philosomatographer

<p>Well-said Matt - film photographers indeed often think it's a strength not be able to see what you have captured. That's why people serious about this, e.g. in studio / landscape work, use/d instant film like Polariod to "chimp" in an analogue manner :-)</p>

<p>Of course, on the other hand, some people chimp so much that they miss subsequent shots, and that becomes unacceptable.</p>

<p>Oh, and Daniel, in response to your comment of my image holding no true whites, please, if you'll be so kind, open it up in photoshop and measure the RGB values of the woman on the bridge's shirt, or the hairdresser's homemade white poster in the bottom-right corner, and report back on them here telling us why it's <strong>not white?</strong></p>

<p>I believe the image I posted (which is not the most artistic image ever, I admit), with full detail visible in these whites, as well as actually <em>inside</em> the hairdresser's hut (which surely must have measured EV7 or less) is simply not possible with a single digital capture with current state-of-the-art DSLR technology. So much information is captured over such a wide range that I could "play around" to produce the image I posted here. It may look muddy to you, but it realises my vision for the shot (kinda) and represents detail across the full spectrum going from full black to full white.</p>

<p>Your statement of it not containing whites is thus simply incorrect. And I know for a fact that no DSLR can represent that range of tones in a single shot; I have done a lot of HDR in my life, using various techniques and tone-mapping strategies, and you'd need a minimum of two raw files for this particular range, in my experience.</p>

<p>Of course, the DSLR images will be nice and clean, not grainy like my image. There are many drawbacks to film as well. But DR is not one of them.</p>

<p><em>Daniel Lee Taylor wote: Even Velvia 50 can hold a 5 stop range, which is about half of what modern DSLRs can hold. Your B&W film sample does not show a scene with contrast that would challenge either DSLRs or B&W film. Indeed, the image is muddy and lacks any true whites which indicates a scene that did not cover the full range of the film, and a print which used too low of a contrast filter on multigrade paper.</em><br>

<em><br /></em><br>

Daniel, the way I printed <strong>my</strong> image is <strong>my</strong> aesthetic concern, thank you very much. You have no idea what kind end result I had in mind. </p>

<p>You also seemed to misunderstand my post. You appear to be claiming that, in my particular scene, which metered EV10 in the shadows, and EV15.5 in the highlights (5.5 stops difference) the entire brightness range of the scene is 5.5 stops. That's patently incorrect. In a world where everything was coloured 18% grey, maybe, but down here in South Africa (and I suspect where you live also) things have various colours ranging from black to white.</p>

<p>In my image, the brightness range from the dark, dirty pavement in the shadows, to the white clothing in the direct sunlight, both of which hold full detail, are well in excess of 10 stops. It was however my choice to compress them down into a very narrow display range, and in fact this exaggerates the original DR available to me in order to do so. It will still also take some more time than the year I have spent to learn to fully realise my vision in the darkroom, I have to control one variable at a time.</p>

<p>Please have a look at my portfolio, will you. I have for many years been shooting a range of digital cameras, ranging from point and shoots, to $7000 DSLR bodies. Why on earth do you think that, at this point in my life, I would switch to black and white film?</p>

<p>Because: apart from the very different tonal rendering which I find pleasing (personal aesthetics), there is absolutely no contest whatsoever in terms of the dynamic range between a typical black and white film like Ilford FP4, and <strong>any</strong> digital camera. Live with it, it's a matter inherent to the physical process of producing the captured image. This has been debated to death already, on this site and others.</p>

<p>Saying, at this point in time, that a digital sensor, with its linear sampling characteristics, has the same or greater dynamic range than a traditional monochrome film (because of the self-attenuating, non-linear characteristic) makes you look like a fool.</p>

<p>Why is it that, over the past year, I have not in fact *seen* a single blown highlight in any single image I have taken on black and white film? And this with "inaccurate" metering and guesstimation by virtue of me using battery-less/meter-less cameras. With a DSLR, using the same shooting/metering techniques, I fought blown highlights all the time. Just as I fight them when I shoot colour slide film. There is a <strong>huge</strong> difference, man! Negative film is simply incomparable to either of those two.</p>

