Is Film Digital? OT

feivel said:

i have heard many times about the pros and cons of film which is
analog (continuous) vs. digital which is, well, digital
(non-continuous)
but isn't film digital as well? in other words film is composed of
discrete packets of molecular clusters of maybe 3 types, each
cluster chemical type is sensitive to a particular light
wavelength, you get different colors and tones by combining ratios
of these clusters (grain).
isnt the only real difference that one is chemically based and one
is electronic? arent they both digital??

just curious

feivel

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Kastor said:

I was trying to add to the main thread, not to contradict you.
I posted under the wrong entry.
K
P.S. ...agreed "that's what I said".

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feivel said:

feivel said:

By the way, film has no numbers--- scanners have an ADC--- so it
ain't digital. It doesn't matter if it has grain or not (don't
confuse digital wit "quantized", --- and then again, quantic
effects have nothing to do with film-- silver grain (crystals of
silver) are way too big to show any quantum effects.

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something does not need to have numbers to be digital, it just
needs to be of a nature that numbers could be assigned. in
practice we generally apply this term digital to technology to
which we DO assign numbers. But in terms of essence, each crystal
of silver is either in an on or off state. We could assign a
number to each crystal, but it is not necessary, In the case of
electronic carrying of information we need to assign numbers so the
camera can talk to the storage media which has to talk to the CPU
of the computer which has to talk to the monitor etc.

No we don't refer to film as digital, I never heard anyone say film
is digital, always it is called analog. If you don't want to call
it digital i understand, that is common wisdom. What i am asking
people to do is challenge common wisdom and stop and think about
it. It seems to me there is a strong argument to make that FILM IS
NOT ANALOG. And i think it is not merely an intellectual exercise.
If film is not analog then there is no reason to claim that it is
not possible for "digital" technology to ever be as good or pure as
film.

feivel

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Kent C said:

feivel said:

Kent C said:

By the way, film has no numbers--- scanners have an ADC--- so it
ain't digital. It doesn't matter if it has grain or not (don't
confuse digital wit "quantized", --- and then again, quantic
effects have nothing to do with film-- silver grain (crystals of
silver) are way too big to show any quantum effects.

Click to expand...

something does not need to have numbers to be digital, it just
needs to be of a nature that numbers could be assigned. in
practice we generally apply this term digital to technology to
which we DO assign numbers. But in terms of essence, each crystal
of silver is either in an on or off state. We could assign a
number to each crystal, but it is not necessary, In the case of
electronic carrying of information we need to assign numbers so the
camera can talk to the storage media which has to talk to the CPU
of the computer which has to talk to the monitor etc.

No we don't refer to film as digital, I never heard anyone say film
is digital, always it is called analog. If you don't want to call
it digital i understand, that is common wisdom. What i am asking
people to do is challenge common wisdom and stop and think about
it. It seems to me there is a strong argument to make that FILM IS
NOT ANALOG. And i think it is not merely an intellectual exercise.
If film is not analog then there is no reason to claim that it is
not possible for "digital" technology to ever be as good or pure as
film.

Click to expand...

Good points. So, is the retina an analog or digital 'device'?
--
Kent
http://www.pbase.com/kentc

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matt said:

the retina converts light into pulses of energy and sends it to the
brain, the strength of the pulse determines your impression of
light intensity.

Clearly analog

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Matt105483 said:

reactions generate variation of potential that are sent to the
occipital area of the brain (visual area) where the information is
processed and "interpreted" - the potentials are not coded in 1 and
0 units -

Click to expand...

Matt105483 said:

Digital vs analog is not about the unit that creates the signal
(because based on your theory, everything can be simplfiied down to
atomic level and further until we find a 1/0 state - so we can say
is digital) but the way the signal is coded and uncoded. You cannot
quantify living functions as being digital.

Click to expand...

feivel said:

i have heard many times about the pros and cons of film which is
analog (continuous) vs. digital which is, well, digital
(non-continuous)
but isn't film digital as well? in other words film is composed of
discrete packets of molecular clusters of maybe 3 types, each
cluster chemical type is sensitive to a particular light
wavelength, you get different colors and tones by combining ratios
of these clusters (grain).
isnt the only real difference that one is chemically based and one
is electronic? arent they both digital??

just curious

feivel

Click to expand...

Mark Rehmar said:

It seems that in this discussion "analog" is being defined as
continuous, and "digital" is being defined as discontinuous. I
don't think this is correct

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Mark Rehmar said:

I believe digital means that the information is represented
numerically - that is by strings of numbers (typically binary). The
important difference is that once the information is represented
this way, it can be stored as a string of digits (such as on a cd)
and manipulated arithmetically (thus photoshop!)

