Digital seems to be overrated

[steve_chan5]

To me, it is truly ironic that film partisans resort to geeky quantitative issues like absolute film resolution, to counter "geeky" computer gear!

 

I bought a virtually complete darkroom kit from a fine art photographer. He had enormous 3' x 4' prints that were made originally from a dinky 3 megapixel cheapy digicam. The prints weren't beautiful because they were scientifically accurate, ultrahigh resolution images - they were beautiful because he had a vision, and through digital media, he was able to exercise enough control over the medium to realize this vision. He is an artist, not a NASA imaging technician.

 

He had no need for wet prints anymore - digital gave him all the control he wanted, without all the headaches that went with working on wet prints.

 

My experience is that noted photographers are often paid for their vision, their "eye" - and not for their technical/quantitative skills. And in fact, some famous photographers seem to have been relatively mediocre technicians - I saw the Diane Arbus exhibit at the SF MOMA - to my eye, the medium format prints (and especially the small format prints) all looked quite soft. I don't know if she did the prints herself, but on a purely technical basis, I've made sharper B&W prints myself, than most of the ones I saw.

 

So, as others have alluded to, it is the control (as well as the economics) that often draw people to digital.

[danny_rose]

Thanks for all your feedback. I am fully aware of the advantages of shooting

digitally - instant feedback, no film costs etc, but this is not my interest - on this

post anyway. As an aspiring pro and lover of photography and art in general I

will happily use whatever medium is appropriate, digital or film (and I have

conducted tests with slide/negs vs digital using the school's large format inkjet

printer, our local pro lab digital prints and darkroom prints). But, I guess the

reasoning behind my question is this, It seems so many non-pro

photographers post questions such as "I 'm a non-pro and looking to buy a

10d/1dmk2/very expensive camera, what L series lenses should I buy to get

max resolution?" or the like. There is nothing wrong with wanting the latest

technology and if you can afford it, why not? But my feeling is that if you're

that worried about getting the best shots then why not simply go get yourself

a simple film body and lenses - Preferably fixed if you want best quailty and

learning experience - and find a lab that will do wet prints or enlarge them

yourself? I know a digital darkroom offers convenience and can be cost

effective - great if you're a pro and want to shoot thousands of pics and sell

them to married couples etc - But I just want to put things in perspective.

Think about what you, as a photographer/artist/enthusist are creating or want

to achieve, for me, it's time to slow things down and spend some time thinking

about each shot . With the decline of labs that will do good quality wet prints,

photography is now very reliant on new technology. What once was a organic

process is being replaced with a digital process where the image is

inherently made up of geometric shapes - perfect little squares or pixels - yes

they will look cleaner, which is in many cases great , but sometimes the slight

randomness and texture of grain to me is beautiful. I'm trying not to sound like

a hippy here, just thinking out loud.

[jon_sak]

"With the decline of labs that will do good quality wet prints, photography is now very reliant on new technology. What once was a organic process is being replaced with a digital process where the image is inherently made up of geometric shapes - perfect little squares or pixels - yes they will look cleaner, which is in many cases great , but sometimes the slight randomness and texture of grain to me is beautiful"

 

Good film labs are dying. THey will always exist, but skilled manpower is being lost daily. Digital gives some control back to us, when we go to the only crappy minilab in town. Yes, I know there will always be good labs, but prices will go up and places to go will close one by one. I shoot super 8 and Franklin Film labs just stopped developing black and white becuase of new standards laid out by kodak. Low selling emultions will be cancelled and process will be too costly to support a buisness. I love motion and still photography. But companies decide what is available. In ten years are choices in film will be a lot less. I am not suprised to hear you opinion. College teaches a lot of out of date and old stuff and a tiny bit of the new. Don't get me wrong old stuff needs to be taught to build a firm foundation, but many schools and teachers leave out the new stuff. Corporations and labs are going to be geared for digital because there is more money to be made. Everybody needs to get a full copy of photoshop or paintshop pro (photoshop elements is NOT suffcient)

[steve_chan5]

<i>Think about what you, as a photographer/artist/enthusist are creating or want to achieve, for me, it's time to slow things down and spend some time thinking about each shot.</i>

 

<p> Nothing stops you from slowing down and thinking about each shot with digital. In fact, get a digital P&S from 3 years ago, and I guarantee the shutter lag, AF lag and dismal flash memory write speeds will slow you down about as much as using a Super Ikonta C!

