Is the myth that M240 have a more "Film Like" , "Leica soul" rendering than M10, M11 actually true?

[Stuart Richardson]

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10 hours ago, evikne said:

What I like about all types of film is probably the reduced dynamic range. It simplifies the image, which often makes it look more appealing to me.

Here is an example of reduced dynamics in shadows and highlights from a Kodachrome film simulation profile in LR:

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Black and white film and C41 film both have substantially more potential dynamic range than most digital cameras. They behave differently though, as they are chemical processes, not digital ones. For example, color negative film (C41) has extremely good highlight protection. You can overexpose the hell out of it and never clip your highlights. But because of that, your highlights are unlikely to look super contrasty without post processing. My guess is not that you prefer lower dynamic range, but rather you prefer more highlight attenuation. Same for the shadows. The shadows in negative films are the part of the film with the least detail and density. A pure black on a negative film is as transparent as the film base. If you are scanning, there will still be data below this zero point (the film base...if film was perfectly clear then you would get a black point of 0, but film base is not totally clear.). So if the scanning operator does not set the black point to the film base, then your black level in the scan is going to be artificially raised above 0 in the histogram. 

Edited September 5 by Stuart Richardson

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[Stuart Richardson]

9 hours ago, evikne said:

Yes, it corresponds to what you would see on the histogram if you scanned a real film image. The "empty parts" give a matte effect, which I really like. I used a film simulation, since I don't have many scanned images, but the result is the same. Image information is cut off at both ends, but of course the profile does much more than that.

 

What you are describing is not wrong, but it is also not really scanning "properly". Setting a black point and white point in the scanning software allows for the full distribution of tones to mapped onto the output file. What you are doing is outputting a file whose tonal range is artificially compressed. While it is a good idea to scan flat, as you want to capture all the tones in the original, the "ideal" way to scan would be to take the whitest white in the original and have it just under clipping on the output, and have the black point just above the 0 point of the file. Then you have a true black and white and can make use of the full tonal range of the file. In the case of 8 bit black and white that is only 256 shades, so you really don't want to give up 10 or 20 on either size of the histogram if you want to have the best tonality. 

[evikne]

5 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

Black and white film and C41 film both have substantially more potential dynamic range than most digital cameras. They behave differently though, as they are chemical processes, not digital ones. For example, color negative film (C41) has extremely good highlight protection. You can overexpose the hell out of it and never clip your highlights. But because of that, your highlights are unlikely to look super contrasty without post processing. My guess is not that you prefer lower dynamic range, but rather you prefer more highlight attenuation. Same for the shadows. The shadows in negative films are the part of the film with the least detail and density. A pure black on a negative film is as transparent as the film base. If you are scanning, there will still be data below this zero point (the film base...if film was perfectly clear then you would get a black point of 0, but film base is not totally clear.). So if the scanning operator does not set the black point to the film base, then your black level in the scan is going to be artificially raised above 0 in the histogram. 

Thank you for the thorough explanation. As I said, I don't have much experience with scanning real film, but this was just one example of several hundred different film simulation profiles I have. This one is from RNI, which is well regarded. So I assumed they make them typical of scanned images of these film types.

But you're probably right that it's not the lower dynamic range I like, but rather the more attenuated highlights and shadows.

[Stuart Richardson]

1 hour ago, evikne said:

Thank you for the thorough explanation. As I said, I don't have much experience with scanning real film, but this was just one example of several hundred different film simulation profiles I have. This one is from RNI, which is well regarded. So I assumed they make them typical of scanned images of these film types.

But you're probably right that it's not the lower dynamic range I like, but rather the more attenuated highlights and shadows.

Yeah, this is a complicated issue, but I think most of these film simulation companies are trying to replicate the look that you got out of the box from things like Noritsu scanners from labs and what consumers were used to getting in lab prints. In most cases, this is not what film did at its best, but rather what it looked like when it was used by the general public. If you want to get a sense of what film looked like, I would rather say look at the work of people like William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Issei Suda, Mary Ellen Mark or even the whole swath of National Geographic photographers like Luis Marden and Steve McCurry etc. Anyway, I don't mean to tell you what to like. I just mean that I have never seen a film simulation that really looked like film (and I experimented with many before I finally just gave it up). The best way to get a sense for what film looks like is to look at the greats who used it. 

[evikne]

17 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

The best way to get a sense for what film looks like is to look at the greats who used it.

You're right. I downloaded some random images by Eggleston and checked them in LR. The histogram extends well to both sides. But it still looks like film, and it's exactly the look I love.

(I hope it's okay to post one of his pictures as an example.)

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Edited September 5 by evikne

[Stuart Richardson]

Of course, it will depend on the picture itself and the artist as to whether it fully fills the histogram, but film tends to have rich color with pure blacks and whites. I got a sense of that growing up, as my dad was an enthusiast photographer he would have slide shows. Here are two of me taken about forty years ago now.

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Edited September 5 by Stuart Richardson

[charlesphoto99]

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I do a LOT of archival film scanning. B&w neg mostly, but also C-41 and slides. Started with an Imacon that went bust in 2020 (had a nice 16 year run) and now using a Nikon D850. Scanning for as wide a dynamic range as possible is best, as Stuart says. After the fact, esp with b&w negs, one may need to do lots of masking (i.e. dodging and burning as in the darkroom) to get an image that looks good. Keep in mind film has a dynamic range of 12-15, darkroom paper 4-5, and a modern sensor around 12-13 (I could be off with this numbers but it gives you a good idea). So in reality, it's much easier now with scanning versus darkroom printing to get a fuller range of tones in one go. But it can also lead to much flatter images if not post processed, so one has to correct that, both globally to begin with, but also in distinct areas of the image.