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film versus digital - again!

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wetsleet said:
Oops, I thought these photos showed the difference between between
one zoom lens at f8 and a different lens at f4. Surely most zooms
give their worst at around f4, whereas f8 is usually close to the
optimum aperature. A noble effort nonetheless.
Click to expand...
Well, it would be best if one could adhere to the 'Rule of One Variable' - let only one thing be different from sample to sample.

Same lens at same focal length and aperture setting, time of day, etc. One would have to move closer/farther away to achieve equal framing (and avoid a very hazy day) and use tripod/shutter speed to control the exposure.

So, Fred. How about it? You're the one with all the good toys! ;o)

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
 
A lot of you focus on resolution when comparing film and digital... but this is just one of the many parameters involved in the pictures takig process... In the moving images field resolution is quite a little problem... digital already has a better resolution than movies film. What is not alresdy there is the capability of catching the smoothness light has when "embracing" objects. Hum.. not easy to explain... simply when you shoot something with digital cameras the images look Flat. Something that could fit some productions, but in many projects is unacceptable.

Right now for a Photography Director shooting with digital technology makes things a lot harder. Maybe technology will improve in this field, but many people think it's just an intrinsecal problem of the digital medium, wich uses a flat CCD to capture rays of light coming with a variable angle.
Anyway we'll see.

The digital revolution has already changed the habits of millions of Point and Shoot people, and already fits the demands of many enthusiasts and professionals, expecially for still images. For movies it's not a mature enough technology. At least not for everybody.

Lars von Trier shoots digital. Tornatore doesn't. Lucas shoots digital. Spike Lee doesn't. Chris Cunningham shoots digital, Almodovar doesn't. Maybe Spielberg will eventually shoot in digital. Wim Wenders for sure never will.
It really depends on the what each artist needs for its expression.
 
In the professional field having darkroom experience is something required still today. The director of photography of the movie production where I work wouldn't consider anybody asking for a job or internship wothout that knowledge, even if now he uses digital a lot, expecially for commercials and music videos. He is not very old, just 42.. but thinks it's something really changing the perception of the

exposure-termocolorimetric character of images. Use the best technologies, don't loose centuries of knoledge. The theories of colors you can learn by visiting art galleries, spending time on the great painters' works can't be learnt with photoshop.

If you never spent time dealing with the real film grain you just can't manage to have digital look more like film, cause you don't really know how film looked in the darkroom. The ones who took the long road know more.
Edwaste said:
Bruce McL said:
Steam vs. Diesel
Prop vs. Jet
Tube vs. Solid State
Black and White vs. Color

and now Film vs. Digital.

Steam trains and Prop planes are still in use today. The world is a
richer, more interesting place because of it. Tube amps are still
respected today, as are photographers who choose to work in black
and white. However the days when these technologies dominated
society and popular culture around the world are over.

Today I was talking to an 81 year old who had a darkroom and did
her own developing and printing when her kids were young. Recently
one of her sons scanned much of her old work and now it's on her
Powerbook in iPhoto. She says she misses the smells of the darkroom
though. Her grandkids will not miss the smells of the darkroom, as
children born today will not miss film photography.
Click to expand...
I worked in a darkroom almost daily, 8 hours a day, as my job for
15 years. I certainly do not miss the smell, the stains on my
clothes, and the isolation and waste of time.
Nothing romantic about it. Sure was unhealthy. I can do in 15min
with an image what took me 2 hours in a darkroom.
All of you lovers of the "good old days" have selective memory.
Click to expand...
 
Tango76 wrote:
What is not alresdy there is the capability of
Tango76 said:
catching the smoothness light has when "embracing" objects. Hum..
not easy to explain... simply when you shoot something with digital
cameras the images look Flat.
Click to expand...
Well, how about posting a side-by-side example of 'embraced' and 'non-embraced' objects.

You know the old saying....

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
 
Right. It's an hard concept to explain by words...

