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Film is not Dead

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The average high quality film negative has around 22 megapixels of raw information taken from the image. It has several stops more dynamic range than any digital sensor.

I don't care HOW you process it, you cannot magically make that appear (OK, HDR processing can get you the dynamic range, IF the subject is still). You can interpolate, you can extract shadows, you can digitally burn and dodge - and when done right, you can get wonderfull images from digital (Louis Dobson in the Nikon D3 and Olympus formus has good examples of pp magic, as do many others here).

But that is basically partially creating the image, not a faithful capture. You are starting from a less-detailed, less dynamic image, and trying to scale your way up. Not to say you can't DO it, just that it is hard, takes a lot of PP work, and will never have the fine detail of the scene - because you didn't start with it.

And I say that without predjudice - I shoot Oly digital, with a small 10 mpix 4/3ds sensor. I prefer the convenience of digital, and I am not a pro. But as my brother shoots MF film only, I have seen what good film can do at larger prints, and it is amazing. I came really, really close to buying a used Mamiya rather than my E-3...
--
Robert
 
I shoot both...

just bought a RF and SLR
I have a a 50 and 28 I use with them.

Dead...............NOT QUITE.......

Maybe to Gen X's who grew up with a Digital as first camera.....And NEVER tried film.....

Both have their place....DSLR for Main....film for fun and Nostalgia....People look you me weird when I carry my 48 year old RF and ACCUALY take REAL Pictures with it (He-he) Mostly for Candids I admit.

Doesn't realy mater what median you select...Just enjoy photography as a whole.
Take pictures and enjoy your images you make.

Peter :-)



Enjoy your photography images, even if your wife doesn't ! ;-(
http://laurence-photography.com/
http://www.pbase.com/peterarbib/
Cameras in profile.
 
I have seen ACR and a lot of it doesn't look real and I am talking about scenery land/sky/sea stuff.

Film looks real but lets leave aside the argument of resolution and large prints because most of us don't have access or funds to print poster sized prints.

On A3 sized paper a digital image should be as good as a film image.

Cheers
 
I just picked up 600 feet (about 141 rolls of 36) of Fortepan 400 for my rangefinder. Beautiful film....wonderful tonality. Quite a classic 60's look to it.

Haven't found a way to feed it into my 40D yet. ;-)
 
rocklobster said:
Film looks real but lets leave aside the argument of resolution and
large prints because most of us don't have access or funds to print
poster sized prints.
Click to expand...
Dunno...my brother gets many of his 120 rolls developed at Snappy Snaps (chain of camera labs in England), and when he wants A3 or larger they print them for him too. Sure, each individual print is moderately expensive, but you only do a few a year like that (most are gifts or sold). But those that he has done are amazing...and anyone can do it without too much money.
--
Robert
 
Jeff Rutsch said:
Jeff Rutsch said:
Yes it is a big deal. I think you know well enough what the letters
Click to expand...
...
Jeff Rutsch said:
Absolutely nothing, I don't take photographs to impress you or the
internet community,
Click to expand...
If you don't need to impress people online, why make a big deal out
of ASPENZ, and put it at the end of every post?
Click to expand...
I earned the right to use the letters after my name and am proud to do so.
Jeff Rutsch said:
I'll second that I've never heard of the organization, and given that
New Zealand's population is four of five times smaller than the
population of the city I live in, I wonder if it's kind of like being
a member of a neighborhood club.
Click to expand...
Not quite. I love being in a country this small, we call it paradise, which is probably why we get so many American tourists.

You should join the PSA show them what you can really do.

--
Kind Regards
Dennis P O'Neil APSNZ
'War does not determine who is right, only who is left'
 
MusicDoctorDJ said:
Jeff Rutsch said:
If you don't need to impress people online, why make a big deal out
of ASPENZ, and put it at the end of every post?
Click to expand...
Probably for the same reason some people here list every camera
they've ever owned, now have, and will have in the future . . . same
with lenses, flash units, hand held meters, tripods, heads, quick
release plates, microfiber cloths, lens pens, camera bags, filters,
lens caps or anything else photographic they have, had or plan to
have someday . . . in their signature line or profile.

What is worse is when they feel the need to have a photo of all that
krap!
(the least they could do would be to make it a good photo, anyway)

As for having a photo website . . .

I don't have a photo website either (don't need one) and get accused
all the time of never posting photos around here . . .

But wait . . . what is that I see im my sig line?

--
J. D.
Colorful Colorado



Remember . . . always keep the box and everything that came in it!
Click to expand...
JD you've given me the first genuine chuckle in this thread. Cheers!

