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Film or lens


lmans

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13 minutes ago, lmans said:

Which do you feel has more impact on Leica M film cameras… the lens selection or film selection….

on terms of how you like your photos/images to look? 

Good question.

Both play a role.

Depending what the goal is: a sharp clinical lens with a grainy film will serve someone differently than an old school (optically) lens with a old school (grainy) film. 

Without being totally sure, I would say that the lens plays a critical role on the final image/rendering result. 

The "film" look can be somehow edited. 

The "glow" and the perfect-imperfections of a good old school lens, can't be so easily reproduced during editing. 

Just my thoughts of course.

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I would say the film choice has the greater effect. I shoot several film cameras and experiment with different films. I find tonality and grain of the film have common traits regardless of the camera and lens, Some films have less anti-halation, which causes quite a "glow" in high-contrast scenes.

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For me, it's darkroom/printing where the biggest differences are.  So much room to 'complete' the image.  Next would be film choice and its exposure.  Lens?  Well, all Leica lenses are great so not a big issue, IMHO.

Edited by Danner
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It’s the person wielding the camera that makes the difference.
Most people can tell if you used TMax vs Tri-X but can’t really tell Tri-X from HP5+. Most people can tell Rodinol from XTOL. 
Most people can tell a 50 mm lens from a 28 mm lens but they wouldn’t be able to tell you which 50 it was without first being told. Many can’t tell the difference between a 35 and a 28 when shown a print. 
In a standard print of say 8” x 10” most people can’t tell if it was a Nikon or a Leica. Mary Ellen Mark used Tri-X and HP5+ and Leica M4 and M6 and Nikon FM2s can you tell which photos were taken with which? You can say they are all Mary Ellen Mark’s because her style is utterly distinctive.

I’ve heard people say they can tell if it’s a Leica negative on the light box. That’s a trick question with a trick answer. If you know you know.

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This a question we could have discussed in the 1970s or 80s. My experience when using film and doing my own B&W developing was that film choice played a big role. I liked Agfapan 25 developed in Rodinal and also Ilford Pan F shot at 32 ISO and developed in Perceptol for ultimate fine grain. In color, I was  fan of both Kodachrome 25 and 64.

But when doing enlargements from my films shot on my little Olympus 35RC (a nice camera), the limitations of the lens were evident. OM lenses were better, but Leica was the next level again. 

 

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4 hours ago, williamj said:

It’s the person wielding the camera that makes the difference.
Most people can tell if you used TMax vs Tri-X but can’t really tell Tri-X from HP5+. Most people can tell Rodinol from XTOL. 
Most people can tell a 50 mm lens from a 28 mm lens but they wouldn’t be able to tell you which 50 it was without first being told. Many can’t tell the difference between a 35 and a 28 when shown a print. 
In a standard print of say 8” x 10” most people can’t tell if it was a Nikon or a Leica. Mary Ellen Mark used Tri-X and HP5+ and Leica M4 and M6 and Nikon FM2s can you tell which photos were taken with which? You can say they are all Mary Ellen Mark’s because her style is utterly distinctive.

I’ve heard people say they can tell if it’s a Leica negative on the light box. That’s a trick question with a trick answer. If you know you know.

Most people? I can tell you that the people who bought a half dozen prints of my archival film work from me last week couldn't tell you any of those things - they just love the images. 

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People who try to shoot their pictures on a bl**dy postage-stamp naturally have fetishes about film (and developers). ;)

The debates go all the way back to the 1930s, and fine-grain films and developers, and "surface-acting" developers, and high-acutance developers, and so on and so on.

Now that my film work is all on 6x6, the lens characteristics predominate - the film is just the "clay" that captures the image. There are slight differences, but far less (especially if one just sticks with D-76 1:1) than between a Rolleiflex 80mm Zeiss Planar 5-element > Hasselblad 80mm Zeiss Planar 7-element > Mamiya 75mm G-Sekor 6-element > anybody's 80mm Tessar-copy 4-element. ;) 

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A combination of the three, lens, film and developer. Most of the time I am using older lenses, prewar, with their lower contrast and other age related ailments. Most of the time I use FP4+ in Rodinal. But with more “modern” lenses that have a lot more contrast I like Moersch Tanol developer that handles high contrast better than Rodinal. This winter I have been using up a bulk tin of HP5 in Rodinal or Tanol. In the summer I have used more Pan F in Tanol or Perceptol.