First thing is posting it would be impossible because I'm speaking about videos, not still pictures. In the still photography field digital has quite catched up with film. But even in stills you have to manage an improved deph-of-field. The same effect is the base for the problem I was talking about.

You can easily see this effect if you look at amateurs video shootings. The feel you get is a general "flatness" of the images, even if you have a good resolution. The Photography Directors fight this shooting with slow frames-per-second rates, using lights sets designed for digital, often using "black mist" filters, using full open aperture settings... in an attempt to create multiple layers in the image, using out-of-focus layers, lights/shadows contrast, overexposure/underexposure. Everything is good as long as gives depth to the image (opposite to an high depht of field, that in digital flattens the whole image).

A very experienced PD I know usually says one thing: "digital is to film what water is to toothpaste", meaning the "density" problems digital has compared to film.

Of course to some people water could have a greater appeal, digital is in fact more clear and crisp. It's a matter of taste after all.

But the cinema history has left an impact in our minds... so that now very easily our brain says "Television Sit-Com" when we see digital images, and "Cinema" when we see film images. maybe this will eventually change.
BobTrips said:
Member said:
catching the smoothness light has when "embracing" objects. Hum..
not easy to explain... simply when you shoot something with digital
cameras the images look Flat.
Click to expand...
Well, how about posting a side-by-side example of 'embraced' and
'non-embraced' objects.

You know the old saying....

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
Click to expand...
 
Tango76 said:
Right. It's an hard concept to explain by words...
First thing is posting it would be impossible because I'm speaking
about videos, not still pictures. In the still photography field
digital has quite catched up with film. But even in stills you have
to manage an improved deph-of-field. The same effect is the base
for the problem I was talking about.
You can easily see this effect if you look at amateurs video
shootings. The feel you get is a general "flatness" of the images,
even if you have a good resolution. The Photography Directors fight
this shooting with slow frames-per-second rates, using lights sets
designed for digital, often using "black mist" filters, using full
open aperture settings... in an attempt to create multiple layers
in the image, using out-of-focus layers, lights/shadows contrast,
overexposure/underexposure. Everything is good as long as gives
depth to the image (opposite to an high depht of field, that in
digital flattens the whole image).
A very experienced PD I know usually says one thing: "digital is to
film what water is to toothpaste", meaning the "density" problems
digital has compared to film.
Of course to some people water could have a greater appeal, digital
is in fact more clear and crisp. It's a matter of taste after all.
But the cinema history has left an impact in our minds... so that
now very easily our brain says "Television Sit-Com" when we see
digital images, and "Cinema" when we see film images. maybe this
will eventually change.
Click to expand...
Or maybe it's only a figment of an active imagination....

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
 
Michael Long said:
BobTrips said:
Michael Long said:
But even in stills you have to manage an improved deph-of-field. The same effect is the base for the problem I was talking about.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
A 1Ds has the same DOF as 35mm film, as FF is FF. So there's no
issues there.
Click to expand...
Michael,

True enough. The 1Ds is beautiful proof that the typically 'dimensionally flat' look of digitally originated capture has nothing to do with depth of field:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=8662358 (don't forget to look at the photographs)

Petteri and I have had our discussions about this. My current feeling is that it has much to do with the charactistic light response curve of digital capture versus the somewhat different curve that film respond with. That makes me think that digital ought to be able to mimic film through Photoshop curve adjustments...but no one seems to have clicked that into place just yet. Do you have an explanation? Maybe you have digital counterexamples--possibly where you have made appropriate use of Photoshop--that would be good too. Quite excellent actually.

Tango76 is expressing digitally sourced image loss of dimensionality in a slightly different fashion than I am, perhaps, but he works with 'Photography Directors' that seem to be doing what they can to attempt to counteract this digital phenomenon. It is good to see that, since the lack of these subtle image depth cues is one of digital capture's greatest asethetic failings.

Hoping you can dig in and shed some light on this,

Ed

--
http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/
California Light and Structure

http://www.blackmallard.com/o_barn/
One Barn
 
I think I should take my phisics books out from under my bed....

