Film vs. Digital SurveyMonkey results

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>In response to this very recent thread...</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/casual-conversations-forum/00cD1f</p>

<p>... I thought I would put up a quick survey on SurveyMonkey to find out whether anyone really could tell the difference between film images and digital images. Although I'm mostly a digital photographer, I have some film work in my portfolio. </p>

<p>My contention is that photographers, like all artists, have their own style, and their images are made to conform with that style, no matter what their choice of media. Put another way, it is not the medium, but rather the artist's vision that drives the style. The choice of medium is simply the path taken to the end result. It's no more than a (major) detail of the workflow.</p>

<p>Anyway, I put up 5 of my own images to see whether people could correctly label them film or digital. I would have put up more, except that I apparently hit a number-of-questions limit on my freebie SurveyMonkey survey. I included 3 film images and 2 digital images. Three images were color, and 2 were B&W. The survey can be found here:</p>

<p><a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/97FPQ7L" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/97FPQ7L</a></p>

<p>The following 5 posts will be the photos, the descriptions, and your verdicts about them. (I'd put it all in one post, except it's giving the editing window fits for some reason.</p>

 

<p><img src="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phmorningonthechismansm.jpg" alt="" /><br /> </p>

<p>"Morning on the Chisman"<br>

See here: http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phmorningonthechisman.htm</p>

<p>Taken with an old Canon T70, a 35-70 with horrible bokeh that happened to work nicely for this shot, and a roll of Fuji 100 film, as I recall. At that time I wasn't going to take a DSLR out on a saltwater creek in a canoe with one of my good lenses. The T70 was my "bucket camera."</p>

<p>The verdict: 7 Digital (wrong) and 3 Film (correct)</p>

<p><img src="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phchismancreeksm.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>"Chisman Creek"<br /> See here: <a href="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phchismancreek.htm">http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phchismancreek.htm</a></p>

<p>Taken in the same canoe with the same T70 (for the same reason), much smaller aperture, probably the same Fuji 100.</p>

<p>The verdict: 6 Digital (incorrect) and 4 Film (correct)</p>

<p><img src="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phjokersm.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>"Joker"<br>

See here: <a href="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phjoker.htm">http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phjoker.htm</a> </p>

<p>I took this ages ago -- in the 1970's with Plus-X. I'm pretty certain it was in my Spotmatic F with a 50/1.8</p>

<p>The verdict: 8 Digital (incorrect) and 2 Film (correct)</p>

<p><img src="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phapothecarysm.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>"Apothecary"<br>

See here: <a href="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phapothecary.htm">http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phapothecary.htm</a> </p>

<p>I took this photo in Colonial Williamsburg with my 40D and 18-55 IS. I use this rig when I don't have photography specifically in mind but want to travel semi-light.</p>

<p>The verdict: 7 Digital (correct) and 3 Film (incorrect). Note: This is the only photo that most people got right, but I think it's only by happenstance. Initially most people were getting it wrong.</p>

Great post. I wouldn't have been able to guess correctly.

 

I shoot exclusively in digital and have no desire to shoot film again. But, for some unknown reason, I am pleased that film

is still available for those who do want to shoot film.

<p><img src="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phsheep01sm.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>"Sheep 1"<br>

See here: http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phsheep01.htm</p>

<p>I took this in Colonial Williamsburg with my 5D and 24-105.</p>

<p>The verdict: 4 Digital (correct) and 6 Film (incorrect)</p>

<p>---------------------------------------------</p>

<p>In total, there were 20 correct responses and 30 incorrect responses. If anything, the test was biased towards correct responses, because anyone could have perused my portfolio or read EXIF data (?) to ascertain the correct answers. ;-)</p>

<p>I just arbitrarily checked "Digital" on every box. Because it made as much sense as the usual F vs D debates.</p>

<p>Now I'd love to hear from the respondents as to why they chose as they did! ;-)</p>

<p>Sarah, I don't thin guessing at images that are a few kilopixels presented digitally is going to yield any significant result, unless you had something in mind? </p>

<p>Michael, I could show full resolution (HUGE) images that we could all pixel peep, but I don't think pixel peeping enters into that "feel" or "look" of film that everyone talks about. It's that "look" that I wanted to address. I've always attributed that more to tonality than anything, and tonality doesn't care about size.</p>

<p>Of course if that "look" has something to do with film grain, I confess I've always used fine grain films. I used to love Panatomic-X when I had enough light, and Plus-X for more general use. I hated Tri-X. I usually don't crank the ISO in digital photography either, although "Apothecary" was shot at ISO 800, as I recall.</p>

<p>I see, Sarah. You want to know if anyone can accurately identify film or digital by "look and feel" alone, but how does one take post-tweaking into account? </p>

<p>I think more significant results can be achieved by presenting identical images shot both ways without post processing which will allow a more representative A-B test to isolate "look and feel". </p>

