35mm Verses Digital

[fotografz]

I guess I need to put a smiley face on each "ribbing" so all the dead serious

photographers here don't get all bent out of shape. Relax, digital sure isn't

going anywhere soon, and In my opinion, either is film.

 

Me? I just bought some HC-110 and will be processing my own TXP 320 120

rolls this weekend ... and will gang scan them on a flatbed, then scan selects

for inkjet enlargements ... a work flow just like I use to do in the wet darkroom.

[EricM]

gaetano, you're doing absolutely no favours for the medium of digital photography.

[gaetano catelli]

<i>gaetano, you're doing absolutely no favours for the medium of digital photography.</i>

<p>

:-(

[jmichaelc]

I agree with Eric. Those last too samples (along with the other ones) show all the things that i do not like about digital. Color looks muddy, lighting is dull and again, skin tones looks blaa. What do i like about digital?<div></div>

[fotografz]

Perhaps digital itself isn't the problem, maybe it's the very fact that amateurs

CAN screw around with it so much before ever seeing a regular proof : -)

[EricM]

too true. same with c-41 though, never knowing how badly off ones exposure is. "Here. Shoot this Astia with this flash, lets see what you can do."

[edmo]

After seeing the pics posted here could be that the solution ain't digi and it ain't 35 but more like bowling or lawn darts.

[kipling]

never underestimate the challenge of lawn darts...nearly killed my cat trying to learn that

game.

[gaetano catelli]

Jammey, you've rendered the skin tones in an interesting way, which, as you point out, is a testimony to the flexibility of digital capture. those hues, however, were not the ones in the actual scene. they were, in fact, much closer to my 2nd rendering of the shot (as judged by her dress and the color of the walls, as well as the skin tones). nor was there anything like that level of luminance in the original scene (to which point i'll return).

 

this raises an interesting philosophical question: how much should we shoot for objective accuracy of the scene, and how much should we shoot for subjectively pleasing appearances.

 

which brings me to flash. people are so used to flash that i don't think they appreciate how unnatural (at best) and weird and scary (at worst) it looks in comparison with how the original scene actually looked.

 

of course, i could always convert any of the shots i've posted to b&w. very tellingly, none of the blowhards who have been putting down digital have posted a single instance of ISO 1600 *color* film (because they don't dare). the biggest blowhard of all (i was developing film and doing my own enlargements while he was still in diapers) has posted 3 images to this thread, and ... as kindly as the matter can be put ... not one of them is anything to brag about. the wedding shot he posted, in particular, demonstrates quite well how unnatural flash shots look compared to the actual scene.

 

and, this brings us back to Jammey's rendering: he's managed to create the illusion of flash exposure, where none was actually present. the actual scene was illuminated by very warm, low illumination tungsten. i have tried to capture that warmth, and the attendant emotions, in my renderings.

 

the blowhard brigade has been bemoaning the number of weddings being shot by amateurs. they blaim digital for this. but, i've never heard or read anyone in the general public complaining about whether the wedding was shot in film vs digital, or, for that matter, about exposure, plastic skin tones, or anything else to do with technical matters. every single complaint i've heard about wedding photographers, without exception, has been about their *arrogance*.

 

the photographer hired to shoot the wedding i've been showing shots of was a case in point (fwiw, he used one of the top of the line Canon digitals exclusively). besides having a chip on his shoulder almost as large as the wedding hall itself, he had an expression on his face of tortured boredom throughout the affair. as if this were not offputting enough, he would bark orders at the bride and groom as if they were minor 'extras' in some shooting project of hs own.

 

i made mention of this to my young female companion, and she replied, very matter of factly as if she were stating the obvious, "that's what wedding photographers are like."

[gaetano catelli]

oh, i almost forgot Gwen's question (chuckling). i think the answer should be obvious by now: the subjective differences between 35mm and digital are a matter of personal choice. but, in terms of speed and flexibilty (we haven't even mentioned yet that many hundreds of digital images can be stored in a medium much smaller than a matchbook), digital wins hands down.