Seriously... I'm talking aboutmoving images here, as I said on a previous post digital still photography is much more similar to film.

But, reading some notes I had from a seminar with a PD I made an Internship with, I would say that the reason for the so-called "flatness" is in fact the lack of depht of the digital CCD. As we all know film has 3 layers capturing Red, Green and Blue plus 3 filters to split light. This might seem an imprecettible thickness, but apparently it does make a difference. Other differences is the way the CCD captures light rays coming with an high angle on the borders of the image, something quite different from the continuum of the film. And every director willing to have a very high grain effect has hard time using digital, cause the grain effect caused by high sensibility in film is very very different from the same in film. Actually the high sensibility in digital is just an High-Gain set, and the resulting grain in in fact Noise, much different from the beautifull dramatic effect of a 3200 high quality black and white film.

I don't think I have much more scientific reasons for the different behaviour of digital Vs. film.. i'm sure there are "techies" on this forum who can enlighten us much better than this.
regards
Ed Leys said:
Michael Long said:
BobTrips said:
Ed Leys20479 said:
But even in stills you have to manage an improved deph-of-field. The same effect is the base for the problem I was talking about.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
True enough. The 1Ds is beautiful proof that the typically
'dimensionally flat' look of digitally originated capture has
nothing to do with depth of field:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=8662358 (don't forget to look at the photographs)

Petteri and I have had our discussions about this. My current
feeling is that it has much to do with the charactistic light
response curve of digital capture versus the somewhat different
curve that film respond with. That makes me think that digital
ought to be able to mimic film through Photoshop curve
adjustments...but no one seems to have clicked that into place just
yet. Do you have an explanation? Maybe you have digital
counterexamples--possibly where you have made appropriate use of
Photoshop--that would be good too. Quite excellent actually.

Tango76 is expressing digitally sourced image loss of
dimensionality in a slightly different fashion than I am, perhaps,
but he works with 'Photography Directors' that seem to be doing
what they can to attempt to counteract this digital phenomenon. It
is good to see that, since the lack of these subtle image depth
cues is one of digital capture's greatest asethetic failings.

Hoping you can dig in and shed some light on this,

Ed

--
http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/
California Light and Structure

http://www.blackmallard.com/o_barn/
One Barn
Click to expand...
 
Anything about DOF - someone did a bad quote.

But that's a minor issue. No harm, no foul.

BobTrips is suspecting that there are some folks smoking funny cigarettes (at least in a metaphorical sense).

Until someone can post examples of "embraced", "dimensionally flat", whatever images side by side with images that don't display the same characteristics then I'm guessing that there are several individuals standing around admiring the Emperor's new clothes. "Wonderful cloth, hangs like nothing I've seen before."

And if those images get posted then I suspect that one can take the digital image, de-sharpen it a bit, add a bit of low level noise, and we will see that the Emperor is naked.

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
 
I'll sit on the fence- I don't care about the resolution readings et al-- I know that film captures a lot of detail and I know that the crispness of digital is enough of a substitute to cover for it too. I don't use incredibly expensive drum scanning to digitise my film- I do it on a lowly home film scanner but it's output matches my needs just fine.

I don't own a DSLR so the ISO400 on my Canon G3 is more noticible than the ISO400 colour and B/W film I use when printing 8X12.

I like the colour response that digital provides, but I also like the colour response that certain slide films produce.

I like using my film camera.

I will consent that for most casual users digital surpasses film in colour response and crispness if you're not doing any of the post processing work yourself. Scanning my old negatives I am surprised to discover that the colours present on the film are much more saturated and lively than what the generic lab gave me on paper.

I guess I enjoy the best of both worlds. I know this won't be the case in any sense of the long term; eventually the digital market will compromise film choices and send the price up but there will always be B/W film floating around-- when it comes to artwork and the like it honestly doesn't matter what you use.

