mauro_franic Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Dick, "I do have lots of past experience shooting TMax 400 and 3200"<br> Very exiting to run into additional experience and not just opinions. </p> <p>Would you mind posting a few of your comparisons between TMAX 400 pushed and your DSLR? Please include the EI, development, lens and aperture if at all possible.</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DickArnold Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Sorry Mauro but I have none of those newspaper negatives.. I worked for a local paper shooting at least six or seven rolls of 36 a week and used their darkroom. We printed 5x7s that were used for hand lay up. My wedding negatives are all in storage and I don't use my former customers pictures on PN. These pictures were all done between 1996 and 2003. I closed my darkroom in 2003 and sold my Omega enlarger.etc. I do have a couple of B&W pictures in my PN gallery taken with Tri-x in 1991 or 2 in Russia that were scanned. I have medium format 645 B&W negs but they are of weddings also. . Anyway, it would take some time to dig out what I have so I really can't help very much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russelharris Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Mauro<br> <br />An old American Photo article I read - in 06 - comparing a Canon EOS D60 (I think), the latest n greatest Fuji SLR of the day and a 35mm EOS SLR, revealed film (all pics taken at ISO 100 / ASA 100) produced results that were nowhere near as clear as digital. Albeit an unscientific test it did convince me digital was the way to go.</p> <p>Years later, however, I'm not so sure. While digital has enabled me to become a better photographer the only shots Ive sold were taken with a Nikon EM and 50 & 75-150 e-series lenses. So I've been thinking about trading my dSLR for an f3 OR f100 or, maybe a rangefinder to keep my G9 company and your post has had some impact on this idea.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauro_franic Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Russ, that test what obviously incorrect. 100 iso film next a 6 megapixel crop sensor digital camera will do more than well.</p> <p>Articles like those were very ill informed and cost several people to transition too early.</p> <p>Very exiting you are considering to explore both now!</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauro_franic Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>That's ok Dick. </p> <p>Without the samples it is hard to understand what went wrong with those negatives or prints.</p> <p>I promise you that TMAX 400 delivers fantastic 16x20 from just 35mm. There are dozens of post about TMAX 400 you can research. At EI 800 it doesn't need to be push processed by the way.</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauro_franic Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Dick, also consider that if scanning or printing was done by someonelse at the paper, they could have ruined the output of otherwise good negatives.</p> <p>I am glad you contributed to the thread. When you address people with your experience most will take it face value instead of asking about the results or the workflow. </p> <p>All photographers I know who use film obtain fantastic results. </p> <p>Poor results are usually presented without evidence (there is no offense in my comment) and this still leads to a big bulk of people to assume that film is not capable. And ultimately they pay the price from missing out from film.</p> <p>With proper education and an active community, we all can help to keep film R&D alive to the benefit of the trade.</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony_leinster Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Mauro<br> I fully understand that this is not a scientific comparison, but my question should maybe have been why did you even include the 5DII and why post as "35mm film vs 5DII " (except maybe to draw attention to the thread) given the differences in lens, exposure etc. etc. ? This cannot be a film vs digital experiment unless the criteria are the same. It is however a very good film "a" vs film "b" thread. I just wish you had not stirred up the old digital vs film debate. Saying that the lighting changes has not stopped you using the same lenses, apertures, ISO and lighting for the film cameras but not the same criteria for the digital! I really think you can do better than this and get a real comparison or just leave digital out and talk about the merits of different films. I am glad to see that most members have taken the film v film aspect to debate and not fallen for the trap.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Luttmann Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Tony, I don't see this as a debate really. I think it was just interesting to see some comparisons.....scientific or not. I don't think the results here were designed to sway anyone one way or another. If anything, they show that both film and digital can live comfortably together and maybe serve different uses via their inherent different looks.</p> <p>For me, it is also about being able to use whatever camera I want. I can easily afford a MF camera with waist level finder when using film....I cannopt with digital gear. I can have my pick of many TLRs with film....I don't have that many choices with digital capture. </p> <p>There's more than just the output from the camera.....there's the experience of using equipment you may prefer.