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M9 and B&W?

PeterA

Well-known member
I am in Hong Kong presenting at a conference - and have enjoyed reading this thread. On a screen it is hard to judge what the print will look like. That being said - the easiest thing to do when one wants a B&W film 'look' -is to shoot film. personally I prefer the look of colour and B&W film for people shots and digital for everything else - ie I believe my eye prefers the less 'perfect' film emulsion look when a person is the subject matter.

This conclusion is based on my eyes preferences - these same based on decades of looking at photography printed - I am sure that younger people will have differentexperiences and therefore different preferences.

Too much focus on the perfection of teh digital file - which is a wonderful thing for many subject matters - can put off the eye from its traditional look preferences.

Just my thoughts - as a rule I think most B&W conversions are just chasing dreams as far as film look goes - compared to the real thing- film.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Film is just simply not a option. For me at least
Film? Not for any paying job these days ... that's for sure.

Just did a quick conversion of a M9 cull shot rescued from my trash bin which was shot at ISO 1250 ... it was deleted because it was under-exposed ... but I used one of the Ascough midtone lift actions and it worked pretty well considering it was a underexposed @ 1250 (I added the burned in edges). Slight crop and bigger crop to show noise level.

Can't wait to try these on some M8 shots. Might work for the Sony A900 also. Gotta try that too.
 

HamSammich

New member
>>You're not going to exactly simulate the tone curve of film, you can only approach it. The sensor just can't handle as many stops as film can.<<

No, you're not and yes, it can. And because a sensor has a much different characteristic response than film, the results look different.

That said, you can certainly make a digital print of a given scene look well-nigh identical to the same scene photographed with a given film-developer-paper-developer chain. It just takes one hell of a lot of labor.

Dick and Silvia Zawadski have done a few interesting articles on forcing onto a file and subsequent print--their words--a curve, or set of curves matching the density relationships of an esthetically pleasing standard print. In their case, esthetically pleasing is what their Kodak colleagues concluded from years of viewing tests.

Understandably, tastes vary across cultures and so on, so there's probably no single recipe for a pleasing full-scale print. That said, there's now nothing either in the capture range of modern sensors, processing capabilities, or printing technology that precludes almost perfect emulation of, say, Tri-X in HC110, for six minutes, printed on Galerie Grade Two and toned, lightly, in selenium.

Yes, Harman FBAL may look a little funky if you view the print at a 120-degree angle under spotlighting. But who looks at ANY prints that way. And, jeez, the stuff even SMELLS like old Ilford FB paper.

It takes work, though. And it also begs another question entirely: Are there other ways of using the digital medium, either in color or monochrome, unique and desirable not as an emulation of another format but unto itself?
 

HamSammich

New member
Let me quickly amend this:

>>No, you're not and yes, it can.<<

Fuzzy wording. No, a camera sensor cannot perfectly emulate the characteristic of film, but one CAN impose virtually any curve on it.. Especially because a digital sensor's curve is usually much more linear than film-- so you're starting with good local contrast in the highs, lows and middle.
 

nostatic

New member
Two silverefx outputs - no tweaking, just into Aperture with a default curve, then SilverEFX "neutral" and "high structure" (click for full size)



 
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nei1

Guest
The problem for me with this shot is the chair back fused to the girls left arm.This is such a massive "digital" flag ,incredibly unattractive and Im 99% certain could have been avoided with film.I have tried this photo myself and could find no density there and because of the blurring of this WHITENESS into the girls arm Im certain its impossible to repair well.Ive seen this on many digital photos especially in skies and it seems to be accepted but for me its a big failing of dynamic range that is peculiarly digital.
 

Riccis

New member
Film? Not for any paying job these days ... that's for sure.
That's it, I'm adding you to my ignore list :D:D:D

Even with the M9 here, I will continue to shoot film as that is my niche and what the type of client that hires me expects... I also love the film workflow, though.

I am very happy you are liking Jeff's actions, like I stated before they come the closest to the real thing than anything else.

Cheers,
 

Lloyd

Active member
Tried an experiment. Processed the DNG in ACR and in C1. Got the best color image I could make in each, and then converted them in CS4 using exactly the same steps for the B/W:

Here's the ACR conversion:


And here's the C1 conversion:
 

Brian Mosley

New member
Damned pbase is still belly up :deadhorse:

Right, looks like Zenfolio will be winning a new customer.

Here's my take, using Capture One 4 to get the basic tiff, and doing everything else in Lightzone.



Quite an interesting challenge - terrible lighting conditions!

Cheers

Brian
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I prefer the C1 conversions to anything else I'm seeing -- and FTR, I DO have Silver FX loaded in CS4 and did try several recipes on this image with it...
 

Lloyd

Active member
Damned pbase is still belly up :deadhorse:

Right, looks like Zenfolio will be winning a new customer.

Here's my take, using Capture One 4 to get the basic tiff, and doing everything else in Lightzone.



Quite an interesting challenge - terrible lighting conditions!

Cheers

Brian
No joy seeing this one.
 

Brian Mosley

New member
Sorry Lloyd, just getting used to Zenfolio - this one should work :



Click on the link for the larger size.

What do you think?

Cheers

Brian
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
What do you think?
My honest .02 is it looks flat compared to the C1 conversions. It needs more local and more global contrast IMO, but obviously without blowing the highlight shoulder or losing the shadow toe... The burn on the chair arm looks wrong.
 

emmawest72

New member
Is there a way to get tones that would look like tri-x in rodinal with the actions from Jeff A?
I still think film has the advantage but this progresssion is very interesting to watch and I understand that film is not an option sometimes.

Look forward to more. Thanks for all the testing.
 

Brian Mosley

New member
My honest .02 is it looks flat compared to the C1 conversions. It needs more local and more global contrast IMO, but obviously without blowing the highlight shoulder or losing the shadow toe... The burn on the chair arm looks wrong.
Thanks Jack, appreciate your feedback - I found it an interesting challenge... tried to tone down the chair after nei1 pointed out how blown it looked.

I was quite happy that I'd gotten the balance I wanted, considering the girl in the shadow, but I'm sure it's departed quite far from the high contrast 'film look'... I really have no idea about film :grin:

Thanks for letting me play :)

Cheers

Brian
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Thanks Jack, appreciate your feedback - I found it an interesting challenge... tried to tone down the chair after nei1 pointed out how blown it looked.

I was quite happy that I'd gotten the balanced I wanted, considering the girl in the shadow, but I'm sure it's departed quite far from the high contrast 'film look'... I really have no idea about film :grin:

Thanks for letting me play :)

Cheers

Brian:grin:
Brian:

I think the important thing we can take away from all of our processing this same image, is that we all have different tastes on how we want a B&W to look! Which of course means there is no wrong or right answer. I am only replying as respects my tastes for reference as to why I like one version over another.

Jack
 
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