Digital characteristics

[rab_l]

I posted this question as a response to a Marc Williams post, but then realised

that I was a day late, so I have posted it as a new topic as it's something I

would like to know your views on. I currently shoot all my weddings on old

Canon FD, mainly prime lenses, and Leica gear, and have been considering

changing the Canon FD system with digital [Canon or Nikon], for sometime

now, and on the balance of what I've read on this forum I think I will do at

some point in the next few years. I do one large wedding fair each year, at

which there are around 25 photographers, with about half shooting digital.

Which brings me to my question, I can see from the prints that they are

shooting digitally before I ask them, the common characteristic being very

clean, well defined colours, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is quite

unlike film, and in the more extreme cases it looks artificial. Is this a result of

bad PS/colour management, or does digital always have this very clean look

to it? Don't get me wrong, I think that this look can sometimes be preferable,

but can you replicate the look of film if that is what you were after. Thanks for

your time.......Robert.

[fotografz]

Personally, I think film is film and digital is digital. Film has a certain look to it probably

due to the randomness of grain structure verses the mathematical precision of pixels.

 

I believe the smooth, clean look of digital is one of the reasons the higher end DSLRs are

replacing MF in some applications.

 

IMO, if digital looks artificial, it's because the processing was to heavy handed. Subtlety

escapes a lot of folks who have some of these powerful adjustment tools at their disposal.

 

I also believe that if you have a background in film, you know what an image should look

like, and tend to produce digital images using more subtile application of processing

tools.

 

I mix film and digital shots in albums all the time, and frankly, none of my clients can tell

the difference. It's the same effect as mixing 35mm in with MF images.<div></div>

[blueworldstudios]

Visual Infinity�s (www.visinf.com) Grain Surgery does a very nice job of adding grain.

Combined with a good channel mixer BW conversion, clients will love the look. Might not

fool the film curmudgeons you'll find lurking here, but chances are they're not your client.

 

This is another advantage of digital capture. I might not be able to make my 1D images

look exactly like Tri-X, but I'll come a lot closer than a Tri-X neg trying to look like Marcs

shot above,

[blueworldstudios]

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[philip_meadows1]

Comparing film scanned images and digital capture images on a computer is a bit of a nonsense in my opinion. They all look the same if the scan was done right. I can make any ISO equivalent film scan look like any digital image on screen. In physical print, well... thats a different story. I'm not sure if we should even be trying to match one to the other (film to digital). Photograpy's not a perfect medium and should not be treated as such. We have so much freedom to be creative, why not exploit that. One of my favourite looks is BIG prints from 35mm with lots of nice grain, totally beautiful when viewd for what they are and from the correct distance. I've shot so many B&W bridal albums with Neopan 1600 rated at 4000 ISO. No flash required ever and the clients just love it. Sometimes it's just nice to establish a different look from the crowd and one should try to embrace that as an artist. On the other hand you can choose to be a picture factory offering a service for a fair price and save your art for someone else. Just a personal view.

[think27]

Philip -- I'd love to see some of that grainy work with no flash.... Can you upload some to a folder...or....email me a few jpegs..?