Shoot film and convert to digital?

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>man i can't stand it when amatuer or hobbyist talk about 'workflow' or 'convenience' of digital. If you find the actual art of photography a chore, then find another hobby.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Well said. I agree entirely and say similar things myself.</p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>If you care anything about quality, if you care anything about ease of work flow, go DIGITAL.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Ha ha ha.<br>

<br /></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Get with the program.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And ha again.<br>

<br /></p>

<blockquote>

<p>If, perchance, you still do your own processing and printing, and enjoy long tedious hours in the darkroom</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If people enjoy their hours in the darkroom then they are not tedious. Everyone is different. you should stay out of darkrooms if you don't like them, I will keep using mine.</p>

 

[frederick_muller]

<p>" you want to shoot film for the same reason that big budget hollywood movies are still shot on film, it has "the look"."</p>

<p>I like to study movies for both composition and technique. The late John Frankenheimer, for example, made extremely effective use of ultrawides in his films. Just look at some of the shots he set up in "Seven Days in May" or "The Manchurian Candidate". Anyway, despite the increased use of digital enhancement, one of the biggest choices film directors and DPs make well before they make the film is their choice of film stock (sound familiar?). They choose film stock with an eye to color saturation, temperature, and so on, with the mood of the film in mind.</p>

[danielleetaylor]

<p><em>you want to shoot film for the same reason that big budget hollywood movies are still shot on film, it has "the look".</em></p>

<p>That's not why. Any look you want can be achieved digitally. But movies intended for theater projection can't be shot at HD resolutions, they have to be shot at DSLR equivalent resolutions. Shooting video at a resolution equivalent to DSLR still imaging results in a massive amount of data. Managing and editing that much data is prohibitive even with today's computer technology.</p>

<p>A few more years worth of Moore's law and computers will handle those video streams as easily as today's computers handle stills. At that point you will see the same thing happen in movies that happened in still photography. Digital will become dominant, film will become a niche, and optical projection will die out.</p>

[paul_goutiere]

<p>In the early 1970's I delivered some equipment backstage to a Philharmonic Orchestra hall. A gentleman was placing his magnificent cello in it's case.<br /> I asked him about his cello and his work, then mentioned Dr. Robert Moog and his new (at the time) synthesizer. Would the world of music be replaced by electronics, I asked. He suggested it would certainly be changed. Could the sound of the cello be replicated by electronics...like me, he guessed; why not.</p>

<p>Would his cello be replaced by electronics, I asked. At this point he smiled gently, as one would to a child, pulled the cello out of it's case, sat at a chair with this beautiful polished wood and ebony thing and played a few chords of something. The sight and sound of the two of them; Oh boy!</p>

<p>"Not too likely." he said.</p>

[charles_wood]

<p>Actually, quite a number of films have been shot with professional HD equipment and a large number of commercial cinemas are presently screening films in essentially an HD format (2048x1080). 4K format (4096x2160) venues are starting to replace 2K venues. But it will likely be 2012 or later before most theaters are changed out to the higher resolution format. Even so, 4K does not even come close to requiring the amount of data produced by current cropped frame DSLRs much less full frame cameras.</p>

[yoshio]

<p>Hello</p>

<p>as has been suggested it varies. If the minilab uses a Noritsu scanner you can get quite reasonable results. I found <strong><a href="http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2009/03/noritsu-vs-nikon-ls-iv-ed.html" target="_blank">this</a> </strong> page once that has a good compairson with a Nikon Film scanner. It seems you need to persuade the operator to do the right type of capture to CD.</p>

[mallik]

<p>I am myself considering the same approach of shooting film and converting to digital. I will plan to have normal scan from lab and scan high resolution myself for those specific pictures that I may want to enlarge!<br>

Mallik</p>

[jeff_livacich]

<p><em>"Any look you want can achieved digitally."</em><br>

No way. Some can be achieved digitally. Any look you want can be <em>simulated</em> digitally.<br>

But simulating the look of film is not <em>achieving</em> the look of film.</p>

[frederick_muller]

