Film is dead!

[the foto fanatic]

Today's Melbourne Age has an article on this very topic, examining both the positives and negatives:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/youve-come-a-long-way-baby/2006/04/12/1144521342965.html

[gstark]

Today's Melbourne Age has an article on this very topic, examining both the positives and negatives:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/youve-come-a-long-way-baby/2006/04/12/1144521342965.html

Trevor,

Who says Queenslanders are behind the times? Greg posted the same link about <strike>10 years</strike> 6 messages back.

[the foto fanatic]

Today's Melbourne Age has an article on this very topic, examining both the positives and negatives:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/youve-come-a-long-way-baby/2006/04/12/1144521342965.html

Trevor,

Who says Queenslanders are behind the times? Greg posted the same link about <strike>10 years</strike> 6 messages back.

Oow-err! I did look, but missed Greg's link!
And, as daylight savings has now finished, we have caught up to you (again!).
The Queensland Government has just announced that implementation of Daylight Savings is not on their agenda. Evidently fades the Labor Party curtains, too.

[moz]

Music is one of the best analogies for photography. If you want you can think of the digital image as being the equivalent of a digital musical instrument and a digital print as being the equivalent of a CD.

I'm more inclined to liken it to LP vs CD, as cameras primarily record rather than produce images. I don't think anyone yet claims that a purely electronic instrument is as good as a similar real instrument under ideal conditions. But then, I've spent a happy hour chatting with the man flown up from Tassie to tune the piano at the performance I was photographing. Under less than ideal conditions (ie, no money to tune the piano for the performance), the electoronic option might have been better. The electronic version is always at its best, even though that best isn't up to the proper version at its best.

Personally, I take more photos now than I did when I was working as a photog assistant, and I think I've improved more and faster as a result. If I'd stuck with film instead of going digital, I would probably have taken far fewer photos, missed a lot more shots and learned more slowly as a result of that and the slower feedback.

Another point: digital is what makes it possible for a solo individual like me to compete with Fairfax Ltd to be "first and fullest coverage of the events that matter to me". I can have shots on indymedia often before the PJs from the bought media are back to base, and that really works for me and the people who read indy (or my photo feeds). So it depends very much on what you're after with photography. Fine art prints are probably going to remain chemical for quite a while, but photojournalism is unlikely to return to film even though some of its practitioners remain die-hard film fans outside of work hours.

[Matt. K]

Ants
I have to, with all respect, disagree with this statement that you made:

Despite the convenience and teaching power of the medium though, most people are still not becoming fantastic photographers

I have been running photographic courses for many many years and recently ran my first totally digital SLR course. The results were astounding! The asthetic quality of the work was way above anything any previous course was able to achieve. The students produced work so beautiful it made me weep with joy! The learning curve for the technical stuff is a little steep...moreso than with film (believe it or not) but doing it digitally removes some of the cloud between the photographers eye and the subject. Another interesting observation, of all the imagery taken during the fairly intensive course only about 2% of the images were technical rejects. With film it was in the order of 30% or more.

[Greg B]

Interesting observations Matt. One of the great benefits of digital is the ability to review your work immediately, and possibly repeat the shot having made adjustments. That instant feedback is extremely useful. We also have detailed information about the shot in the exif, whereas with film you would need to take very detailed notes of each shot to even come close.

[Glen]

Hope this is the right thread

A mate of mine refuses to use newer technology. He wants to buy some Ilford Panchromatic glass plates. Would prefer somewhere local to North Sydney. Any suggestions? Birddy was out of stock.

[Greg B]

Step 1 - get a Delorian.

Step 2 - wait for lightning

[phillipb]

If it comes to putting a print on the wall though I would rather own a film based print and I guess that is because I can see and appreciate the difference. It is a little like trying to compare a painting with a print... some people are prefer to own an original.

Antsl, out of curiosity, could you tell the difference between a photo produced completely in the darkroom and one which was printed from a scanned negative?

[Matt. K]

Once an image has been scanned then it is for all purposes a digital image.

[phillipb]

Matt, that's the point I'm trying to get to.
Is the film grain in the negative really what makes it different to digital or the printing?

[Matt. K]

phillipb
I have just recently scanned over a thousand old 35mm slides and negatives. The grain is fairly awful but providing I don't print too large they are fine. Scanned film looks a little mushy but I could add this noise/grain to a digital file and nobody would be able to tell the difference between the digital pic and film pic...provided the print size wasn't excesive.