 

<p><i>With the decline of labs that will do good quality wet prints, photography is now very reliant on new technology. What once was a organic process is being replaced with a digital process</i>

<p>Frankly, I think you have romanticized things dramatically. There was nothing "organic" about temperature controlled C-41 wet processing. A person I know familiar with "the good old days" tells me that he used to get headaches from the fumes in the darkroom.

 

<p><i> where the image is inherently made up of geometric shapes - perfect little squares or pixels - yes they will look cleaner, which is in many cases great , but sometimes the slight randomness and texture of grain to me is beautiful. I'm trying not to sound like a hippy here, just thinking out loud.</i>

 

<p>There's nothing wrong with that, but of course the vast majority of people who take pictures (amateur happy snappers) don't feel the same way. And many pros went to medium format to get rid of grain, and to get the smooth clean colors that digital can produce.

<p>And, as a matter of fact, you can add the noise and other things that you prize via photoshop. You could argue that it is not "organic", but how was film <b>ever</b> organic? How is the uniform distribution of uniformly sized granules across a strip of film base that is perfectly perforated, "organic"? How is C-41 chemistry "organic"? Nostalgia is fine, just don't make up fictions to rationalize it.

[scott_mcloughlin]

How about "tactile" or "physical" instead of "organic?"

 

I'm in the technology biz, and my photography hobby is a (partial) distraction from things digital. My former business partner races a '73 Porsche; I take pictures :-) Starting with an N80, I'm trending toward manual cameras (CV Bessa and Nikon FM3a). I'm shooting mostly B&W and developing my own B&W negs. I hope to snag a MF setup later this summer (RB67?).

 

I really love computers (I'm a C/C++ and Java head of many years). But I don't know if it's valid to criticize folks who don't want to sit in front of Photoshop all the time just to take pictures. If you want to, sure. If you must for professional reasons, so be it. But if you don't? Well, it seems like criticizing a sculptor because s/he doesn't want to sit in front of Autocad all day.

[maylon_roberts]

Danny, I glad you wrote- This reminds me of the story of The Emperor's New Clothes. No, Danny you're not ignorant, rather, you're calling it as you see it, which is what matters.

 

Yes, digital is overrated. Of course the images look better from film, but, many of these people who claim to love digital so much either honestly have no eye for asthetics and/or simply want to make themselves feel better about having spent so much money on their digital cameras. Basicly, no one wants to admit to a 5 or 10 thousand dollar mistake.

 

Scanning Film vs. Digital Camera. This is simple. Scanning film will win every time. "why", you ask? Scanning film involves a linear array of CC detectors that have a longer time to "dwell" on the film to accuratly represent it digitally. Contrast this with an area array in a digital camera which only has a small fraction of a second to "get it right".

 

By scanning film, you are using the technology to your advantage.

 

This same concept also applies to different types of airborne and spaceborne remote sensing sensors. Those sensors which have a longer time to stare or dwell on the subject do a much better job of correctly characterizing the reflectance values- that's not opinion, rather, fact.

 

Danny, you are right on!

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

So this is what it's come to....

<BR>Trying to bag digital for an obscure technical point .Yes danny,you are right about the detail-but that is the last thing that i will ever worry about

<P>On the other hand maybe i should have a supply of loupes for my friends everytime i bring out the photo album or warm up the computer....?

[pensacolaphoto]

I feel that for most small to medium sized prints (maybe up to 11x14) the quality of prints can be made comparable for digital and film-bsed cameras However, if you go to 20x30 enlargements with a medium format camera (like a 6x9) and slow transparency film, I don't think that reasonably priced digital cameras can compete. It depends what type of photography you do and what the most important part of photography to you is. To many, the "camera" and the "film" are very important parts of this professsion or hobby. Not everything is rotating around money savings.

[dave_cheng1]

I had a 3.1MP Kodak digital camera a few years ago. I found that the

CCD sensor on the camera behaved like a very contrasty film that always gave me washed out highlight and dark shadow too dark to see anthing in it. This was bothering especially when shooting in sunny days. If the scene is not too contrasty then the result is OK.