<p>Thisis very interesting. Can someone provide an example of a recent movie shot entirely with digital equipment? That is, no film?</p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>Some times I wish I could just put a thumbs down next to some one's comment. I use my local pharmacy and ask for negatives and CD, no prints, thus far very acceptable work. For paid or serious stuff I take it to AZ in Houston.</p>

[john_lovelace]

<p>I'm with you in spirt and in practice. I shoot Fuji Velvia or Astia in my Leica M6 or Canon Elan, get local pro-shop E6 processing and mounted slides, weed out the not-so-hot shots on a light box and scan the remainder on my Epson V500. I'm indebted to your previous responder three or four slots up the thread, Mallik Kovuri, for suggesting re-scanning best slides at considerably higher DPI. Gonna try some today. Thanks to both of you. </p>

[Gus Lazzari]

<p>Tom M. and Steve S. and Frederick M. --- <strong>BRAVO !</strong></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Peter M. states: If you care anything about quality, if you care anything about ease of work flow, go DIGITAL.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yeah Peter, you can lug your <em>"ease of work flow";</em> <strong>laptops, terabyte hard drive, batteries, chargers, cords, memory cards, backpacks, and AC adapters.</strong> I'll just <em>haul</em> around my Leica M film camera with 4 tiny jewel lenses and a film 6pack in a Speed Demon fanny pack...</p>

<p><em>"Quality"?</em> I've stated this before on PNET; Buy a Canon 5DmkII or a Nikon D3x or a Leica M8.2, and you'll be <strong>stuck</strong> with the fake RAW files in 2009 technology. With the true <strong>RAW film</strong> image, you can re-scan them 20 years from now with whatever has been invented then. Good luck finding the software to support your "old & cruddy" 2009 files. (Do you have any 5 inch floppy discs kicking around?)</p>

<p>Film still has the original, un-quantized, un-sampled image. For example, in 1939 "The Wizard of Oz", <strong>filmed</strong> in Technicolor. It's been continuously copied (with the technology of the day) over the years, with it's quality at an all time high...</p>

[danielleetaylor]

<p><em>No way. Some can be achieved digitally. Any look you want can be <em>simulated</em> digitally.<br /> But simulating the look of film is not <em>achieving</em> the look of film.</em></p>

<p>Difference without distinction. Let me put it another way: show me a film print (optical or digital scan), and I will show you a photographer who could produce a print of the same style from a digital original such that you could never tell the difference in a double blind study. That may be hard to accept, but it is true.</p>

[charles_wood]

<p>Gus, sorry to bust your bubble but Wizard of Oz has been updated in recent years digitally. The original quality of the Technicolor transfer would look like crap by standards of today if not enhanced digitally.</p>

[charles_wood]

<p>For a list of films shot in HD...check here. Note that recent Star Wars films were shot with HD video cams. Virtually all animated films of the last few years have been digitally created. </p>

<p>http://hd24.com/who_is_shooting_hd.htm</p>

[kiwirob]

<p>i started off in digital and went up the canon route and enjoy it a lot. Got various flavours of PS and have Gigs of shots. I then picked up an old canon film slr and shot a roll. the difference was great - i got into a darkroom course, bought a hasselblad 500 CM, have just bought a scanner (epson v750 pro) and am starting to go back the other way so i can archive and share my shots and do my darkroom stuff at home when i haven't got the time to get there or it is booked out.<br>

I now take the 4 cameras out with me most of the time: my dslr for most shots, my slr, my hassey and a cheapy holga for yet another flavour. They all fit nicely in a bag, and I'm not inconvenienced luggging them about. I found the film great for giving me more appreciation and slowing the process down to make me think a bit more rather than just taking 30 shots and hoping for a good one.<br>

Not much of a point so far, so here it is... I just enjoy it. It has nothing to do with ease or quality or workflows or clinging to the past. One day it may well all be gone with no films, papers or chemicals for me to waste my money on, but I see no reason I should help encourage that day to arrive.<br>

