Shooting Monochrom with grain

[bdolzani]

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It was just brought up again how the Monos often look like medium format clean. And it occurred to me I love grain (ie film) and have not purposely shot street (for example) in a very high ISO in order to make grain/noise.

Any experience/recommendations? I have the m246.

Edited April 23, 2024 by bdolzani

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[Ken Abrahams]

Hi BD, I use Silver Effex by DXO and the settings for grain can be either a preset of some film type or one can select "use original" this is what I use. Note there are two dropdown boxes, one  for film types and one for grain. 

I also shoot between 400 and 1600 on the M10M and the same on the M9M.The natural grain of the M10M at 1600 begins to work well when cropping into the image and then using contrasts and structure sliders for perfection.

Best

Ken  

[bdolzani]

20 hours ago, Ken Abrahams said:

Hi BD, I use Silver Effex by DXO and the settings for grain can be either a preset of some film type or one can select "use original" this is what I use. Note there are two dropdown boxes, one  for film types and one for grain. 

I also shoot between 400 and 1600 on the M10M and the same on the M9M.The natural grain of the M10M at 1600 begins to work well when cropping into the image and then using contrasts and structure sliders for perfection.

Best

Ken  

Hey Ken thanks a lot. I too use SFX and love it, though I’m not familiar with that grain option - I’m traveling for a few days and will try it when I get back.

I was trying to shoot exactly like film where the grain is set at shot time however it’s prob best doing it after to taste. 

I’d like to do an in depth dive into silver efx, for instance can you add a SFX preset on import like you can with regular Lightroom presets? Opening the extension for each file you use it on takes a lot of time.

cheers

brian 

[sometimesmaybe]

21 hours ago, bdolzani said:

very high ISO in order to make grain/noise

if you want to do it in camera - try shooting your 246 at iso10,000. the images become noticeably grainey 

if in post - also try another DxO product called FilmPack 7, lots of BNW film grain emulation  

[bdolzani]

3 minutes ago, sometimesmaybe said:

if you want to do it in camera - try shooting your 246 at iso10,000. the images become noticeably grainey 

if in post - also try another DxO product called FilmPack 7, lots of BNW film grain emulation  

Thank you kindly! I’m not aware of FilmPack…cool

[Derbyshire Man]

As I said elsewhere, I'm not convinced the DXO software is megapixel aware, so grain size and density will almost certainly need a tweak. Else make a 16mp version, add grain and print/enlarge as needed. People forget that tri-x let alone tmax3200 had shed fulls of grain and particularly the latter, very little detail.

Just depends on whether one is after something reminiscent of 35mm B&W film or medium format.

[ramarren]

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If you want "grainy" results reminiscent of film, go to higher ISO settings and underexpose a bit. It's crude, but film is often crude... LOL!

G

[sometimesmaybe]

18 hours ago, Derbyshire Man said:

I'm not convinced the DXO software is megapixel aware, so grain size and density will almost certainly need a tweak

FilmPack gives you 2 key variables to adjust - rendering and grain (or mix and match as you see fit like T-Max 400 rendering with HP5 grain). The intensity of the grain can also be adjusted to taste.

Where these emulation apps tend to fall short is the tendency to apply the grain uniformly regardless of highlights and shadows.

[cprotz]

It's been a while that I had my first monochrome Leica. Since a couple of months I arrived ate the 11m. For my work I discovered also the hight ISO values as pointed out before, they look similar grainy to films and I like it. I just did a studio shoot with some remaining daylight through a small window. Example below is ISO 200K 🙂

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[Derbyshire Man]

On 4/28/2024 at 7:34 AM, sometimesmaybe said:

FilmPack gives you 2 key variables to adjust - rendering and grain (or mix and match as you see fit like T-Max 400 rendering with HP5 grain). The intensity of the grain can also be adjusted to taste.

Where these emulation apps tend to fall short is the tendency to apply the grain uniformly regardless of highlights and shadows.

I don't know about the film pack but I think that Silver Efex is more complex than that with grain levels responding to tone really convincingly. I agree that many apps simply apply what looks like a ground glass effect over the whole image, that is not photographic grain at all.

cprotz example above looks great but when pushed to that level I'd be worried that if the lighting wasn't good that dark shadows would be at risk of developing banding etc.

[bdolzani]

1 hour ago, Derbyshire Man said:

I don't know about the film pack but I think that Silver Efex is more complex than that with grain levels responding to tone really convincingly. I agree that many apps simply apply what looks like a ground glass effect over the whole image, that is not photographic grain at all.

cprotz example above looks great but when pushed to that level I'd be worried that if the lighting wasn't good that dark shadows would be at risk of developing banding etc.

I did look up FilmPack and it seems like if you use Silver Efex like I do, it's probably not necessary. 

I've come to the conclusion that it's better to add the 'grain' cause you can't take it away...