 

Technicaly this was because the CCD sensor being lack of dynamics. It

could not faithfully capture the dynamics like negative films could.

I read somewhere that confirmed that this was a weak point of all

digital cameras. To verify it simply see if most of the pictures it

produced have a tendency to be too contrasty, especially shooting

in sunny days. For that reason I have been using my film cameras more

and the digital camera has been rarely used.

 

I understand that 2 to 3 years later today things can have changed

the whole thing. Not only resolution is more than doubled there are

probably many more improvements achieved. However, can someone tell

me if the dynamics of the CCD sensors also have been significantly

improved? If not, this may be why some think digital being overrated.

[marbing]

If the initial question was about how to separate the objective facts from the subjective opinion then I can see that there could be some answers. There is little doubt that people are enthusiatic about their new gear. (I suppose we all are whenever we get something new.) What brings the accusations that some of the more 'enthusiastic' users maybe exaggerating their claims comes from the fact that there are no objective measures to compare those claims and to see which ones are closer to reality.

 

For example, we hear that such and such a camera produces "astounding detail" but we don't know exactly what 'astounding' means. Over the years there have been a lot of information gathred about camera gear and we can tell very accurately what the resolution of a lens or a particular film would be in lpmm (line pairs/mm). Would 80 lpmm be regarded as 'astounding' or 'ordinary'? We know that certain films and lenses have a tendency to be either neutral or cool or warm. Some films have more saturated colours than others. There are many properties that are measurable according to objective criteria.

 

We can easily see whether the claims of the enthusiasts are valid or not and whether something is or isn't 'over-rated'. I doubt that any resonable person would object to putting their claims to the test...if they are confident in their opinions. I can understand why some people would also be reluctant to have their bubbles burst and so would have all sorts of excuses why objective measures are not as reliable as their subjective opinions...and then the arguments can go on..and on and on....

[bjmarkowitz]

According to an article I read in Pop Photo about a yar or so ago, Film is still a far supperier medium then digital in terms of quality. According to the article (and I wish i had the cite for you guys), consumer level 100 ISO film is equivilent to a 27 megapixel digital camera. Now add to that, that no digital camera could match film in the 800-1600 ISO ranges, I have to agee with the original poster.

 

Also, just speaking to my wedding photgrapher, he also agreed that there is no way that digial could compare to the colors captured by film. Its true. My wifes wedding bouquet had grape hiasinth(sp?) in as an accent to the white cala lillies. In the digital prints he took, the grape came out blue and the dress had a bluish hue to it. All of which had to be corrected by his software. In the film pics he took, it is clear that the grape is grape and teh white is white.

 

I agree, that digital has its uses, I love the fact tha people sent me hundreds of pics on CD of my wedding, things that the photgraphers missed, couldnt et, etc. Also, I understand the cost savings associated with digital. However, I agree, film (for now at least) is still better and is still the mainstay of photgraphy. Thats not say that digital doesnt have its place, but its not superier and probably will never be.

[Robert_Lai]

To Steve Chan:<p>Organic chemistry refers to chemistry of carbon based molecules. So, film is partly inorganic (silver halide crystals are metal salts), but the dyes that are responsible for color response and sensitization are definitely organic. The gelatin and film base are also carbon based molecues. Thus, films are "organic".<p>I used to own a Zeiss Super Ikonta B, and I will say that it was a very fast handling non-motorized camera. Wind, focus using the rangefinder, and click. I could walk down the street in Toronto's Chinatown and go through a 120 roll in a few minutes with almost nobody paying attention to this ancient camera. Thus, I will say that your characterization of using a Zeiss MF folder as "slow" as inaccurate.<p>Danny:<p>I still stick with film. I make money from presentations. No digital projection matches the quality of a 35mm slide film projection. In my economic world, film still wins.