But once the prints have been put away in a box and looked at months later the best prints are really the result of the subject matter and lighting, not the lens, film or developer. I might turn the print over and check the details and think “yes that lens made a difference” or maybe think “that old lens still takes good pictures”.

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The film is more important. 

As a photographer who at the extremes sometimes likes to use very heavy grain films (Delta 3200), and then other times likes to use very fine grain (CMS20 II), I'm doing it because the film suits the subject, or it continues a project I've already started, or it suits my mood.  But nobody (but me) knows if the lens was a Leica lens on a Leica, or a Nikon lens on a Nikon so other than composition it must be the film (grain, tonality, acutance, etc.) that defines the image. And I have no great love for lenses like a Noctilux that scream 'Noctilux', although I can be ambivalent and say the lens of my Holga is distinctive but it comes under the general cliché of the toy camera genre. I do try to indicate if I post a photo what film, camera, and lens were used, but it's only for curiosity's sake between fellow photographers, I'd hate to think somebody was inspired to go and buy a 50mm Summilux on the basis of liking the photo, but buying a roll of FP4 I'd take as a victory.

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Film.

I find HP5 and TriX very similar, but if you then shoot Fuji Acros II - it has such a smooth, silky look in comparison.

Arista film (repackaged Foma) has a much weaker anti-halation layer (if it has any at all) so light points/backlighting will have a glow around them.  It is a very nice look if that is what you want, and really only noticeable in those situations.

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2 hours ago, Huss said:

Film.

I find HP5 and TriX very similar, but if you then shoot Fuji Acros II - it has such a smooth, silky look in comparison.

Arista film (repackaged Foma) has a much weaker anti-halation layer (if it has any at all) so light points/backlighting will have a glow around them.  It is a very nice look if that is what you want, and really only noticeable in those situations.

Foma 400? 
Is this true of the sister products, Foma 100 and 200?

I’ve been searching for film with a weaker or non existent anti-halation, I may have landed.

 

Edited by Steve Ricoh
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1 hour ago, Steve Ricoh said:

Foma 400? 
Is this true of the sister products, Foma 100 and 200?

I’ve been searching for film with a weaker or non existent anti-halation, I may have landed.

 

Try Kentmere, I understand the Ilford's 'budget' part of it is down to the lack of an anti-halation coating and nothing else, but research it. Next time I put in an order for film I'm going to try a few rolls.

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1 hour ago, Steve Ricoh said:

Foma 400? 
Is this true of the sister products, Foma 100 and 200?

I’ve been searching for film with a weaker or non existent anti-halation, I may have landed.

 

Sorry, I meant Foma (Arista) 100 and 200.  I'm not that keen on Foma 400 because  it seems to be a 200 film.  When I shoot it at 400 it always looks underexposed.

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4 minutes ago, 250swb said:

Try Kentmere, I understand the Ilford's 'budget' part of it is down to the lack of an anti-halation coating and nothing else, but research it. Next time I put in an order for film I'm going to try a few rolls.

Love Kentmere - shoot it all the time.  It has that classic B&W look, that I think is the reason most people shoot B&W film for!

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8 minutes ago, Huss said:

Love Kentmere - shoot it all the time.  It has that classic B&W look, that I think is the reason most people shoot B&W film for!

I'm not a Scrooge or a film snob (I've tried a few stinkers though) but I've just never tried Kentmere. However Kentmere now in 120 peaked my interest. This is despite going on the Ilford factory tour some years back and hearing from the horses mouth that there is so little to choose that it's only under extreme conditions people may see a difference between Kentmere and HP or FP films. 

Edited by 250swb
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I shoot Formapan 400....love it..... and I do feel the combination of film, lens.....  and I know a lot of people do a ton of photoshop etc... But I usually only touch up on 'contrast' and crop a bit to capture just what I want....  

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Absodiddly positively the lens. I shot E6 for the better part of my career (20 years) and EPP, E100VS, Velvia 100, Kodachrome 64 and other fine films were all just variations on a theme. Yet you could not reproduce glow, aberrations, bokeh quality (lenses) as you could reproduce grain, contrast and saturation (film development, pushing, pulling etc.).

Edited by Al Brown
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