It's your interest mate, go shoot the film. <br /> <br /> In answer to your initial question - if I don't get a chance to develope the film myself then i usually get a lowres CD but I always get some small prints cos I like handling them and flicking through them and they are so shiny. I then whack them all on to computer myself.</p>

[DWScott]

<p>Quality of mini-lab scanning varies by location, operator and device. I don't really like the look that comes out of Fuji Frontiers -- they seem oversharpened, contrasty and have blown highlights and shadows. I prefer the look of Noritsu scanners. But they still require careful operators.<br>

After trying a bunch of processors (including a couple of high-end labs) I settled on a middle of the road lab that uses Noritsu and has consistently good processing and scanning. By simply asking for a High-Res CD, I get the equivalent of a 6-megapixel digital camera file. The texture is notably different than the equivalent size digital shot (say from a 6-megapixel DSLR) and I find that I can actually enlarge it MORE than a DSLR file. The grain structure gives the image an apparent sharpness even when enlarged.<br>

Even though the Noritsu is outputting a JPEG, I find there is still a bit more image information in the file than I can see. So you still have a little bit of leeway to play in the digital darkroom (Lightroom, Picassa, or whatever) and pull out highlight or shadow detail.<br>

My lab used to charge a small premium for the high-res scans - they now have made the 6 megapixel scans the standard, and it costs me all of $5 to have a roll scanned.<br>

If I ever create a shot so brilliant that I have to have it scanned at higher quality, I will know what I got because the Noritsu scans are more than adequate for proofing. In that eventuality, I will take the single frame in to a shop with an Imacon scanner and have it scanned.</p>

[blakley]

<p><em>Difference without distinction. Let me put it another way: show me a film print (optical or digital scan), and I will show you a photographer who could produce a print of the same style from a digital original such that you could never tell the difference in a double blind study. That may be hard to accept, but it is true.</em><br>

<br /> It's false. It's not false for every print - or even for most prints - but it's false for some.</p>

<p>As I type this I've got a 4x5 Provia transparency I shot on Monday sitting next to my keyboard. The subject is a beaded tapestry. The original tapestry is about 6 feet high and 2 feet wide, and the beads are about a millimeter in diameter. This means that there are about 4800 beads along the long dimension, and the beads are in a perfectly square grid. A 21MP Canon EOS 1DsMkIII has 5616 pixels on the long dimension - WAY less than 2 pixels per bead even assuming the subject entirely fills the frame. The Phase One P65+ (which costs $40,000 without the camera or lens) still has only about 8,500 pixels on the long dimension - still fewer than two per bead with a full-frame subject.</p>

<p>Even if these cameras could resolve the subject, which they can't, you'd have to deal with the issue of photographing a finely detailed square grid using a square grid sensor at almost exactly the same frequency. In this case, for most cameras, the solution is as bad as the problem; an anti-alias filter suppresses some of the moire but at the expense of the detail which is critical to a good picture of the subject.</p>

<p>The artist who created the tapestry has lots of prints of this work from digital originals, and you'd have to be legally blind not to tell the difference between the 4x5 film transparency and the prints from digital at a glance. I've made a print of a smaller work of his from a medium-format slide and it's head and shoulders above any of his large collection of prints from photographers who've attempted to photograph the same subject digitally.</p>

<p>If you care about seeing the beads (and if you're submitting your work to gallery owners, you care about them seeing the beads), you simply can't create an acceptable print of this subject from a single digital capture, and if you went to the trouble of creating a stitched capture (which would be hard!) it would generate a file so big that most computers wouldn't have enough memory to load it into whatever program you wanted to use to print it.</p>

<p>I took the 4x5 slide using a Burke & James Pressman-D camera I got for $125 including lens; the two sheets of transparency film I used cost about $3 each to buy and another $3 each to process. For production prints I may switch to Portra print film (for color fidelity in pinks and purples - another issue with a lot of digital cameras); an excellent and fairly large print will cost another $20 or so.</p>

<p>Sometimes shooting film is still the right thing to do - or the only thing.</p>

[j.w.]