--
Kind Regards
Dennis P O'Neil APSNZ
'War does not determine who is right, only who is left'
 
Robert999 said:
The average high quality film negative has around 22 megapixels of
raw information taken from the image. It has several stops more
dynamic range than any digital sensor.
Click to expand...
When I got my D100, there eveyone one said "35 mm photos were the same as" 6 Mp or 10 or 12. So my question is were did the 22 MP come from? I know I can scan my old negs and get 26 M files, but that does not mean that there is 26 M of raw information. Also there is a lot more to IQ than just MP.

The line "It has several stops more dynamic range than any digital sensor" That is different than many reports (no real reports from folks who have PHD after they name and they are in engineering or science) for the 25 years I shoot K25/64 I could only get 6 to 7 stops range, maybe others could get up to 8 stops, but that is about want I get with my D200, the D3 is better, so where does the "several stops more" come from?

Can you please quote real reports?

Thank you

Mike
Robert999 said:
I don't care HOW you process it, you cannot magically make that
appear (OK, HDR processing can get you the dynamic range, IF the
subject is still). You can interpolate, you can extract shadows, you
can digitally burn and dodge - and when done right, you can get
wonderfull images from digital (Louis Dobson in the Nikon D3 and
Olympus formus has good examples of pp magic, as do many others here).

But that is basically partially creating the image, not a faithful
capture. You are starting from a less-detailed, less dynamic image,
and trying to scale your way up. Not to say you can't DO it, just
that it is hard, takes a lot of PP work, and will never have the fine
detail of the scene - because you didn't start with it.

And I say that without predjudice - I shoot Oly digital, with a small
10 mpix 4/3ds sensor. I prefer the convenience of digital, and I am
not a pro. But as my brother shoots MF film only, I have seen what
good film can do at larger prints, and it is amazing. I came really,
really close to buying a used Mamiya rather than my E-3...
--
Robert
Click to expand...
--
If you have low standards, you can take a look:
http://michaeljberman.zenfolio.com
 
LeRentier said:
Congratulations !

You found a gallery which, for 2/3 of its content, shows pictures,
some bas ones and some nice ones, taken with old film cameras.

No indication of the types of film, but at least two different sizes
were used.

If I add up ALL the information that comes with your post we have
about FOUR old film cameras on which a few pictures were taken with
an unknown type of film.

It takes a genuine optimist to have so little and to say that film is
not dead, particularly because you can't document when the pictures
were taken.

Steam engines are alive ! I saw some photographs of steam !
Click to expand...
Congratulations!!!

For being dumb enough not to look at the slide show, and at the end note the camera, film type where and when taken.
Jeeze
--
http://www.photo-utopia.blogspot.com/
 
Dave Luttmann said:
I just picked up 600 feet (about 141 rolls of 36) of Fortepan 400 for
my rangefinder. Beautiful film....wonderful tonality. Quite a
classic 60's look to it.

Haven't found a way to feed it into my 40D yet. ;-)
Click to expand...
Yep I just found 10 rolls of the Fortepan 100 in 120, has a wonderful 'Retro' look rather like the thick emulsion Kodak films of the 40's and 50's

Some images are on my blog below (with a film test) shame Forte called it a day, I expect they couldn't compete with Foma, Efke etc
Mark
--
http://www.photo-utopia.blogspot.com/
 
You didn't really expect anyone to go into the detail of each little individual gallery to do an inventory, didn't you ?

I looked at a few but stopped because I can't stand lopsided horizons, people with only half a head, don't care about a woman's back in a wrinkled suit and all these out of focus shots.
The only film still readily for sale in Europe is Kodak's T-Max.

All the rest just looks like some people scanning their old stock of family snapshots before the negatives fall apart.
My analysis of this whole things is :
Scanners exist and are very useful to salvage old family pictures.
 
LeRentier said:
You didn't really expect anyone to go into the detail of each little
individual gallery to do an inventory, didn't you ?
Click to expand...
No but I expected if you would look at the images that you would note what they were shot with, especially if you took the time to comment- a little intelegence is needed, thats all.
LeRentier said:
I looked at a few but stopped because I can't stand lopsided
horizons, people with only half a head, don't care about a woman's
back in a wrinkled suit and all these out of focus shots.
Click to expand...
Not a clever comment.
LeRentier said:
The only film still readily for sale in Europe is Kodak's T-Max.
Click to expand...
Rubbish, if that is your understanding of the film industry no wonder you think its dead! There are 6 or more film manufacturers in Europe alone, Ilford Foma, Adox, Fuji, Maco and Gevaert Belgium.

