How do I make my film photos less "digital"?

Yesterday I received the first colour scans from my "new" Mamiya C220 TLR and posted some of them here . As Flektogon and I agreed, they look too perfect and almost digital. Lomography has been a hot topic lately, and I'm wondering what I need to do to "lomographize" (is that even a word?) my film photos, in other words, to make them look less "digital" and more "filmic"?

I have a few ideas of my own:

1. Shoot on grainy black and white films wide open. Lots of grainy bokeh, isn't that lomographic?

2. Shoot through a sandpapered filter. I recently got some nice results using it on 35mm. Since I can't make two exactly the same filters for the viewing and taking lenses, this will add an element of randomness and unpredictability to my pictures.

3. Shoot some weird colour film. I'm not a big fan of red or purple films, but Harman Phoenix II looks promising.

4. Put the Mamiya aside and go back to my Flexaret TLR, which, after cleaning the lens, is much better, but still not as good as the Mamiya.

I also have a couple of ideas what NOT to do:

1. I don't have space for a darkroom, so wet analogue printing is out of the question.

2. I will not use a Holga or a similar toy, only a real camera.

Could you please share your creative ideas? Any suggestions are welcome!

If you get a decent TLR , such as a Mamiya etc , that has a decent lens attached , such as the options for Mamiya , then load fresh , decent film , then use the camera in a sensible fashion , expect decent results .

Using old , badly stored film will reduce the quality , but unless you buy over the odds eBay out of date film aimed at the Lomo mob , you'll have to store some film in a cupboard near your oven for ten years before shooting it .

Other option , buy an old box camera , just make sure it uses film that's still available.

Some cheap , unfamiliar named TLR's are also capable of producing poor results without much effort.

Typically I use regular B&W and Rollei infrared for most of my film use and only occasionally colour film as there's no real benefit for most of what I do over my digital cameras .

I use B&W film as I like the results ( rather than converting digital images ) , I also like using the cameras and developing my own film .

--
https://www.flickr.com/photos/neilt3/sets

alex_virt said:

Yesterday I received the first colour scans from my "new" Mamiya C220 TLR and posted some of them here . As Flektogon and I agreed, they look too perfect and almost digital. Lomography has been a hot topic lately, and I'm wondering what I need to do to "lomographize" (is that even a word?) my film photos, in other words, to make them look less "digital" and more "filmic"?

I have a few ideas of my own:

1. Shoot on grainy black and white films wide open. Lots of grainy bokeh, isn't that lomographic?

2. Shoot through a sandpapered filter. I recently got some nice results using it on 35mm. Since I can't make two exactly the same filters for the viewing and taking lenses, this will add an element of randomness and unpredictability to my pictures.

3. Shoot some weird colour film. I'm not a big fan of red or purple films, but Harman Phoenix II looks promising.

4. Put the Mamiya aside and go back to my Flexaret TLR, which, after cleaning the lens, is much better, but still not as good as the Mamiya.

I also have a couple of ideas what NOT to do:

1. I don't have space for a darkroom, so wet analogue printing is out of the question.

2. I will not use a Holga or a similar toy, only a real camera.

Could you please share your creative ideas? Any suggestions are welcome!

Click to expand...

Why would you want to make your images worse?? Enjoy the quality. Don't worry about the comparison to digital. Definitely don't 'lomographise' them....

Good technique, with a good will make excellent film images, as you did with the Mamiya photos. What is wrong with that? As a professional photographer, that was my goal. Why I did a lot of work with medium and large format photography. We would search out the best cameras, lenses, and the appropriate film to work with, there was a lot more choices back then. My favorite studio film was Ektachrome 50, later 64 tundsten, Kodachrome like look, almost no grain, its only problem was it didn't filter well in daylight. Good film photos are 1:1 with good digital photos, I don't see that as a problem.

A lot of film work now is for a funky aesthetic, weird colkor film (red biased, tungsten under daylite blue???) funky cameras, Holgas aren't the worst, good technique with a Holga makes some interesting pictures. Lomography seems to be reintroducing Russian cameras, which aren't bad, just a little funky.

You obviously have good photographic technique, why not enjoy the good work you produce? If you want grain, Tri-X at ISO 800, a little over developed and shoot wide open on an older lens. Look at some older record album covers for the early 60s, not all are perfect, try to duplicate those shots. Look at Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and W.Eugene Smith for 35mm work, Arnold Newman, and Dean Collins for more studio pro work. They are who I think about when using film. I have seen Joseph Karsh work, 8x10 camera, with lighting for perfection.

I would be quite chuffed if someone accused my medium format images of looking "digital". Like your Mamiya C220 images it would probably mean that they're clean, sharp and with accurate vibrant colours. But if you crave a more obvious "film" look I think you need to turn to smaller film formats that reveal the film emulsion more e.g. the grain.

Actually I get more of a kick when people mistake a nice clean modern image as being taken 50 or 60 years ago. Here's a photo I took originally in 1933 of the Napier-Railton racing car. Is it film? Is it digital? Does it matter?

