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Puts on M8 vs film


sbelyaev

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IME digital has a higher potential than film in every way. This article shows one (expert) photographers explanation of why he changed from 4x5 film to a MF digital back with examples showing that a MF digital back is equal or superior to film in all ways, but that the potential is more difficult to realise in digital due to the higher requirements for camera and focussing precision. Very interesting in light of certain discussions about focussing and absence of AA filter to be found on this forum.

 

Joseph Holmes - News: Medium Format Problems

 

Certainly if one is used to and like a certain look from film, continuing with film is the simplest way to continue to achieve this look!

Most, if not all, of the tonality and granularity of any film can be emulated in software if enough time is devoted to it, which seems a bit pointless if one is already happy with film...

Frank

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I have a theory... the M8 emits an odourless, colourless gas that has a calming effect on photographers. M8 photographers are hence far more laid-back and generally calmer people, getting a fix every time they raise their cameras in front of their faces. Those who have embraced the M6 or M7, on the other hand, have the opposite to contend with, especially when they try to load or unload their films. That's why some make the interim move to an MP, which at least has a decent rewind knob.:o

+1

Yes, been awhile... busy I guess. Hope Sean's doing well.

Anyhoo, the M4+ rewind "seems" good, but I regress.

 

kind regards,

Dave

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I use Capture One Pro as my Raw Converter, and yes I have also tried Raw Developer. When you expose this shot for the sky, the kids faces are gone. This is a very high contrast situation with the family walking alongside a tall building in the shade. I have been shooting a project on Hollywood Blvd. for two years now and know exactly what the light is at certain times of the day. I have shot (and exhibited) shots taken with the M8 in similar light in the same location, and I know what I'm doing exposure wise. I expose to the right of the histogram as far as possible without clipping the highlights and then push the shadows to recover as much information as possible. What I can tell you, and I don't know whether you have shot a lot of Ektar, is that the curve of the M8 is a lot steeper than that of Ektar, meaning that the highlights and shadows are a lot closer together and the contrast a lot flatter for a significant range of exposure values. So when I scan, the highlights are darker and the shadows lighter than with the M8. Once I bring the shadows and highlights closer together in the M8 files for printing (by lightening the shadows) there is a significant amount of color noise to deal with. Most importantly though, look at the highlights in the car: they are pure white and the area around it gradually fades into white. This does not happen with the M8. When the whites clip, it gets ugly, and when you let this happen on skin tones, you might as well delete the image. On film however, you can overexpose certain areas of the skin to pure white, and the areas around it will naturally fade into it and create a beautiful image. This is especially important when you have multiple people in the shot with multiple complexions in bright sunlight.

 

THAT is poetry!

Fella, Los Angeles is what film was DESIGNED FOR(aka MONEY). You can't get the shot, LA, ah, evacuates you.

 

Oh?! Film isn't engineered?

 

That said, even a P45(or somesuch "more important") will not record what level of over exposure You desire; however, gobs of image data at least give the post-proc tech a chance to make something of the photogs mess. OK, the M8 files aren't "gobs of data", but there's a lot.

 

Expose "Right"? And you learned this from?

 

kind regards,

David

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...That's why some make the interim move to an MP, which at least has a decent rewind knob.:o

Funny, the first thing photogs praised when the M4 was launched was its at last decent rewind knob after years of bothering with the ridiculous ones of the M2 and M3.

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Dave, the expose right is a complicated story, but if you research it, you'll find a lot of people less lazy than myself, who have written some very good articles online. The short answer is this: if you expose to the left to preserve highlights that you may or may not want to have detail in, which is the oversimplified rule for digital shooting, you throw away A LOT of information in the shadows (not even necessarily clipped) and you loose a lot of quality. So the trick is to expose to the right as far as possible without clipping information in highlights that you do need. This will give you the maximum range to work with in post. In other words, setting your EV to -1 etc. and letting the auto exposure decide what to do is not a great thing to do if you know what you're doing.

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