If you could get the Film look with Digital, would you switch?

Harlequin565

Harlequin565

Suspended / Banned
Messages
8,684
Name
Ian
Edit My Images
No
So I often wonder whether there should be a curfew on posting after midnight here, but bear with me...

I've had YouTube 'recommending' the latest ArtOfPhotography video for a few days now and I resisted clicking because I thought it was another preset sell.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qufF00yvds

(If you decide to watch, and don't like ads, as soon as he mentions the sponsor, skip to 07:55)

I was kinda right.

I think Ted Forbes has a passion for photography which made me eventually click it after my last drink of my Christmas Irish Mist (yeah, I know...Honey liqueur - I'm a sucker for it). When he talks about the Nikon neg scanner, my eyes lit up ('new toy!!'). My thinking during the video went up and down like a wh something that goes up and down a lot.

Ultimately though, I don't want to replicate film with digital. I prefer the analogue approach of the metering, the developing, and the anticipation of seeing the results when the developing is complete. If the neg looks crap, then it was a crap photo (subject or photographer being the reason!). But I wondered if there were other film shooters out there that shoot film purely because of the look, and if there were actually any good simulations or presets that worked - would that tempt you to the Digital Dark Side exclusively?

Edit: This is not a closed thread open to 'only shoot film'. More a general question, but I thought posting it in another forum would create "I don't shoot film because I'm a pro" responses.
 
Last edited:
I don't particularly worry about the 'look' of film but I do much prefer the process of shooting film.
 
IMHO we have the best ideas late in the evening and after a little lubrication :)

I haven't watched it because like you I find his videos a bit too designed to sell ads, I also suspect he got back into talking about photography rather than just gear after he saw the success of the Photographic Eye channel which obviously he is entitled to do but feeds into my suspicion that he is jumping on any bandwagon to sell ads.

I seem to recall that Jem Southam, in one of the Martin Parr sofa videos, said that he was using digital more now because certain film stocks had been discontinued and he couldn't get some of the tones he wanted with the available films.

For me though, like yourself and Andy, I shoot film for the process not the look. I think I could get close to a "film look" in post if I wanted but in my mind that would be a bit pointless.
 
I'm with Andy and Chris, it's the process of film shooting that I enjoy, and the anticipation, frustration, satisfaction that go with it. Sometimes it works out right and the film effect complements or even makes the shot, mostly it's a failure but I still enjoyed the process. And I love the kit. There is a special type of GAS for film buffs.
 
Andysnap said:
I don't particularly worry about the 'look' of film but I do much prefer the process of shooting film.
Click to expand...
Yes this, its the whole process, from choosing a film and locking the ISO to picking a developer.

Don't get me wrong I love shooting my Fuji XT3 but shooting film is something else, something more hands on. If that makes sense.
 
It's film for me.
Nothing looks like medium format/large format chromes.
The other thing I like about film, asides the aesthetics, is, it's an instant archive that will easily outlast my many terabytes of disk storage.
That said, I wind up digitising them anyway.
 
Its an interesting topic - and although I love the process of shooting film, I'm ultimately more interested in the output. Maybe I'm after the holy grail (and there is no reason not to set my sights high), but I want the shadow recovery of digital with the highlight roll-off of film. So I consider myself a hybrid shooter, I often shoot on film, then digitise and then further manipulate, maybe thats wrong in the purist's view, but I find it appealing. Other times I am transfixed by the scan and don't fiddle at all.

IMO its the highlight roll-off that digital manages so badly, but cameras using the current crop of MF digital sensors are getting a lot better.

There is something else to consider here and that is the lens. Modern lenses are often quite sterile, yes they are very good at accuracy, colour/spatial, lack distortion and CA, but older glass often has that character (including colour rendering) that completes the look.

Harlequin565 said:
But I wondered if there were other film shooters out there that shoot film purely because of the look, and if there were actually any good simulations or presets that worked - would that tempt you to the Digital Dark Side exclusively?
Click to expand...

So think this is probably me :) - and I have tried lots of presets (and my fiddled variations of) but none of them really manage it, though I do like some of the Mastin Labs one's (but not cheap!!)
 
Last edited:
I'm the same as the others, I like shooting film, I like the cameras and lenses and the whole process and I do like the look you get from B&W film scans, a bit more gritty and grainy which I think adds to the look.
 
