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The unmatched advantages of Film

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noel58

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I was recently going through old (1970s) Kodachrome slides to choose which one to scan and use for a Xmas card. These were taken with a Leica M4 and a Summicron 50 mm f2 lens.

I was struck by two things: the "velvety" yet vivid colors and the huge dynamic range of the film. These were snowy mountain landscapes on very sunny days with very bright snow and parts of the mountains in deep shadow: yet there was no blown highlights, the shadows had detail and the photo retained strong contrast.

I don't think I could take the same shot today with a DSLR and obtain comparable results. Blown highlights is a frustration of mine nowadays. It never was 20 or 30 years ago. Yet cameras today have 20+ buttons and endless menus. And I don't really feel like spending hours on a computer playing with curves.

Will FF solve the blown highlight pb?
 
Firstly the DR on Kodachrome isn't that huge (theoretical max of 3.8D, subtract the base density of about 0.3D and you have a theoretical max range of 3.5D, or 11 2/3rd stops), it is within 1/2 stop +/- of most current decent DSLRs (check the individual numbers at the DXO mark website if you are interested).

Slide film blew highlights just as well as a digital (maybe not with quite as sharp a shoulder, but that's a function of the converter software). Try shooting in RAW format and seeing how much highlight data you can recover.

Colour response is a matter of taste, and a good DSLR workflow will let you tweak colour to your heart's content.

Now any minute the film and digital lobbies will descend in wrath and we'll have another 150 post argument over which is best.
noel58 said:
I was recently going through old (1970s) Kodachrome slides to choose which one to scan and use for a Xmas card. These were taken with a Leica M4 and a Summicron 50 mm f2 lens.

I was struck by two things: the "velvety" yet vivid colors and the huge dynamic range of the film. These were snowy mountain landscapes on very sunny days with very bright snow and parts of the mountains in deep shadow: yet there was no blown highlights, the shadows had detail and the photo retained strong contrast.

I don't think I could take the same shot today with a DSLR and obtain comparable results. Blown highlights is a frustration of mine nowadays. It never was 20 or 30 years ago. Yet cameras today have 20+ buttons and endless menus. And I don't really feel like spending hours on a computer playing with curves.

Will FF solve the blown highlight pb?
Click to expand...
 
11 2/3 stops is not close to any decent DSLR, which is around 8. I know that Kodadhrome had less DR than negative films, hence my surprise at the result. In other words, Kodachrome's DR is much wider than digital, although lower than negative.

I am not saying that we should all go back to film. What I am saying is that, IMO, improving the DR of digital would probably be more conducive to better images than many other avenues (such as D-lighting, high ISO, etc.).

You are right that using PP software would probably improve the results, but not everybody wants to spend the time on a computer. And I would add that, while even Ansel Adams spent considerable time dodging and burning his photos, digital photography is going perhaps too far in "improving" on the camera's output via PP.
 
spt_gb said:
Firstly the DR on Kodachrome isn't that huge (theoretical max of 3.8D, subtract the base density of about 0.3D and you have a theoretical max range of 3.5D, or 11 2/3rd stops), it is within 1/2 stop +/- of most current decent DSLRs (check the individual numbers at the DXO mark website if you are interested).
Click to expand...
I would have put Kodachrome way below 11 2/3 stops. I haven't shot it in years though, so I'm not certain. But even with Astia I can only pull about 7 or so stops. While I can get 11-12 stops with a low contrast neg film like Fuji Pro 400H, most DSLRs now can pull out well over 10 stops....with albeit ugly color in the shadows.

As long as on meters for the highlights, I don't think having 11 stops is any problem.

That said, both mediums have different looks to them, but that's for another 150 post thread ;-)
spt_gb said:
Slide film blew highlights just as well as a digital (maybe not with quite as sharp a shoulder, but that's a function of the converter software). Try shooting in RAW format and seeing how much highlight data you can recover.

Colour response is a matter of taste, and a good DSLR workflow will let you tweak colour to your heart's content.