[jon_sak]

We are all forgetting that companies and developing buisness will decide what is available and better. If a majority of minilab customers do not get film developed, how long will it take before the owner does not develope it any more? Like I said before one of my favorite super 8 developers is closing thier buisness. Because of low demand and increasing costs it is not a vaiable buisness. Super 8 film puts out greater detail than most minidv camcorders on the market today. Is's clearly better, so why do so few people use it? Its not convienent and the benefits do not outweigh the headaches. You need a projector, good cameras are scarce, repairs are difficult to get and its tough to find a good developer. So peole chose miniDV because all you need is the camera and a TV. Film still cameras are doomed to the same fate as the superior super8 format. Labs will close or stop offering services and digital will be everwhere. Technology can and will improve. The problem is the corporate strategy of planned obsolesence. Talk to any design engineer who has worked on ccd technology. The good stuff is ready, but won't be sold for a couple of years from now. The reason why is to keep profits up and gaining a gradual customer base. Most people on this forum are comparing the best film technology at the peak of distribution and near the end of its sale cycle, to a product that is nowhere near the peak of distribution or customer base. The best products are already developed and companies will sell them to consumers later than sooner. The best non-consumer digital equipment far exceeds anything film can produce. I am going to give a silly example, but please use it as a basic example for my argument. The now old hubble telescope does not use film and if film was used it would not produce comparable results. There were satalite that used film photography with great success and detail, but digital was both better and more convinient.

[will_perlis]

"Yes danny,you are right about the detail-but that is the last thing that i will ever worry about"

 

Right. Painters never worry about what to include, where to include it, and in what detail the various elements ought to be rendered, sculptors don't either, and that should be good enough for us.

[phyrpowr]

I guess I'm just a simple country lawyer, but I don't look at photos with a loupe

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

To dave cheng

<BR>Actually kodak digicams seem to allways be that way-i.e they have a high contrast look and also an odd 'painterly' feel i've heard many call it.

<BR>Other brands are better and DSLR's much better but digital sensors still don't have the dynamic range of print film.This will definitely change in future,but for now if you really need that dynamic range then film is the main option

[dave_cheng1]

Thanks a lot for the reply, Ron. I invested $2k in a MF film scanner

a few years back and painfuly learned that the CCD sensor of the

scanner was not capable of capturing the dynamics of my slides.

It seems Digicams have the same problem too. So either staying in

shooting films then scan them or toss my film gears to shoot with

modern digital SLRs I am going to be a loser either way. Unless I am willing to

go the traditional way of printing images I am stuck with the CCD's

narrower dynamics for now.

 

Dave

[steve_chan5]

<p><i> But I don't know if it's valid to criticize folks who don't want to sit in front of Photoshop all the time just to take pictures. If you want to, sure. If you must for professional reasons, so be it. But if you don't? Well, it seems like criticizing a sculptor because s/he doesn't want to sit in front of Autocad all day.</i>

<p>Who criticized him for not wanting to spend hours in front of a computer in photoshop? I'm criticizing an inaccurate portrayal of the film vs. digital issues.

<p>I've got no issues with using film, and using retro cameras. I'm clearing out space to setup a wet darkroom. The camera that stays in my car all the time is a 1962 Kiev 4a, with a Voigtlander Prominent Nokton, loaded with Ilford XP2. It is built like a brick, has one of the best old school RF lenses, never runs out of batteries and it's lack of metering forces me to learn to judge exposure (but XP2 is pretty forgiving anyway). My travel kit is a Bessa T, with a Summicron-C, a CV 25/4 and a Canon 100/3.5. The watch on my wrist has a 31 jewel swiss movement, and can't even tell me what day of the week it is.

<p>Clearly I'm technology infatuated digital fanboy! :-)

<p>In my opinion, the debate rages because people's identities become invested in hardware, so they create rationalizations that attempt to give objective credibility to what is mostly a subjective preference. There is nothing wrong with liking film - just like it for what it is, instead of copping a "oh, digital is overrated" line to compensate some sense of being left behind.

<p>If you go back and read what I wrote, you should be able to see that the only real "superiority" that I claim of digital over film is the amount of control it can give, without the headaches of wet process. And I didn't name any other so-called superiorities of digital that Danny had not already noted himself.

<p><i>W.R.T. the Super Ikonta B being fast handling</i> Sure. In the right hands, an abacus can be faster than a calculator too.

<p><i>Organic chemistry</i>: okay, you're right. Maybe Danny Rose was talking about organic chemistry and I entirely missed it.

[peter_phan]

I don't know of any digital photographers, professional or enthusiast, who have any desire to return to film-- other than for reasons of nostalgia. People who want to sit around and analyze their film prints through a loupe are certainly free to do so. But for the rest of us practical-minded photographers, digital wins on so many levels.