I know I'm sitting on the fence but this is my reality and the reality of a lot of other film/digital shooters.

--
Michael King

Who cares how you get the shot; just photograph it and photograph it well

http://www.photo.net/photodb/member-photos?include=all&user_id=816617
http://www.mk.fpic.co.uk/
 
I will give it a try guys, but I would like to emphasize that the Nikon AFS 80-200 is a very sharp lens at f/4.

I had to use f/4 to get an acceptable shutter speed with the 200 mm focal length.

I don't think 35 mm film offers a lot more than 6 MPixel digital files, unless you use a drum scan (but how often do you do that?).

I'm quite happy with the instant feedback of digital photography and exposure lattitude of digital RAW files!

Check out some of my recent D70 samples:
http://www.millhouse.nl/d70.html
http://www.millhouse.nl/icelandframe.html

Will be updated...

Best regards,

Fred Kamphues
BobTrips said:
wetsleet said:
Oops, I thought these photos showed the difference between between
one zoom lens at f8 and a different lens at f4. Surely most zooms
give their worst at around f4, whereas f8 is usually close to the
optimum aperature. A noble effort nonetheless.
Click to expand...
Well, it would be best if one could adhere to the 'Rule of One
Variable' - let only one thing be different from sample to sample.

Same lens at same focal length and aperture setting, time of day,
etc. One would have to move closer/farther away to achieve equal
framing (and avoid a very hazy day) and use tripod/shutter speed to
control the exposure.

So, Fred. How about it? You're the one with all the good toys! ;o)

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
Click to expand...
 
I shall look forward to the results. I guess a tripod would enable you to choose your aperture without regard to shutter speed/camera shake issues. What other variables will come into play - it would be nice if there was no room for doubt, that the only significant variable between the two pictures would be the medium.
Good luck!
F. Kamphues said:
I will give it a try guys, but I would like to emphasize that the
Nikon AFS 80-200 is a very sharp lens at f/4.
I had to use f/4 to get an acceptable shutter speed with the 200 mm
focal length.
Click to expand...
 
As I wrote.. how can I post examples? I should post gigabites of video shoots to make this comparison.. we are talking about cinema quality moving images here, not still pictures.

But you can get the idea comparing the images you see in the Television Sit-Coms to some movie where Storaro is photography director. You will immediatly get the idea of what flatness means. Of course a better crew can make digital look more natural, and new high-definition digital cinema cameras have improved a lot in this field. This problem is very easily spotted in TV productions because of the low-budget/high-speed of this kind of shooting.

In the same way you can try to compare a digital ISO 1600 image to a film image taken at the same sensibility... the grain in the digital is merely noise with a typical math-generated look, while the analogical is natural looking and somewhat nice to look at. Same for black and white. Hard to shoot a nice B&W video with digital. Just think that many music videoclip directors not only ask film, but they require super 8mm B&W film! A poor quality, evident grain, super high contrast kind of film. Of course a laboratory would tell you that any other technology would be better than 8mm, but sometimes we just want THAT kind of look, no matter what the numbers about definition tell.

Somewhat similar to tube guitar amps. You can use ultra-powerfull computers to generate synth-sounds... but the magic is not there. That's why you will never see any professional player using a synth to produce a guitar sound, or a piano player recording with a synth-piano.

The fact is the human nature is analogical. Your eyes and ears and tongue don't perceive the world as a series of 1 and 0. To get a good digital result you need to get something near to what your senses are used to. Numbers don't mean that much to your brain.. the results are simply good enough or not.
Member said:
Until someone can post examples of "embraced", "dimensionally
flat", whatever images side by side with images that don't display
the same characteristics then I'm guessing that there are several
individuals standing around admiring the Emperor's new clothes.
"Wonderful cloth, hangs like nothing I've seen before."

And if those images get posted then I suspect that one can take the
digital image, de-sharpen it a bit, add a bit of low level noise,
and we will see that the Emperor is naked.

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
Click to expand...
 
