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Fun with MF images - ARCHIVED - FOR VIEWING ONLY

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Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I think several relevant points have been made -- and it points out the differences in the criteria we each hold most important when making a selection.

Two things I recalled over lunch were,

1) How much time myself and fellow photographers spent passing away many an evening hour debating the relative merits and foibles of shooting chrome versus negative and then broke those debates in to Astia over Provia over Velvia, then Portra 160 NC versus Portra 160 VC versus Pro 160...

2) Then how around a year ago I went back through a bunch of my historic "best" film captures and realized they really weren't as good as I remembered them being back when I made them...

Cheers,
 

eleanorbrown

New member
Been reading all this with interest as I have been photographing in one way or another most of my life. Color negative and transparency film, B&W negative film...all from 35mm to medium format, to 4X5. Printed everything in my own darkroom and LOVED working in the darkroom (most especially making silver prints). Been shooting digital for 10 years...everything from point and shoots to 35mm to 35mm infrared, to medium format (have had 4 phase backs, current one is the P65+). I have silver prints on my wall that I will never take down they are so good, but I have some lousy ones too. I always shot with slow films and the best lenses (rather have 1 great lens than 3 so so ones). I've come to the conclusion that there are so many variables that one just cant say film grain makes images with more depth or whatever. Consider types of film, size of the film, the camera and lenses, shooting technique, not to mention the light, and subject matter. I have digital monotone prints that are all as good as my silver prints and vice versa. I can say that my digital color and printing is better than my film/darkroom color.

The digital process/workflow is not "quick" for me...I spend all as much time on image taking and preparation as I did with film and wet darkroom (I can be compulsive to a fault!)

So in my personal experience with film and digital there are just too many variables for me to make global determinations about which is better, richer in depth and tonality, etc.)

Just my 2 cents! Eleanor
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I will answer this one really simple I love digital better . Why because it keeps me in business otherwise i would be shining shoes for a living. I 'm not kidding , there is no place for film in commercial photography any more or let's say extremely limiting to your customer base. Whats the famous saying the customer is always right. Wrong it's knowing what to deliver to your customer on all levels. End of story.:)

Case in point I spent all day shooting people tethered to my MBP and my P40+ and shot as fast as the strobes would go without a blink but more important the file is proofed and approved on the spot. I have two more days to go same thing. Film i don't even know what they sell anymore been at least 10 years since i shot film maybe longer. For me that train left the station a long time ago.
 

gogopix

Subscriber
Sorry everyone,

The xpixel S2 70mm blows ALL the images this page away! (ok,Ok, TO ME!!)

the dimesionality, the subtle color, the rendering (some say drawing) man, if this is what it can do, then there is a tonne of potential here..Jeesh, it's like you are standing, right there!

[I'm not talking artistic quality, just IQ]

Victor
 
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Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Soft light Victor. It's always about the light. It's also a tad over sharpened which is typical of the s2 it needs to be brought down in both LR and C1 as Jack and I both discovered in our review.
 

gogopix

Subscriber
Well, maybe; but an accusation of oversharpening means I should see, halo, edge bands and artifacts. Not to my eye. Now, maybe its TOO sharp for some tastes, but what it does is create a sense of space, depth and presence that I don't see in the other images. I don't think it can be dismissed as just 'oversharpened.