<p>I do, however, wholeheartedly agree that <em>multi-layer</em> negative films (be it colour film like Portra NC 160, or Ilford XP2) have even greater highlight range, because when one layer of silver grains reaches maximum saturation, the others will often not have.</p>

<p>I agree fully that my two shots are in no way comparable, I simply posted my digital shot as an example of what happens when I boost the shadows on a Canon Pro body to maximise dynamic range, including the issues (such as read noise).</p>

<p>And yes, Harry's shot is quite fixable if it were taken in RAW format, and even his JPEG image is somewhat recoverable with careful processing.</p>

<p>In the end, I am still amazed at the directness of your attack against my post, as well as my image(s) - I was merely making conversation. We are on a Forum, are we not? Of course, you are merely sharing your "opinion" - so all's fair, I guess.</p>

<p>Cheerio.</p>

<p>Ah, Indraneel, now we're talking :-) See, I expect your D200 images to have at least some form of visible noise, similar to the extreme grain your rather extreme HP5 push has produced. I myself have never tried to push it beyond 1600, I must try it someday.<br>

I wonder if an HP5 push to such an extreme ISO is much better, or worse, than say Delta3200 or TMZ P3200 pushed that far, or perhaps beyond... thanks for showing.</p>

<p>Indraneel, your series of images (as well as your model... oh my...) are beautiful, and very skillfully processed. Thanks for having a look at my amateur work also :-)</p>

<p>I will take your explanation at face value - I am still mightily impressed, and perhaps cannot believe, that a four-stops underexposed digital image from almost any camera, never mind a D200, can clean up <strong><em>that</em></strong> nicely in post-processing. But regardless, in the context of this thread, you do bring the point across - with digital imaging, expose for the highlights and bring up the shadows.</p>

<p>It was interesting for me when I switched to B&W film to have to apply the opposite, i.e. exposing for the shadows, letting the practically-limitless "shoulder" of the film take care of capturing the highlights. That is exactly what I did in my first image (bridges) that I posted earlier in this thread - I over-exposed the image by at least two stops, and in printing brought back down the highlights, in fact I specifically went for an HDR-like look of surreal compressed tones. It's a lot easier with a digital image though, assuming the data is there to begin with.</p>

<p>Anyway, I am still learning this analogue stuff after a year or so (I am focusing on a 100% analogue workflow, no film scanning), its completely different to how I used to process RAW files :-)</p>

<p>Indraneel, beautiful image, but I am calling foul on your statement that it was "underexposed by 4 stops". To my knowledge, you are using a camera which does not allow a -4 exposure compensation setting, nor does it have the necessary display in the viewfinder to even indicate that a show is 4 stops underexposed.<br>

So that leaves us to examine the actual lighting condition and exposure. Your EXIF data indicates manual mode, and ISO100, 1/125s, f/11. Your claim of four stops underexposure would require your subject to be sitting in deep shade (i.e. around EV10), i.e. one stop less than typical open shade (EV11). From the lighting in this image, and the fact that she casts a shadow on the table, this is clearly not the case, in my opinion.<br>

Sorry, I will buy that you perhaps had to bring it up two stops, but not four. Also, no D200 I have seen would handle the lost colour fidelity and noise that well, no matter what the post-processing. Sorry if this post is a bit aggressive, but I just don't buy it.</p>

<p>Ha! Posts like these make me enjoy shooting B&W film in my Olympus OM-1 even more. For example, this image was shot in the same conditions, 5 stops difference between the shadows and the highlights. No problem, full detail retained in both:<br>

<img src="http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs51/f/2009/313/0/f/Bridges_to_the_Market_by_philosomatographer.jpg" alt="" width="620" height="900" /><br>

<em>(5x7in chemical print, Ilford MG IV satin paper, print scanned with Epson V700)</em><br>

