[mohb]

everything to do with easiness of getting images on to a computer and digital post processing tools.

Oh for the joys of spending all evening messing with smelly chemicals and sitting in a 'red light distric't in order to produce three photographs

[dafbp]

Thanks for the replies, all were informative (even if some were a bit cryptic at first, as if someone was having a very bad day).
I don't shoot film, and only chimmed in because it's an interesting topic.

[ThorSanchez]

Before then I suspect people were using digital for reasons other than IQ, say convenience, versatility and dare I say it just to use the latest "thing" and follow the trend.

And now it's come full circle. I've talked to people in their 20s who never knew a time before digital music and photography who just take it as a matter of fact that vinyl and film are objectively better. Why? Because everyone knows film and vinyl are awesome. So much better than that digital stuff the unwashed masses use. At least that's what the guy with the handlebar moustache at the new place that sells LPs for $38 said.

---------- Post added 01-31-18 at 08:14 AM ----------

Oh for the joys of spending all evening messing with smelly chemicals and sitting in a 'red light distric't in order to produce three photographs

Prior to digital I (and a very large percentage of everyone) offloaded post-processing to someone else at some anonymous lab. I had zero control over anything. I'd go on vacation, shoot 12 rolls of film, put it in the envelops at the drug store, pay $200, and a week or two later I'd get a box of 4x6s with maybe a 25% keeper rate.

[normhead]

Prior to digital I (and a very large percentage of everyone) offloaded post-processing to someone else at some anonymous lab. I had zero control over anything. I'd go on vacation, shoot 12 rolls of film, put it in the envelops at the drug store, pay $200, and a week or two later I'd get a box of 4x6s with maybe a 25% keeper rate.

The good old days. I'd go on a 12 day camping trip, I didn't have to worry about the battery dying, but I didn't know if my camera was actually functioning properly either. It never happened but a problem with the aperture lever would have ruined 12 rolls of film and I wouldn't have known until a week after the last shooting day.

[ThorSanchez]

The good old days. I'd go on a 12 day camping trip, I didn't have to worry about the battery dying, but I didn't know if my camera was actually functioning properly either. It never happened but a problem with the aperture lever would have ruined 12 rolls of film and I wouldn't have known until a week after the last shooting day.

In 1998 I went on an epic trip to Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. I had grand visions of channeling Ansel Adams, so I brought mostly rolls of B&W film. I took a ton of pictures of absolutely stunning scenery, and when I finally got them back they were mostly awful. Either the film got zapped by airport X-rays or I just wasn't a very good photographer. All but a small handful were washed out, poor contrast, generally unusable. Only a very small handful I look at today.


But I do have a CD with low-resolution primitive digital pictures from a camera that one of my friends had - we embedded that into html files with stories of the trip and uploaded to the web on the road using crazy acoustic couplers attached to pay phones. That's a lot more value to me than my terrible film pictures.

[IgorZ]

this discussions seems to be going away form the question of resolution, to the question of personal preference, or "what works for me and why". If that's the trend, I'll put my 2 cents. Not being a pro, I don't have any pressure to get the shot. No clients to please, absolute freedom. So I do what I want. Which means I use digital when it works for me, and I use film when it works for me. I don't do B&W film sunsets to maximize resolution, and I don't do digital closeup portraits to see the pores on someone's nose. I do like the look of film for street and portrait, and I am glad they still make it. And I like the look of it in 645 even more. And I suspect I will like the 6x7 even better. Just need to fix up Mamiya for that.

[normhead]

this discussions seems to be going away form the question of resolution, to the question of personal preference, or "what works for me and why". If that's the trend, I'll put my 2 cents. Not being a pro, I don't have any pressure to get the shot. No clients to please, absolute freedom. So I do what I want. Which means I use digital when it works for me, and I use film when it works for me. I don't do B&W film sunsets to maximize resolution, and I don't do digital closeup portraits to see the pores on someone's nose. I do like the look of film for street and portrait, and I am glad they still make it. And I like the look of it in 645 even more. And I suspect I will like the 6x7 even better. Just need to fix up Mamiya for that.

That's because despite all the math, no one has posted resolution chart images, or suggested another way to make comparisons, that are visual. So really, we have nothing to work with but, "This is a nice picture" compared to "well this is a nice picture as well". If all you have to work with is "look at this great picture I took", there's really nothing to talk about. So we go on to other topics. Usually, expressions of what we like and don't like.Like told dudes sitting out in front of the coffee shop, discussing the universe (usually as it relates to fishing.)

We are really good at making something out of nothing. Jerry Seinfeld would be proud. A discussion of resolution, a concept largely derived from test charts, without test charts.

A discussion about nothing.

I have never before google searched a topic and found so much "this is what's going on in my brain when I think about this topic," and so little real information.

---

Last edited by normhead; 01-31-2018 at 08:58 AM.

