RNI's Colibri app gives your digital images a slide-film look

"What wrong with the digital look anyway?"
— Colors for example. There is no decent digital camera around yet able to capture greens and reds properly.

> Digital was never superior, just different.

Technically, it was, and most definitely is.

Whether or not it's more "pleasing" is a completely different matter. Tastes differ.

Digital taste is synthetic taste.

"The last batch of slides I shot was Kodachrome 32 and they looked pretty close to a modern DSLR photo - nice color and detail."

What modern DSLR is that? A Canon D1?

entoman, those slides I took had excellent, natural color, no visible grain, highlights and shadows were just fine, and they were tack sharp because I used a tripod.
Now if you use some cheap 200 ISO slide film, then yes, it will look crappy, but who would want to make their modern images look crappy on purpose, except perhaps a goofy artist.

I never said "it can match the dynamic range or colour gamut of any modern DSLR".
I said "pretty close to a modern DSLR photo".

@entoman
People often compare medium format transparencies to aps-c digital camera. That's were the confusion starts.
Next, people mostly remember good things. Bad experiences are erased somehow.
The fact that shutter induced blur is occuring, and micro AF adjustments are neccessary nowadays, means that IQ level has improved hugely.
And you get higher IQ with every picture you take, not just the one you spent two hours on in the darkroom.

"Bond, any modern DSLR since 2005 with a decent lens can take a very nice photo in good light."

You're missing the point. Kodak 64 is high contrast and the colour is pumped quite unlike a modern DSLR.

Digital will never look like Kodachrome.

@entoman, the "slide film look" you describe is more like bad photographer look.

Real photography is preserving a moment of history the best way possible. Art photography is everything else where there are no rules.

Source: Oxford dictionary
Photography: A picture made using a camera, in which an image is focused on to light-sensitive material and then made visible and permanent by chemical treatment, or stored digitally

Light sensitive material: film or sensor

primeshooter, absolutely right. The term "Photography" is much being baffled. It is worse to see that some photography competition are misjudging the art and terms.

entoman - I agree to your question, as years back we were most of the time further processing in the darkroom to achieve certain results. That was not digital photoshop, but chemical kinda photoshop.

The word photography itself originates from phos (light) graphein (draw). Digital is more relative to magnetic polarization.

May be we would see titles as 'photographer' and 'photo-artist' soon on CV's.

My concern is that if we look at a photo dated 50 years back, we have a true vision of what it looked like. But 50 years from now, I wonder if the perception will be the same.

I was looking at some post-wedding photos I shot not long ago and thought of this: the grand children:' grandma, did you get married by the beach.

I guess some stories will be biassed.

Shamsheed, I got your point the first time around. I would suspect that when Man Ray was around many had the same thoughts as you do know.

I am sorry you felt need to credential drop, I am not asking you to prove yourself. That is something you own. You ask for viewpoints and I am saying it is not a simple as one would make it out to be. That definitions are always changing. Ask Shakespeare and Coleridge and almost any prominent writer and you will find they made up words on their own and ones you consider valid by today's standards.

I'm fairly proficient at watercolor and acrylic painting, and photography/printmaking. In my experience the photographer creative community is the only one that demands adherence to word definitions and insists on lines being drawn. Interestingly, I've never had any end-users or print purchasers raise these concerns. The work is what it is no matter how many words are throws at it.

I would personally define "art" as the discovery, interpretation, creation and/or appreciation of light and shade, colour, texture, shape, pattern, design and/or form.

I would regard the media (e.g. sketching, oil painting, watercolour, photography, graffiti, architecture, sculpture, poetry, music, to name just a few examples) as completely irrelevant.

All are "art", but some examples of each genre are more skilled or better interpreted than others.

A logical alien robot would define "art" as "Bla-bla-bla doo-dee-doo bla-bla-bla ?!?!?$#$#$".

In that case is photography an Art or Science?

As I explained already, it can be whichever you choose. It's up to you.