<p>I suspect in the near future that film scanners with high resolution and dynamic range will be rarer and rarer to find. But you can still use a close-up lens on your DSLR and light box to get decent film scans; sometimes better than what consumer-grade scanners can do, especially on silver gelatin film, where penetrating the dense highlights of a negative are difficult with scanners.</p>

<p>So, at least we know the DSLR will not be completely obsoleted in the future; it'll still have a useful function as a film scanner. ;)</p>

<p>~Joe</p>

[frederick_muller]

<p>Bob, thanks for the detailed example. Clear analysis of that sort is extremely illuminating.</p>

[andylynn]

<blockquote>

<p>Difference without distinction. Let me put it another way: show me a film print (optical or digital scan), and I will show you a photographer who could produce a print of the same style from a digital original such that you could never tell the difference in a double blind study. That may be hard to accept, but it is true.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's just not true, and anyway, it's an oversimplification and doesn't address all the issues.</p>

<p>If you want to shoot on a 36x24mm medium, your digital options start at $2000 plus the cost of lenses. Sony just announced the A850 and it's a big deal that a 36x24mm digital is under $2000!</p>

<p>I got a perfectly working Minolta XG-M a couple weeks ago with a perfectly working 50/1.7 lens, a bag and 3 rolls of film for $15. That shoots 36x24mm frames.</p>

<p>Suppose you want a larger format. I have a Mamiya RZ67 with 2 lenses, 4 backs, 2 finders and a motor that I got for less than the price of a D40 kit. It takes 56x70mm frames. A P65+ takes 54x40mm frames and costs $43,000 - 100x what I paid, and that's just for the back.</p>

<p>Large format 4x5 and 8x10, as Bob suggested, have no comparables in digital. Ever seen <a href="http://www.shorpy.com/node/6343">these shots</a>? That super-realistic feel has nothing to do with resolution or DR or anything, it's the large film and the long focal length lens.</p>

<p>Suppose you want to shoot a roll of photos of people and get a set of prints and have better things to do with your time than dick around with them on your computer. Shoot some Portra, hand it to any decent lab, come back after lunch and you have your prints. If you don't want to spring for Portra, I got a 6-pack of Kodak consumer film for $10 at BJ's.</p>

<p>So of course there are some things you can do well and more conveniently than digital, but it's not the best thing for every scenario.</p>

[peter_mann3]

<p>Mr. Mueller: It is not necessary to call me ignorant to say you differ in opinion from me. Perhaps you prefer to be uncouth in the absence of the sense of good will that makes this forum exciting as an airing of our personal opinions and experience. </p>

[paul_goutiere]

<p>I have the luxury of being a complete amateur (today anyway) with easily 50 years experience using film. I have tried digital and I must say I quite like it and now am a proud owner of a nifty little canon G10. (someone just told me that the G10 has been replaced by the G11, I should have waited.)</p>

<p>After all these years I am just more comfortable using film, scanning color negs on my CS 9000 and working with the files from that process. It works very well. Far better than I ever imagined it would and I get to keep my film cameras and not feel obligated to upgrade every year or so. When your main interest is in the image, how you get it becomes unimportant.</p>

<p>Automation is great, for those who want it, (and more power to those who do) but I and obviously a growing number want the control ourselves to create in our own way. The simplicity of older film cameras, like the Leica Ms etc. gives us that control.</p>

[dan_meyers1]

<p>Bob,<br>

You shooting the piece on 4x5 transparency film and claiming it's much better than the digital examples is funny. No one who shoots 4x5 tranny film for a living -- myself included -- would ever attempt to correctly render a subject of that detail and complexity by exposing only TWO SHEETS of film!<br>

Where's your margin for processing error? How can you tell you've nailed the exposure in such a finicky medium with only two examples to go by? No extra sheets for a push processing test?<br>

I'm sorry, but in your example, a properly executed digital image of that work would smoke your two trannies.</p>