In-Camera Film Emulation

[marcus_a]

<p>I was watching recently a documentary about an archaeological dig which took place in the 1970's and they showed many images that were stills shot on slide film.<br>

I noted that the slide images were instantly recognisable for what they were and had a certain je ne sais quoi that seems generally missing in most digital images.<br>

Not wanting to veer down the 'film is better than digital' route.<br>

More wondering why Nikon, Canon etc do not include picture control settings like "Kodachrome 64" for example as options you can select. Or why Kodak do not sell camera control setting lists to do so.<br>

Fuji do this in the X Pro etc with a Velvia setting I believe. I don't think Canikon ever have.<br>

If anyone has secret sauce Picture Control settings for a D3x to emulate Kodachrome, I would love to hear them!</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>"je ne sais quoi" is exactly right. However, the only way I can think of to get closer to that in camera is to pump up the jpg parameters in the menus.</p>

<p>There are a ton of free to commercial programs out there to do this to digital images after the image is downloaded.</p>

<p>DxO Filmpack, to name just one.</p><div></div>

[Two23]

<p>Software is only going to get you part of the way. A big part of the "film" look is the lenses. Just as cameras have changed, lenses have changed just as much. I can usually tell a shot made with a modern lens from one made by a vintage Heliar, Petzval, RR, etc. </p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

[howard_m]

<p>viewNX (and maybe CaptureNX) comes w/ the Picture Control Utility so you can define and upload to the camera new PC's. There are lots of companies/people offering a variety of 'film pack' presets of varying quality.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Many of the in-camera film emulation modes I've seen tend to emphasize the flaws rather than emulating the best examples of a particular film. It can be an interesting look, but it's also misleading - like those Polaroid filters that emulate the worst examples of Polaroid before the 1970s when the prints became archivally stable and tended to resist color fading and shifting for decades.</p>

<p>Fuji cameras are an exception - they seem to be striving to emulate the look of fresh, properly exposed and developed films.</p>

<p>I wish DxO FilmPack 3 color film examples were better, but they mostly resemble bad examples of Agfa, Fuji and Kodak color slide and print films. Weird color casts and flaws that I'd have rejected years ago as evidence of expired or heat damaged films or poor processing. And the b&w films, while aesthetically pleasing with some adjustments, exaggerate grain far beyond reality.</p>

<p>Nikon's in-camera JPEGs are quite good, and would need only a tiny bit of faux grain to add texture at low ISOs to more closely emulate film. The typical Nikon color settings for standard, portrait and neutral JPEGs are very reminiscent of films like Reala, NPH and Portra. I'm not fond of the vivid and landscape settings, but wasn't a fan of Velvia either.</p>

<p>The typical Nikon b&w setting mainly resembles C-41 process monochrome films like Ilford XP2 Super and Kodak T400CN. Again, a bit of faux grain to add texture - not too much - and a small boost in contrast would come close to films like Tri-X or HP5+. Usually when I want a b&w film look straight from the camera I'll boost the ISO to 400-800 because the luminance noise is remarkably reminiscent of film grain. Tweaking the contrast, and adding an in-camera contrast filter effect can help as well.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"If anyone has secret sauce Picture Control settings for a D3x to emulate Kodachrome, I would love to hear them!"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't have a D3X, but I'll try a few tweaks in my V1 and see what I can do. I'd want to add a very slight bit of green to get that familiar flawed Kodachrome look when the film was old, had sat around awhile before processing, or was poorly processed. But getting the classic era Kodachrome look of fresh film, properly exposed and developed, ain't easy. I've never seen a ready made digital filter effect that really nails the Kodachrome 25 or 64 look, with the clarity, brilliant colors and faithful skin colors.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>But getting the classic era Kodachrome look of fresh film, properly exposed and developed, ain't easy.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Lex, can you post a link to an image you've found online that shows what that looks like?</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>I finally was able to hunt down an old Luminous Landscape thread titled "Kodachrome Revisited" I had participated where a Mr. Figen posts a sample Kodachrome properly exposed, developed and scanned off a high end Howtek scanner.</p>

<p>http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=50508.40</p>

<p>I don't think I've seen any digital cam shot that came anywhere close to looking like that with regard to skin tone.</p>

 

[lex_jenkins]

Kodachrome is notoriously difficult to scan well,

which may contribute to the misconceptions about

how a digital emulation should look. Same with

many b&w film emulations, which appear to be

based on poor scans rather than emulating good

quality prints.

[dangoldman]

<p>Back when kodachrome was still around, people used to ask all the time how to manipulate digital to look like film, often kodacrhome. Back then, i used to answer: Shoot it!. Now, meh. You can try and tweak something that isnt as good as kodachrome, to look as good as kodachrome... but you wont... you can only polish a youknowwhatwouldgetmypost deleted, but its still just a youknowwhat. <br>

*good, in this sense, is the good attribute of kodachrome. in the right application, it was the right look. i sure do miss it. </p>

<p>i think Lex is right, rather than taking the good aspects of film to make a digital image look like film, they take the bad attributes... for what, to make it more recognizable and to quell a nostalgic feeling? furthermore, whats with instagram and the fake film look... </p>