[derelict]

Lets beat this dead horse even more!!!

Who cares?

I shoot a lot of film and a lot of digital. Film has digital in one respect: range. Film can handle under and over exposure with FAR more ability to recover information than any digital sensor can.

[normhead]

Lets beat this dead horse even more!!!

Who cares?

I shoot a lot of film and a lot of digital. Film has digital in one respect: range. Film can handle under and over exposure with FAR more ability to recover information than any digital sensor can.

And really, that's all you need to know.

Those of us who check our histograms after every few shots, handle that by always having a good exposure for the scene we are shooting. But, that is entirely true. a 2/3s stop under or over exposure can completely ruin a digital image. I've brought B&W film back that was probably 2-3 stops under exposed and got a very interesting high contrast image from it.

[photoptimist]

That's because despite all the math, no one has posted resolution chart images, or suggested another way to make comparisons, that are visual. So really, we have nothing to work with but, "This is a nice picture" compared to "well this is a nice picture as well". If all you have to work with is "look at this great picture I took", there's really nothing to talk about. So we go on to other topics. Usually, expressions of what we like and don't like.Like told dudes sitting out in front of the coffee shop, discussing the universe (usually as it relates to fishing.)

We are really good at making something out of nothing. Jerry Seinfeld would be proud. A discussion of resolution, a concept largely derived from test charts, without test charts.

A discussion about nothing.

I have never before google searched a topic and found so much "this is what's going on in my brain when I think about this topic," and so little real information.

Although you are right that many internet discussions of resolution are just amateur anecdotes, there's a ton of very technical work out there on the resolution of film, lenses, digital sensors, etc. and how they interact.

For example, that link I posted (http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/emg/library/pdf/vitale/2007-04-vi...resolution.pdf) does have images of test targets and visual comparisons of different film emulsions. But more importantly, it explains how film manufacturers measure the resolution of film emulsions in ways that are entirely independent of lens performance, scanner performance, and subjective opinion. These can include direct printing of extremely high resolution test targets on the film being tested (bypassing any lens effects), microdensitometer measurements (bypassing subjectivity issues), and the analysis of film grain at high magnification (400X light microscopes and 25,000X electron microscopes) to measure actual grain sizes, spacing, and distribution (bypassing traditional film scanner performance issues).


There is some signal in all this noise.

[derelict]

And really, that's all you need to know.

Those of us who check our histograms after every few shots, handle that by always having a good exposure for the scene we are shooting. But, that is entirely true. a 2/3s stop under or over exposure can completely ruin a digital image. I've brought B&W film back that was probably 2-3 stops under exposed and got a very interesting high contrast image from it.

There are many times when 'perfect' exposure is just not possible. Film can eat it up. There is also the skill of over/ under exposing on purpose to produce different colors, gradients, and drop offs. Shoot a sunrise with Ektar and then one with a digital camera. The color transitions are smoother and although taken at the same time, the results are massively different.

[normhead]

Although you are right that many internet discussions of resolution are just amateur anecdotes, there's a ton of very technical work out there on the resolution of film, lenses, digital sensors, etc. and how they interact.

Yet for all that technical information, I've never seen an evaluation of what that information means to personal enjoyment of photographs. IN fact, Pentax lens designers have intimated on many occasions, that it's not just about the test charts, its about "lenses for the way people take pictures". Without an understanding of how all that information can help you increase your enjoyment of those images it's pretty much useless.

Off the Pentax engineers are right, and there is a conflict between test charts evaluation, and the way people take pictures, then a lot more work needs to be done, and at least part of that needs to be done on neurological responses to stimuli, without which we have no way of evaluating what level of test performance best relates to our synapses being stimulated by the image in front of us.

For example, I've seen some work that suggests that from a normal viewing distance, most people can't tell the difference between 100 DPI printing and 300 dpi printing. The work it takes to make such evaluations impedes the enjoyment of the image. I refuse to get caught up in the technological evaluations, until there is evidence that it makes any difference to my enjoyment of the images.

You make pictures with film, you make pictures with digital. Does the research tell you which you would enjoy more. Most of this research ignores the most important thing. The way most are able to enjoy images depends on how accurate the image is set up to portray how the brain actually processes images. Without designing systems for the way the brain functions the technical aspects are meaningless.

One example would be corrected lenses. The brain will compensate for distortion because it's used to looking at the world through a distorting lens. Images taken with lenses that have been corrected to have no distortion can just look odd and unreal. Too much distortion isn't any better. There is a level of distortion that is acceptable, and for that type of image, not enough distortion looks odd, and too much distortion looks odd. Those kinds fo quirks of human perspective have never been addressed in any technical paper I've seen, yet they are possibly the most important things you should be looking at selecting a particular lens for a particular scene. Sometimes you look at a scene and think, I want the fisheye, sometimes you want a "poorly" corrected lens and sometimes you want a heavily corredtend lens. I've never seen a paper that defines what every photographer does every day. He goes to his camera bag and selects the type of lens he wants for the job at hand.