Ignorance is no defence especially in these days of the internet here are a few dealers in the UK that only sell film:

http://www.retrophotographic.com/
http://www.silverprint.co.uk/
http://www.novadarkroom.com/

Then in Germany there is Fotoimpex
http://www.fotoimpex.de/

Still think T-max is the only B&W film?
LeRentier said:
All the rest just looks like some people scanning their old stock of
family snapshots before the negatives fall apart.
My analysis of this whole things is :
Scanners exist and are very useful to salvage old family pictures.
Click to expand...
No if you took time to read you would note the last gallery was shot on 19th December on a Pentax 6x7 with 105 Takkumar lens on T-max 100.

Your analysis is plain dumb, your knowledge of the subject limited, your reasoning is flawed.

--
http://www.photo-utopia.blogspot.com/
 
Wonderful.
You know of a few places where you can order B&W film. big deal.
I could add one or two to that but, for what purpose ?

The gallery you mention doesn't prove anything useful other than that someone shot a roll of T-Max100 and scanned the results.

On this forum, which is all about DIGITAL photography and its associated tools, it would have been interesting if these 'artists' had made mention of how they scanned their shots, which scanner, at what resolution, and why that way ?

I suppose that your next argument will be that only "real" photographers are able to spit out a decent B&W shot ? That you have to be an artist to understand what B&W film is all about ?
None of this matters here.

Those of us who grew up with B&W film, also used kodachrome, still know how to convert between DIN and ISO and remember how you operate an enlarger only learned the hard and expensive way to get a properly exposed shot.

Digital photography does away with the chemical pollution, allows instantaneous transmission of results, provides a very cheap way of learning and making progress, etc. etc.
Do you also still use goose feathers to write ?
 
michaeljberman said:
... for the 25 years I shoot K25/64 I could only get 6 to 7
stops range, maybe others could get up to 8 stops, but that is about
want I get with my D200, ...
Click to expand...
That is really great for Kodachrome. Back in "the day" I would often shoot Kodachrome or Velvia, and use a handheld spot meter. It had a zone sticker on it for when I did B&W. I noticed over time that with transparency film, It seemed I only have 5 useful zones (3,5,5,6,7).

--
Film & Digital
http://www.jaymoynihan.com
 
LeRentier said:
Wonderful.
You know of a few places where you can order B&W film. big deal.
I could add one or two to that but, for what purpose ?
Click to expand...
Well it was in reply to your quote:
' t-max 100 is the only readily available film in Europe'

The purpose is if you can buy it (which you say you can't) then you can use it!- is that simple enough for you?
LeRentier said:
The gallery you mention doesn't prove anything useful other than that
someone shot a roll of T-Max100 and scanned the results.
Click to expand...
Maybe not useful to you, but I'm not actually intested in the camera, film or lens I'm actually intested in the aesthetic and the fact that photography with film is still very much alive.
LeRentier said:
On this forum, which is all about DIGITAL photography and its
associated tools, it would have been interesting if these 'artists'
had made mention of how they scanned their shots, which scanner, at
what resolution, and why that way ?
Click to expand...
They didn't post the info on this forum, so why should they list 'digital gear' for you gearheads?
LeRentier said:
I suppose that your next argument will be that only "real"
photographers are able to spit out a decent B&W shot ? That you have
to be an artist to understand what B&W film is all about ?
None of this matters here.
Click to expand...
No? WTF are you talking about?
LeRentier said:
Those of us who grew up with B&W film, also used kodachrome, still
know how to convert between DIN and ISO and remember how you operate
an enlarger only learned the hard and expensive way to get a properly
exposed shot.
Click to expand...
Those of us? You think I didn't do that stuff too? Do you think that the knowlege learned was wasted? No only someone who is unaware that the past helps us create in the future would think the way you do.
LeRentier said:
Digital photography does away with the chemical pollution, allows
instantaneous transmission of results, provides a very cheap way of
learning and making progress, etc. etc.
Do you also still use goose feathers to write ?
Click to expand...
No but I wouldn't say that writing with a pen on paper is dead or obsolete just because computers and MS office exist, or do you think the 'paperless office' exists?

Honestly are you for real? first you say only T-max is available in Europe, then you say you can name more films, but film is dead- because you say so-
lol NOT CLEVER AT ALL.
--
http://www.photo-utopia.blogspot.com/
 
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