I'm with everyone else. It's the process and in some cases the output.

Also, the gap between taking the shot and seeing the image adds a sense of anticipation that I enjoy (mostly ;)). I know I could not look at my images on my digital camera after I take them but it's just a different workflow for me when I use that camera.

So I will stick to shooting both.
 
I'm very torn on this subject. Whilst I love to shoot film particularly 6x6 I love the immediacy of digital. I tend to use digital for most of my day to day stuff and reserve film for specific shoots where I might use a whole roll therefore reducing the wait time to see the results. I do prefer the not perfect look of film shots but as I use older digital kit my digital files aren't as perfect as more modern sensors create.
 
Personally, it's everything about film that I enjoy (even the price isn't that big a deal especially when it comes to the price of digital kit). The process, the pace, the cameras, the look of the film, the technical advantages and disadvantages, genuinely everything - well, ok, perhaps if scanning could be a little bit faster, but that's my only real gripe! I feel though that this is especially true for large format for me as well, insomuch as I find shooting, for want of a better word, 'fixed' cameras noticeably less enjoyable. Perhaps I am just used to the process of LF now that I find other camera types too fast, or perhaps even too uninvolved... I'm not sure.

There's no doubt in my mind that I'll be shooting LF for as long as I am able, and even then if sheet film is entirely gone, I'll still shoot roll film on a LF camera, or convert to wet plate or something like that.

Specifically regarding the thread title though, no, I don't personally feel I would shoot digital even if the look were identical to film. In all, I find digital to feel more like an exercise of snapping the image, rather than making a photograph.
 
Last edited:
Woodsy said:
I find digital to feel more like an exercise of snapping the image, rather than making a photograph.
Click to expand...
I think I agree with that, I certainly get more trigger happy with my APSC digital cameras, less so with my Digital MF though. I have the Fuji GFX 50S and almost always use it on a tripod in much the same way as I use my Bronica SQ-Ai.
 
Last edited:
I had the previous version of Nik Silverefex and some other program for b&w film simulation, but they never looked right to me and I haven't used them for ages. I tend to prefer the slow/medium speed films in b&w, especially in 35mm, so that's a bit of self-limitation, By far my biggest fault is thinking I can get away with handheld shots, when experience clearly shows this not to be the case and I increasingly need to carry a tripod, which is a bit of a pest. The various anti-shake systems of digital cameras is a definite attraction as I grow older, but that's not an option for the age of my film cameras!

As far as colour is concerned, I find I'm using less print film and almost zero transparency in any format, although I've still got some in the fridge and a Tetenal kit for the E6 which I'll hopefully get to use next year. I'm philosphical about this as it seems that Fuji and Kodak may not have long term commitment to colour film, so we should probably just buy what we can afford now and salt it away for when digital just won't do. :snaphappy:

I've got a roll of film to finish this week and get off to Fimdev for this month's FPOTY, and I'm pleasantly hopeful that there will be some kind of entry on it. The b&w film I was shooting handheld at roughly the same time was developed and scanned at the weekend and looked good while it was drying. The scans revealed enough unintentional camera movement to have provided a stack of contenders for the current old film challenge, so maybe I should just shoot MF/LF on a tripod for the rest of the winter and forget 35mm until the spring. :thinking:
 
StephenM said:
I'll get excited when I can buy a 10x8 digital back for the same price as a box of film...

Actually, I probably won't. Film still has a look in the print that I don't get with digital, as well as being easier to use (for me; other erroneous opinions are available :p).
Click to expand...

I said that recently in a different thread, so with the twist of "well, you CAN get the same look in a print" I'll amplify. But only slightly...

If we assume that I can, with an affordable digital camera, get the same resolution as a 5x7 or 10x8 film camera (which the laws of physics really requires a sensor of that size), doesn't require tethering to capture that size of image and is battery independent, and gives the identical "look" to film, then the purely technical objections on the grounds of image quality have gone. Economics may impose a new objection, but we'll ignore that. And the probability that the camera would weigh more than my film cameras (the heaviest is about 9.4lbs). If all these points were met, would I switch?

I've said that I'm not overly concerned about the process, just the result, but for me the use of LF cameras is a simpler and less demanding process than using digital.

If I need to, I can control contrast (and how much of each end of the subject brightness range is recorded) by development after exposure. And still retain via scanning any additional small area adjustments in Photoshop.

