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05-04-2012, 06:30 AM   #16
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35 mm vs. digital

I thank you all for your comments on this thread. I'm new to the Forums and didn't know I was flogging a dead horse. Clearly, everybody who responded is 100% for digital and I respect that. My point is that I have shot with film and digital cameras for many years. I'm not a great photographer but I can produce images that fully satisfy me. I found that if I tried to enhance an image from film, my options were limited and I never could produce a significantly better image than the original. With digital, it was far far easier. I could sharpen an image, produce beautiful sunsets when the original scene was uninspiring, easily delete objects that I didn't want in the picture, correct lens deficiencies, and even changed architectural perspectives from what the naked eye sees. All this can be done easily to produce vastly enhanced images. I love it, of course, and wouldn't want to change it. However, as I said originally, I sometimes feel I'm cheating because I often need (and want to) stray far away from the original image.

I have no intention of reverting to film photography. It is less convenient and it would not give me the quality of pictures that I want. To this end I am quite prepared to "cheat", and live with it. My apologies if I offended anybody.

p.s. I still love the mechanical perfection of the early metal-body cameras. Current plasticky cameras don't turn me on.

05-04-2012, 07:58 AM   #17
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QuoteOriginally posted by P. Soo Quote
I found that if I tried to enhance an image from film, my options were limited and I never could produce a significantly better image than the original. With digital, it was far far easier. I could sharpen an image, produce beautiful sunsets when the original scene was uninspiring, easily delete objects that I didn't want in the picture, correct lens deficiencies, and even changed architectural perspectives from what the naked eye sees. All this can be done easily to produce vastly enhanced images.
You can do all this with film and a hybrid workflow. All my film is scanned by the lab - 645 frames come out at about 16mp, 6x9 frames about 30mp - and then I edit in ACR and Photoshop. Full digital images are probably technically 'better' but even scanned film has a certain look, particularly B&W - the fine grain TMax and Delta films are beautiful. Plus you get the joy of using classic precision instruments.

It's actually a great time to get into film, I bought an entire Mamiya M645 Pro system for the price of a good modern lens. And the manual was only 45 pages!



That being said, I still probably use my K-5 90% of the time...
05-04-2012, 08:43 AM   #18
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Thanks for the info.
05-04-2012, 10:01 AM   #19
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Here is one previous dead horse :-)

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/photographic-technique/147679-no-post-processing-craze.html

05-04-2012, 10:53 AM   #20
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QuoteOriginally posted by P. Soo Quote
... I sometimes feel I'm cheating because I often need (and want to) stray far away from the original image...
boy do i hear you. I am riddled with guilt each day when i drive to work in my internal combustion vehicle and it only takes me an hour; I sometimes cannot believe i shaved 6 hours off my best time with the horse and wagon.

05-04-2012, 11:07 PM   #21
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For many people Auto/Green is the perfect setting.
05-05-2012, 09:09 AM   #22
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Right....

QuoteOriginally posted by SpecialK Quote
Discussed to death in many previous threads :-)

In a word... nope. Images are still mine. Film was/is manipulated as much as digital.
..and it took a LOT more deadly chemicals to do it!

Cheers,
Cameron

05-05-2012, 10:25 AM   #23
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QuoteOriginally posted by Lowell Goudge Quote
We have better resolution at high ISO
That depends if you're shooting in colour or B&W, B&W film has a higher resolution then the sensors we use in our DSLR but when we will compare colour film with coloured subject then the digital sensor out resolve it in everyway.
05-05-2012, 11:14 AM   #24
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QuoteOriginally posted by Cambo Quote
..and it took a LOT more deadly chemicals to do it!

Cheers,
Cameron
Yeah digital is really “green”. There is zero environmental impact on all the batteries, storage media, computers, monitors, printers, digital cameras/phones that are discarded around the world. I’d love to see the stats on the digital “trash” that’s created every year!

Phil
05-06-2012, 10:59 AM - 1 Like   #25
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QuoteOriginally posted by TaoMaas Quote
For some folks...maybe. For others, it's not even close. Digital is manipulated much more.
And for others, there is no difference, and for others still, it's film image they manipulate more. This is a statement about diffeences between *people*, not diffeences in *media* - some people do more PP than other. It is also a statement about people in another way - some people make a bizarre and completely aribtrary distinction between things they do to influece the look of their pictures *before* they press the shutter versus the things they do *after* pressing the shutter. don't me wrong - I make that distnction, too. But at least I recognize it as being bizarre and arbitrary, and don't pretend I am better or more skilled than someone else because I make more of my technical and aesthetic choices before pressing the shutter rather than after.
05-06-2012, 11:12 AM   #26
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QuoteOriginally posted by P. Soo Quote
I thank you all for your comments on this thread. I'm new to the Forums and didn't know I was flogging a dead horse. Clearly, everybody who responded is 100% for digital and I respect that. My point is that I have shot with film and digital cameras for many years. I'm not a great photographer but I can produce images that fully satisfy me. I found that if I tried to enhance an image from film, my options were limited and I never could produce a significantly better image than the original. With digital, it was far far easier. I could sharpen an image, produce beautiful sunsets when the original scene was uninspiring, easily delete objects that I didn't want in the picture, correct lens deficiencies, and even changed architectural perspectives from what the naked eye sees. All this can be done easily to produce vastly enhanced images. I love it, of course, and wouldn't want to change it. However, as I said originally, I sometimes feel I'm cheating because I often need (and want to) stray far away from the original image.

I have no intention of reverting to film photography. It is less convenient and it would not give me the quality of pictures that I want. To this end I am quite prepared to "cheat", and live with it. My apologies if I offended anybody.

p.s. I still love the mechanical perfection of the early metal-body cameras. Current plasticky cameras don't turn me on.
In reading the previous posts there was at least one that said they shot both. I shoot both, preferring shooting film and working in the darkroom for black and white and digital for colour. The only reason I am adding to this is the term cheating, what ever does this mean? It still for the most part GIGO and good light is still the starting point. How far one strays from the original is a personal preference and if one does not wish to stray far one can choose to do this, which is why so few of my images go beyond Lightroom and why other people's work hardly look like photographs at all. Cheating in my mind is when one uses a filter or action in PS and then declares they have a bromoil or a watercolour when all they have is an image that looks like one made those ways.

Off to have lunch and then a little darkroom work. Chemicals are not that nasty and although they do cause some pollution so does digital the real difference is one is local and the other is totally removed from the user, one should be considerate of the environment using either.
05-07-2012, 11:30 PM   #27
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QuoteOriginally posted by TaoMaas Quote
Depends upon what you were doing with your images. "Back in the day"....if you were submitting them for publication, only slides were accepted. Negative film need not apply. There may have been some manipulation when the image went to print, but that usually occured after it left the photographer's hands.
Sorry, but this needs explication. "Back in the day", SOME publications required slides. Others wanted low-contrast prints. My work was published world-wide without a chrome to be seen. Yes, it's good to have Kodachrome skills, but for much camera work, other proficiencies are necessary too.
05-08-2012, 04:18 AM   #28
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QuoteOriginally posted by RioRico Quote
Sorry, but this needs explication. "Back in the day", SOME publications required slides. Others wanted low-contrast prints. My work was published world-wide without a chrome to be seen. Yes, it's good to have Kodachrome skills, but for much camera work, other proficiencies are necessary too.
It's more like "some" publications accepted prints, but "most" accepted slides only...for color work, I mean.
05-08-2012, 04:26 PM   #29
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Not sure which day or which world you mean, but all professional print uses I have ever submitted to required color-separated film (eg, separate C, M, Y, and K transparencies).
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