I don't think you can call a cat a dog because you choose to do so. Terms and nouns are set so that any society (humans and not aliens) do not get confused on its meanings. (standardisation)

If every tutor decides to use terms just by personal choice.....

entoman, hope you had a good sleep. In my opinion, we can draw the line somewhere as though art is subjective, we have to use technical means to achieve certain results. By its terms, photography refers to the manipulation of light as a form of energy. Digital is still somehow a type of magnetic energy, but not light.

I have opened the the discussion so as to enlighten myself as I often have the question from students, and would like to give an objective answer instead.

There is no accepted scientific definition of art, at least not one that many would agree on. A cat can be defined objectively, with scientific precision. Most people wouldn't call a cat art, but art can have almost any interpretation. My wife enjoys the "art of cooking." :)

Entoman, I meant digital photography is based on magnetic energy, which can also be referred as electricity. So far as regards to camera, whether film or sensor, they are both light sensitive materials, reading and writing light. That is still phos graphein.

But when it comes to manipulation, this where at a certain point it all differs.

Mat be I should have been more precise with my question: to what extent of manipulation in post do we still consider it a photo, if not an artwork.

Sal Baker, it is not about the definition of art, but photography. In the art of photography, art is an adjective qualifying a noun. Art is about expression, but photography is the technique.

Instead of promoting the app, I believe we should create a post where others could give their valuable input. I am not trying to win or prove anything, just getting everyone to understand that we can be right but also wrong.

P.S: including me

Shamsheed - "Art is about expression, but photography is the technique".

Oil painting is about paint and the brush (the technique), but if you just painted a straight line with no "expression", would it be "art". I don't think so.

Photography is about cameras and light-sensitive materials (the technique). If you give a camera to a monkey, and it doesn't look through the viewfinder to see what it is producing, there is no "art" involved. But as soon as a human photographer actively frames a composition, it becomes "art".

Anything (even changing the saturation or contrast) that is done after the photographic artwork comes out of the camera, is an extension of the art. That's how I see it anyway.

Anyway, it's fun to discuss and I hope you found everyone's comments and opinions useful, but I think I'll call it a day on this subject or we'll still be debating it in a month's time!

The digital format has a very sterile look to it... and most of people I know as wedding photographers copy the Kodak Portra look, sometimes without knowing it (pastel colors and pushed shadows). Color Slides may have a different look with quite high gamma but I think if it's desired it's better to apply the look to a raw than to cope with real film in some important situations. No Fujiuser ever asked himself why the modes on the cam have also "color slide"-names?

Thank you for stating the obvious, Richard.

The point is, why would anyone want to make something look old? Copying a style is never good. That's not what I call creativity. Usually a sign of lack of underlying message/ideas.

People may get the wrong impression: what's wrong with new items? Will people still be able to value truly historical images?

That's like saying let's only paint with oil or acrylic. Why limit the way we create? The world would be a very boring place if we did that.

So I guess you must never take digital B&W photos or appreciate them as that's just making something look like the oldest form of photography.

The look of a photograph be it slide, negative, B&W, digital, HDR or collodion is all about how someone chooses to express themselves. It's a colour palette just the same way any artist decides on a specific medium be it painting, sculpture, film, etc that represents a feeling or look they want to convey.

How dull a world it would be if everyone did things the same way.

"How dull a world it would be if everyone did things the same way."
That's my point. This software enables many people to do things the same way. It's not a creative process. It's a hype.

Every digital photo is taken with software, does that mean it's not a creative process and is all hype?

What do you mean? By "this software" I am refering to Colibri. People will push a button because they were told it makes their pictures look good. It's not even a process.

Correct. I think it was not the topic of the filmemulation-article, but nothing beats a real Mediumformat Slide. Looking at real >100Mpixel projected is nothing compared even to a 4k Beamer (8MP if the 4k Beamer is really good).

Autumn on Velvia is THE Sh*t ;)