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Film vs Digital

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veloce

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Those of you who say digital is superior have never shot large format.

Digital is good, but it is limited.

For the average amateur digital is superior because it is easy to use, but there is a reason why nearly all art images are made with film cameras.

I actually don't use one or the other, I use both. I meter the scene with digital, and shoot with large format.

my 200 dollar 5x7 setup with 210mm rodenstock sironar lens produces results far superior to any digital camera out there.

Digital is catching up quickly, but film is still much cheaper for the quality.

Compare even a 40 megapixel 60inch print with that of a print from a 5x7 camera. even at the smaller print sizes, the tonal reproduction and the way the image is rendered is superior in large format. If I remember correctly, a 5x7 negative is equivalent to over 1000 megapixels.

Pierre, your problem sounds like user error rather than a fault of shooting with film. Film is actually more reliable because of the redundancy possible.

Large format shooters usually make more than one of each exposure (usually two, one for each side of the holder)

So if you mess up a negative, you still have another one.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned also is you can control film speed after taking the shot. With digital, if you underexposed a shot, you lost the shot, unless you shoot again at the proper exposure.

With film, if your first negative comes out underexposed, or with too much or too little contrast, you can fix it with the second negative.

Digital cameras have bred a generation of mindless photographers, just snapping away making thoughtless mundane images.
Digital cameras let you take an image without any thought other than pushing the shutter.

Film allows you complete control over the process, but like anything that is manual, you have to think about every step. People hate to think, so they prefer a camera that thinks for them.

It is not a question of which is superior, but rather what suits the intended purpose the best. I use both, but my final work is made on film.

Posted 2 years ago #
Pierre

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ChrisLange said:
Digital's definition of "archival" is a joke.... $1000 worth of film... 3000 frames worth... another 1000 dollars at the most.

Perhaps the artistic value of film cannot be dismissed but when comes to math….

So you find that $2000 for 3000 frames can compete with a D3X rated at 300,000 actuations? For the same shots, you would need to spend more than $200,000 on films, excluding the price of your body. A D3X is dirt-cheap in comparison and for the price of your films; you could upgrade your top DSLR more than 280 times. You got to be joking.

Beside, the D3X is probably capable of far more clicks and once you reach the limit, a fairly low cost refurbish could get you going for another round.

veloce said:
People hate to think, so they prefer a camera that thinks for them.

Shooting with or without a brain is entirely up to the shooter in either medium.

veloce said:
Film is actually more reliable because of the redundancy possible.

D3X has two slots for cards allowing redundancy as well. Even a low-cost D7000 can do that I believe.

Posted 2 years ago #
veloce

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Pierre said:
Perhaps the artistic value of film cannot be dismissed but when comes to math….

You said, “$1000 worth of film” + “another 1000 dollars at the most” for “3000 frames”, so you find that $2000 for 3000 frames can compete with a D3X rated at 300,000 actuations? For the same shots, you would need to spend more than $200,000 on films, excluding the price of your body. A D3X is dirt-cheap in comparison and for the price of your films; you could upgrade your top DSLR more than 280 times. You got to be joking.

Beside, the D3X is probably capable of far more clicks and once you reach the limit, a fairly low cost refurbish could get you going for another round.

Shooting with or without a brain is entirely up to the shooter in either medium.

I have a hard time understanding why someone would need to take so many images. Sure with digital you can capture anything you want, but if you want to make a fine print, how many prints are you going to make? And how many images are you going to take?

Here's my personal cost to create my images:
300$ for a 4x5 camera
10$ for 4 sheets of film and development
5$ per print for paper
50$ to mount

365 for a print that will blow any d3x picture away.

The skill it takes to create a good image with 4 shots: priceless
You can take 3000 frames, I usually take one or two per print. I make 20-50 prints a year.

Posted 2 years ago #
veloce

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Pierre said:
Shooting with or without a brain is entirely up to the shooter in either medium.

Agreed. But you cant shoot without a brain with film. (medium or large format)

Posted 2 years ago #
Pierre

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veloce said:
You cant shoot without a brain with film. (medium or large format)

Really?

