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The Film Look...

seakayaker

Active member
. . . . . I think shooting with film is a thirst that I will eventually have to quench, for no reason other than to simply experience it :)

Go pick up a film camera, Leica, Rollieflex, Mamiya, Nikon, Fuji, Voigtlander, Holga, Hasselblad, Zeiss, Pentax, Contax, Bronica ..... or whatever, you can find them in a wide price range. Lots of folks contribute to the Analog thread.

Leica Analog: http://www.getdpi.com/forum/analog-cameras/4052-how-about-more-more-fun-leica-m-film-57.html

Other then Leica Analog: http://www.getdpi.com/forum/analog-cameras/4209-more-more-film-fun-something-other-than-leica-m-67.html

I have been using a MP and M6TTL for 35mm along with a Rollieflex TLR and a Mamiya 7II for medium format.


For the past year or so I have been using film cameras a lot more then the digital, about 80/20, and at some point I most likely will make the switch back where the digital gear will get the greater use. For now just having more fun with the film . . . . .


. . . . . go quench your thirst!
 

Paratom

Well-known member
For me some parts of the "film" look are:
1) grain...and yes I believe it looks better than noise from digital sensors
2) sometimes some vignetting
3) certain looks of certain films

Maybe film does not allways look neutral and realistic, but I believe it has been tweaked over many years to peoples taste.

In the digital world I am surprised how often we see discussions about 1/3 f-stop more or less DR or noise at 6400 ISO, and how seldom we read about skin color for example.

Besides the "film look" there is also something I call a "digital look". A good digital image doesnt have it, but a bad digital images can have it. Typical factors of digital look are IMO:
-If a very contrasty scene is rendered with detail in shaddows and highlights (a bad HDR-image)
-oversharpened images
-images with skin colors which look like the blood is gone
-oversaturated images
-images with too much noise reduction (some cameras do even have too much noise reduction in raw IMO)
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
Thanks for all the replies! :salute:

I think maybe until I have logged enough hours(or years?) to develop a "look" that's for me, profiles (film based or not) can be a good anchor or starting point to reach a general accepted aesthetics, then tweak from there. I'm not sure if that's kind of cheating or I will be better off not doing it this way, but at least it could bring some consistencies? I have begun looking deeper into some of the filters I often use in LR and making some small tweaks in them, so maybe within this year I can have a few filters (at least 1 color and 1 BW) to serve as my starting points.

Vivek, you have no idea how many times I've come close to snatching up a M6, M7, Holga, or even a TLR! I think shooting with film is a thirst that I will eventually have to quench, for no reason other than to simply experience it :)
I agree and I go back and forth on pickup an MP or M7 a few times a year since I've owned my M9.
 
Hosermag, get an M6. I have a spare one but I am not sure I would sell it.

Wentbackward, outstanding shot of the lovely chica. Looks like something that an R 80/1.4 would give you on a decent digital body.
Thanks Mikal ... might surprise, it was a Nikon F75 with a 50/1.4, shot on Velvia 50 IIRC. Actually I was using a D3 and not having a lot of fun with the colours. I picked up that F75 off a lady here for about US$40 including a lens and she gave me a free roll of film. I sold all my digital stuff and went back to film for about 2 years before getting an M8.
 
Once I realised what I was missing were the rich continuous tones of film, the experience loaded into each roll and not sharpness. I also ended up shooting 4x5 and some really incredible MF gear (Mamiya 7II, RZ67, Isolette), all of which I have kept.

I'm not saying film is better, but if you shoot some film and deeply analyse the results, you'll improve your photography. There's so much knowledge of what is aesthetically pleasing in rolls of good quality film.
 

ramosa

Member
David,

I started "on" film and then transitioned to digital. I recently felt the need to experience film again. So I purchased an M6 and shot some Portra 400, but mostly Tri-X 400. In my eyes, there is no camera with the same ergonomics and feel as the M6 (simply amazing, even when compared to an M8 or M9) and no digital camera that can provide an equal soulful rendering. (I know: film is film, and digital is digital.) For me, it was primarily an experiment, though. I just recently sold the M6, primarily because I don't live anywhere near a suitable developing facility and have such limited trust in USPS (for sending film and receiving negatives).





