Degradation of film during processing.

[Nikon 2]

The process that is used by those best equipped to use it well.

 

[brbo]

Btw, is that your first post without ...?!

 

[Nikon 2]

Btw, is that your first post without ...?!

…!

 

[chuckroast]

My question is, what format is more accurate in its processing forming the final image…?

There is no meaningful answer to this question because you cannot consider image formation without also considering how the image will be consumed.

I have seen Rembrant's "Nightwatch" hanging on the wall at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I've never seen any photograph - digital or film - that is as powerful, evocative and viscerally beautiful as that painting ... which has a rather low resolution in the scheme of things. The sheer size, color palette, and painted dynamic range is breathtaking. Both the artifact and its consumption produce the result.

As has been repeatedly noted here, whether you shoot film or digital, our primary point of image exchange is here on the internet via monitors that transmit light, not reflect it. The result is nowhere near the same - dare I say, nowhere near a "good" - as a beautifully made silver print or oil painting. The capture may be "accurate" using your SuperDooperShooter at 100mpix, but the output will be dreadfully poor, lacking the three dimensionality, tonality, and vibrancy of a physically reflective surface.

Moreover, outside of the narrow corridors of scientific or medical work, photography has never been about "accuracy". It's been about interpreting the world to evoke something in the person viewing the results. The photojournalist lies about the truth by choosing an evocative angle. The product photographer artificially creates desire for a product most people don't even need. The portraitist hides the imperfections of the human face and form. Art photographers manufacture images out of the natural world by skewing perspective, angle, and form.

So, there is no accurate format, and it's sort of a fool's errand to chase after one. What all of us are doing - at least in principle - is trying to find ways to make images that are evocative and powerful personal expressions of some sort, for we are truly the only audience that ultimately matters for our own work. Or, at least, I hope that's what we're doing.

I am reminded of the great breakthroughs that took place in sound recording in the 1970s and 1980s as digital made it onto the scene. Almost overnight, we went from technically imperfect magnificent recordings, to flawless sterile soundscapes as all the Golden Ears (tm) worked to find nothing but technical perfection. This process continues unabated today as music gets compressed and preprocessed to be reproduced on earbuds connected to tiny amplifies in phones. There is no soundscape, there is no dimensionality, and the music cannot breathe. In fairness, most of what is claimed to even be music doesn't much suffer from this.

That's why so many people stand in awe the first time they hear a good vinyl recording. It's not that analog recordings where better quality - they were not. But notwithstanding the hiss and clicks, these recording where done with very few microphones and far less post processing than today's studios use. The artifact was constructed for the art, not the technology.

 

[Nikon 2]

There is no meaningful answer to this question because you cannot consider image formation without also considering how the image will be consumed.

I have seen Rembrant's "Nightwatch" hanging on the wall at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I've never seen any photograph - digital or film - that is as powerful, evocative and viscerally beautiful as that painting ... which has a rather low resolution in the scheme of things. The sheer size, color palette, and painted dynamic range is breathtaking. Both the artifact and its consumption produce the result.

As has been repeatedly noted here, whether you shoot film or digital, our primary point of image exchange is here on the internet via monitors that transmit light, not reflect it. The result is nowhere near the same - dare I say, nowhere near a "good" - as a beautifully made silver print or oil painting. The capture may be "accurate" using your SuperDooperShooter at 100mpix, but the output will be dreadfully poor, lacking the three dimensionality, tonality, and vibrancy of a physically reflective surface.

Moreover, outside of the narrow corridors of scientific or medical work, photography has never been about "accuracy". It's been about interpreting the world to evoke something in the person viewing the results. The photojournalist lies about the truth by choosing an evocative angle. The product photographer artificially creates desire for a product most people don't even need. The portraitist hides the imperfections of the human face and form. Art photographers manufacture images out of the natural world by skewing perspective, angle, and form.

So, there is no accurate format, and it's sort of a fool's errand to chase after one. What all of us are doing - at least in principle - is trying to find ways to make images that are evocative and powerful personal expressions of some sort, for we are truly the only audience that ultimately matters for our own work. Or, at least, I hope that's what we're doing.