Posted 2 years ago #
jonnyapple

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Pierre said:
Shooting with or without a brain is entirely up to the shooter in either medium.

+1

Veloce, welcome to the forum. Your final statement is exactly right. I think that for some situations, digital is miles ahead of film and I also think that in some situations with the right setup film still beats digital. (Try getting a sports shooter to go back to even a well-engineered film body with a nice motor drive...)

Your comments on redundancy are backward in my mind. You can get a camera with dual slots and then make as many *exact* copies of the digital negative as you want, so I think digital will win in a redundancy argument.

Shooters of positive film might accuse negative film of creating mindless photographers who rely on pushing their negatives in the darkroom instead of getting exposure right to begin with (I know, you can plan on pushing). I don't think it does, though, and even if it seems like the average photographer has been dumbed by digital, I think really what you see is capable cameras in more hands than before now that it's affordable for people who aren't as dedicated to photography. I think it's a good thing, though, even if it means more mediocre photographers (of which I'll admit I'm one). There's no harm in people dreaming of someday being exceptional.

If you're a jpeg shooter your comments on fixing exposure in post might be right, but underexposed raw files with a good raw processor can be almost brought back from the dead.

Posted 2 years ago #
Pierre

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veloce said:
365 for a print that will blow any d3x picture away.... I usually take one or two per print. I make 20-50 prints a year.

Mmm... you sound quite good, can you show us samples? I would love to see them.

Posted 2 years ago #
veloce

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jonnyapple said:
+1

Veloce, welcome to the forum. Your final statement is exactly right. I think that for some situations, digital is miles ahead of film and I also think that in some situations with the right setup film still beats digital. (Try getting a sports shooter to go back to even a well-engineered film body with a nice motor drive...)

Your comments on redundancy are backward in my mind. You can get a camera with dual slots and then make as many *exact* copies of the digital negative as you want, so I think digital will win in a redundancy argument.

Shooters of positive film might accuse negative film of creating mindless photographers who rely on pushing their negatives in the darkroom instead of getting exposure right to begin with (I know, you can plan on pushing). I don't think it does, though, and even if it seems like the average photographer has been dumbed by digital, I think really what you see is capable cameras in more hands than before now that it's affordable for people who aren't as dedicated to photography. I think it's a good thing, though, even if it means more mediocre photographers (of which I'll admit I'm one). There's no harm in people dreaming of someday being exceptional.

If you're a jpeg shooter your comments on fixing exposure in post might be right, but underexposed raw files with a good raw processor can be almost brought back from the dead.

Thanks for the welcome. I am not too well versed on the digital workflow, so i do not know how many stops you can recover with digital files. At this point, I do not use digital cameras for my work, so I only shoot jpeg.
I have to admit though, that removing dust and dodging and burning is substantially easier to do digitally than in the darkroom.

Digital has made 35mm, and soon medium format obsolete, but the large format view camera is still safe for some time.

My comment about the redundancy is more about adjusting development after the negatives are exposed. With digital, the exposures are set once you take the image. You can manipulate with raw, but the information is just not there if too under or over exposed.

With film, you can salvage a negative that has been several stops underexposed by pushing development.

Pierre said:
Mmm... you sound quite good, can you show us samples? I would love to see them.

I can upload some images for you, but they are meant to be viewed as 42x61in prints in person, so you can only observe the composition, you can't see the detail or presence of the image. I'm no expert, i'm just a student.

Posted 2 years ago #
Pierre

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veloce said:
I can upload some images for you, but they are meant to be viewed as 42x61in prints in person, so you can only observe the composition, you can't see the detail or presence of the image. I'm no expert, i'm just a student.

That would be fine, just post some here if you don't mind. In flickr you could actually put them in big format and with a link we could download them. Zooming on my 30 inch monitor could surely give me a fair idea.

I am kind of student too (this is why I spend a great amount of time reading all posts here) and I hope to push my artistic skills much further. I find good work of others so inspiring. Some here have posted film shots and I found the dynamic range quite impressive. I have not seen any D3X nor medium format shots neither so it is hard for me to compare.