Now any minute the film and digital lobbies will descend in wrath and we'll have another 150 post argument over which is best.
noel58 said:
I was recently going through old (1970s) Kodachrome slides to choose which one to scan and use for a Xmas card. These were taken with a Leica M4 and a Summicron 50 mm f2 lens.

I was struck by two things: the "velvety" yet vivid colors and the huge dynamic range of the film. These were snowy mountain landscapes on very sunny days with very bright snow and parts of the mountains in deep shadow: yet there was no blown highlights, the shadows had detail and the photo retained strong contrast.

I don't think I could take the same shot today with a DSLR and obtain comparable results. Blown highlights is a frustration of mine nowadays. It never was 20 or 30 years ago. Yet cameras today have 20+ buttons and endless menus. And I don't really feel like spending hours on a computer playing with curves.

Will FF solve the blown highlight pb?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
noel58 said:
I was recently going through old (1970s) Kodachrome slides to choose which one to scan and use for a Xmas card.
Click to expand...
In my opinion, a huge part of their appeal is the fact that they are your own slides from 20 yrs ago. I do not think you would have same reaction looking through someone else's slides.

I did the same thing few weeks ago , scanning old slides . I do not even care that they have scratches, some are not sharp. I liked them so much that I went out and bought a Fuji slide film and a roll of Kodak negative film to play with.

But , cooling down, I admit that technical quality of what I am expecting should not be anywhere near modern DSLRs, not even postprocessed.
noel58 said:
I don't think I could take the same shot today with a DSLR and obtain > comparable results.
Click to expand...
But if you had a DSLR back then, the appeal of old pics would be the same as the old slides you are looking at.
noel58 said:
Blown highlights is a frustration of mine nowadays. It never was 20 or 30 years > ago. Yet cameras today have 20+ buttons and endless menus.
Click to expand...
Yes, because you almost carry the complete darkroom with you.
noel58 said:
And I don't really feel like spending hours on a computer playing with curves.
Click to expand...
Not that much different to spending hours in a darkroom.

Rgds
 
@noel58: > > And I don't really feel like spending hours on a computer playing with curves.
Member said:
Not that much different to spending hours in a darkroom.
Click to expand...
When I had a darkroom, which I built at age 15, it took me 45 minutes to produce one exhibition quality 8x10. I can now do that in about 20 minutes, in a clean loft, looking out my window at Chinatown.

Fixer is sulfuric acid, stop bath is 28% acetic acid. Developer is a base at the end of the pH scale. Good riddance. Longevity? Nothing can beat the Swiss vault project. Google it. I have not touched film since June 2002. And I can do things with my computer I never could have done with a darkroom. Sorry, this is the 21st century.

A memory card is literally an unlimited supply of 35mm film. It costs zero to take a photograph.

My websites:

sofobomo.org/2009/books/misha-marinsky/the-holga-bus-company/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ubereye/
http://ubereye.deviantart.com/
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/
 
I've recently had the pleasure of going through old slides and converting some of the better or more meaningful (family) ones to digital using a homemade slide viewer/lightbox and a macro lens arrangement on my k200d. I don't know about the comparative DR, but there is no doubt in my mind that the sharpness and color quality of modern DSLRs is VERY much better than that achieved with 35mm Kodachrome film in my old KX/55mm lens combo. This overides any potential benefit of better DR from film IMO. I have some good old pic's that I'm proud of (please allow me to gloat - one recently placed 3rd in a challenge http://www.dpreview.com/challenges/Entry.aspx?ID=180305 ), but I would never go back to film unless just for a brief "fling" with the past.

As a side note, one of the things I've truly enjoyed in the conversion-to-digital process is making white balance corrections and color saturation reductions (Kodachrome seemed to be inherently over saturated IMO) and essentially "restoring" them to what I would call better than original condition because of these corrections.

My two cents worth...
noel58 said:
I was recently going through old (1970s) Kodachrome slides to choose which one to scan and use for a Xmas card. These were taken with a Leica M4 and a Summicron 50 mm f2 lens.

