No more B/W film for me

[scott_eaton]

This horse has been beat to death, and I'm preaching to the choir I'm

sure, but tonight I finally eliminated any remaining desire I have to

shoot 35mm B/W film ever again, and likely 120 as well. The entire

arguement has now been rendered irrelevant in my perspective.

 

I took this shot tonight of my friend's Maine Coon mix with a single

houselamp and my 10D set at ISO 1600. Canon 50mm Macro...1/30 at F2.8

handheld. Parameters: contrast and sharpness high / saturation low. I

did a straight desaturation in Photoshop (no channel mixer) and

bumped the levels around a bit. Hardly anything radical and certainly

less than would be required than scanning B/W film. No dodge - no

burn - not looking for a critique.

 

This is what this technology is capable in terms of B/W even when our

dSLR sensors are pushed to their max. Nuff said.

[gary_ferguson1]

Nice shot. And it would look terrific on glossy paper. But that's the problem with digital capture, I can't make glossy black and white inkjet prints that I'm satisfied with.

 

So much as I'd like to shut down my darkroom and get more value from my digital investment, until the printing technology moves on a stage it's not yet an option.

[StuartMoxham]

Scott, well I can't really argue that is doesn,t look good. It's a shame you did not post this shot in the B&W forum thread <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00855Z">I cant tell the difference between Black and White vs desaturated color.</a> As for the glossy paper problem you can get prints made on a Fuji frontier or Agfa Dlab or any of the other digi labs. <br> The lack of grain or noise at such high speed would be rather difficult to achieve with regular B&W film.<br> I personaly will keep using B&W film as long as I have a darkroom and can still buy the materials I enjoy the proccess of tradition printing and to be honest the cost of even a D Rebel is way more than I can afford. Thats not to say I am against digital in any way I have a small digicompact that I use alot. I have done some digital B&W and had them printed 20x15cm (6x9inches) which is about the limit for a 2mp camera and the results were good. I have 10x15cm (4x6inch) digital and film prints in an album and it is hard to tell which was film and which digital.<br> Regards.....

[markcrowley]

Looks great. Will also move to a 10D sometime, once the cash allows! And, pls do not "shove your digital", and continue to share your insights with us.

[barefoot]

Scott,

 

Could you complete the picture, so to speak, by telling us how you obtain b&w prints from your desaturated images?

 

Regards,

 

Stuart

[fg]

Scott,

 

really like your picture of the cat. BUT the highlights in the eyes have a truly artificial

feeling, e.g. they are burned out. I downloaded the image and checked the hystogram

in Photoshop for confirmation and, yes, they are definitely blow out. I never get this

kind of artifacts when I scan my negs through a Nikon LS-8000. Don't get me wrong,

it's an excellent picture and light is really well interpreted. But those blown highlights

should make u think about not dropping film, yet. I use, on a daily basis, an Imacon

Ixpress digital back on Hasselblad (I'm an advertising photographer by profession)

and a Fuji S2 PRO for my free time (pretty scarce!). Although the Ixpress shines in

terms of dinamic range, the S2 does not. It gives me the same stuff you posted: small

areas of blownout whites. Digital is great, I would never think of going on assignment

without my Ixpress. Still, all my bags have a couple rolls of Ektachrome around, just

in case.

 

Keep it up!

[barefoot]

Francesco,

 

Like the cat, I'm curious. What additional information would you expect to see in the cat's eyes?

 

Regards,

 

Stuart

[Brad_]

Very nice, Scott. When I see your name, photograph, and story <a href="http://

www.apple.com/switch/stories/aaronadams.html"><B>here</B></a> I'll know your

commitment to better imaging will then be complete...

[jack paradise]

Well, good for you Scott. But I'm staying with 35mm for b&w prints until such time that dslr do not produce posterisation in b&w prints at A3+ size and that there is a new crop of photosensor that no longer give prints that detail lacking digital look in b&w prints.

 

To get optimum quality from a 6mp dslr, one needs to size the prints at 240dpi which is not enough for A3+ size prints.

 

But if it works for work, then enjoy!

[jim_gifford]

I'm allergic to cats and that picture is enough to make me sneeze and wheeze. Good work. What a face, what lovely eyes (and the "highlights are blown" argument just doesn't matter much to me in this instance).

 

Be well,

[lukas_kisiel]

Photographers will look at blown highlights, most people will look at a beautiful image. It's a good thing we don't have to sell our photos to photographers! We would of starved to death by now. :)

[knobstone]

Pawel Kisiel makes a very good point, I think. Photographers will pick the photo apart, while others will see a neat portrait of a cat. I recently shot a wedding, my first. I was satisfied with some of the shots, and critical of some, finding fault with something in about all of them. Everyone else is very happy with them, and very complimentary to me. And as someone pointed out, 25 years from now those pics will bring back memories of the event, and blown highlights, not enough fill-flash, or bad composition will probably not even be mentioned. Joe

[._._z]

<i><blockquote> Is there any decent noise reduction software available for the Mac??

</blockquote> </i><p>

 

<u><A href = http://www.visinf.com/gs/ps>

http://www.visinf.com/gs/ps</a></u> <p>

 

<u><A href = http://ncarboni.home.att.net/PhotoshopActionsForSale.html>

http://ncarboni.home.att.net/PhotoshopActionsForSale.html</a></u> <p>

 

<u><A href = http://www.reindeergraphics.com/>

http://www.reindeergraphics.com/</a></u> <p>

 

<u><A href = http://www.fixerlabs.com/pages/noisefixer.html>

http://www.fixerlabs.com/pages/noisefixer.html</a></u> <p>

[mark_farouk]

Great photo! I think some people should take it easy with the negative comments. Its a nice photo and the poster doesnt feel the need to use BW film anymore. That doesn't mean others have to stop. A lot of you are defensive for no good reason. Yeah, I could ponder a photo and talk about the microscopic details such as blown highlights, which 90% of people will never notice anyway, but I prefer just to enjoy the art.

 

More encouragement would help, and less HATORAID.

[oskar_ojala]

Good for you. Now I need to go out and do some architecture with my 4x5" view camera, 6 mpix just leaves too much out of the details...maybe if I could justify the price for a 22 mpix but I can't so I don't care.

[everitt]

This thread is actually quite civil for one discussing digital vs trad compared to

others I've seen. That's good though.. the whole digital vs film argument is

pretty pointless... The photo is excellent and clearly shows what digital is

capable of in terms of image quality.. the photo is also very good IMO in terms

of subject matter and overall impact, which is ultimately the most important

thing.. the final image matters, not what materials were used to create it...

people have to choose what they are more comfortable with in terms of tools,

but that will not determine the impact of their image.. I find the wet darkroom

to be a nice break from being at a computer screen (maybe I like the fixer

fumes! ;-)), but I do digital darkroom stuff as well. Before this thread or others

degenerate, lemme say "Can't we all just get along?"

[qtluong]

This is a nice digital file, but did you try to print it ? Weren't you the one that said that pretty slides/transparencies didn't matter, and a photograph should be judged as a print ?

[poul]

good shot!

 

for prints - i print my digital at (gasp) costco, $3 for 12x18 inch glossy print. i think it's even cheaper than using inkjet. of course you adjust image at home, and costco drones print it faithfully on their fuji machine.

[oskar_ojala]

Actually the printing question is valid and I remember Scott having made good points about printing digital BW in the past on various threads.

 

Scott, a request: could you sum up your digital BW printing experiences in a separate thread or possibly an article? I believe there would be demand for such info.