Ian


Taken in 2022 Nikon F, Nikkor 50mm f1.4, Ilford FP4+

Well, not to "irritate" again many enthusiastic film shooters, I am not advising you to replace your film photography with the digital, even though your latest film results are virtually indistinguishable from your best digital pictures. But yes, to make them different, maybe you should shoot B&W only. Of course, there are now specialized, digital monochromatic cameras available, but while you don't have any such, neither Nikon Zf, which, with a new F/W can emulate film grain, the film is your the only way. For me, well, as I used to process completely my films/enlargements, even this Nikon Zf would not suffice. Unless Nikon will provide another F/W update, which would generate the smell of all those photographic chemicals as well .

--
Regards,
Peter

Send the negatives to a full service Photo Lab that uses enlargers & makes prints without digitizing.

Will cost more but solves the problem.

35mm HP5, zone focus in a Olympus Trip or Rollei 35

Thanks, my friends, for your interesting and thought-provoking comments! I will reply to them tomorrow.

Self scan with your digital camera and copy stand/adapter and a backlight, with negative inversion either in Negative Lab Pro or Capture One - really simple inversion process described here: https://medium.com/@benjamin.bezine/scanning-film-negatives-with-capture-one-e707d52c9b7a
All the imperfections from development such as artifacts and coagulates of chemicals together with unavoidable dust particles and fiber pieces - all the things normally removed thanks to IR filter in a lab-scanning process - are going to make the image stand out more as a scanned negative. If you also don't crop the image but instead include a part of the frame in which your negative gets placed, that adds even more. All of that without sacrificing the actual image quality (unless your subject gets obscured by a nasty curly fiber while scanning).
An example:

alex_virt said:

Yesterday I received the first colour scans from my "new" Mamiya C220 TLR and posted some of them here . As Flektogon and I agreed, they look too perfect and almost digital ...

Could you please share your creative ideas? Any suggestions are welcome!

Click to expand...

Use a 1930s-era camera with an inexpensive lens; shoot B&W; don't worry too much about precise exposure or focus; let the negatives sit in a box for 80 years or so; scan with a consumer flatbed scanner; don't attempt to reduce grain effects or to remove every dust spot or scratch. I've inherited a number of 120 format negs that I think produce filmic results when digitized.

alex_virt said:

Yesterday I received the first colour scans from my "new" Mamiya C220 TLR and posted some of them here . As Flektogon and I agreed, they look too perfect and almost digital. Lomography has been a hot topic lately, and I'm wondering what I need to do to "lomographize" (is that even a word?) my film photos, in other words, to make them look less "digital" and more "filmic"?

I have a few ideas of my own:

1. Shoot on grainy black and white films wide open. Lots of grainy bokeh, isn't that lomographic?

2. Shoot through a sandpapered filter. I recently got some nice results using it on 35mm. Since I can't make two exactly the same filters for the viewing and taking lenses, this will add an element of randomness and unpredictability to my pictures.

3. Shoot some weird colour film. I'm not a big fan of red or purple films, but Harman Phoenix II looks promising.

4. Put the Mamiya aside and go back to my Flexaret TLR, which, after cleaning the lens, is much better, but still not as good as the Mamiya.

I also have a couple of ideas what NOT to do:

1. I don't have space for a darkroom, so wet analogue printing is out of the question.

2. I will not use a Holga or a similar toy, only a real camera.

Could you please share your creative ideas? Any suggestions are welcome!

Click to expand...

The best way to stop your images from looking "digital" is not to over sharpen them.

Thanks again for your valuable comments!

Could you please take a look at these scans and tell which ones you prefer?

These were taken 5 years ago, I was testing equivalence. I wanted to replicate the 6x6 medium format look on Digital (kind of the opposite of what Alex is trying to do).



It's scaled down a bit so you can't easily zoom to the pixel level, as that's an easy way to see the difference between Digital and Film, but there are simple clues, like halation and shadow grain that tells them apart. But I don't see any reason to add it to make one look more film like, because the film looks like film to me. If I wanted to make digital look like film, I'd probably just add halation.

Printed is a different story, they are much harder to tell apart.

Film was Agfa Optima 400Y. Digital was Sony A7r

@itsdoable, well you two pictures are different, but I think that mainly to a different lens qualities. The picture on the right is definitely nicer. But again, mainly due to the lens.

alex_virt said:

Thanks again for your valuable comments!

Could you please take a look at these scans and tell which ones you prefer?

Click to expand...

I like more the images on the left because they look more natural and there's nothing in these scenes (in my eyes) that calls for exacerbation/shifting of colours, highlights or shadows - just simple daily scenes. But I can also easily imagine that those on the right give more 'filmic' sensation, whatever that means

itsdoable said:

These were taken 5 years ago, I was testing equivalence. I wanted to replicate the 6x6 medium format look on Digital (kind of the opposite of what Alex is trying to do).



It's scaled down a bit so you can't easily zoom to the pixel level, as that's an easy way to see the difference between Digital and Film, but there are simple clues, like halation and shadow grain that tells them apart. But I don't see any reason to add it to make one look more film like, because the film looks like film to me. If I wanted to make digital look like film, I'd probably just add halation.

Printed is a different story, they are much harder to tell apart.

Film was Agfa Optima 400Y. Digital was Sony A7r

Click to expand...

The right image has better tonality and bokeh.