[Antsl]

Antsl, out of curiosity, could you tell the difference between a photo produced completely in the darkroom and one which was printed from a scanned negative?

Hi Phillip, yes, I can tell the difference between different print types, even the ones that are being produced from commercial labs. It is why I am still unconvinced about scanning film for digital output. Some prints you need to walk up to to see the difference but others you can spot as soon as you walk into a room.

For the hell of it, if anyone is in Sydney in a couple of weeks time why not go along to the print judging of the APPAs (Aus Pro Photography Awards) in Darling Harbour. I will not be there this year (Hong Kong instead) but it is an interesting opportunity to see some of the best photography about at the moment getting judged by some of the coutries top pros.

Take a close look at the prints and see if you can see the differences.

[Killakoala]

I too have scanned quite a few of my old negatives and i have some images that just blow me away when printed. The tonality and contrast just wouldn't have been possible with digital.

As Matt said though, in some cases the grain can be excessive and much more noticeable than digital noise. But if you have neat-image or noise-ninja, then it's not much of a problem.

The other advantage i have is that i can scan at 5700dpi and that gives me a file that is 7536x4992 pixels, which is quite large. (If my calculations are correct, which they may not be, that's the equivelant of a 37 megapixel CCD image.) (Please correct me if i'm wrong)

[nodabs]

If it comes to putting a print on the wall though I would rather own a film based print and I guess that is because I can see and appreciate the difference. It is a little like trying to compare a painting with a print... some people are prefer to own an original.

you are of course aware that the reason digital looks differn't in most cases is simply because it is sharper because of the per pixel resolving power of the sensor rather than the binary nature of film recording... you can make digital prints softer if you want to but i for one don't run a softening brush over all of my prints.

i personally prefer shooting film just because i like the mechanics of it but i shoot 90% digital and when i get a realy nice shot on film i ALWAYS wish it was digital because there is just more detail more sharpness and more flexability.

I am Very sure that a good digital printer could soften an image and print off something that you wouldn't be able to pick from film but nt that many people want innacurately coloured soft images.[/quote]

[Antsl]

you are of course aware that the reason digital looks differn't in most cases is simply because it is sharper because of the per pixel resolving power of the sensor rather than the binary nature of film recording... you can make digital prints softer if you want to but i for one don't run a softening brush over all of my prints.

Film printed onto paper is always going to look different to Film printed onto digital or digital printed onto digital, at least until someone figures out how to emulate the random nature of grain.

For the moment digital is always going to be numbers in boxes, whether or not you make the image sharp or soft.

[nodabs]

i would imagine it would be fairly easy to emulate grain just nobody really wants grain that badly for it to be economically viable to produce such a plugin or program.

i really have no idea what you mean about numers in boxes, you know that a sensor does exactly the same thing as film does in a acamera right? and that any film image can be scanned anyway it looks exactly the same but guess what...alll ones and zero's.

and what is film printed onto digital?

[xorl]

i would imagine it would be fairly easy to emulate grain just nobody really wants grain that badly for it to be economically viable to produce such a plugin or program.

It is actually pretty easy to put real film grain into a digital image...

[nodabs]

ha there ya go cheers for the link

[MattC]

It is actually pretty easy to put real film grain into a digital image...

Tried that one some time ago with limited success. The problem is that it is very hard to get past the structure of digital images. That is, that pixels are all neatly lined up in rows and columns and that every pixel is exactly the same size. Another problem occurs when applying grain to shadow areas that contain otherwise acceptable noise levels... Grainy noise.
There is really only one way to get real film grain and that is to use real film.

My preferred medium these days is film and 100% B&W - so much so that my DSLRs sit mostly unused. I haven't been at it (shooting film) long enough (less than 12 months) to offer much else in the way of an opinion other than to say that I prefer the "feel" of film. Actually, I lie, I do have an opinion, but the rest is true.

Is film dead? I certainly hope not!

Cheers

[james m]

One of the great benefits of digital is the ability to review your work immediately

I shot film and can do that, it is called Polaroid

[Matt. K]

james m
Yes...at $2.50 a shot.

[moz]

I shot film and can do that, it is called Polaroid

I don't think you understand the idea of immediate to the TV generations. My "immediate" is getting cranking when the noise reduction on long exposures means I can't see the image as soon as I've pressed the button. Now, dammit!!