Digital Mono

Alan Johnson · Jul 26, 2020

https://web.archive.org/web/20050206232623/http://imx.nl/photosite/technical/indextech.html
You cannot expect to duplicate the filamentary nature of film grain unless the little square pixels are very small indeed.or the film itself is microfilm like.

wiltw · Jul 26, 2020

I'm thinking that perhaps a basic issue is that film sensitometry was an S-curve, but fundamentally the digital shot is more a linear relationship by default.

Bormental · Jul 26, 2020

George Mann said:
One thing I have noticed when comparing film and digital images is that film presents a true 3-dimensional image that digital poorly imitates at best.

No. I oftentimes shoot the same scene on film and digital. The results are identical if I want them to be. The thing is, there's no well-defined "digital mono". Most digital cameras have B/W preset and it can be implemented poorly. But if you shoot RAW and know what you're doing, you'll get the film look.

grain elevator · Jul 26, 2020

IMHO points about how something is different from, or better than, something else without a causal hypothesis or at least data, i.e. in which way precisely they are different and how that is better, are of little value. "More 3d" or "lifeless" by themselves mean nothing. We simply don't know what exactly about your prints it is you are talking about, other viewers may or may not have the same impression. Do you believe there are actual, physical properties behind these impressions? Then let us know what they are, or present the pictorial properties in detail so we can discuss what the reasons for the different impressions may be!
I think it's just the grain, still not so easy to simulate apparently, but I just may have not seen very good examples. Dynamic range issues with digital have been sorted out AFAIK. There's nothing about film tonality that can't be simulated from digital pictures if one so desires, at least I've never heard a convincing argument why that was supposed to be so. I prefer to make darkroom prints mostly because I like the process and craft and and a bit for certain metaphysical reasons.

jtk · Jul 26, 2020

K5 is/was wonderful...current and upcoming mirrorless are even better, with same lenses.

Billy Axeman said:
A digital photo that looks like film is fake, and the effort to reach that goal is a sign of bad taste. Instead of trying to imitate film spend your time discovering the strong points of digital, or stick to film.

Pentax K5-II, Pentax DA 21mm f/3.2 Lim.

Nikon 1 V2, 1 Nikkor 10 mm, f2.8

jtk · Jul 26, 2020

K5 is/was astounding and recent mirrorless even more...

Monitor displays aren't important to me: all galleries (and I) care about is the print...

Canon Pro printers with OEM pigments on all sorts of wonderful papers more than rival optical prints...as well, most galleries and serious photographers want prints too big to be feasible in old wet darkrooms.

jtk · Jul 26, 2020

rknewcomb said:
The OP is not the first one or the only one to feel that digital b&w is lacking. I was reading yesterday how Sebastiao Salgado felt that digital b&W was flat and he worked two years with skilled people to get them to look like his film images.
For more "normal" people it can be a lack of knowledge of how a b&w print should look ie: not just a color image with no color, uncalibrated monitors or the lack of any grain texture. One person I heard say that a digital print is a tattoo on paper because of the lack of depth I guess. Digital definitely draws differently than digital, the answer for the OP may be to shoot film.
Robert

Salgado shoots digital and pays his printer to do what he, Salgado, wants.

subsole · Jul 26, 2020

This might help to get a decent image:

jtk · Jul 26, 2020

Bundesphotograph said:
This might help to get a decent image:

View attachment 251252

Fun.

I find NIK's film emulation settings great...typically preferring an AgfaPAN 100 setting because I like the way it handles micro-contrast..alternatively, Kodak Pan X.

Pieter12 · Jul 26, 2020

In the end, is the OP (and all the other critics of digital) comparing similar-quality prints? A crappy wet print is a crappy print, and so is a poor inkjet one. Most are not looking at prints, but images on a computer screen, that have been rendered digitally anyway. Or printed in a book, rendered in stochastic or halftone dots. To quote Aaron Siskind (and many other artists and philosophers), "We look at the world and see what we have learned to be there."

George Mann · Jul 26, 2020

Pieter12 said:
snip

Exactly. And have any of the digital fanboys viewed a negative/positive directly with a good quality photo loupe?

MattKing · Jul 26, 2020

George Mann said:
Exactly. And have any of the digital fanboys viewed a negative/positive directly with a good quality photo loupe?

While I'm not a digital or any other type of "fanboy", but my observation is that extra-ordinary good work survives this sort of "pixel peeping" type of test in either medium.
My other observation is that "pixel peeping" of any sort is of almost no real value.

jtk · Jul 26, 2020

George Mann said:
Exactly. And have any of the digital fanboys viewed a negative/positive directly with a good quality photo loupe?

Many are aware that Colorado has frightening trouble with Covid 19 and drunk driving ...more than do surrounding states.

It's common for inkjet inkjet printing photographers to view "negative/positive directly with a good quality photo loupe". I use a Fuji because I don't want third rate Euro optics.

Grain and dye clouds can be defined better on inkjet papers, than on gelatin silver. That's one the reasons to avoid enlarging lenses and inevitably-vibrating enlargers.

George Mann · Jul 26, 2020

MattKing said:
While I'm not a digital or any other type of "fanboy", but my observation is that extra-ordinary good work survives this sort of "pixel peeping" type of test in either medium.
My other observation is that "pixel peeping" of any sort is of almost no real value.