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Mark Rehmar said:

While film certainly has a grain size, the information is not
stored numerically.

feivel said:

i have heard many times about the pros and cons of film which is
analog (continuous) vs. digital which is, well, digital
(non-continuous)
but isn't film digital as well? in other words film is composed of
discrete packets of molecular clusters of maybe 3 types, each
cluster chemical type is sensitive to a particular light
wavelength, you get different colors and tones by combining ratios
of these clusters (grain).
isnt the only real difference that one is chemically based and one
is electronic? arent they both digital??

just curious

feivel

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Doug MacMillan said:

You're right, film is digital as well.

Doug

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bruce komusin said:

Clearly, as currently used, film is analog. "As curently used"
means we are not currently keeping track of each silver-hailde
molecule and storing its on/off state. In fact we are averaging
several such molecules and storing that average as an analog value.

If, in future, you could store info about every silver-halide
molecule, that is not enough to totally specify the image. You
also have to store the size, position, and angle of each such
molecule on the film backing.

But since position and angle are also crucial to interpretation of
the image, and as they are intrinsically analog values, I cannot
see that you could measure and store them in what you would call
digital value because of Heisenburg uncertaincy, etc.

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GCam said:

The bleach merely converts the silver halides to soluble silver
salts. The fix removes the silver from the color negatives. The
color layers then make up the negative. With B&W, the silver that
is exposed is fixed into the negative. The remainder is removed
from the image by the fix. It works the same with the paper. If
you have ever had color prints that fade rather quickly, it is
usually because the bleach-fix(they are combined in most color
paper processes) did not remove all the silver, usually due to low
replenishment rates in the chemistry.

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feivel said:

GCam said:

The bleach merely converts the silver halides to soluble silver
salts. The fix removes the silver from the color negatives. The
color layers then make up the negative. With B&W, the silver that
is exposed is fixed into the negative. The remainder is removed
from the image by the fix. It works the same with the paper. If
you have ever had color prints that fade rather quickly, it is
usually because the bleach-fix(they are combined in most color
paper processes) did not remove all the silver, usually due to low
replenishment rates in the chemistry.

Click to expand...

Gcam i see you're in the industry
Many years ago in high school i used to work in a commercial color
processing lab in downtown chicago (my father owned it, called Anro
Proccessing). We used to have long rows of chemical tanks, one of
my jobs was to agitate the racks of film in the tanks for
prescribed lenths of time at prescribed intervals
As i got better i used to take densitometer readings of kodak test
strips and calculate changes to the chemicals in the tanks.
feivel

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Doug MacMillan said:

You're just pulling our chain ;-).
I worked as a teenager at a local TV station. One of my jobs was
to develop news film. When I first started, we had a B&W processor.
I remember the day we got the color processor, densitometer and
control strips. We plotted religiously for about a month. After
that, if there was an image on the film, replenishment was close
enough! Maybe once a quarter we'd run another strip. We juiced up
the processor by installing new heaters and turning the developer
up to about 110 degrees. We also changed the feed system to run
twice as fast. This expodentially increased the incidences of film
breaks and film coming off rollers.

After processing the film, I edited it for the 11:00 news. Too
many nights I'd run into the projection room during the 11:58:30
break. The projectionist sometimes let the film fall on the floor
because he didn't have enough time to spool the takeup reel.

These ENG whipper-snappers don't know how easy they have it.

Doug

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Doug MacMillan said:

Since it was color news film, it was E-4. When I went to Art
Center two years later, they still had an E-3 line! With E-3, you
actually used light for the reversal instead of E-4 that did the
reversal fog chemically.

Speaking of the environment, I still have a jar of Kodak Potassium
Ferrocyanide that I used to use for print bleaching. Nasty stuff!

Since we're strolling down memory lane, who's heard of Pyro developer?

Doug

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feivel said:

ZoomBoy said:

feivel said:

feivel said:

Good points. So, is the retina an analog or digital 'device'?
--
Kent
http://www.pbase.com/kentc

Click to expand...

digital

Click to expand...

The retinal receptors react to light and due to intrinsec chemical
reactions generate variation of potential that are sent to the
occipital area of the brain (visual area) where the information is
processed and "interpreted" - the potentials are not coded in 1 and
0 units -

Click to expand...

yes they are. the intrinsic chemical reaction does NOT generate a
variable potential. each photoreceptor, which is a neural cell is
capable of either sending a signal or not sending a signal, the
strength of the signal is not varied. every neuron in the visual
cortex is capable of either being stimulated or not being
stimulated. there is no variation of potential by either the
individual sending photoreceptors or the individual receiving
neurons.
however i gave kent a one word answer, because the truth is
exceedingly complex.
at the heart of all neurological systems is a "digital" or on-off"
core, that's for sure. but there is a complex reaction among
millions (in the case of the eye) of on-off units, and whether or
not an individual brain neoron is in an on or off state is
influenced by the summation and relationship of thousands of
surrounding neurons and their on-off states (in addition to the
general environmental state that the neuron finds itself in,
hormonal presence, blood supply, how recently it previously fired,
medications neuronal communication with other non-visual areas of
the brain, etc.)
the same kind of immensely complex interactions occur in the retina
itself and in various communication substations (ganglia) that
occur on the way from the retina to the brain.
so in essence the end result, due to the smoothing and augmentation
and summation that occurs via the neurological nexus, is
essentially analog, but the building blocks are digital.
hence my answer to Kent.

feivel said:

Digital vs analog is not about the unit that creates the signal
(because based on your theory, everything can be simplfiied down to
atomic level and further until we find a 1/0 state - so we can say
is digital) but the way the signal is coded and uncoded. You cannot
quantify living functions as being digital.