Tango76 said:
Of course to some people water could have a greater appeal, digital
is in fact more clear and crisp. It's a matter of taste after all.
But the cinema history has left an impact in our minds... so that
now very easily our brain says "Television Sit-Com" when we see
digital images, and "Cinema" when we see film images. maybe this
will eventually change.
Click to expand...
I disagree.... Star Wars Episode II did not look like a television sit com. Just because it is digital does not mean it has to look like television. You can always make digital look like film... it is much harder to remove grain, etc. to make film look like digital, easier to add than remove. I cannot think of a single film effect look that cannot be duplicated in digital with proper processing. Like the bleached look of "Three Kings" for example would be quite easy in digital... and you would know exactly what you would get. In Three Kings they had to reshoot many scenes because the process was not consistent or what the director wanted. . No I think it is the photographer and the look that directors want that are the only limiting factors with the look of digital. I think you are confusing a high end Sony HD handycam that you can buy... yes they are really expensive, and they are everywhere and yes they are high quality, and yes lots of commercials and TV shows use them... but they are not in the same league as the HD cameras used for filming a movie.

I think once people see how much better a movie shot in digital looks, that will become the standard that will be aimed for, not film. To me film movies look dated compared to the pristine image you can get with digital movie cameras. And if you want grain or a certain color process to add to the tone of the digital film to make it look like film you can add that quite easily in post processing.

Regards,
Sean

Regards,
Sean
Tango76 said:
BobTrips said:
Tango76 said:
catching the smoothness light has when "embracing" objects. Hum..
not easy to explain... simply when you shoot something with digital
cameras the images look Flat.
Click to expand...
Well, how about posting a side-by-side example of 'embraced' and
'non-embraced' objects.

You know the old saying....

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Sean Keegan said:
I disagree.... Star Wars Episode II did not look like a television
sit com.
Click to expand...
Completely agree! I made the Television sit-coms examples as an extreme situation where the digital-effect is easily noticed. Of course a movie production has a complete different workflow and much more attention to details to improve the quality
Sean Keegan said:
Just because it is digital does not mean it has to look
like television. You can always make digital look like film... it
is much harder to remove grain, etc. to make film look like
digital, easier to add than remove. I cannot think of a single film
effect look that cannot be duplicated in digital with proper
processing.
Click to expand...
Disagree. I can think of MANY movies with a kind of photography not possible with the current digital technology. Of course it depends on the quality you need. If you need something that "really-looks-like" is very different from situation when you nedd "It-is-exactly-the-same".
Sean Keegan said:
I think you are confusing a high end Sony HD handycam that you can
buy... yes they are really expensive, and they are everywhere and
yes they are high quality, and yes lots of commercials and TV shows
use them... but they are not in the same league as the HD cameras
used for filming a movie.
Click to expand...
Nope. The handycams are millions of light-years away from film. I am talking about the 2 main digital HD cameras avaiable on the market for cinema-quality productions, and in particular the Sony and Viper ones. The Viper is an amazing machine and it's the same used in movies and commercials. Remember that commercials have budget much higher than movies. Some commercials have 1/5 of a movie budget, and they use it in just one week of shooting, for a 30 seconds video compared to 90 minutes. The budget per minute is amazing, and it's the media industry using the best technologies avaiable.
Sean Keegan said:
I think once people see how much better a movie shot in digital
looks, that will become the standard that will be aimed for, not
film. To me film movies look dated compared to the pristine image
you can get with digital movie cameras. And if you want grain or a
certain color process to add to the tone of the digital film to
make it look like film you can add that quite easily in post
processing.
Click to expand...
Yes. Film DOES look much more dates, because it IS much more dated. But adding effects in post-processing not always works, and quite never has the same effect. Again: you might or not like the way this looks. Maybe you can like it even more than the original thing. Maybe it fits even better the poetics of the movie. For example when Cronenberg shot "Crash" he was looking exactly for the kind of look that digital now has. He had to use very complex light tecniques to get that super-crisp kind of images. Now he would for sure shoot it in digital. But sometimes you want something that just looks like film; and if you want film you need film.
The taste of the artists changes much slower than technology.