I'm not a pixel peeper! I judge a photo on how realistic it looks.

George Mann · Jul 26, 2020

jtk said:
Many are aware that Colorado has frightening trouble with Covid 19 and drunk driving ...more than do surrounding states.

What's your point in posting this?

rknewcomb · Jul 26, 2020

I'm trying to discuss not fight.
Some photographers will look at a digital image and think, it's sharp, lots of detail, no grain and equate that to good image quality.
I have worked with technical illustrators in the past, even back in the pen & ink days where people could draw so well that at least upon first look you would think its a photograph. I have seen hyper realism paintings that at first look you'd think it was a photograph.
To me there is something about the way digital b&w renders surfaces in particular that look more like an illustration not a photograph. It often just does not look like the thing it portrays, it looks more like a drawing of the thing it portrays.
I will try to upload a couple of image to show you what I mean.
Thanks for looking.
Robert
The first is an illustration from a computer not a photograph.
The second image is a digital b&w photograph, To me the wood of the fence looks like a drawing illustration almost pen & ink or charcoal, and the hardware in the wood looks not real.
The third is a digital photograph. In particular the skin of the sea lion does not look real to me, it looks like an illustration, it has a plastic look but not even like the water resistant skin of this animal.
I have seen some lovely digital b&w photographs, but more and more, maybe due to the increase in resolution or pixel density they look like a drawing illustration, not a picture of the thing itself.

Thanks

RalphLambrecht · Jul 27, 2020

blockend said:
Is it just me, or does digital black and white look awful? I recently looked at someone's review of their Fujifilm GFX 100, including B&W shots they'd taken. The GFX is a stellar 100 megapixel medium format digital camera, colour rendition and tonality are superb, somewhere between medium and large format in film terms. The monochrome looked no better than a small sensor point and shoot.

This is born out by my own cameras. M43, APS-C, full frame, it makes no difference, without serious intervention the files look lifeless in a way colour does not. B&W digital fans routinely add artificial grain to counter this flatness, which raises the question why not just shoot film?

So what's going on? Is there something about digital imaging that kills a mono shot stone dead?

digital mono is a tricky subjectrequiring great attention and skill

grain elevator · Jul 27, 2020

RalphLambrecht said:
digital mono is a tricky subjectrequiring great attention and skill

And restraint. The picture of the sea lions above is simply over-processed, way too much local contrast ("clarity") - the seal lion in the shade is about as bright as anything in the sun, go figure!

jtk · Jul 27, 2020

grain elevator said:
And restraint. The picture of the sea lions above is simply over-processed, way too much local contrast ("clarity") - the seal lion in the shade is about as bright as anything in the sun, go figure!

Restraint if key...like refraining from outdated film, refraining from sodium sulfite, refraining from film that just happens to be left on a roll, refraining from certain subjects. Also remaining aware that digital allows FAR more opportunities in low light, suggesting that refraining from film is sometimes the best photo decision.

David Brown · Jul 27, 2020

Bundesphotograph said:
This might help to get a decent image:

View attachment 251252

Interesting data. I'll play with these. I would love to see equivalent chart for the six black and white sliders.

rknewcomb · Jul 27, 2020

jtk said:
Restraint if key...like refraining from outdated film, refraining from sodium sulfite, refraining from film that just happens to be left on a roll, refraining from certain subjects. Also remaining aware that digital allows FAR more opportunities in low light, suggesting that refraining from film is sometimes the best photo decision.

Knowing when to walk away from a subject or a given lighting situation is indeed wise some times.
Refraining from outdated film, sodium sulfite, film left on a roll or the grain associated with the film required to shoot in low light is to limit ones opportunities of expression to the narrow point of view that only a sharp detailed grain free image is good image quality.

jtk · Jul 27, 2020

Obsession with grain still leads many film photographers to standardize on certain films and developers, when other films and developers might render tonal curves more eloquently. For example, TriX/D76 can be beautiful despite the fact that there may always be "better" films and developers for each situation.

Grain is sometimes amusing and interesting, rarely a problem. I've never intentionally created grain in an inkjet print, but I have intentionally used films like Kodak's old 2475 Recording film with DK50, which didn't reduce grain but did enable the film to look deeper into shadows and print beautifully on Grade 2...

Obsessives always forget that many film printing processes, such as dye transfer and platinum, inherently obscure grain. As well, but for the long-lost Kodachrome. color slide and negative process inherently lack grain...they offer fuzzy "dye clouds".

Pieter12 · Jul 27, 2020

Graininess is not a bad thing, necessarily. Many of my favorite photos (mine and by others) are tremendously grainy--that is part of their appeal and character. I find digital noise, on the other hand, to be rather nasty.

Alan Johnson · Jul 27, 2020

The problem with digital sensors is that they produce the same old grain or lack of it every time. At least with film you can effectively change the sensor by changing film and/or developer.

Pieter12 · Jul 27, 2020

Alan Johnson said:
The problem with digital sensors is that they produce the same old grain or lack of it every time. At least with film you can effectively change the sensor by changing film and/or developer.

A plug-in like Silver Efex Pro will give control over the grain effect it applies to the file, from size to hardness, etc. While it is not the same as film and a wet print, it does take some of the digital "curse" off the image.

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