[CreationBear]

in a single exposure on digital?

Ha, the next thing you'll tell me is that Comcast lies about its Internet speeds... At any rate, I'll definitely have to explore how film has changed--Velvia 50 has, what?, five stops, but as you allude, it seems as if you've got a much bigger window to explore in Ektar and Portra especially. Besides, even blown highlights don't seem to be that big of deal with a lot of MF shot I've seen--who needs HDR when you can be "artistic"?

[redrockcoulee]

Often images from medium format cameras are not as sharp as those from 35mm or digital. Oh wait that just those from the Diana and Holga.. never mind

[tuco]

Ha, the next thing you'll tell me is that Comcast lies about its Internet speeds... At any rate, I'll definitely have to explore how film has changed--Velvia 50 has, what?, five stops, but as you allude, it seems as if you've got a much bigger window to explore in Ektar and Portra especially. Besides, even blown highlights don't seem to be that big of deal with a lot of MF shot I've seen--who needs HDR when you can be "artistic"?

The new Portra films have good dynamic range. They are derived off motion picture film technology. My D810 advertises 14.8 stops of DR. But about the lower 3 stops I'll never use due to noise and color shifts.

And when I compare it's DR to my BW film where I employ highlight compression work ( over expose 3 stops and under develop ), I see the results of what my one-degree spot meter says as for the number of stops I captured. Around 16 stops in some cases. And other people report that too over on the Large Format forum where the Zone System is employed by a lot of people.

[baro-nite]

Velvia 50 has, what?, five stops

I'd say four stops is pushing it, although I don't have tons of experience with Velvia. Sure is fun to work with.



Pentax 645n, FA 75, Velvia 50

[CreationBear]

Sure is fun to work with.

That's one that must be fun to see on a light table--probably a perfect example of the "output" conundrum I was talking about early in the thread.

[Pablo Villegas]

Ha, the next thing you'll tell me is that Comcast lies about its Internet speeds... At any rate, I'll definitely have to explore how film has changed--Velvia 50 has, what?, five stops, but as you allude, it seems as if you've got a much bigger window to explore in Ektar and Portra especially. Besides, even blown highlights don't seem to be that big of deal with a lot of MF shot I've seen--who needs HDR when you can be "artistic"?

Kodak Vision 3, which is the latest(last?) motion picture film made by Kodak, and the new Portra 400 is based off that, has 14 stops of DR. But more importantly, on the shoulder of the curve, there is nothing that comes close to it in digital. If you want to shoot on natural light, or even overexpose and go for that look, you have to use film. There's a reason the greatest natural light only film, The Tree Of Life, is shot on film. Yeah, Lubezki decided to shoot The Revenant on digital, but they had to make him a new camera, stitching together 3 sensors of a regular Alexa camera, which gave the a 65mm size frame. And still, you can see in both, he chose no to over expose it, like he did on The Tree Of Life, quite the contrary, it's underexposed.

The way film handles highlights, nothing come close yet in digital. And I've shot with the best digital cinema cameras there are. The dinamic range in the bottom, and the sensitivity is much better in digital, but not the highlights, not yet.

[tuco]

Kodak Vision 3, which is the latest(last?) motion picture film made by Kodak, and the new Portra 400 is based off that, has 14 stops of DR. ...

Yes, and the new Portra 400 has a really wide exposure latitude too. Here is a test shot using it when it came onto the market. I wasn't sure of the film's reciprocity characteristics so I bracketed the exposures a stop on each side of what I metered and they all looked good exposure-wise.

A Cliché Shot Of Seattle Under A Full Moon On 120 Roll Film

[CreationBear]

Now I don't feel worthy to shoot film. (At least I don't suffer from the Dunning-Krueger effect... Dunning?Kruger effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


Seriously though, a lot of great information--I think it's the "highlight" dimension that's drawing me to film, since I'm becoming allergic to digital landscapes that always seem anchored by (barely) open shadows in the foreground. Film must definitely change a person's "eye"!

[Pablo Villegas]

Now I don't feel worthy to shoot film. (At least I don't suffer from the Dunning-Krueger effect... Dunning?Kruger effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


Seriously though, a lot of great information--I think it's the "highlight" dimension that's drawing me to film, since I'm becoming allergic to digital landscapes that always seem anchored by (barely) open shadows in the foreground. Film must definitely change a person's "eye"!

