Carlileb@xxxxxxx wrote:
In a message dated 8/24/2009 12:44:17 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
elroustom@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Maybe it's just the difference
between digital and hand-made-in-the darkroom prints, though a
better-than-I
photographer who has gone digital swears he can do anything he did
before
better now.
Not wanting to start a film v. digital debate-- they're both good--
remember that with digital, what you're doing is simply re-creating
the
silver gelatin look. In terms of authenticity, it's not the same--
this
purist aspect of silver is one of its big claims.
<Sticks Beak Into Digital v. Chemical Snakepit>
Offered in the spirit of observation, not trying to start a fight:
I recently came back from a trip to upstate NY and shot both silver
and digital there. Comparing essentially identical scenes shot both
ways was an illuminating experience - though I must reveal that I only
shot monochrome silver whereas the digital was, of course, captured in
color. There is still a *huge* difference (in favor of silver) at
least if you're using pro-sumer grade digital.
The problem is not resolution - my Nikon D-80 is "only" 10 MPix and it
looks just fine all the way up to 12"x18". The problem is the number
of bits used to convert the image from analog to digial. My Nikon,
like most in its price range is only a 12 bit color system. Even some
considerably more expensive cameras are only 13 or 14 bits. This is
not remotely enough to cover the same dynamic range of light film
can capture. Although film compresses the range nonlinearly, you
can easily have it hold in excess of 14 or 15 stops of light using
the right developers (Pyro) and techniques (N- processing, controlling
or eliminating agitation, high dilution, etc.) The digital stuff I
shot blocked the highlights in a lot of situations where the film
had plenty of detail left. For instance, in these waterfall shots
notice
how the water highlights are completely blown out - they aren't on
film:
http://www.tundraware.com/Photography/VernooyFalls/
These pictures really show the problem because they are JPEGs and thus
limited to *8 bit* color, but even the 12 bit raw files aren't much
better.
Now there are certainly situations where this is no issue. If I were
a wedding or portrait phographer, shooting commercial tabletop, or
doing photojournalism, this limitation would be irrelevant. But when
you want long tonal range pictures with a lot of depth and richness to
the tonality, today's crop of digital can't even come close to film.
At the very high end, Hasselblad, Rollei, and Phase One may have
something
that comes close enough to call it even. I don't know - I can't
even afford
to look at their ads, let alone buy one of their backs, ;) But even
then,
I doubt it. Even with 16 bits of conversion (and assuming a full
gamut
calibrated display on which to manipulate things, and assuming a
full gamut
calibrated printer, and assuming you have the money for $500 ink
changes,
and assuming you can afford paper that costs more than silver paper,
and ....)
there are several things that make me skeptical:
- At best, they are going to be the equal of a good 6cm negative.
But I get considerably better tonal rendering on a 4x5 neg than I
do 6cm, and thus prefer to shoot in 4x5 whenever I can. I *Really*
doubt that even these very high end digital systems can match my
big fat silver 4x5 negs.
- Then there's the problem of output media. I have yet to see an
inkjet
paper - yes even the esoteric ones like Hanemuhle - and ink
combination
that looks as pleasing as silver paper. Every single inkjet print
I've
ever looked at has at least some slight metamerism problems. A
photographer friend of mine that has converted entirely to 100%
digital
recently sent me a box of prints and challenged me to ID which
where silver
and which were digital. I nailed every one of the B&W prints (but
didn't
do so well with the color, since color is not really my thing).
In short, digital at any price mere mortals can afford, is not today a
viable medium for long tonal range subjects. Moreover, without a lot
of ugly tweaking, it's tough to mimic the nonlinearities in the film
H/D curve + the fiddling one does during development. There are some
aftermarket Photo$hop plugins that claim to get you close, but I'll
have to see to believe. (It reminds me of all the digital signal
processing products claiming to be able to sound "just like" a classic
tube guitar amp like a Fender or Marshall - they don't.)
Finally, there is the issue of cost effectiveness. For fun, I just
rehabbed an old Mamiya 645J I bought on eBay for less that $150. It
has tack sharp optics and an electronically controlled shutter. Some
of what I shot in upstate NY was done with this camera. So, for $150
for the hardware, another $50 for film, I'm ready to "capture and
manipulate images". To do the same thing digital, I need a $15K back,
a $1500 calibrated monitor, and around $1000 worth of software (since
the free programs like GIMP don't do 16-bit yet). And that's just to
get to the point where a print could be made. Don't get me started on
the cost of ink and paper. IOW, I just don't think it's a very cost
effective medium, at least not yet. The good news is that as all the
kids and techno-lemmings go after digital, it is driving down the
price of used film cameras and darkroom equipment for the rest of
us :)
I write this as I look at a print in my office shot in a boathouse in
Maine with a Hasselblad 500C/M on Agfapan 100. In the foreground sits
a coiled rope at about Zone VI. The very darkest recesses of the room
show detail right on the boundary of Zone II/III. Pouring though the
window is light well over 10 stops brighter than that. I developed the
neg in Pyro. It takes forever to print, but there is a TON of detail
held in window in the general range of Zones 12-14. Obviously, the
paper cannot hold all this information, so I make some judgments about
just how to place everything on the final print, but the final result
is quite lovely ... and quite impossible with digital stuff I've seen
so far.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
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