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DickArnold Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Mauro. We did all our own enlarger printing at the paper on 5x7 paper for lay up that was then photographed by the printer. All we did, as I remember was to extend development time a little for TMax 400 when shot at 800, It does have great latitude. Where the pictures got screwed up was at the printer. Digital processing has really improved newspaper pictures. Some of the sports in the Boston Globe blows my mind. We always developed on the light side at the paper because the printer was great at blocking up shadows and making pictures look like mud so we compensated by slightly overexposing either in the enlarger or the film developing. I still don't like TMax 3200. Maybe you are better at developing than we did or the film has been improved since then. The 3200 on my 5D is pretty damn good. I made a lot of 645. wedding prints on TMax 100 and TMax 400 that I sold to my customers so they were at least commercially acceptable. My standard salable print was 11x14. I did not shoot much 35mm B&W except at the paper. Like I said if I were to go back to B&W on film I would do two things: I would get a 645 body and lenses and, because I am familiar with it, I would use TMax: probably 100. I shot some Tri-x in Russia during a food shortage in 1991 during the winter and I really liked the gritty pictures it produced. My general observation having gone from film to digital in 2002 is that for B&W I still think that film may be better or at least better for me because I don't seem to get the same results in photoshop as I got in my darkroom. I think my current color is better than a lot of my color with film but PS processing is so much better than when I did film I think a lot of that is attributable to that. If you go to my PN gallery you will see two pictures of the Portland Head light. One done with MF velvia and the other digital. I think they are about equal although I wouldn't swear to it. I think the film might be a little better. I have blown both up with success. But for me digital is a hell of a lot less work than my old stuffy darkroom or my scanner on film. Lightroom 3 saves me so much time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DickArnold Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Just so there is no misunderstanding, if you asked me to go out and shoot B&W at dimly lit wedding or gig I could do it with either film or digital and get an acceptable product. It is just a matter of preference IMO. I did one wedding with chromogenic B&W film mainly because I did not want to process a whole 500 picture B&W wedding in my darkroom. The pictures made the customers happy but me not so much. I got all of the proofs back from the printer in two days. It was a candle light wedding inside an Inn. I could not see a damn thing to clearly hand focus precisely. I set the Bronica and the Flash (vivitar 283) at f16 to get DOF and also tried to rough focus with the lights still on got on a ladder when they went out and fired away. I got a great set of pictures. The Bride and Groom cared not one iota that the pictures were on chromgenic film instead of TMax. But I could tell the difference. I never used that film again, however. Sometimes I think we all worry too much about all these somewhat nit picky details. Beyond the basics its the pictures that count. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauro_franic Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Very interesting Dick.</p> <p>I would like to see the Velvia and digital shots at full size if possible.<br> What did you use to scan the film for the comparison?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Luttmann Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>One of my favorite photographers for weddings shoots only with Leica M7 bodies and 3 lenses. He does a mountain of B&W work...a lot of it with 3200 speed in receptions and ceremonies. He has been featured for the second time in Rangefinder Magazine. A lot of us spend too much time worrying about every grain or every pixel, when for most real world use, it simply doesn't matter.<br> Check out his Blog at:<br> <a href="http://www.riccisblog.com/">http://www.riccisblog.com/</a></p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuno_saldanha Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Gratz Mauro and thanks a lot for such an interesting post. Sorry for those "digital barking", but that was to be expected with such a hot subject. And thanks a lot for such great links. Its very refreshing to notice that internet hasn't been yet totaly monopolyzed by Digitography sites and posts. And I have also to give credit to Photo.net for this good posts that arises to surface some times. Keep the good working, shooting and posting.!</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuno_saldanha Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Ho, as soon as I finnished writting, just saw Dave's response. Thanks Dave, a very interesting Blog too.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan_south Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Yet another biased discussion by people who apparently have no idea how to use digital technology properly. I don't know why you folks even bother. What are you trying to be? The Fox News of photography?</p> <p>What have we concluded here? When you underexpose a digital photo, it contains a lot of noise, especially at high ISO settings and with NR disabled. And if you then brutally over-sharpen the image and blow it up to 100 percent it looks bad. Duh!</p> <p>Maybe someone over on the Digital Cameras forum should shoot some side-by-side images on digital and film. The digital images would be exposed optimally and processed properly. The film images would be processed by someone who has no clue how to use a darkroom and then "scanned" by photographing the negative with an iPhone. Then sharpen the iPhone pics to death and post them to show how "inferior" film is to digital. That thread would make about as much sense as this one does.