Posted 2 years ago #
jonnyapple

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veloce said:
I am not too well versed on the digital workflow, so i do not know how many stops you can recover with digital files. At this point, I do not use digital cameras for my work, so I only shoot jpeg.

I'm constantly amazed at what I can get out of Lightroom 3 with the noise reduction if I start with a raw file. I won't be offended if this doesn't convince you, but I looked around and found a file to "digitally push." Conveniently, I shot raw+jpg on this one so I have the out-of-camera jpg to compare. This is just a shot of a display of fluorescent rocks under a UV lamp.
Shot parameters: ISO 200, handheld against the display glass, 1s exposure, f/8 and 55mm
original jpg:
original
raw converted to jpg in lightroom 3, "pushed" 4 stops (effective ISO 1600):
pushed

They're full size (14MP), about 3MB each.

By the way, in the interest of full disclosure I should say that I loved the one experience I had with a 4"x5" view camera. Maybe someday I'll get one to play around with, but digital is my baby.

Posted 2 years ago #
veloce

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Jonny, that's pretty incredible. You have me convinced.
I'd like to see a landscape or portrait scene with natural colors handled the same way.

Posted 2 years ago #
Mike Gunter

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Hi Bram,

Bram said:
Also, with regard to various options and effects in Photoshop, it's useful to know their analog origins.

...
as I stated at the start of this post, no one has to pick between the two mediums, anyone can (Dutch expression:) eat from two enbankments :)

I quite agree. One can get comfy chair from a store or get more satisfaction from making a chair from his/her woodworking shop (that might cost a sight more in the process), but the chair still sets as well.

There's certainly room in the world for both (and many more). BTW, I like the expression.

In teaching digital photography, I learned to be a Certified Adobe Training Provider for Photoshop and it has opened a new way of looking at photography for me. One of those ways is the computer. The notion of dynamic range in 10-bit, 12-bit, and 14-bit color, especially with CS5 Photoshop is, well, awesome.

So much so, that when someone is dismissive of the power of digital photography, and
the benefits are so well known, you really wonder if it is really nothing more than a hoax. ;-)

My best,

Mike

Posted 2 years ago #
NikoDoby

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Yeah there's no point in arguing about film and digital. It's like debating which is better, having a girlfriend or a wife. You can always just have both :^)

Posted 2 years ago #
broxibear

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You're right there's no point in arguing about film and digital, but I'm convinced that photographers who come from film shoot differently from those who started with digital.
I come from a film background and I'm hardwired to a certain way of taking images and I know it makes me the photograper I am. I try and get everything right in the viewfinder as opposed to the "I'll fix it in photoshop" which I see all the time. It makes me think about my images far more, rather than the machine gun approach of taking 1000 frames because you've got a 32mb card.
For me it's the capture method that's changed, nothing else...I look through the viewfinder of my D3 in exactly the same way as I looked through my FM2.
Many who have only used digital get hung up on what their equipment can't do rather than what it can do.

Posted 2 years ago #
studio460

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ChrisLange said:
You want super chroma-saturation and no grain? Fujichrome Velvia 50 in medium or large format.

Just to clarify, my original suggestion for blckcat's photo assignment wasn't meant to imply that low-ISO reversal film wasn't capable of chroma-saturated, grainless photography.

I think I answered this thread a bit differently from most--I posted earlier what I personally like film for (film grain), and what I like digital for (everything else). Yes, one or the other has great advantages over the other, but more to the point, I believe there's great artistic merit to mastering both.

The additional subtext running through my posts is to encourage those who have never shot film to give it a try, since expensive film-era pro bodies now sell for pennies on the dollar. Today, those choosing to shoot film, may also benefit from the dramatic price decrease in used medium-format gear. I'm planning to get another 6x7cm film set-up myself someday. Large-format, sheet-film photography also certainly has its place and its merits.