On my web site, I give my views on different camera types (as in eye level, waist level etc. NOT digital versus film) and why I think that they influence how we see. Or at least make some ways of seeing more difficult, and make it harder (for me, at least) to achieve certain things. I simply become slap dash with an eye level camera, so we'd require a particular design of digital camera as well as software presets.

Then we come to camera movements. It is possible, in theory, to use a tilt shift lens with a fixed body camera to achieve the same depth of field effects although as it would involve pointing the camera obliquely at the subject it would be more difficult in practice than with a camera with full movements. I don't need a lot of movements, but this would add to the difficulty. Possibly the effect of selective image enlargement using rear tilt and swing could be simulated with a fixed body camera, but I can't immediately see how.

Finally, we come to the really weird, personal one. If I have a digital camera with me, I simply can't visualise how a scene would look in black and white. I've often walked through woodland and seen a view that I knew would work well on film with relative ease, but when I have a digital camera with me I haven't made an exposure because I simply can't visualise the result. I have exactly that block when faced with a colour image (from either film or digital) on screen in a photo editing program. I find it difficult to see how to get what I want.

So, assuming that the affordable technology exists, would I then swap? It would have to give better results than film to be worth all the extra effort I would have to put in - and even with a relatively high end high resolution digital camera like the Sony Alpha 7rii I use I still find that compositionally my photos with it are generally sub par, and the black and white ones atrocious. So I'd need to retrain myself; and to put that effort in would require the digital equivalent to be demonstrably better in terms of results, and at least as easy to use.

An affordable 10x8 digital camera that weighs under 10lbs that runs without batteries or mains and has full movements plus the film presets that include development options might tempt me. I suspect such a beast would never be made - but then, I might have said the same for a 10x8 TLR which does exist (or did).

In the real world, I don't see me changing.
 
Last edited:
I am primarily a digital shooter and although I've had my film SLR since the mid 90's I'm just a analogue toe dipper compared to most of you lot in here......

I've pretty much always edited in a non digital, softer contrast, lower saturation kinda style and although a have AF 85mm lenses and even the Sony 35GM, my favourite combination to shoot with is the original A7 and Voigtlander 40mm by a long shot - I was even using that to shoot tracked images of Orion last night as it was clear!

I think that A7/40mm combination is a nice, slower film ish experience and that's what I enjoy just as much as shooting the bit of film that I do. I have a roll to upload and share and only last night I took some 30 and 40 minute exposures of star trails - hopefully I learnt something from the last roll and these will turn out better...... I might find out in a month's time......

Anyway, I think shooting both has its place for sure but I think it's more the experience than the output imo.
 
As everyone else has said, it is the process I like. I like my old cameras, I like a viewfinder with no information in it, I really like my Tessar lenses, I enjoy the conversations I have with people when they see me using a vintage camera.

What I don't like is when I get told that digital cameras give better resolution - I already know that because I have two digital cameras. I am with Cartier Bresson when he said that sharpness is a bourgoise concept. I need focus, I do not need sharpness

What I don't like about digital (even though I do use it) is the fact that the image consists of regular square pixels captured on a flat surface. I like irregular grain captured in a three dimensional matrix. No digital software is ever going to give me that.
 
I like film because I had been shooting it and processing it for over 70 years. I understood what it could do and how to do it.
I was certainly not addicted to the chemicals and the processing, which I am happy to say are well behind me.
Photography to me is more about images than processes.
digital certainty requires processing, but the process is clean dry and can be carried out n comfort so what is not to like.
It also has the advantage of exact repeatability. Unlike wet printing once you have dodged, burnt and adjusted everything, and remove any blemishes. you can produce as many prints as you like, at any time in the future, with little more than the touch of a button. That was on my wish list for my whole working life.

Digital results can be almost, if not completely indistinguishable, from Analogue photography. with any differences often falling in favour of digital.

However saying all that I would not consider myself a photographer if I could not work with film and produce professional results out of a darkroom. and I can understand people wishing to work with those processes. Unfortunately Analogue Photography has contracted to the point where Films, papers and chemicals are reduced to a few basic options. with nothing like the rich and wide choices of the past. It would be very much be like living on a starvation diet to continue with it.

I do not even miss camera movements as the digital alternative are for the most part quite sufficient, especially with the controls that come with advanced stitching software.
geometric and other distortions are now so easily corrected.