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauro_franic Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>That is a very nice article Dave. </p> <p>I wonder whether film will me mainstream for event photography at some point in the future.</p> <p>Camera companies, understandably, won't support or educate photographers on film to get them out of their golden age of profit of selling a new high ticket cameras to the same photographer every few years.</p> <p>It is up to us who shoot film to make the knowledge available to the community.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauro_franic Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Thank you for the compliments Nuno.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauro_franic Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>Dan, do you have a better comparison you can provide?</p> <p>Also, what is your opinion of these results with film?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauro_franic Posted February 16, 2011 Author Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>"When you underexpose a digital photo, it contains a lot of noise"<br> Dan, the highlight are already blown on the face. Would you have exposed it more?</p> <p>"especially at high ISO settings and with NR disabled."<br> The results are presented both with NR ON and NR OFF.</p> <p>"And if you then brutally over-sharpen the image and blow it up to 100 percent it looks bad"<br> The film shots are at 100% as well. Would you like me to post the 5DII with less sharpening?</p> <p>Please let me know what would you like and I will try to help you.</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh_rienecke Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 <p>"Yet another biased discussion by people who apparently have no idea how to use digital technology properly. I don't know why you folks even bother. What are you trying to be? The Fox News of photography?"<br> Dan do you have live event shots to compare? <br> Mauro I agree with you that any more exposed on the face and it would be too blown out, slightly underexposing is not going to cause too much noise for anything under 11x17 and exposing more will also detract from the mood of the colorful spots and smoke. In live rock show events the musicians are moving around the stage usually at a pretty good pace and to avoid too much blur 3200 is a standard baseline ISO to start with to keep a high enough shutter speed, at least with me and my colleagues that is.<br> It looks like the first picture on page 3 with noise reduction off in DPP is not overly sharpened to my eye, the one in Lightroom is very sharpened and probably looks good at 5x7 for magazine print. I don't think any of the 100% comparisons are gonna be used for a 24x36 or larger print Mauro is just showing results and graciously adding further findings as people request.....</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karim Ghantous Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 <blockquote> <p>I don't know why you folks even bother.</p> </blockquote> <p>You obviously thought it worth commenting. Perhaps you can see that this discussion is quite plainly an interesting exercise? Nobody is basing their next gear purchase on this experiment. Well, I'm not. I don't know if you have noticed but Mauro and several of us use both media. Hopefully this is not too difficult for you to digest.</p> <p>Mauro, thank you for the additional links.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony_leinster Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 <p>Mauro<br> The "Golden Age of profit" was in the late 70s -early 80s when there was only film. I worked in the industry then and cameras were selling at an unbelievable rate. I think your phrase about "those of us who shoot film" educating those who don't maybe shows where you are really coming from.<br> Again I say ( to those who think I'm defending digital) that I have no particular bias except that if you are going to start a film vs digital (Mauro's words basically) thread then at least do it from a proper basis.<br> There was nothing to stop you using exactly the same methodology for both film and the 5DII so why not be honest and do it properly. I would be much more interested in a true comparison.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zack_zoll Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 <p>After reading all the responses, I'm beginning to think that Mauro just shot the concert for the purpose of shooting the concert, and decided later on that he could make a comparison post out of it; as opposed to deciding to do an A/B comparison from the beginning.</p> <p>I would most certainly hope this is true, because the alternative is that an experienced, talented photographer with good gear does not understand the difference between an ambient and a flash exposure, or that lenses behave differently wide open and stopped down.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Luttmann Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 <p>Thanks for the enlightening post Dan. Nothing like dropping by and telling everyone in the thread that they're stupid. I wasn't aware you knew all the people here and what their level of digital knowledge was. I've been involved in it professionally for nearly 20 years....digital for over a decade. I would love for you to share with us what we're all doing wrong as apparently you have a secret as to exposure that none of us nor the camera companys are aware of.</p> <p>Please share.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauro_franic Posted February 17, 2011 Author Share Posted February 17, 2011 <p>Thanks Zack. You are correct. After shooting the concert and realizing we had similar takes on different films and the 5DII, it became interesting to share the results.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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