Victor

PS Some of my early P65+ posts got the 'oversharpened' tag. WRONG they were not sharpened at all. When you look at 9000x6000 at 1000x800 you certainly don't need sharpening! :)
Ok here it comes the challenge; i think a lot of people are satisfied with fuzzy images ...ssssssrrrrrr.....BOOM!! :)
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
No Victor you missed the point. The S2 tends to be over sharpened in both C1 and LR at even the defaults in both programs. Reason being there is no correct profile and/or plugin for the S2. Neither program knows what to do with the files. Reason the color is off and artifacts show up. Go back and read the review it explains all this in great detail. LR right now maybe the closet to being color correct but even still it adds 5 points of black points and it is still overcooked with sharpening which shows halo's and such. This is one major problem with not having a dedicated raw processor to your cam which many people just don't understand. C1 and Phocus are tuned exactly to there backs. The S2 is not tuned to either program yet and until it is than these artifacts and over sharpening are part of the default that each program sees. C1 treats a DNG as a general file not camera specific. So the defaults coming in are wrong and folks need to readjust and also build a color profile for it but that won't deal with over sharpening and artifacts only color. So C1 and LR need to come up with profiles and plugin's for the S2 to get the files to some level field of correctness.
 

JimCollum

Member
Marc, thanks for the kind words! I've tried to make the most of the 'gift' you sold me :D

One thing I've noticed about digital images in general.. i'd say about 90% of them are over sharpened, as well as way too 'clean'

Reality isn't sharp.. it isn't noise free. I can understand sharpening an image from a DSLR, because of what the AA filter does.. but I've yet to see an image from a MF camera that needs any kind of sharpening.

noise free, low ISO images are very clean...but if you take a look at anything around you, there's always background 'noise' there.. an impression of detail beyond what one can see. You remove that background 'noise' and things start to look 'digital' .. there's a 'presence' that disappears. With film, the grain continues to give that impression of 'more'..of micro-detail (even if it isn't real detail.. it seems like it is).

It sort of reminds me of some of the old camera clubs I frequented in the 80's.. friends who shot 4x5 chrome and printed. Their focus was technically perfect, clinically pristine images.. that had no soul. I agree with Marc, that the digital era has brought more of a focus on technical perfection (razor sharp, noise free images), rather than emotional aesthetic.

There are very few images I've seen in any of the digital forums that come close to what is being produced with a pinhole by Martha Casanave ( http://marthacasanave.com/coastal.htm ) or Susan Burnstine (http://www.susanburnstine.com/ ) with a homemade lens. ShiroKuro, david (ddk) and Helen Hill are some here have that feeling of 'reality' in their images
 
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Dale Allyn

New member
These last few posts support what I feel about photographs in general: super-sharp resolution isn't always the goal. At least not for me.

In my case, I have always preferred photographs which gave me a "feeling", and this rarely required extreme detail. In fact, for wall art I hate super-sharp imagery. I'm not referring to product photography or the like, but images that I look at every day on my walls. An Ansel Adams 16x20 (printed by Adams) hung on our walls for several years, and it was one of very few photographs hanging in our home. It "felt" great to look at. Today many photos hang in our home, but most are not uber-detailed shots. Other art includes a Renoir litho (1905 stone litho) that is a simple charcoal sketch. Real photo-realistic images don't really fit my taste for wall art, but I love to look at technically well-captured images en folio, etc. I have so much respect for the craft from capture to print, but I don't like to hang sterile images, whether film or digital. Just not my cup of tea. The beauty of life is that we all get to capture or hang what we like, and I guess I like imperfection.

Some folks enjoy capturing and hanging images that record a scene to perfection. That's great for them. Others prefer a special moment, frozen without precision.

I respect all of the views on the topic in the posts above. There is no "right" or "wrong" approach if it works for you. I have so much to learn in terms of the technical perfection of image development (and much to grasp in the art of capture), but frankly speaking, the images that make it to my walls, or that are requested of me, are seldom images that would receive "A" grades in a classroom or engineering environment.

:)
 

Paratom

Well-known member
...Some folks enjoy capturing and hanging images that record a scene to perfection. That's great for them. Others prefer a special moment, frozen without precision.

I respect all of the views on the topic in the posts above. There is no "right" or "wrong" approach if it works for you. I have so much to learn in terms of the technical perfection of image develo...
:)
This is an important point and it is the reason why I personally would not want to use just one system.



