness regarding to work around. If this means a more creative image I doubt. For me itspure limitation not less and not more.

(this is a little like the "use only one lens"-discussion.

 

2) I agree that mistakes can be erased to some degree-but to be honest for a real good image you have to start doing everything right in the first step, even with digital.

What you get is instant feedback, you imediatly see your mistake, you can correct and maybe repeat it doing it better.

 

3) I would think that when shooting film you would have to take even more images to make sure you nailed it, and as far as I understand thats what many pros did/do?

 

I am not against film, I just dont share the opinion that shooting film is any more creative than shooting digital.

 

Cheers, Tom

[jimcollum]

 

My Mp makes me think, compose, create photos. I don't just shoot anything! And most important: the film I use makes me think what and how to photograph!

 

If it is a high contrast film I shoot certain kind of photographs than with a fine grain, soft grayscale film. This is the analogue beauty. Makes you think before you take the pictures. The digital, makes you think after you took them and you end up with thousands of photos with different prossesing...

 

c.chryss

 

While I agree that there are differences between film and digital, this isn't one of them... This is entirely dependent upon the discipline of the person behind the camera. There's nothing about a digital camera that makes you take thousands of photos.

 

jim

[plasticman]

There's nothing about a digital camera that makes you take thousands of photos.

 

Naturally it's possible to go out for a walk with 38 rolls of film and shoot them all off without much consideration (is it winogrand that is famous for rapid-shooting behavior?), and by the same token, one can take the same walk with a digital camera and capture 8 images...

 

But in the real world, neither of these are typical. Browse flickr if you're unsure of this.

[jimcollum]

Naturally it's possible to go out for a walk with 38 rolls of film and shoot them all off without much consideration (is it winogrand that is famous for rapid-shooting behavior?), and by the same token, one can take the same walk with a digital camera and capture 8 images...

 

But in the real world, neither of these are typical. Browse flickr if you're unsure of this.

 

 

i didn't get the feeling this was directed at the millions of amateur photographers, but more at the professional/advanced level of shooter. millions of bad photographers using digital cameras only means there are millions of bad photographers.. and they'd be just as bad using film... i don't know if your age, but i recall the horrendous onslaught of vacation picture slide shows from the relatives with slide projectors)

[c.chryss]

This is getting so much interesting!

 

I want to show you the problem behind digital photography.

Professional photographers can no longer claim they can do better than the rest of us, since they use the same equipment WE do! The mystery of the dark room is gone and now we can do projects with the same digital dark room THEY use.

 

I want to prove this to you with some real print ads.

 

SEE THE FOLLOWING ADS.

CAN YOU SPOT WHICH ONE WAS DONE BY A PHOTOGRAPHER AND WHICH IN-HOUSE, BY US, ???

 

(this is fun!)

[c.chryss]

ups! wrong files!

 

THESE ARE THE PRINT ADS!!!

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[Guest malland]

Christina, I must be missing the point because it seems to me it's fruitless to try to figure out which of your ads are done inhouse and which are done outside by a professional photographer, since it's possible that your inhouse person could be a better photographer than the pro that your using. I don't really see the point of this.

 

—Mitch/Paris

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

[jimcollum]

This is getting so much interesting!

 

I want to show you the problem behind digital photography.

Professional photographers can no longer claim they can do better than the rest of us, since they use the same equipment WE do! The mystery of the dark room is gone and now we can do projects with the same digital dark room THEY use.

 

(this is fun!)

 

but there never was a 'mystery' about a darkroom. the majority of commercial film is/was processed by labs, staffed by fairly low paid workers who's job was to get as much film through in as short of time as possible. They typically took more care than the corner drug store, and were capable of doing specialized processing of chromes (color and/or contrast masks).. but those services were also available to anyone who would pay the price. The more advanced skill involved in the darkroom was normally used by advanced amateurs or fine art professionals.

 

I grew up shooting 4x5. As a result, most of the people i knew photographically also did the same. If you went to any given camera club (film based), you'd find hundreds of technically perfect, aesthetically boring images. It was rare to find the gem. You could learn all you needed to make the same quality of prints that the labs put out in about a week. The same goes for photoshop. To achieve a more advanced mastery of the darkroom (Paul Caponigro), or photoshop (John Paul Caponigro), takes a *lot* longer, and requires a much more refined eye.

 

jim

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[PATB]

Cathy, thanks for the wonderful post. I thought I was the only one that had a revelation after I started shooting film, coming from a Nikon dSLR. Prior to the MP, photography to me means taking pictures, placing them in the album, and putting the camera away. My family had to force me to charge the batteries and take pictures of birthdays, etc. Photography was a chore and my pictures showed it.

 

While it is true that only the final picture matters to the observer, the photgraphic process inspires the photographer to make better pictures.

 

In my case, shooting with the MP made me want to learn more about photography, actually taking classes, spending time in the darkroom etc. My photography, of course, are several levels below most of you here but I can say that I have improved my photography considerably since getting the MP and started shooting film. These days, I enjoy comparing pictures in our old family albums to the new ones. Makes me want to keep learning more about the art, and for a beginner like myself, there is a lot to learn.