I am reminded of the great breakthroughs that took place in sound recording in the 1970s and 1980s as digital made it onto the scene. Almost overnight, we went from technically imperfect magnificent recordings, to flawless sterile soundscapes as all the Golden Ears (tm) worked to find nothing but technical perfection. This process continues unabated today as music gets compressed and preprocessed to be reproduced on earbuds connected to tiny amplifies in phones. There is no soundscape, there is no dimensionality, and the music cannot breathe. In fairness, most of what is claimed to even be music doesn't much suffer from this.

That's why so many people stand in awe the first time they hear a good vinyl recording. It's not that analog recordings where better quality - they were not. But notwithstanding the hiss and clicks, these recording where done with very few microphones and far less post processing than today's studios use. The artifact was constructed for the art, not the technology.

I do listen to classical music on tubed equipment, vintage turntable and with audiophile LPs.
I also have a great CD player that rarely gets used. I hear you…!

 

[Vaughn]

Really? Thats interesting.

If I take a digital photo but never display it, would it not be a photograph?

Or if I develop a film negative in complete darkness and then put it in a dark box. Is there no photograph?

I tried to think about it, but I don't know...

If the image stays on the SD card, it is just an image -- not a photograph, IMO. Generally, our culture/society is pretty loose on the use of the word 'photograph'...to the point it is little meaning without addition description.

 

[Nikon 2]

If the image stays on the SD card, it is just an image -- not a photograph, IMO. Generally, our culture/society is pretty loose on the use of the word 'photograph'...to the point it is little meaning without addition description.

We’ll call it a digital image…!

 

[Nikon 2]

I’ll call it a DIP.
Digital Image Processed…!

 

[grain elevator]

If the image stays on the SD card, it is just an image -- not a photograph, IMO. Generally, our culture/society is pretty loose on the use of the word 'photograph'...to the point it is little meaning without addition description.

In common parlance, an image is something we can see. An image file on an SD card can only be read (and formed into something we can see) by a computer. And a photograph is a subtype of image. I don't know what is to be gained by coming up with definitions that are so contrary to common usage of the words.

 

[Nikon 2]

In common parlance, an image is something we can see. An image file on an SD card can only be read (and formed into something we can see) by a computer. And a photograph is a subtype of image. I don't know what is to be gained by coming up with definitions that are so contrary to common usage of the words.

That’s why a DIP is an image we can’t see without a computer whilst a photo can be seen without a computer…!

 

[Vaughn]

In common parlance, an image is something we can see. An image file on an SD card can only be read (and formed into something we can see) by a computer. And a photograph is a subtype of image. I don't know what is to be gained by coming up with definitions that are so contrary to common usage of the words.

I find that to be a very limited definition of image, leaving much out of its common parlance. One's image of oneself, for example. The image is the content, perhaps context, of a photograph. It is carries thru (and changes) from the original thought to final product. One of the measures of success of one's photograph is how well it carried that image to one's audience.

 

[takilmaboxer]

Also, consider the reality of a virtual image: your lens produces an image at its focal point, but you can't see it unless you put something at the focal point for it to be cast upon. Or examine it with an eyepiece.

 

[Nikon 2]

Also, consider the reality of a virtual image: your lens produces an image at its focal point, but you can't see it unless you put something at the focal point for it to be cast upon. Or examine it with an eyepiece.

So film and digital have a lot in common…!

 

[Vaughn]

Also, consider the reality of a virtual image: your lens produces an image at its focal point, but you can't see it unless you put something at the focal point for it to be cast upon. Or examine it with an eyepiece.

Even the exposed, but undeveloped film has an image -- referred to as the latent image -- which can also be altered before development.

But this is not a place for common parlance, but for the parlance of the photographer. A mix of the technical and artistical parlance to match the participants.

 

[Bill Burk]

My question is, what format is more accurate in its processing forming the final image…?

Glass plates. While I enjoy the occasional snarky comment… glass plates are unsurpassed for dimensional accuracy and stability.

Here’s an example: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/the-man-behind-comet-hartley-2

 

[grain elevator]

Its visibility isn't the entire definition of an image, I was pointing out one quality that is central to the everyday definition and should not be lost in more elaborate definition. At least there is a sort of burden of proof that something is gained from a different definition on someone who introduces it, if they dont have convincing arguments it will probably not stick.
Yes, what we can see in the mind's eye is also part of the typical usage of the word. A virtual image fits this usage of the word perfectly, it's there but well, virtual in the sense that none of the light that forms it gets scattered and can be picked up by the eye, just like a painting in a dark room, and can absolutely be seen with just the usage of a screen. The name ”latent image” says that it's not a proper or visible image yet, so fits with the visibility criterion, too. A digital file can contain the information to form an image, but, by just the visibility criterion, in itself isn't an image per se, physically it's a pattern that bears no resemblance to the image and thus the image can't be seen. Now whether it's a type of latent image we can discuss, we then need to look at further criteria as to what makes an image. Btw. there are other media like the digital file in that they contain the info, but aren't the thing. A printed page, consisting of a specific configuration of ink and paper, isn't the poem, a holographic medium contains information about the third dimension, but isn't a three a dimensional object (well it is, but can be very flat).