<p>It doesn't matter if you can't tell the difference. Collectors pay more in general for film photos thinking its better. But it was an interesting survey. I got more wrong than right. Tells you what I know.</p>

<p>Michael, the "post-tweaking" is part of the process, and it always has been. When you take film to a lab, they do quite a lot of tweaking to get the right output. What I've compared is the printer-ready output from film capture with adjustments vs. digital capture and postprocessing. There are output options from here forward as well. The film images could be optically enlarged and printed, but it is far more common for them to be scanned, adjusted, and printed on a pigment printer. What you see in this thread is scanned and adjusted, ready for the printer.</p>

<p>As far as the A/B comparison, I think you'd find only minor differences, as I would attempt to make them both look pretty much the same. I typically use very film-like sigmoidal response curves, particularly in my monochrome work, not because they look like film, but because they gracefully roll out the shadows and highlights and accentuate mid-tone contrasts. I like that look.</p>

<p>Alan, from a business standpoint, I agree with you. What matters is what people will pay money for. But to me, what matters is what gives me more creative freedom, hence my choice of medium. ;-)</p>

<p>Sarah, another way to look at it would be to enlarge and print film and digital results from a controlled shoot on the same printer and paper. Some reviewers assert that this is a better way to judge quality, than pixel peeping on a monitor.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Alan, from a business standpoint, I agree with you. What matters is what people will pay money for. But to me, what matters is what gives me more creative freedom, hence my choice of medium. ;-)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sarah: I agree that film is more creative for me. It also seems like more of a craft to me as well. That's why I like shooting MF film. I think my film photos are better than my digitals because film slows me down and allows me to think about what I'm doing. It also helps that I don't own anything digitally above P&S and micro43's! If I bought some really good digital camera, I might decide to throw away my Mamiya!</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"...The film images could be optically enlarged and printed, but it is far more common for them to be scanned, adjusted, and printed on a pigment printer. What you see in this thread is scanned and adjusted, ready for the printer..."<br>

<br /> Would this not be equivalent to comparing one digital file to another digital file? I think the only fair way to make a comparison would be a fully analog system print to a fully digital system print of equivalent size. Alas, the viewing would have to be in person as images compared over the web are all digital by definition.<br /> The analog/digital argument is nothing new. It's audio equivalent is an analog recording onto a vinyl record reproduced via a tube amp and a digital recording onto a CD. Once you listen to both, one can understand why vinyl is making such a come-back.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sarah, I kind of like this challenge - yes, sure it can spark yet another D-versus-F debate, but at the same time debunk it too. So, I played the survey relatively serious, 3 out of 5 right. One instance where I feel the 'film' look is certainly present, and that's image 1 (that strange murky green of the water, I've never managed in digital). Image 4 for me was somewhat more obvious digital for the way the highlights were managed. The other 3 were not but a guess and in accordance with Murphy's Law, I had the majority wrong. ANd really, I think they're all 3 fine examples of not really being able to tell the difference between the medium used.</p>

<p>Which to me is a good thing; a photo I shoot should primarily be a photo I shoot, not a film-photo or digital photo. Content matters, process is nice for us geeks but viewers don't care. I do not feel more creative with film; I do not find its results better or worse than digital (but sometimes, it is different and can be a better or worse choice). I am shooting more film than before, but partially because I finally have a camera that I really like to play with, partially because I like picking up prints from the store and see back results with a delay, most of all though to push myself harder into thinking in B&W tones and get better grips with it. At the same time, digital makes me experiment a lot more - so, actually maybe it unlocks whatever bit of creativity I have more.<br>

But I know that a (relatively balanced) view highlighting pros and cons and seeing both as suitable ways depending on situation, goal and intents usually is a complete waste of time in a good D-versus-F debate. So I'll leave the playground now ;-)</p>

<p>Thanks, Wouter! FAIW, here's some murky green digital water in a rather highly manipulated image that I know might offend some purists:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phwaterfallfantasy.htm">http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phwaterfallfantasy.htm</a></p>

<p>I blew the highlights in #4 on purpose, and I'd have done that with film too. That's a more recent style of mine, but it actually has nothing to do with film vs. digital. The highlights are actually rolled off in a very curvy sigmoid, characteristic of much older B&W films with relatively less latitude and higher contrast than we have today -- not that I was trying to emulate anything.</p>

<p>I think what tricked everyone out in #5 was my use of a broader toe in my contrast curve, characteristic of 80's style films and processing -- not that I was trying to achieve an '80's look.</p>

<p>Perhaps #2 was so colorful that people thought I pushed around sliders or something, so they called it digital. However, a back-lit, wooded scene like that is really that colorful.</p>

<p>I think perhaps #3 was pegged so reliably as digital because of all of the sharp, contrasty details, but my handling of the Plus-X image was pretty much "straight-up."</p>