I was struck by two things: the "velvety" yet vivid colors and the huge dynamic range of the film. These were snowy mountain landscapes on very sunny days with very bright snow and parts of the mountains in deep shadow: yet there was no blown highlights, the shadows had detail and the photo retained strong contrast.

I don't think I could take the same shot today with a DSLR and obtain comparable results. Blown highlights is a frustration of mine nowadays. It never was 20 or 30 years ago. Yet cameras today have 20+ buttons and endless menus. And I don't really feel like spending hours on a computer playing with curves.

Will FF solve the blown highlight pb?
Click to expand...
--
DarylK
 
noel58 said:
I was recently going through old (1970s) Kodachrome slides to choose which one to scan and use for a Xmas card.

I was struck by two things: the "velvety" yet vivid colors and the huge dynamic range of the film. These were snowy mountain landscapes on very sunny days with very bright snow and parts of the mountains in deep shadow: yet there was no blown highlights, the shadows had detail and the photo retained strong contrast.
Click to expand...
Are you sure you're talking about kodachrome slides and exposure latitude/dynamic range? Older kodachrome slides are quite high contrast with at most 6 stops of dynamic range. dSLRs of today average 8.5 stops in JPG and you can add another stop when shooting RAW.

I shoot kodachrome (1 roll left) and it is not at all a film that records a wide dynamic range of light.
noel58 said:
Will FF solve the blown highlight pb?
Click to expand...
No, because there are aps-c dSLRs, such as the a550 that has about 1 stop more DR in the highlights than most Canon dSLRs, that has more DR than some FF dSLRs.
 
Dave_Anderson said:
noel58 said:
11 2/3 stops is not close to any decent DSLR, which is around 8.
Click to expand...
The only thing that holds a modern DSLR to 8 stops is shooting JPEG. Shooting RAW, 10-12 stops is not at all unreasonable.
Click to expand...
If you are looking at DPR's "raw headroom" notes in their reviews for that 10 to 12 you need to read carefully. Their "best" dynamic range rating would yield a poor looking image - very low contrast. Their reviews usually state you'll get about an extra stop with RAW or maybe 1.5 on better dSLRs. So at most you might find one dSLR that could come close to 11 stops using RAW, but most would be between 9 and 10 with RAW.

Same with DxO ratings - low contrast tone curve used to achieve the numbers they give.
 
I think it's the grain...noise doesn't look as nice to me. But that's what I grew up with: today's children may well grow accustomed to the look of noise.

I wonder how much film I shot, back in the day. When I was really into it, I was a teenager paying for film and processing with money from an after school job. I had a Nikon FM with 50/1.4 and two of the E lenses. Oh, and a girlfriend. So that left me with a little money but not a lot.

I averaged maybe 36 exposures every two weeks out of my own pocket, but also shot for the school newspaper which was practice, but on their dime. We used to have this cheep Yashicamat medium format at school...man, that thing was low tech but it made big negatives, resulting in some nice images! Anyway I was fairly circumspect about what merited the expense if I was shooting color. I didn't even bracket exposure...Mr. One Shot.

Back then you turned in the film (develop C41 and print color? Hah! I hated the B/W darkroom so color was out of the question) and there would be no further cropping etc. unless you were willing to pay for a custom print. Digital's great in that respect...basic cropping, resizing, all that are easy. I still try for the perfect capture in camera, but I've tweaked lots of them.

Overall though I think digital is a boon. I shoot a lot more images now because I know it costs nada. I'll reel off 3-4 shots of a small group of people because I know that you'll get someone blinking in one, etc. It's just that when I get a startling image I think, 'And if that were on film, wow, that would be even better!'

Here's a shot I never would have gotten back in the film day. The problem is that when they're not flying, all you see is some yellow on the shoulder. Perfect it isn't, but please realize that I shot 500 bad pics of these fast birds in order to get a few images that I could live with...and even then I had to crop (partly because idiots had thrown garbage in the water, but also because it didn't fill the frame).

 
noel58 said:
And I would add that, while even Ansel Adams spent considerable time dodging and burning his photos, digital photography is going perhaps too far in "improving" on the camera's output via PP.
Click to expand...
If by improving you mean after editing a RAW file you get an improvment over the Jpeg created by the camera, then I don't think we are going to far.