 

For one thing, handling and working with film was a pain. I can perform instantaneous ISO changes so that I can always shoot at the best ISO, from shot to shot or situation to situation. Lowest ISO is absolutely devoid of "grain", and higher ISO is tremendously better than anything I ever achieved with film. I don't have to worry about properly storing film, or processing it soon after exposing the film, or worry about keeping the film at an appropriate temperature when I'm out in the field or traveling. I don't miss having a refrigerator full of film, or having to pack zip-lock bags with film of various ISO speeds, emulsions, color or b/w, etc, before a shoot or trip. I don't miss having to be sure I use up my pro films before their expiration date. I don't miss having rolls of film ruined at the lab. And I hated the tremendous material waste of shooting film; all those cardboard film boxes, plastic film containers, and metal film cartridge canisters that are the by-product of film photography. Also, archiving and retrieving images is so much more convenient now. I don't miss having to sleave negatives, or slipping slides into archival slide pages. I don't have to deal with drawers full of archival pages. And I absolutely don't miss having to scan film. What a slow, tedious, time consuming project. Oh, and that's after making a trip to the lab to drop off your film, coming back later to pick up your film, then spending time hunched over a light box, trying to discern which ones are keepers and which ones are sharp. Frankly, even if digital were slightly inferior to film, the benefits I've mentioned here far outweigh any difference in quality. But as far as I can tell, the quality I am achieving now with my 10D is as good, and usually better, than what I was achieving with film. And that's with a 10D. I look forward to upgrading to the successor of the 10D, which may have an even better sensor, like the 1D MKII's.

[h._p.]

"In my opinion, the debate rages because people's identities become invested in hardware, so they create rationalizations that attempt to give objective credibility to what is mostly a subjective preference."

 

How right, oh, how right.....

[madwand]

Digital undoubtedly has many advantageous, so does film. These can fall into the realm of personal needs and preferences, and also into the realm of technological improvements such that one advantages are lost over time and we get an overall superiour technology with few if any compromises.

 

Pure digital proponents should take some pause at the fact that in some cases, 50 year old cameras can still out-perform the digital cameras that almost everyone is likely to be using. Should you care if you're happy with the other benefits? Perhaps not. But you might think, for your future benefit, that there's more to be gained with more work and motivation.

 

E.g. As in a high-tech spy movie, I'd like the ability to zoom in on a reflection in the image, and then zoom from that to the object reflected, and read e.g, the serial number on the camera that took the picture (a couple of high-resolution reflections might be needed). To the camera industry: Please get on this right away.

 

The point of my silly request? That there's a lot more that can be asked for in technology, and claiming to be satisfied by the status quo in any technology is not a techology-friendly observation.

 

Technology needs to improve for its own benefit and vitality. It's good to recognize the gains that have been made in digital. It's good to recognize that some older technology has still not been matched, and to wait and to prod the industry towards doing so.

 

Again, to those that are happy with digital at present -- great. I know what you're saying. But note that Ma & Pa were pretty happy with P&S film cameras too, and that talking about that is dull.

[hendrik]

Just this,

 

WORKFLOW

 

CASHFLOW

[john falkenstine]

Like many of us, I use both mediums. The quality of the print as a basis for the question is debatable since the making of the print itself generates variables based on the skills of the party doing the work. I would say "not to worry too much" about the quality of the print, but the content thereof, digital or analog. I routinely find highly rated photographers and their (expensive prints) who are not exactly technically adept, but correctly, concentrate on the content and message of the image. Don't fall into the trap of ant-digital "based on whatever".

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

I love digital because I can now buy fantastic film cameras for very little money. So, it's now easier to fund my addiction to Carl Zeiss lenses!

[Jochen_S]

About the hype: Most photoneters have some 35mm SLR some of them for decades. I suppose everybody of them is even able to borrow one somewere, so everything about that is quite boring. DSLRs are the actual consumer good borderline, so they are "News".

I always suggest to shoot the right tool. I do digital for convenience or fun and film for serious work. To a family gathering this weekend I came with DSLR and MF TLR for the group shot. I should have taken the monorail but hope the tiny neg does the job up to 8x10".

Film is nice, but scanning is work!