Regards, and thank you for the interesting debating
Sean Keegan said:
Sean Keegan said:
BobTrips said:
Sean Keegan said:
catching the smoothness light has when "embracing" objects. Hum..
not easy to explain... simply when you shoot something with digital
cameras the images look Flat.
Click to expand...
Well, how about posting a side-by-side example of 'embraced' and
'non-embraced' objects.

You know the old saying....

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
BobTrips said:
Anything about DOF - someone did a bad quote.

But that's a minor issue. No harm, no foul.

BobTrips is suspecting that there are some folks smoking funny
cigarettes (at least in a metaphorical sense).

Until someone can post examples of "embraced", "dimensionally
flat", whatever images side by side with images that don't display
the same characteristics then I'm guessing that there are several
individuals standing around admiring the Emperor's new clothes.
"Wonderful cloth, hangs like nothing I've seen before."

And if those images get posted then I suspect that one can take the
digital image, de-sharpen it a bit, add a bit of low level noise,
and we will see that the Emperor is naked.

--
bob
Click to expand...
Bob,

Nope, you didn't. Don't even think anyone said you did. That was initially a point between Tango and Michael, but I suspect you can trace the history just as well as I can.

Ah, but on your other point... You really resist "body of evidence" don't you? You want someone else to do all the work for you and distill things down to that engineering step-child of the scientific method, the handy dandy A/B comparison. Funny thing is, Petteri actually did one in the course of investigating other distinctions between film and digital, a long thread posted in one of the forums on this site. The increased dimensionality of film over digital wasn't the subject, didn't come up, but well, um...

However, my intention is not to subvert the purpose of that particular post. Petteri made some good points in it, made some very interesting discoveries...grin...and I like to consider the two of us friends.

Anyway, if you're the research fellow you should be, you can track things down easily enough. Go get 'em.

I will, however, leave you with a reply Petteri made to one of your comments, though no doubt it's not the first time you've seen it. However, be forewarned, it refers to a statement I "consistently" make. Not quite right. I do tend to point the distinctions out to people; interestingly enough, they typically tend to see what I am talking about. So there you go.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1000&message=7094153

My best,

Ed

--
http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/
California Light and Structure

http://www.blackmallard.com/o_barn/
One Barn
 
Ed Leys said:
BobTrips said:
Anything about DOF - someone did a bad quote.

But that's a minor issue. No harm, no foul.

BobTrips is suspecting that there are some folks smoking funny
cigarettes (at least in a metaphorical sense).

Until someone can post examples of "embraced", "dimensionally
flat", whatever images side by side with images that don't display
the same characteristics then I'm guessing that there are several
individuals standing around admiring the Emperor's new clothes.
"Wonderful cloth, hangs like nothing I've seen before."

And if those images get posted then I suspect that one can take the
digital image, de-sharpen it a bit, add a bit of low level noise,
and we will see that the Emperor is naked.

--
bob
Click to expand...
Bob,

Nope, you didn't. Don't even think anyone said you did. That was
initially a point between Tango and Michael, but I suspect you can
trace the history just as well as I can.

Ah, but on your other point... You really resist "body of
evidence" don't you? You want someone else to do all the work for
you and distill things down to that engineering step-child of the
scientific method, the handy dandy A/B comparison. Funny thing is,
Petteri actually did one in the course of investigating other
distinctions between film and digital, a long thread posted in one
of the forums on this site. The increased dimensionality of film
over digital wasn't the subject, didn't come up, but well, um...

However, my intention is not to subvert the purpose of that
particular post. Petteri made some good points in it, made some
very interesting discoveries...grin...and I like to consider the
two of us friends.

Anyway, if you're the research fellow you should be, you can track
things down easily enough. Go get 'em.