 

[FotoD]

In common parlance, an image is something we can see. An image file on an SD card can only be read (and formed into something we can see) by a computer. And a photograph is a subtype of image. I don't know what is to be gained by coming up with definitions that are so contrary to common usage of the words.

Personally I don't claim to know how 8.1 billion people use the word image. But I hear people talk about 'images' and 'photos' on their SD cards, not 'image files'. Unless they are talking about the data itself, which is a different thing.

And I'm not so sure everyone shares your definition that an image has to be visible. People draw images with invisible ink, make images with digital cameras, keep images in dark boxes etc. Sure, visibility is a common property of images, but that's not the same as a definition.

Its visibility isn't the entire definition of an image, I was pointing out one quality that is central to the everyday definition and should not be lost in more elaborate definition. At least there is a sort of burden of proof that something is gained from a different definition on someone who introduces it, if they dont have convincing arguments it will probably not stick.

That's OK. You can stick with your personal everyday definition if it's useful to you.

 

[grain elevator]

Personally I don't claim to know how 8.1 billion people use the word image. But I hear people talk about 'images' and 'photos' on their SD cards, not 'image files'. Unless they are talking about the data itself, which is a different thing.

I'm quite comfortable making this claim for the western world at least. Yes, people do say "images" when talking about files on their SD cards or whatever, but I'm pretty sure then when confronted with the need for software that can read the files, like when none is installed and a jpg opens ina text editor or something, most people will agree the image isn't there as such, and that "image" is used as a shorthand for image files.

And I'm not so sure everyone shares your definition that an image has to be visible. People draw images with invisible ink, make images with digital cameras, keep images in dark boxes etc. Sure, visibility is a common property of images, but that's not the same as a definition.

I was not proposing a definition, we agree there. I don't see his images in dark boxes or digital photography are pertinent. Invisible ink art is usually a play on precisely what we are discussing. It can be fun, but if you show people a blank looking canvas and claim it's an image of a duck, most people will object, invisible ink being present or not.

That's OK. You can stick with your personal everyday definition if it's useful to you.

Generous!

 

[Nikon 2]

Its visibility isn't the entire definition of an image, I was pointing out one quality that is central to the everyday definition and should not be lost in more elaborate definition. At least there is a sort of burden of proof that something is gained from a different definition on someone who introduces it, if they dont have convincing arguments it will probably not stick.
Yes, what we can see in the mind's eye is also part of the typical usage of the word. A virtual image fits this usage of the word perfectly, it's there but well, virtual in the sense that none of the light that forms it gets scattered and can be picked up by the eye, just like a painting in a dark room, and can absolutely be seen with just the usage of a screen. The name ”latent image” says that it's not a proper or visible image yet, so fits with the visibility criterion, too. A digital file can contain the information to form an image, but, by just the visibility criterion, in itself isn't an image per se, physically it's a pattern that bears no resemblance to the image and thus the image can't be seen. Now whether it's a type of latent image we can discuss, we then need to look at further criteria as to what makes an image. Btw. there are other media like the digital file in that they contain the info, but aren't the thing. A printed page, consisting of a specific configuration of ink and paper, isn't the poem, a holographic medium contains information about the third dimension, but isn't a three a dimensional object (well it is, but can be very flat).

I’ll stick with DIP…!

 

[TomR55]

There is no meaningful answer to this question because you cannot consider image formation without also considering how the image will be consumed.

I have seen Rembrant's "Nightwatch" hanging on the wall at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I've never seen any photograph - digital or film - that is as powerful, evocative and viscerally beautiful as that painting ... which has a rather low resolution in the scheme of things. The sheer size, color palette, and painted dynamic range is breathtaking. Both the artifact and its consumption produce the result.

