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johncarvill

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Posts posted by johncarvill

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>@richard B: Yes, I know that (I mentioned it above), but we amateurs can afford to be arbitrary dilettantes!</p>

    <p>And, finally on the digital/film topic, here's a counter-example: an Ektrachrome image that looks almost flat enough to be mistaken for digital:</p>

    <p><a title="Refresh by John Carvill, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7195/6952471604_b92fb0d241_z.jpg" alt="Refresh" width="640" height="429" /></a></p>

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>@Shun: Indeed. And my limitations are many!</p>

    <p>The D7000 is certainly well specc'd; I just found it too small to hold and therefore use. I have no interest in video, by the way.</p>

    <p>I'll be sure to check back in once I've played with the D300s a bit.</p>

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>@Sergio: "...wouldn't scanning a transparency to display it either on-screen or as a digital print reduce it to just another form of digital capture, and do away with whatever "superior" film-like qualities it may have had? "</p>

    <p>Respectfully, no, this is a wholly fallacious argument. That would mean *any* image, from cave paintings through to yesterday's news, viewed online would be classed as "a digital image". But looking at the Mona Lisa on Google image search doesn't digitalise the original.</p>

    <p>Looking at my scanned slide, above, you're seeing an online version of a scan of a transparency. The *medium* is digital, the original *image* is not. How the image is transmitted is not bound up with how it was captured. The chemical reaction triggered on the film by the brief presence of light created the image, that fact doesn't ever change.</p>

    <p>I've seen great photos taken with digital. Many (most?) professionals have gone digital now. I'm very much looking forward to my new DSLR, and to taking a long break from film. But none of this changes the fact that film has different qualities to digital, any more than being a feminist changes the fact that men and women are different.</p>

    <p>Could this image have been created digitally?:</p>

    <p><a title="We are never as beautiful as now by John Carvill, on Flickr" href=" We are never as beautiful as now src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5347/6947935062_e4861d2c45_z.jpg" alt="We are never as beautiful as now" width="640" height="429" /></a></p>

     

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    Didn't mean to start a digital vs film war. Was just wondEring what results I could expect from my D300s. Having said

    that, I'll go to my grave believing that film has a different look and feel. One more example:

     

    <br>

    <a href=" Hajma Kafa title="Hajma kafa by John Carvill, on Flickr"><img

    src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7232/6948376960_0386bacba1_z.jpg" width="640" height="429" alt="Hajma kafa"></a>

     

    <br>

     

    If I'd used a DSLR to take that shot, could the resultant photo have had the same feel?

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    Can we drop the fixation on the '3D' thing? I thought I'd already made clear that by 'three dimensionsl' what I really meant

    was 'depth', as opposed to the 'flatness' of digital. Film has a different look and 'feel' to digital, I don't know why people

    sometimes deny or fail to see that. I'm not saying its an inferior look/feel, I'm just saying it's different.

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>@Shun "Isn't 3D merely the abbrevation of three dimensional? I don't see 3D means anything different."<br>

    <br /><br>

    Well, you are employing rhetorical sophistry, for reasons best known to yourself. When cinemas show kids' films in '3D' does that mean they're three dimensional?No.<br>

    <br /><br>

    But I wasn't arguing along such literal-minded lines, anyway. I meant that film, particularly slide film, has - imho, naturally - certain qualities which are hard, if not impossible, to replicate in digital. Film often has a feeling of 'depth', which is what I meant when I alluded to dimensionality. Digital images often tend to feel flat - and, yes, that's a hard statement to quantify or objectively prove. The intangible nature of the quality or qualities which distinguish film from digital is inherent to those qualities. The fact that i cannot point to it and say, "Aha, no denying that is there?!" is a function of the very qualities I'm talking about. </p>

    <p>But I'm setting film aside for a while, and I'm going to try to get the most out of my new DSLR. I'm not going in with an anti-digital attitude.</p>

    <p>And no, that hummingbird pic looks nothing like Velvia. It looks flat. And yes, I did think you were equating that image's hyper-saturation with what I like about Velvia, which is not the case.</p>

    <p>Here's an arbitrary comparison. Look at this:<br>

    <a title="No such thing as a free lunch by John Carvill, on Flickr" href=" No such thing as a free lunch src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7113/7088373071_3a7a919458_z.jpg" alt="No such thing as a free lunch" width="640" height="426" /></a></p>

    <p>Nice light, nice colours, etc. But even with a few tweaks in Lightroom, to me it still looks unmistakably digital.</p>

    <p>Compare with:<br>

    <a title="Bluster by John Carvill, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7038/7094446609_25a74a8c9d_z.jpg" alt="Bluster" width="640" height="429" /></a></p>

    <p>Light not as good, and (arguably) the shot is a touch underexposed. Yet, to me, this has a 'depth' to it that is nothing to do with angle, lens, depth of field, etc etc. It's just a 'feel' that the image has which comes from having been shot on film.</p>

    <p> </p>

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    Rodeo Joe: "Please, please, somebody tangiblise that nebulous film "quality". You know, the one that 99.9% of us are

    unlucky enough not to be able to see. "

     

    I know this can be a divisive issue. But there are qualitative differences between film and digital. However, if I were a

    Luddite film purist I wouldn't have just spent the guts of a thousand quid on a DSLR!

     

    "Then maybe we can all finally get over film, move on and just take pictures (in an ecologically responsible medium). "

     

    This argument always makes me laugh. All those redundant plastic digital camera bodies, lenses, and batteries are just

    what Mother Nature ordered, eh?