Until these technical papers are tailored to insight into human perception, they're reporting on less half the story, and from a photographer's point of view the least important part. If I have the the 35-80, the DFA 28-105, the SuperTak 35 3.5 and and the DA 35 in my bag. I'm going to look at a scene and know which one I'm going to use for a 35mm image. and sometimes it will be the 35-80. Untill there are technical papers that tell me why that is, they are pretty much useless.

Shoot a sunrise with Ektar and then one with a digital camera. The color transitions are smoother and although taken at the same time, the results are massively different.

I'd love to see the prints to be able to make that evaluation. So, I have to ask, what digital camera was used for this evaluation? Why do I not know of any craft show participants currently using film if it's so "massively" better? None of us seems to have any issues selling digital sunsets. You'd think if all you have to do is go back to film, some of us would have done it. Or maybe it's just a difference that's not apparent to the consumer. You'd think if it's "massively" different, some one would have caught on. I guess we are all just stupid.

I guess the people who buy our images are as well.

[UncleVanya]

I may have missed this. But I would add that in film era days a trick to making large prints was often used. The 35mm slide was shot with a medium format camera and an interneg was made and used to print the large prints. This was mostly done at 16x20 or larger. These produced less resolution loss compared to direct printing. Some of this may be due to slide printing being inferior to negative printing however.

[stevebrot]

There was so much that was quotable and worthy of comment in these two comments that I couldn't resist commenting in detail. I hope I am not messing too much with the author's intent...

We live in a digital age...

Indeed and the medium for viewing and sharing has changed. The envelope of snapshots and a loaded slide carousel have been replaced. Regardless of the original medium, almost all visual flat art today is translated to some digital form if for no other reason than easy reproduction for prints.

Obviously if I paid more for the scans, did my own developing, and/or got my own top end scanner, I could probably have gotten a bit more out of the negatives.

Much as with an all-analog flow, having capable tools for post-exposure processing in a hybrid analog/digital flow allows for high quality results. The scanner and software investment is similar to that of a decent enlarger, lens, and print-finishing tools.

I never shot medium format or large format film, so I will leave that discussion to others.

That is an interesting side discussion. In my part of the world, it is not unusual for high-end weddings to be shot with both FF digital and medium format B&W film with the print offerings to include darkroom enlargements of the film work. It is also not unusual to see landscape/cityscape work being done with medium and large format cameras.

I think the reason why people switched to digital had little to do with resolution and dynamic range and everything to do with easiness of getting images on to a computer and digital post processing tools.

The ease was definitely the big draw for me, particularly for color work.

They both have their strengths and weaknesses and one maybe more suitable for a different task than another. If either format gives images that the end user is happy with what is the problem or issue? I use both according to taste and need.

Preach it! Brother!

Others use one or the other irrespective. I do not think it really matters anymore. Once APSC hit around 12mp and definitely 24mp there was no need to shoot 35mm film for many purposes, but a desire still remains.

I agree. I can do decent work with 35mm film but shoot with it mostly for fun and for the strengths it brings to certain genres. Street photography is so much easier with an ancient (almost as old as me) Soviet-made rangefinder than with the K-3.

On related note, I will admit to having done the math and taking the plunge into large format film gear as a seemingly cost-effective route to high quality analog work with high resolution, larger-than-24x36mm-or-645 format media. The unfortunate part was that the cost is still pretty steep even using 120 6x7 film holders on the view camera.

Film and digital use does not have to be mutually exclusive.

I know a couple of serious photographers (people who have no difficulty getting their work hung in serious galleries and shows) who freely mix the tech and who indulge in such exotica as tasteful digital captures crafted to alt-process analog prints* to be sold as higher-end wall art. Sure beats overwrought and oversaturated waterfalls and mountain meadows printed giant to aluminum at the local farmer's market, eh? (Sorry...could not resist the jibe at some of our more successful Portland-area photographers that make a living doing exactly that. To each their own, right? Those big prints are very impressive, to be honest.)

Like one of the other posters, I wish I had not got dragged into this thread!

Well, as long as we are here, a cheerful approach helps. I am working on it.


Steve

* Digital negative (no, the real thing, not DNG), contact printed to various papers for cool stuff such as platinum/palladium, gum dichromate (color!), and other exotic methods.

[stevebrot]

this discussions seems to be going away form the question of resolution

That makes perfect sense, if for no other reason than the resolution question having been solved decades ago.

I don't do B&W film sunsets to maximize resolution, and I don't do digital closeup portraits to see the pores on someone's nose.

I about fell off my chair laughing when I read this Excellent!


Steve