Thanks for all the replies! :salute:

Vivek, you have no idea how many times I've come close to snatching up a M6, M7, Holga, or even a TLR! I think shooting with film is a thirst that I will eventually have to quench, for no reason other than to simply experience it :)
 

douglasf13

New member
I think one of the biggest disadvantages in digital is that it allows shooters too much flexibility, so many don't know where to start, and, when left to their own devices, many shooters overdo it. Different film stocks have a bit of a built-in look, which makes things easier. I don't process my own digital images to look just like film, but I'd bet that I could post a bunch of film shots and digital shots processed to look like film, and I could trick many people as to which is which. Of course, don't ask me to do it, because I feel to lazy to do such a thing, so take that with a grain of salt. :ROTFL:
 

Shashin

Well-known member
I think one of the biggest disadvantages in digital is that it allows shooters too much flexibility...
LOL. You have never run a color darkroom. While I agree there are lots of folks that don't use the tools well, that was also the case with a chemical darkroom--I have seen my share of horrible darkroom work (the limited flexibility did not seem to slow people down). But give me the flexibility over color that I can have digitally. While color optical prints do have a really nice look, it is a major pain if you really want to control the process.

Actually, you could put good color digital work next to good color film work and telling them apart would simply be guess work. No need to try to match the "look."
 

D&A

Well-known member
Film look: infinite depth. A loupe reveals a symphony of tonesand textures. Extremely refined.

Digital look: plastic screen probably made from recycled supermarket plastic bags. Synthetic. Extremely unrefined.
For the longest time, audiophiles would make the same basic argument and would note similar discriptive differences between a analogue recording played on on turntable and a digitial recording on a CD. Of course as film can be scanned, so to were some analogue recording digitized, with mixed results. Over time, refinement of digitally recorded music (as well as analogue to digital)...so to will there be an evolution and refinement of the digitally captured image and subsequentlly it's output. To what degree is often in the eye of the beholder.

Dave (D&A)
 

D&A

Well-known member
LOL. You have never run a color darkroom. While I agree there are lots of folks that don't use the tools well, that was also the case with a chemical darkroom--I have seen my share of horrible darkroom work (the limited flexibility did not seem to slow people down). But give me the flexibility over color that I can have digitally. While color optical prints do have a really nice look, it is a major pain if you really want to control the process.

Actually, you could put good color digital work next to good color film work and telling them apart would simply be guess work. No need to try to match the "look."
When it comes to color darkroom work, I'll take the digital process anytime, save for maybe cibichrome. Conventional wet darkroom color printing was a nightmare in terms of the time invested and I vowed long ago to never do it again. In contrast, B&W in the wet darkroom is simply one of life's pleasures.

Dave (D&A)
 

douglasf13

New member
LOL. You have never run a color darkroom. While I agree there are lots of folks that don't use the tools well, that was also the case with a chemical darkroom--I have seen my share of horrible darkroom work (the limited flexibility did not seem to slow people down). But give me the flexibility over color that I can have digitally. While color optical prints do have a really nice look, it is a major pain if you really want to control the process.

Actually, you could put good color digital work next to good color film work and telling them apart would simply be guess work. No need to try to match the "look."
Oh, don't get me wrong. I agree about horrible darkroom work, but I think some take whatever their color film processor gives them, and then call that part of the "look" of film, or whatever. I certainly enjoy the control of digital, myself.
 

douglasf13

New member
For the longest time, audiophiles would make the same basic argument and would note similar discriptive differences between a analogue recording played on on turntable and a digitial recording on a CD. Of course as film can be scanned, so to were some analogue recording digitized, with mixed results. Over time, refinement of digitally recorded music (as well as analogue to digital)...so to will there be an evolution and refinement of the digitally captured image and subsequentlly it's output. To what degree is often in the eye of the beholder.

Dave (D&A)
As I mentioned above, the funny thing is that film is actually a digital recording medium, since film grain is on/off. Oddly, I probably still prefer analog recordings on both record and CD, but I do like silicon for color photography, at this point.
 

dude163

Active member
One thing I have found is that using vintage lenses on digital cameras is a good compromise

the 2 shots I posted were with a 1964 summicron 50 and a 1958 Elmar 90 , I find modern glass too clinical
 

baudolino

Active member
I don't process for any specific look (consciously) but I tend to end up choosing Agfa APX 100 as my preferred film profile in SEP2 most of the time. It may well be because that was the film I used a lot in the analog era (since it - plus Fomapan and Orwo NP22 -were the most widely available films in my country when I was younger.
 
Those conversations can be very useful, if they approach the subject from a different media POV... or, can be very dangerous (to photography as an art), if they end up to compare the incomparable... In my view, the difference between film and digital, ends up to two things... 1. DR presentation, where film has a narrower linear part and more HL and LL "compression", 2. Grain... which is much more present in film and can be used creatively or annoyingly... Never the less, a photographer is an artist... and artists, do act under visualization of the outcome (the print in our case) which is the artists decisive factor... I have however observed, that MFDBs lye in between film and digital DR presentation and this, along with the fact that MF film has less grain, makes the difference in MF photography quite more narrow than it is with DSLRs and the respective 35mm SLRs....
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
Interesting I assumed the bottom was film and turned out I was right. There was a bit of grain but both images are pleasing (and not just there's a half naked woman on a piece of furniture.)
 
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