PP used to be trying to clean up your Jpegs, i.e. improving them. Now PP is the development of the RAW file by yourself on the computer using more sophisticated tools than are available to the camera.
 
RedFox88 said:
Dave_Anderson said:
noel58 said:
11 2/3 stops is not close to any decent DSLR, which is around 8.
Click to expand...
The only thing that holds a modern DSLR to 8 stops is shooting JPEG. Shooting RAW, 10-12 stops is not at all unreasonable.
Click to expand...
If you are looking at DPR's "raw headroom" notes in their reviews for that 10 to 12 you need to read carefully. Their "best" dynamic range rating would yield a poor looking image - very low contrast. Their reviews usually state you'll get about an extra stop with RAW or maybe 1.5 on better dSLRs. So at most you might find one dSLR that could come close to 11 stops using RAW, but most would be between 9 and 10 with RAW.

Same with DxO ratings - low contrast tone curve used to achieve the numbers they give.
Click to expand...
Point taken -- I was referring to theoretical DR limits. I found the table that I had in mind when I made that statement, link here: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/AA900/AA900IMATEST.HTM I am not taking that info alone as the whole truth, I have seen 11-12 stops quoted elsewhere.

I felt it was not an entirely unreasonable statement given that the only hard limit on DR is bit depth, also that film latitude is usually quoted as best-case as well.
 
Ah yes another rediscovery. Isn't it amazing, you would never know what you have lost until you've found it again.
 
Slide film does not have "huge dynamic range". As a longtime slide film shooter, I can easily go through my archive of slides and pull out plenty of examples of blown highlights. Contrast range within a scene was always an issue when shooting slides. To say that blown highlights was never an issue 20 or 30 years ago when you were shooting slides seems ridiculous. I think this is a case of nostalgia distorting your memory. I would never go back to shooting slides. Today with digital, if I expose and shoot an image in the same way that I used to do with slides, I get an image with a lot more resolution and detail (for the same format size, or smaller size as with APS-C), I get more dynamic range if I shoot RAW, and I get a considerably more adjustable image to make the colors as vivid or as muted as I want them to be. And we're still in the early days of digital! Newer sensor technologies will arise in the next few years that will take us even farther.
noel58 said:
I was recently going through old (1970s) Kodachrome slides to choose which one to scan and use for a Xmas card. These were taken with a Leica M4 and a Summicron 50 mm f2 lens.

I was struck by two things: the "velvety" yet vivid colors and the huge dynamic range of the film. These were snowy mountain landscapes on very sunny days with very bright snow and parts of the mountains in deep shadow: yet there was no blown highlights, the shadows had detail and the photo retained strong contrast.

I don't think I could take the same shot today with a DSLR and obtain comparable results. Blown highlights is a frustration of mine nowadays. It never was 20 or 30 years ago. Yet cameras today have 20+ buttons and endless menus. And I don't really feel like spending hours on a computer playing with curves.

Will FF solve the blown highlight pb?
Click to expand...
 
Film is better. Just get over it.
--
Austin based portrait photographer and author of the book series, Minimalist
Lighting and the book Commercial Photographers Handbook
 
T3 said:
T3 wrote:

And we're still in the early days of digital! Newer sensor technologies will arise in the next few years that will take us even farther.
Click to expand...
That's what I keep writing. Digital is in its infancy. Analog photography has been with us since around 1861; it has matured. Look at the technology since 2000, alone.

DR keeps improving. Amplifiers keep improving, with an attendant drop in "noise," AKA artifacts. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't noise a visual manifestation of harmonic distortion? I have been using Topaz DeNoise, and I like it better than Noise Ninja.

My websites:
sofobomo.org/2009/books/misha-marinsky/the-holga-bus-company/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ubereye/
http://ubereye.deviantart.com/
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/
 
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