But for the longest time, digital trailed far behind film in terms of all quality metrics. Now, finally, modern DSLRs are rivaling, and even surpassing film in many respects. For years, since the first pro APS-C digital bodies were introduced, their images were very sub-standard when compared with film. Now, both media are capable of producing excellent images, and photographers now have two very capable image-making toolsets available to them.

Posted 2 years ago #
jonnyapple

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veloce said:
I'd like to see a landscape or portrait scene with natural colors handled the same way.

All right, veloce, here's what I've got from playing around a bit today, missing exposure on purpose. These are big files (about 6MB each).

Here's one of a scene with as much color as I could get considering it's practically winter here. exposure: 1/160s at f/8 ISO 100
normal exposure
This still looks acceptable to me: 1/1250s at f/11 ISO 100 (underexposed by 4 stops, so ISO 1600 equivalent)
pushed 4EV
And this is probably losing too much detail in the noise reduction: 1/2500s at f/11 ISO 100 (underexposed by 5 stops, ISO 3200 equivalent).
pushed 5EV

And, just for kicks and giggles, I shot this set.
1/200 f/8 ISO 100
normal
1/8000 f/32 ISO 100—a little more than 9EV underexposed (definitely hurt by diffraction here, too, so not a completely fair comparison but it's just for fun). After applying +4EV exposure compensation in lightroom 3 and boosting brightness to the max, this was still solid black! I had to play with the custom curves points and take blacks to zero to get anything to show up.
pushed 9EV (or tried to, at least)

Posted 2 years ago #
casperwb

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still use my F3, makes you stop and think about everthing, composition, exposure, make sure you get your DOF right, lighting....everything, You cannot do an instant review, so make sure its right.

Dont use it a lot, but its like something that your hands love, the weight, the thinking about the photographs.....using it and knowing you only have 36-38 shots, and you cannot delete any.

Oh well, progress, the D7000 lets you choose the type of film you use form shot to shot, change the ISO, shoot 20 photos knowing you will only keep one or so, and the new tech. makes it so much eaiser.

Remember when you had one type of film for portraits, and another for landscapes and yet another because ....................

and then, who can forget the beauty of those first exciting viewing of slides.

And all this on cameras that had needles exposure meters [Pentax K1000] steeping up to the F3 was like heaven, still have my first foray into digital Olympus E10, Nikon Digital was too expensive them

Yes I miss some of what I did with film, however, Digital has made life soooooo much eaiser, and the ability to do you darkroom work on the computer without the mess of developing, timing, have your little sister come bursting in just as you were exposing..........sigh

Film had its time .....

Posted 2 years ago #
DaveyJ

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@veloce: As a former large format shooter I do not agree with you. I look back at my very expensive and huge investment in gear and enough time in it to get really good at it.......as a almost awful period. There are some very experienced people on this forum and some very good positions and abilities. When I use my years of large and medium format images they all have to be scanned. I own some amazing scanners. Want to buy one? However digital cameras will blow the doors off large format even capable of doing very large wall sized prints. The only large format I miss are my 8x10 field camera and my Fuji GX617. I got out of large format when the gear was still selling high. I also do not agree with NikoDoby about his comment about film versus digital and wives and girlfriends. When you go out the door to shoot images it is a very different set up to take both. YOU WON"T TAKE BOTH except I still think a 35mm camera is far superior to a spot meter. So you'd get some images with a 35mm camera and digital would still be the way i would do that. This is a much better topic than most on this excellent site. I still am keeping my Nikon F5 and all that camera gear. But I can use every single lens on all of my Nikon DSLR's! Also I must note here.....large format black and white is still a most useable medium but many B&W films will disappear soon.

Posted 2 years ago #
kyoshinikon

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Then there is large format Panf shooters... With unlimited resolution meaning that you don't lose detail. A 6 mpx image prints fine at 16x24 but you lose the cracks in the sidewalk and the skin bumps on a persons nose. Only the digital shots from a phase 1 back seem to compete with and exceed the quality of fine grain film. I run my digital prints up to 40x60 and see the difference between even 35mm (asa 50) and a 12mpx Dx sensor and the difference is huge. Still being different animals they are really hard to compare which is why many wedding photog's I know shoot film for some of the wedding portraits because of the softer look...