Perhaps the addition that would please me most would be for a sensor to capture the entire circular field of view, to give a maximum choice of format orientation and crop when outputting images.
Interestingly the very first all metal camera, made by Voigtlander produced images on Circular glass plates.
 
john.margetts said:
As everyone else has said, it is the process I like. I like my old cameras, I like a viewfinder with no information in it, I really like my Tessar lenses, I enjoy the conversations I have with people when they see me using a vintage camera.

What I don't like is when I get told that digital cameras give better resolution - I already know that because I have two digital cameras. I am with Cartier Bresson when he said that sharpness is a bourgoise concept. I need focus, I do not need sharpness

What I don't like about digital (even though I do use it) is the fact that the image consists of regular square pixels captured on a flat surface. I like irregular grain captured in a three dimensional matrix. No digital software is ever going to give me that.
Click to expand...
There is no reason at all why a digital camera could not be made with a stochastic sensor with totally random pixels.
Standard Digital Stochastic high resolution screening has been used in the finest quality Lithographic printing for many years. It give a beautifully smooth analogue like image.
However a modern High megapixel camera produces pixels so small that they are invisible even in large prints. The demosaicing algorithms further breakdown the sensors original capture. And printers do the same by re creating the image into micro dots of pigment that are totally random, and that blend in with each other. so that the original sensor pattern is never seen at all.

Cartier Bresson Took beautifully composed and Graphic like images that were rarely more than acceptably sharp or in focus. There is no reason at all why he, nor any one else, could not have continued doing that with a digital camera.
 
Last edited:
Terrywoodenpic said:
Perhaps the addition that would please me most would be for a sensor to capture the entire circular field of view, to give a maximum choice of format orientation and crop when outputting images.
Click to expand...
Sending my own thread off topic, but I'm surprised no-one has stacked a couple of APSC sensors on top of each other (with internal software to stitch) and gone square to allow precisely that.

Terrywoodenpic said:
Digital results can be almost, if not completely indistinguishable, from Analogue photography. with any differences often falling in favour of digital.
Click to expand...
So in answer to my OP, would you say that [for you] yes - digital can replicate film, and so yes, you have switched?
 
Harlequin565 said:
Sending my own thread off topic, but I'm surprised no-one has stacked a couple of APSC sensors on top of each other (with internal software to stitch) and gone square to allow precisely that.
Click to expand...

Square sensors have been available in industrial machine vision cameras for years.

What you are suggesting moves the camera from an APSC Image Circle to that of at least FF (lens would get bigger) - You could view the current MF Digital sensors as Quad APSC

Alternatively the quick and dirty approach, it to take a two shot verticval APSC Pano, and stitch yourself to get a square 1:1 image
 
I have a Leica D-Lux Typ109 which has a M43 sensor that when you apply a square aspect ratio it only uses that part of the sensor therefore you only get a square (or whatever aspect ratio you have chosen) RAW file so when I set it to 1:1 that's what I get and no re-framing afterwards in LR. I find this a really useful tool when recceing shoots for my 6x6 cameras. In line with the original question the files I get from this camera with very little PP are quite filmic. This one was shot in 1:1 aspect ratio and B&W jpg so that I can "see" what I would be getting on B&W film.

Rain 02-1010221.JPG
 
Harlequin565 said:
Sending my own thread off topic, but I'm surprised no-one has stacked a couple of APSC sensors on top of each other (with internal software to stitch) and gone square to allow precisely that.


So in answer to my OP, would you say that [for you] yes - digital can replicate film, and so yes, you have switched?
Click to expand...
I still have my Analogue cameras including 5x4. However they have not been used since I got my first "Usable" DSLR, a Canon 40D which I considered had graduated to the level of most analogue Photography at that time. And far surpassed on a convenience level.

Since then I have moved to FUJI. ( I still have my Canon Kit much unloved)
I have now fully switched to digital. (Though I have kept my now unused Film processing equipment, but not enlargers. as I have film scanners.)
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Square sensors have been available in industrial machine vision cameras for years.