<p>Anyway, thanks for visiting the F/D playground with me! :-)</p>

<p>Thank you, Sarah! Interesting. (I'm not going to say <i>useful</i>, but interesting. :-) )<br />

<br />

I did reasonably well, if I'm correctly remembering how I guessed (I may be giving myself undue credit if I imagined getting these right):<br />

1) Film, because there's some highlight roll-off in the whites and the white balance is a bit different with different tones from what I'd expect with most bayer sensors. I'm not sure I'd be able to name the film (the greens and skin tones aren't what I'd expect from Velvia, which is the main Fuji film I shoot), but it looked oddly colour shifted in the way that I tend to associate with film.<br />

2) Film, because of a slightly yellow cast (daylight filter?) and a relatively gentle roll-off from the brightest tree areas to the white sky.<br />

3) Digital, because I thought the white regions were blocking. Now I look more closely, there's actually more detail there than I'd thought; clearly my eyes were failing me. In retrospect, I'd have got it right and called film.<br />

4) Digital, because the highlights block quite quickly (the roll-off into highlight range is short).<br />

5) Digital, but this gave me the most trouble. I called it partly based on the microcontrast of the detail in the bricks (which is a dubious argument at this resolution), partly because of the extended depth of field (I'd actually thought it was a compact, rather than a DSLR stopped down) and partly because the colour balance is nearer to what I'd see as "truth".<br />

<br />

There's a story that a researcher goes to his professor and says "my experiment is finished, and it proves that A is greater than B". "My dear boy," says the professor, "you didn't need to do the experiment, because my theory clearly proves that A <i>must be</i> greater than B." "Oh, I'm sorry, I was reading the results backwards," says the student, "I meant B is greater than A." "My dear boy," says the professor, "you didn't need to do the experiment, because..."<br />

<br />

So much for my reasoning. I've done much worse in some other film vs digital tests, though. You could obviously mess up most of my logic by tweaking colours and curves in raw conversion, or by scanning badly.</p>

<p>Kind of fun. I got most of them wrong though lol. Web display does make it almost impossible to judge what amounts to small differences in most cases. I don't know how many people could tell a cheap point and shoot image from a Medium format digital back on the web either. I think it would be even more fun (and perhaps more telling) if the same poll were done looking at actual prints. I know there are excellent prints out there made strictly digital, strictly film/darkroom and also a hybrid film/digital routine. Could be tough indeed to try and differentiate them, but it would be interesting.</p>

<p>I saw a comment in another post that seems partially true however. Its funny how today the "film look" that so many crave (Particularly the younger crowd who got started in digital)seems to involve golf-ball sized grain and weird distorted color shifts which would have been considered "rubbish" by most halfway decent film photographers. Unfortunately many now equate the film "look" to shooting cross processed film out of a Holga. When an image is shot by a competent individual and processed to perfection all the way to the final print, it is very hard indeed to tell the difference.</p>

<p>In this decade long debate we forget that some photographers are technically capable of getting more out of film than others. You have proved that to yourself and I sort of envy you as I still shoot a lot of film but have meagre equipment in terms of the scanning side of things.</p>

<p>I've just done the survey and had a few wrong - as expected.<br>

In fact, I thought the BW Joker looked too film to actually be film so I said digital.</p>

<p>In reality they are all digital since you have either captured the image with a digital camera or a scanner. That really does matter quite a bit to the survey. For example on the first image you have blown out sky, which is a probably due the the scanner. I would argue that with negative film you probably could have kept some tone in the sky with an enlarger and burning in, or with better scanning technique. Of course maybe this is the look you wanted. But that does go towards proving your point, that it's the photographer's style, and not necessarily the technology that determines the way an image looks. </p>

<p>When I consider digital vs film for an image a lot comes down to how I want the print to look. For black and white I still like the look of a fiber based (FB) darkroom print, but in the last 5 years or so the new FB papers for inkjet printing have gotten very nice. For color I prefer the FB inkjet papers vs RC paper for RA4 printing (wether darkroom or digital).</p>

<p>It used to be that if I wanted a 16x20 print or bigger I needed to use film (MF or LF), but since the D800E arrived I find I can print large images, that I am happy with, from my digital camera as well. Again, proving your point that what to use depends on what the photographer wants.</p>

<p>Daniel: one of the specific reasons that I still sometimes shoot film is that, annually, I try to photograph bluebells in the UK. Bluebells have a slightly weird spectral response, which means that they really don't tend to come out looking right on digital sensors - or at least, something like Velvia produces very different results. Short of processing the bluebells and the rest of the scene separately - and that <i>is</i> possible - you can't just get between digital and film captures by tweaking colour curves.<br />

<br />

To that extent, there's a difference (though I'm not going to claim competence or perfect processing). It doesn't make either rendering "better", of course, nor is it likely to make a massive difference for general subjects.</p>