I think you're the one suffering from that effect... I never claimed film to be better looking than digital, in fact, digital right now has surpassed film in most things, except for one, the rolling off and handling of highlights.
You're the one using a slide film to claim all film has less DR than digital. Owning a Pentax 645D, and having shot some Portra 400 in 120mm, I can tell you, there's no way I can do what I do with film in daylight and overexposing with the Pentax. The DR is just not there on the highlights. Try an overexpose two stops to get that look on digital. It's basically impossible to overexpose film negative, you can always get it back.

Here's a clear example, on how digital handles overexposure... http://alcarlayblog.com/acarlayphoto/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/vertical-column-720x.jpg

You can find lots of examples on how film handles it, here's one... http://josevillablog.com/poseidon/

[tuco]

... I'm becoming allergic to digital landscapes that always seem anchored by (barely) open shadows in the foreground. Film must definitely change a person's "eye"!

Interesting, I often see the opposite. The state of art in landscape photography seems to be exposure blending and focus stacking. Single exposure photography when the camera is mounted on a tripod seems to be a thing of the past.

Camera's like the 645D have a 55mm focal length for a normal lens. To me, that's not much different than small format. That is, getting deep DOF on a 50mm vs a 55mm is not much different to me. But with old-school medium format shooting, say, a 100mm for a normal lens is a different experience getting deep DOF in your scene and not the same medium format experience, IMHO.

[Pablo Villegas]

Interesting, I often see the opposite. The state of art in landscape photography seems to be exposure blending and focus stacking. Single exposure photography when the camera is mounted on a tripod seems to be a thing of the past.

Camera's like the 645D have a 55mm focal length for a normal lens. To me, that's not much different than small format. That is, getting deep DOF on a 50mm vs a 55mm is not much different to me. But with old-school medium format shooting, say, a 100mm for a normal lens is a different experience getting deep DOF in your scene and not the same medium format experience, IMHO.

You can still do single exposure in landscape, but most of the new photographers don't really know how, and exposure blending and focus stacking is easier. There are still very good photographer taking 8x10 landscapes, and even 4x5. Using a single exposure, with filters and waiting for the right light. It's a way of shooting, that doesn't make it better, it's just more crafty.

What I find harder or even impossible to do with digital, at least on my digital cameras with a top 12 stop DR, is having that overexposed film look.

[CreationBear]

I often see the opposite. The state of art in landscape photography seems to be exposure blending and focus stacking.

Ha, definitely...so many people are doing the Joe Cornwall "near/far" thing, that for me it's losing its impact--a "back to the future" movement, say, to the overexposed film look that Pablo mentions might be more in line with my sensibilities. At any rate, much to learn!

[desertscape]

Single exposure photography when the camera is mounted on a tripod seems to be a thing of the past.

Landscape photography goes through cyclical trends. When Kodachrome 64 was the common film many years ago, landscape shots were understated when compared with Velvia 50. The bold look of Velvia has now been superseded by a digital look where it is common to have the sky being nearly burned out and greens looking unnatural. Travel magazines and lifestyle magazines are littered with this style where polarizers seem to be banned. This style is more understated than the old Kodachrome 64. For me, it is just ugly. But this seems to be the style right now.

[bobbotron]

You're mentioning slide film a lot... it is awesome stuff, but I think you should be looking more at a low speed negative colour film if you want a lot of shadow detail. DR is not what I think of when I think of slide film.

[Silent Street]

If you know your slide film well enough, and you know, through long experience, that film's dynamic range, you will naturally work within that dynamic range, not willy-nilly. That is the same for knowing, again through experience, how much shadow and highlight detail will be preserved during the exposure (through visualisation), and neither one sacrificed for the other (contrary to populist opinion, all of today's slide films can have shadow and highlight detail). All of the currently available E6 emulsions are designed for use in diffuse illumination. That means if you are using them in bright sun with deep, dark shadows, you will very easily push them over the edge, with shadow detail completely lost, highlights blown and boldly garish, unnatural colours. If you want extended DR and the freedom to photograph in anyconditions, then use negative film. But don't point an accusing finger at slide film which is absolutely superb when it is used as it was intended. Far too many people are loading a roll of Velvia 50 in their camera and then shooting mundane, pedestrian scenes of a scorched beach. They look at the slides and wonder what went wrong: the folks in the pic look like they've been standing too close to the microwave. With no experience to fall back on for explanation, they instead launch into a vituperative tirade against the film they used. They're pretty obvious on many forums.