I will, however, leave you with a reply Petteri made to one of your
comments, though no doubt it's not the first time you've seen it.
However, be forewarned, it refers to a statement I "consistently"
make. Not quite right. I do tend to point the distinctions out to
people; interestingly enough, they typically tend to see what I am
talking about. So there you go.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1000&message=7094153
Click to expand...
Ed,

I've spent quite a bit of time looking at your posted images and, I hesitate to this but, I'm not impressed. I'm not going to comment on composition, that's very much a personal preference.

But what I see is just some scanned slide film. Lots of it isn't prepared the way I would, it's not sharpened to my taste, but again that's my taste.

Personally (and this is simply a personal judgment) I think you're deluding yourself.

Now there is one other possibility and that is that I don't know how to 'see' what you see. That opens the possibility that you are correct and that there is something there that I've missed.

If you'd care to prove your point it seems to me that you have to demonstrate the film/digital difference that you perceive by displaying examples.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and argue the number of angels that can sit on the head of a pin with people who purport to see something but can't offer proof. I tire quickly of religious discussions.

When you have some tangible evidence to support your point I'll be very glad to have a look.

I sincerely am most interested in understanding the difference between film and digital as capture mediums.

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
 
Tango76 said:
As I wrote.. how can I post examples? I should post gigabites of
video shoots to make this comparison.. we are talking about cinema
quality moving images here, not still pictures.
Click to expand...
Well, on this site we talk about single frames. If you ain't got the goods....
Tango76 said:
But you can get the idea comparing the images you see in the
Television Sit-Coms to some movie where Storaro is photography
director. You will immediatly get the idea of what flatness means.
Of course a better crew can make digital look more natural, and new
high-definition digital cinema cameras have improved a lot in this
field. This problem is very easily spotted in TV productions
because of the low-budget/high-speed of this kind of shooting.
Click to expand...
So it's not the medium, it's the skill of the photographer? And the size of the budget?
Tango76 said:
In the same way you can try to compare a digital ISO 1600 image to
a film image taken at the same sensibility...
Click to expand...
You haven't compared 1600 ISO film to a dSLR shot at 1600 have you?
Tango76 said:
the grain in the
digital is merely noise with a typical math-generated look, while
the analogical is natural looking and somewhat nice to look at.
Same for black and white. Hard to shoot a nice B&W video with
digital. Just think that many music videoclip directors not only
ask film, but they require super 8mm B&W film! A poor quality,
evident grain, super high contrast kind of film. Of course a
laboratory would tell you that any other technology would be better
than 8mm, but sometimes we just want THAT kind of look, no matter
what the numbers about definition tell.
Click to expand...
That's an 'art' choice. It says nothing about the capability of the medium.

BTW, within a few years grainy color will most likely be the way one 'fakes' an old picture. Grain will be something of the past. The grain of film is 'natural' because you've seen it all your life. There are many people today who don't have much experience looking at film grain and there will be far fewer in the future. Digital noise will become 'normal'.
Tango76 said:
Somewhat similar to tube guitar amps. You can use ultra-powerfull
computers to generate synth-sounds... but the magic is not there.
That's why you will never see any professional player using a synth
to produce a guitar sound, or a piano player recording with a
synth-piano.
Click to expand...
Never is a long, long time.
Tango76 said:
The fact is the human nature is analogical. Your eyes and ears and
tongue don't perceive the world as a series of 1 and 0.
To get a
good digital result you need to get something near to what your
senses are used to. Numbers don't mean that much to your brain..
the results are simply good enough or not.
Click to expand...
Better get yourself to 'Human Perception 101'. I'm afraid that you need a clue. ;o)

Tango - I get the impression that you're just parroting back what you heard in a lecture. Do you actually have any 'hands-on' experience?

--
bob
Latest offering - 'Dusk on the Buriganga'
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Shots from a bunch of places (esp. SEA and Nepal).
Pictures for friends, not necessarily my best.

http://www.trekearth.com/members/BobTrips/photos/
My better 'attempts'.
 
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