Still, if you ignore my pro-film rant, I used to shoot 1D/Ds MkII Canon pro bodies, and it really had quite incredible highlight latitude, <strong>if you shoot RAW </strong>and process with a good RAW processor. Still nowhere near B&W film, for example with this shot, though I could recover a lot of the shadows, there was no way to recover this sky, but admittedly it was straight into the sun. <em>(EOS 1D MkIIn @ ISO100, 28-300L, f/22)</em><br>

<img src="http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs19/f/2007/249/4/c/Sepia_Blues_by_philosomatographer.jpg" alt="" width="598" height="899" /><br>

For the original poster's image at the top, I would have underexposed by about a stop more, and seriously pushed up the shadows, even though they would have been very noisy.</p>

The EF 50mm f/1.2L is a ridiculously sharp fast lens (well, my copy certainly is) - at f/1.2, if you're not too

far out to the edges of the frame, it can out-resolve my 1D MKIIN sensor to the point of producing moire.

However, focusing accuracy is very difficult, and there it certainly is not always 100% correct. I treat mine as

a manual-focus lens, and the Ec-S focusing screen has made a *world* of difference, literally opened my eyes to

the in-focus area of the image.

Why do I treat this expensive lens as a manual-focus lens? Because in at least 25% of shots I take at f/1.2, AF

does not focus precisely where I want to. Whether this is a fault of the lens (likely), the camera (unlikely, my

1-series focuses spot-on with all my other lenses), user-error because of the difficult nature of placing a 50mm

f/1.2 focal plane (manual or auto) I don't know. When it hits the target, this lens is better than any I have

ever used - this includes lenses like the 100mm f/2.8 Macro, one of the sharpest canon makes.

Attached is an auto-focused image taken in harsh daylight at f/1.2, I focused on the Mercedes' badge. It's spot

on, and tack sharp. It gets soo much better when you stop it down. So if you are seeing softness, there is

something severely wrong with yours. Just note, however, that at f/16 on a 1Ds MkII any lens is going to start

getting seriously soft because of diffraction. I can already see the serious impact on my lower-resolution camera

at that aperture.<div></div>

<p>This was my primary lens for a long time, and even after selling it, I do sometimes miss it. As mentioned, it

is optically not nearly as good as, say,the 70-200 f/4 L IS, but, on the other hand, it is optically in a

different league to any of the other super-zooms I have tried (Sigma, Tamron, etc). It is also far, far superior

to Nikon's much-touted 18-200mm in my experience.</p>

<p>However, this lens is madness on a small crop body. The only place it is really at home is on a 1-series body,

though I used it a bit on a 5D, and it was also ok, but already very imbalanced. So, you do NOT want to put this

monster on a small body, it is simply not worth it.</p>

<p>If you have the funds for this lens, I would suggest you get a good (maybe used) 1D MkIIN or 1Ds MkII to put

this on, and you will be very happy (though it's the biggest walk-around combo you'll ever use!). If not, as the

others have suggested, try one of the better 18-200mm lenses and see which one you like. None of them have the

image quality, image stabilisation, amazing solid-metal build quality or focus speed of the L, but nor does your

camera body - in all likelihood. It really only makes sense on a full-frame camera.</p>

<p>Lastly, for all it's virtues, the lens has very pronounced vignetting (light falloff) when you use it wide

open (both at 28mm and 300mm) so if that's not your style, be prepared to correct that in PP. But it's wonderful

otherwise.</p>

<p>At 28mm on a 1-series camera, it's pretty wide, and I find this lens makes a wonderful landscape lens. Here is

the sort of quality you can expect in that role:</p>

<a

href="http://fc04.deviantart.com/fs18/f/2007/219/7/3/Canon_EF_28_300L_Resolution_by_philosomatographer.jpg"><img

src="http://fc04.deviantart.com/fs18/f/2007/219/7/3/Canon_EF_28_300L_Resolution_by_philosomatographer.jpg"

alt="EF 28-300L Resolution" width="300"/></a>

<p>Not better than the best primes, but very, very good for an 11x lens.</p>