I prefer the look of MF images (and by the way I nearly allways love analog film images - they just seem to have more substance and soul to me - however I shoot digital because of convinience and because I can "develop and print" them at home for reasonable cost and with reasonable time input)
but without my DSLR I feel I would miss quite some moments.
I feel that when something draws my attention and I take an image of it from the intuitive side and afterwards try to take some more shots of the same thing/scene with more composing and thinking often the first and more intuitive shot is the one I like best, even if I can not technically explain why.

Anyways, the images from MF-digital are still the most natural andpleasing for my taste and as long as I have the time and as long as I have the mood I enjoy using MF.
Still I am now also very happy with the output I get from my Nikon D700 +70-200VR. Lenses do make a big difference and this lens just delievers the look I like. (saturated and contrasty wide open, with the focus plane pooping out of the image).
If I had access to a very good lab and would get wet prints etc. for reasonable price and to my taste I would be tempted to shoot film - but I am happy with digital the way it is.
 

gogopix

Subscriber
xpixel

Interesting that same lens and camera here do not convey quite the sense of depth as the forest scene, but you did a nice job of using the visual cues; movement, receding posters etc.

As to sharpening...well, oversharpened, oversaturated, over'clarified', oversalted, all in the eye/brain of the beholder.

Most images are trying to portray a 3d world on a 2d surface. We use DOF, sharp edges, perspective, loss of saturation (with depth) all to fool the eye when it is not getting a true stereo image. These two xpixel images show that the S2/70mm combination is doing that better than I saw so far in other S2 images.

I agree with Guy, a profile is needed to get the best from raw - or you do a lot of fiddling.

Lighting is also critical; highlights and shadows tell the eye a lot about depth.

The bottom line is that all the comments and reviews aside, these two images are starting to look TO ME, like classic good depth and drawing Leica images...but, still worried about Tim's experience...

Thank you xpixel for sharing; there are not too many S2 images mixed in here.

regards
Victor
 
R

R Shaffer

Guest
Anahuac Wildlife Refuge, TX last weekend. Sunset, high dynamic range scene but there is detail and tone on both shadows and highlights. P65+, H2, 80mm lens.
Eleanor


Really enjoy this image, the river meandering off into sunset just draws me right in.

Rob
 
R

R Shaffer

Guest
Don't mean to offend anyone, but having been through the whole thread one thing that stands out is how much nicer MF film images look, whether B&W or in colour, as opposed to MF digital images. I use a Leaf back for my commercial work, I am no film taliban, but I can't help feeling that photographic technological development hs moved sideways, towards convenience and speed, rather than forward, if you see what I mean.
Film vs. Digital

Absolutely love them both :thumbs:
 

jlm

Workshop Member
a few recollections from the old days, (70's) compared to now

when i was shooting film (always B&W), things i liked and can't get back with digital:
real focusing ability with a 4x5, where you can see the effects of T and S
choice of emulsions
big image size, 6x6 and 4x5, even 8x10
polaroid

i also did not shoot color because it was too hard to process

now with digital, color is easier than B&W and has opened an entire category of content, not to mention stitching, and focus stacking
and you don't need all the space and gear for wet work. in fact, when i moved to NY in the early 80's i sold most of my photo gear because the darkroom was too tough to manage. digital brought me back
 
R

R Shaffer

Guest
Here is a capture from a hike last weekend in Henry Coe State Park. I took some liberties in the PP, but I think I may be a pictorialist at heart.

Mamiya AFDII & ZDb
80mm AF f/2.8
1/13s @ f/11
 

xpixel

New member
As to sharpening...well, oversharpened, oversaturated, over'clarified', oversalted, all in the eye/brain of the beholder.
Well i think you are not yet familiar of the sharpness of a S2...:)

I agree with Guy, a profile is needed to get the best from raw - or you do a lot of fiddling.
No small fiddling. I think its not so important to have an S2 profil, because the color are realy good. But it would be helpful in some case
 
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