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    @Shun C "Unfortunately, my film images are every bit two-dimensional. Until 3D photography becomes popular, I

    control depth of field and perspective..."

     

    This is disappointing. Why do people make such snarky remarks? I said I wanted my images to look (and feel) three

    dimensional, not to be 3D. And you know this. Whatever.

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    I do love Velvia, but as someone mentioned above, there is a tendency to mythologize it. I have found Ektachrome nearly

    as pleasing,

     

    I haven't played much with post processing, but I often find it hard to make digital images look as three dimensional as

    film ones, there is some intangible quality missing from (a lot of) digital shots. Maybe I just need the right tools, and

    thanks for all the helpful advice, above, I'll certainly investigate the Nikon and Silbef Effects software.

     

    Cheers

    JC

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>Absolutely agree, Sergio. When I get slides processed and mounted, I always have them scanned at the same time. I then go though each slide on the light box with a loupe, and of course they always look wonderfully rich, but when I look at the scans on the PC they don't look as good, ever. To be fair, they wouldn't look as rich when projected either, obviously.</p>

    <p>But still: I will likely get much 'better' images in terms of resolution, from the D300s. I just need to find a Lightroom workflow or plugin or whatever, that will let me replicate that slide film look.</p>

    <p>I heard about a plugin called Alien Skin Exposure, anybody tried that?</p>

    <p> </p><div>00aICf-459449584.jpg.e2b73e6a31bfe70c09b4bf799e71a421.jpg</div>

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>Thanks for the replies, folks.</p>

    <p>Yes, I suppose my question was a bit provocatively abstract, but then I was quoting Mr Hogan, not making the "better than Velvia" comparison myself. My guess is he was referring to image resolution, a question, really, of 'quantity' rather than 'quality'.</p>

    <p>I just got back from a trip to Sarajevo, where I used my venerable D70 (and iPhone) but also took 8 rolls of film, four of which were Ektrachrome. (In fact I posted a link to the Flickr gallery in the Colour Slide forum but it's been deleted for some reason). As usual with slide film, I am happy with the look of the photos even when the photo itself may leave me wondering "why did I take this photo of nothing much at all?" This is particularly true of the two rolls I decided to have cross processed, they came out beautifully. The downside? It cost me over £80 to process the films. And I've just laid out a chunk of cash on the D300s. So I will be giving the F3 a rest for a while.</p>

    <p>The D300s seems to be in a slightly odd position in the Nikon lineup. It's besieged on all sides - from its FX big brothers, and from Nikon's higher-end consumer models, particularly the D7000, not to mention the much anticipated D400.</p>

    <p>Actually, I originally ordered a D7000, but once I handled one and discovered how small and plasticky it felt in my hands, I switched my order to a D300s. Ordered the 35mm f1.8 G DX lens to go with it. Can't wait to try it out. Whether I'll ever be able to replicate slide film results is another matter, but I'll give it a go.</p>

    <p>Cheers<br>

    JC</p>

    <p> </p>

    Nikon D300: Better than Velvia results?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>Folks</p>

    <p>I have just ordered a new DSLR, a Nikon D300s. Now, I anticipate that this will be a big leap up from my old Nikon D70, but will it be able to do the sort of things my F3 can do with film? Well, according to Thom Hogan's review of the D300 (which I assume the D300s can at least match), you can achieve "better than Velvia" results:</p>

    <p><a href="http://www.bythom.com/nikond300review.htm">http://www.bythom.com/nikond300review.htm</a></p>

    <p>Any opinions on this?</p>

    <p>Cheers<br>

    JC</p>

    <p> </p>

    D7000 that much better than the D300?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>I've just cancelled my order for a D7000, having had the chance to try one and find out how small and toy-like it feels in my hands. I'm ordering a D300s instead.<br>

    The D7000 may win (or draw) the race on paper, but it handles far, far worse than my old D70.</p>

    <p> </p>

    Future of Photography

    in News from the Photo World

    Posted

    <p>The online arts & culture mag I edit has just announced our 'Future of Photography' Q&A series, which has been in the works for some time now (and will include at least one name that's well-known around photo.net).<br>

    The article intro is here:</p>

     

    <p><a href="http://www.oomska.co.uk/the-future-of-photography/" target="_blank">http://www.oomska.co.uk/the-future-of-photography/</a></p>

    <p>Over the next week or so, we'll post one or two respondents' completed Q&A's every day, until we're done. Then we'll have a recap.</p>

    <p>First up, is Ed Swinden:</p>

    <p><a href="http://www.oomska.co.uk/future-of-photography-qa-no-1-ed-swinden/" target="_blank">http://www.oomska.co.uk/future-of-photography-qa-no-1-ed-swinden/</a></p>

     

    <p>We welcome comments, constructive criticism, etc. Plus, of course, there's nothing to stop anybody who's interested from taking part in the Q&A.</p>

    <p>Cheers<br>

    JC</p>

     

    Is this light leakage or other camera damage?

    in The Wet Darkroom: Film, Paper & Chemistry

    Posted

    <p>Hello, David. Only just seen yur question today. No, I never managed to get my camera looked at. Out of about 8 rolls of film (various types and speeds) I shot in the US last year, with the F£, only about 3 exhibited the problem. I've had estimates for a CLA of around £90 to £100, which to my mind is just not worth it. I'd rather spend a bit more and get a replacement, which would also let me keep the current one as a spare. Even if it stopped working altogether I would never get rid of it, it's my most cherished posession!</p>

     

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