Click to expand...

if you choose to define digital as referring to a coding and
uncoding system then you are right. that's only one way to define
it, though it's probably the most common way.
everything can Not be simplified down to a 1/0 state, i dont think
either of us (or certainly not even the brightest particle
physicists alive) really understand the nature of matter and
energy, but no one holds a theory today that it is simply a matter
of units being on or off in some sense.
you move your hand to your head to scratch it and that was an
analog process, your hand did not move through certain slices of
space and time while "skipping" intermediate slices, (at least as
far as i know)

feivel

feivel said:

My 2 cents.

--
ZoomBoy

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

feivel said:

matt said:

the retina converts light into pulses of energy and sends it to the
brain, the strength of the pulse determines your impression of
light intensity.

Clearly analog

Click to expand...

but the individual photoreceptors each function in a digital
manner, the sum of their digital responses constitutes the "pulses
of energy"
just as the summation of pixels in a digital image constitutes the
pulses of reflected light that enter your eye and are perceived as
if it were analog signal

prior post:> The retinal receptors react to light and due to
intrinsec chemical

feivel said:

reactions generate variation of potential that are sent to the
occipital area of the brain (visual area) where the information is
processed and "interpreted" - the potentials are not coded in 1 and
0 units -

Click to expand...

yes they are. the intrinsic chemical reaction does NOT generate a
variable potential. each photoreceptor, which is a neural cell is
capable of either sending a signal or not sending a signal, the
strength of the signal is not varied. every neuron in the visual
cortex is capable of either being stimulated or not being
stimulated. there is no variation of potential by either the
individual sending photoreceptors or the individual receiving
neurons.

however i gave kent a one word answer, because the truth is
exceedingly complex.

at the heart of all neurological systems is a "digital" or on-off"
core, that's for sure. but there is a complex reaction among
millions (in the case of the eye) of on-off units, and whether or
not an individual brain neoron is in an on or off state is
influenced by the summation and relationship of thousands of
surrounding neurons and their on-off states (in addition to the
general environmental state that the neuron finds itself in,
hormonal presence, blood supply, how recently it previously fired,
medications neuronal communication with other non-visual areas of
the brain, etc.)

the same kind of immensely complex interactions occur in the retina
itself and in various communication substations (ganglia) that
occur on the way from the retina to the brain.

so in essence the end result, due to the smoothing and augmentation
and summation that occurs via the neurological nexus, is
essentially analog, but the building blocks are digital.

hence my answer to Kent.

feivel said:

Digital vs analog is not about the unit that creates the signal
(because based on your theory, everything can be simplfiied down to
atomic level and further until we find a 1/0 state - so we can say
is digital) but the way the signal is coded and uncoded. You cannot
quantify living functions as being digital.

Click to expand...

if you choose to define digital as referring to a coding and
uncoding system then you are right. that's only one way to define
it, though it's probably the most common way.

everything can Not be simplified down to a 1/0 state, i dont think
either of us (or certainly not even the brightest particle
physicists alive) really understand the nature of matter and
energy, but no one holds a theory today that it is simply a matter
of units being on or off in some sense.

you move your hand to your head to scratch it and that was an
analog process, your hand did not move through certain slices of
space and time while "skipping" intermediate slices, (at least as
far as i know)

feivel

Click to expand...

GCam said:

Yes, I remember Pyro developer, and even when Xerox made photo
paper. And since you still have the potassium ferrocyanide, you
can make up some bleach and remove those horrible magenta fuming
stains caused by film being stored in the chest of drawers before
processing. Don't remember how well it works on what we used to
call dash board film, caused by the customer tossing the camera
into the glove compartment and forgetting about it. Some labs
today still use the light for the reversal process, especially with
paper. They probably mix their chemistry from an old Morgan and
Morgan Photo Lab Index as well, which I am sure feivel's dad used.
And yes, those old pros could be very demanding and meticulous
about their color. I suppose they still are today, but the
industry is dying in that regard. Many of the old photographers
grew up in photo labs like feivel, so they knew what they were
talking about when they discussed such matters with the owner or
manager. And did you ever sit down where Kodak tray cleaner had
been spilled?

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