As has been repeatedly noted here, whether you shoot film or digital, our primary point of image exchange is here on the internet via monitors that transmit light, not reflect it. The result is nowhere near the same - dare I say, nowhere near a "good" - as a beautifully made silver print or oil painting. The capture may be "accurate" using your SuperDooperShooter at 100mpix, but the output will be dreadfully poor, lacking the three dimensionality, tonality, and vibrancy of a physically reflective surface.

Moreover, outside of the narrow corridors of scientific or medical work, photography has never been about "accuracy". It's been about interpreting the world to evoke something in the person viewing the results. The photojournalist lies about the truth by choosing an evocative angle. The product photographer artificially creates desire for a product most people don't even need. The portraitist hides the imperfections of the human face and form. Art photographers manufacture images out of the natural world by skewing perspective, angle, and form.

So, there is no accurate format, and it's sort of a fool's errand to chase after one. What all of us are doing - at least in principle - is trying to find ways to make images that are evocative and powerful personal expressions of some sort, for we are truly the only audience that ultimately matters for our own work. Or, at least, I hope that's what we're doing.

I am reminded of the great breakthroughs that took place in sound recording in the 1970s and 1980s as digital made it onto the scene. Almost overnight, we went from technically imperfect magnificent recordings, to flawless sterile soundscapes as all the Golden Ears (tm) worked to find nothing but technical perfection. This process continues unabated today as music gets compressed and preprocessed to be reproduced on earbuds connected to tiny amplifies in phones. There is no soundscape, there is no dimensionality, and the music cannot breathe. In fairness, most of what is claimed to even be music doesn't much suffer from this.

That's why so many people stand in awe the first time they hear a good vinyl recording. It's not that analog recordings where better quality - they were not. But notwithstanding the hiss and clicks, these recording where done with very few microphones and far less post processing than today's studios use. The artifact was constructed for the art, not the technology.

Your reference to the recording industry reminds me of what happened when studios went from analog to digital: I was fortunate enough to live near a small studio, and I was able to purchase a fair number of their analog outboard units as well as some boxes (pancakes) of Ampex 456 in several formats. Long story short, I used these in my makeshift studio for some time.

About a decade later, I see lots of software emulations of the gear sitting on my rack--many of these a premium prices. I wonder if this is analogous to what happened with the resurgence of interest in film. I see that Leica has re-introduced their M6 (as well as manufacturing the M-A and the the MP bodies) at shall we say premium price points. I have owned Leica cameras and lenses since the late 1970's. I continue to use them, but would likely NOT replace them at these prices ... probably move to medium format and explore a new format ... ?

 

[DareFail]

Is it true when developing film there is some degradation by processing whereas it’s avoided from a SD card directly to your computer…?

Yes it is true.

 

[Nikon 2]

Even the exposed, but undeveloped film has an image -- referred to as the latent image -- which can also be altered before development.

But this is not a place for common parlance, but for the parlance of the photographer. A mix of the technical and artistical parlance to match the participants.

Yes it is true.

Thought so…!

 

[DareFail]

Thought so…!

So, what are you going to do now?

 

[Nikon 2]

So, what are you going to do now?

Understanding the comparisons between my multi format experiences…!

 

[chuckroast]

Your reference to the recording industry reminds me of what happened when studios went from analog to digital: I was fortunate enough to live near a small studio, and I was able to purchase a fair number of their analog outboard units as well as some boxes (pancakes) of Ampex 456 in several formats. Long story short, I used these in my makeshift studio for some time.

About a decade later, I see lots of software emulations of the gear sitting on my rack--many of these a premium prices. I wonder if this is analogous to what happened with the resurgence of interest in film. I see that Leica has re-introduced their M6 (as well as manufacturing the M-A and the the MP bodies) at shall we say premium price points. I have owned Leica cameras and lenses since the late 1970's. I continue to use them, but would likely NOT replace them at these prices ... probably move to medium format and explore a new format ... ?

I think there is a certain amount of fetishism with analog in some quarters, be it film, tube amplifiers, or vinyl recordings. I wouldn't pay nosebleed prices for modern Leica (even though these cameras are indeed beautiful) simply because they are inherently limited by format.

I do own a IIIF and 50mm Summicron f/2 with a total investment of well under $1000. The pictures it takes are every bit the equivalent of what I could with a brand new M6 or M-A.


Real Leicas are Barnacks. Real Porsches are air cooled.