Posted 2 years ago #
NikoDoby

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I don't agree with you not agreeing with Veloce and me :^)

Why would one not go shoot with both digital and film? I do it all the time and know many photogs who do as well. I don't see the point you are trying to make?

I've shot large format too and their is no way in hell that an APS-C or FF digital camera comes close to the quality of those prints! Sounds like you just have a crappy scanner.

Posted 2 years ago #
DaveyJ

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@NikoDoby: I have a scanner that is way beyond any amateur scanner I have seen. Only the big photo labs have a better one. It depends on what use you are going to make of the images. My big camera rigs are now used for airports or big convention center prints or transparencies. Since I don't do that kind of work anymore.......I in fact have NO USE for big prints anymore. Also it was getting to be a real hassle getting large sheet film. I think digital gives me much faster results and it projects at least as well on big screens. Slideshows and being able to send images is where it is at right now and the imagery market proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. This makes a good debate......and there are times i miss film.....but not often!!

Posted 2 years ago #
NSXType-R

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Just curious Johnny, were those shot on a Sony NEX-5?

My cousin, another gearhead, was asking my opinion on that camera.

Posted 2 years ago #
studio460

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Film + Digital:

I'm planning to do a shoot sometime soon with a model, so I want to have as much media of her as possible. I'll be shooting with both digital and 35mm film bodies:

1. Nikon D7000 (color)
2. Nikon N90s: Tri-X (black-and -white negative)

I was wondering if anyone here has shot a modern DSLR next to a film SLR, and if anyone found how close the exposures were, given the same ISO rating on both the film and the DSLR. In other words, I'm asking if modern DSLRs make good "Polaroids" for film exposures of the same speed. This would mostly apply to film negative, and specifically to Tri-X, rated at ISO 400. While I do also plan to push-process the Tri-X at higher ratings, for the sake of this post, just assume straight processing, at its nominal ISO of 400--I know the two media's characteristic curves are likely much different, but in general, would a D7000, also set at ISO 400, expose similarly?

I own both a handheld exposure meter and a flash meter, so I can make my own comparisons after-the-fact. I just wondered if anyone's shot film + digital side-by-side with any frequency, who could give me a head's up. Thanks!

Posted 2 years ago #
bjrichus

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studio460 said:
Film + Digital:
...but in general, would a D7000, also set at ISO 400, expose similarly?

My Nikon FT3 is (mostly) to within 1 stop of my D7000 metering. At least when both are set the same, the needle on the FT3 is (mostly) in the open section of the meter area. Usual things like bright/dark backgrounds fool the FT3 by perhaps 1 or maybe a little more than 1 stop, but that's expected with center weighting instead of spot metering. I verified this when I got the D7000, so it's just my experience, not measured in a lab or anything. I had the FT3 serviced about 15 years ago, so lord knows how far out it really is :-)

My Weston II hand held meter is so old I'd not want to say it's closer than the FT3 is if the D7000 is "on". Too much fiddling with dials and stuff to get the F number any closer than 1 stop really... The secret with film is to bracket.

Posted 2 years ago #
studio460

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Thanks for your reply, bjrichus, but I actually wasn't referring to the metering at all. What I mean is, if you shoot the identical scene with the identical lighting, using the same lens, at the same f/stop, for any given ISO, how closely would the resulting exposures match? In other words, can DSLRs serve the same purpose that a Polaroid back served when used to test exposure on a medium-format camera?

Maybe a better way to ask it is this: are modern ISO ratings on DSLRs, a close enough analog to their film ISO counterparts? Is ISO100 on a D7000 equally as sensitive as an ISO100-rated film? It's an ISO standard, so I would assume the answer is yes. Again, there will differences in the characteristic curve: digital may see better into the shadows (longer toe); film should retain more highlight detail (extended shoulder). But in general, if the ISO did their job, than at minimum, Zone V should be represented at about the same place in both media, right?

Posted 2 years ago #