[jmichaelc]

A lot of weddings we cover are in small churchs and the reception halls are quite honestly square boxy rooms. Now i said "a lot" of them, not all of them. When in those situations, it's our job, the photographers, to present to the bride something better than what was really there. A lot of these reception places will have low lighting, white boring walls, etc... Would you then capture this dull lighting or would you bounce with directional lighting? Would you shoot RAW such that you can later accuratly render a pleasing temperature or would you leave it such that it was? Would you get creative and mix BW and shallow DOF shots or would that be altering the true sense of the day? If all we do is capture exactly what is there, then simply keep your cameral on auto/no flash and you'll come close but how will that seperate you from uncle bob? I said all that to say this....if we capture exactly what is there a lot of times (poor lighting, color casts, dull enviroment etc..), and present it to the B&G, i'm afraid it would not do much for our buisness. We have to make it better - regardless of equipment type.

[gaetano catelli]

i completely agree, Jammey.

[patricks]

albeit not being anywhere near a pro, just a happy amateur/weekend shooter, i'm increasingly getting called on to shoot various events, and now corporate portraits. here are my 2 cents: </p>

 

1) 35mm film. still looks great but not good enough to be worth all the hassle of buying/stocking film, have it developed and printed PROPERLY, or scanned PROPERLY. and unless you have 3+ bodies I find that I often want some other film that what is loaded. and finally, to take full advantage of it you really want some Leica or Zeiss glass... </p>

 

2) 35mm/APS digital. so darn convenient in terms of shooting just a few or many images, no need to finish a roll. full end-to-end control. expensive initial investment. the output is 95% of the time 'good enough' to right on. apart from what is (often) discussed here, I cannot think of many world-class/renowned pros that still shoot 35mm film, I guess Steve McCurry being a brilliant expection. </p>

 

3) medium format film. that's another story. even for "humble" vacation photos it is hard to beat, like Duthch photogrpaher Bas W. shows <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00BR8c">here in some mono shots</a>. </p>

 

I still got a F100 around, but I rarely use it. there are simply too many advantages with film, at least for a non-pro that has a busy full time job and 3 small kids at home, to outweight the suttle advantages in skin-tones and dynamic range with 35mm film.

[patricks]

man, i wish one could edit posts around here...

 

that should be spelled exception, Dutch and I, of course, mean too many advantages with digital, not film...

[travis1]

i too, find skin tones from digicams, yucky, like garlic.<div></div>

[fotografz]

"subtle advantages in skin-tones and dynamic range with 35mm film."

 

I find that the differences aren't that subtile. This was pointedly brought home while on

vacation last week. Like most tourist situations involving other people, you don't always

get to choose the time of day you are shooting or where you are shooting from.

 

I had the Canon DSLR with me during a home town parade. The parade was moving down

a shadowed street with the sky and tops of buildings in direct sunlight. It was well beyond

the dynamic range of the DSLR. Even severely under-exposing the shadowed areas left the

bright areas over-exposed. In ACR I had to drop the contrast slider to almost zero to even

get a mediocre image. In even worse conditions where I used the film camera I had

brought with me, the proofs were spot on and required little to no additional work ...

they're going straight into the family album with zero hassle.

 

After struggling with half the digital shots in front of the computer, I determined to think

twice about taking a digital camera on a sunny vacation ever again. Since the film proofs

cost the same as digital ones, I'll pay the $70. additional for film and processing, save a

frustrating day in front of the computer, and spend the time with my family, or doing

nothing.

[patricks]

well, marc you should now better than to shoot town parades... ;-)

 

so, you hit the 5-10% of the occations where 35mm film is still worth it, but one still have to hope that the "right" film is loaded.

 

i guess the big advantage these days is that you can get true-work horse quality SLRs in great shape, like EOS 3 and F100 for around $400, so there isn't much preventing you to keep on around, you just have to remember to bring it :-)

[EricM]

what is the current stat on the % of pro photog's that are strictly digital, now? has it gone over 80% or still hovering around there?

[patricks]

i guess we could/should segment the pro market further to make that interesting

[ilkka_nissila]

I didn't know such statistics existed, or are you talking national statistics only?

[kipling]

Anyone know where I can buy some of that plastic skin? Man that stuff rocks.

[k2]

it is not cheap, is called plastic surgery.

k