What you are suggesting moves the camera from an APSC Image Circle to that of at least FF (lens would get bigger) - You could view the current MF Digital sensors as Quad APSC

Alternatively the quick and dirty approach, it to take a two shot verticval APSC Pano, and stitch yourself to get a square 1:1 image
Click to expand...
I very often take multiple images and stitch them.
Round APS ( long edge diagonal) sensors could easily be cut from silicone wafers used for full frame sensors, new lenses would not be required, as all APSC lenses already cover slightly more than that field.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
I very often take multiple images and stitch them.
Round APS ( long edge diagonal) sensors could easily be cut from silicone wafers used for full frame sensors, new lenses would not be required, as all APSC lenses already cover slightly more than that field.
Click to expand...

Might as well put a square (cut down sensor) in, and do the 'round' part in software - since data is often clocked in rows - this would be technically easier

(BTW my comment was not your your round but @Harlequin565 square dual APSC)
 
Topsy said:
I think I agree with that, I certainly get more trigger happy with my APSC digital cameras, less so with my Digital MF though. I have the Fuji GFX 50S and almost always use it on a tripod in much the same way as I use my Bronica SQ-Ai.
Click to expand...
(Off topic again)

Me too.
People tell me digital is more convenient and I guess for many that is true.
But then most people do not have cameras that shoot at 10, 20 or even 30fps.
I became hugely frustrated with sorting through dozens and dozens of almost identical images to find "The One" and then delete the rest. Very time consuming.
 
Like pretty much everyone else, its not about the look, it's the process, the kit, the anticipation, that sense of delayed disappointment that I just dont get with digital.
 
soupdragon said:
(Off topic again)

Me too.
People tell me digital is more convenient and I guess for many that is true.
But then most people do not have cameras that shoot at 10, 20 or even 30fps.
I became hugely frustrated with sorting through dozens and dozens of almost identical images to find "The One" and then delete the rest. Very time consuming.
Click to expand...

The very thought of coming home to sift through hundreds of photos has no appeal to me whatsoever. I'd rather pull my toenails out!
 
soupdragon said:
But then most people do not have cameras that shoot at 10, 20 or even 30fps.
I became hugely frustrated with sorting through dozens and dozens of almost identical images to find "The One" and then delete the rest. Very time consuming.
Click to expand...
Why would you buy a camera like that if you don't have a use for it? Having bought a camera like that, wouldn't you learn to use it? Having learned to use it, wouldn't you know how to set it to single shot, if that was what you wanted it to do?

Colour me perplexed. :thinking:
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Why would you buy a camera like that if you don't have a use for it? Having bought a camera like that, wouldn't you learn to use it? Having learned to use it, wouldn't you know how to set it to single shot, if that was what you wanted it to do?

Colour me perplexed. :thinking:
Click to expand...
Like I said it's easy to get trigger happy with digital. Routinely whilst out on my weekly photowalk I shoot digital APSC handheld and I will typically shot 2 or 3 slight variations of a shot and sort them on the computer. On a 4 hour walk oover Dartmoor I'd have about 90-100 shots that would cull down to 30 or so keepers. I'd never do that with film, typically when I take a film camera I do just 1 roll (6x6) so I get 12 shots but tend take more time deciding on composition on the ground.
 
Because I suffer from age related essential tremor in my hands I usually shoot two or three shots at slow continuous of each subject.

I never shoot thousand or even hundred of images, that would be pointless. every shot that I take is considered for subject matter, composition, timing and. and exposure. This is no different than when I was shooting film. I would expect every shot to be usable, with one of each set of three to have an edge on the others. ( since doing this on a regular basis, I have been amazed how often slight changes in the fraction of a second between shots can make all the difference between good, better, best)

To just blast away in the hope of a lucky shot is ridiculous, and teaches no one anything, except the futility of it.
Success in Photography is certainly not gained by sorting through thousands of thoughtless images.
 
Last edited:
I shot film, then digital was invented so I shot digital, but I soon became bored with it.
The pro film list is long, the pro digital list is very short in my mind, but we've all got differing priorities.
It doesn't really matter what digital looks like, it doesn't interest me at all beyond a basic utility.
 
No. The process of shooting film, choosing the right film-type for the situation, its development: the use of different chemistry to achieve different results, and the general 'difficulty' of achieving consistent results is what appeals. Plus I make life difficult for myself by using older, manual focus lenses instead of the almost perfect AF that most DSLRs are now equipped with.
Digital capture eventually got too easy and predictable for me.
 
joxby said:
It doesn't really matter what digital looks like, it doesn't interest me at all beyond a basic utility.
Click to expand...

I was just about to type up those words John:p .......Clearly you can read my thoughts :LOL:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top