How much negatives help analogue photographers in the past?

[Sirius Glass]

Welcome to APUG

I am not a professional photographer. I look at the negatives to see how well they were exposed. I look at the composition and then I make contact prints. From the contact prints I select the negatives to print on 8"x10" paper. I work with each negative until a get the print made the way that I visualized. Then I print the next negative ...

I then go through those prints and select which prints I want to print or crop and print enlarged to a larger size. The first prints may be mounted and framed or put into albums. The enlargements are mounted and frames, some are given to friends and family.

 

[pentaxuser]

I did wonder why this was a first post for someone wanting to "know more about the analogue process" We'll now we know. Just a pity that more of post 21 wasn't in post 1. Still full marks for eventual honesty

Should we feel flattered that we are the premier analogue focus group which gives its services for free and from which others can gauge the likely success of a new business concept, even if it has little to do with what APUG is about?

pentaxuser

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thank you all for the answers, you tell me very interesting points, that I never thinking about. I ask for your advice for one reason, I'm part of the iOS app developers team and we have an idea to make iPhone/iPad app that will allow you to see negative image until even you tap shoot button. Now I'm collecting information about it. You all know that iPhones became for many people camera #1, remember Flickr Camera Finder stats? But mostly quality of this photos not very good from artistic point of view. And we thought — maybe we can improve it if recreate the negative part that was for you all (professional analogue photographers) so natural? So we quickly create prototype of such app and try to use it, I should to say, in BW and through negative viewfinder I personally see so clear problems with composition and contrasts, it's new experience for me.

You all also gives me feeling that nobody from you will be interested in it, is it right? I see now that iPhone photos is too much non professional for you… But maybe we can make some app that will connect with your cameras, it will be helpful then? I don't know yet about it, maybe some digital cameras have such API.

So, there is just an idea, please tell me your opinion. We have various ways to do that, we can make an app with BW negative viewfinder, after photo session you can choose the good and "as old good days" processing to color version or to positive one. Or we can create an app that will allow you to see normal viewfinder, but photos will be saved as negatives, you can zoom it (like you use magnifier with analogue shots), select good ones, and again export to positive only the best.

What do you think?

I had missed this post! What do you think? ===> we was scammed! Close this account down and ban the bastard and all his friends.

 

[MattKing]

AlexGray:

As indicated above, APUG isn't the place to ask your questions, because APUG is here to deal with the interests of people who either don't use digital cameras, or want some place to talk about cameras that are not digital.

There are a few heretics here though who would be very happy with an app that creates very high quality digital files from our existing film negatives or slides. Any progress on the iScanner?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

At the beginning of photography, one could only make a positive. The introduction of a negative-positive process made it possible to reproduce the photograph, and added a stage for retouching that could itself be reproduced through the printing process. For instance, one could apply pencil, powdered graphite, airbrushing, or dyes applied with a brush to add density to the negative or use a knife or abrasives or bleach to reduce density locally on the negative. This would be great if I could do it on an iPhone. Should I paint my iPhone with retouching compound so the pencil adheres better? I don't know that retouching fluid is available in any form anymore, but the old books recommend boiling down linseed oil for this purpose. I can't wait to start retouching negs on my iPhone.

 

[Xmas]

Alas not a killer app, even light meter apps, or apps that combine digital cam files (metadata) with phone GPS data are niche.

 

[Alan Klein]

I think you guys jumped the gun. He did ask ( I think) if there some way an iPhone app could be connected to your film camera to help you take better film shots? Much like we used polaroids in the past. Wouldn't it be neat that before we exposed the film, let's say expensive 8x10, that we can examine what the lens saw in a digital format through our iPhone or other digital device, and then if it looked right, snap the shot. We're still shooting film and then processing and printing it as film. That's not anti this forum. I for one would find that advantageous as I always bracket my shots. I could save a lot of film if I could see if my exposure and composition looked OK on my cell phone before committing myself to exposing the shot.

AlexGrey: Is that something that you can do for us?

 

[fotch]

Welcome to APUG! Make an AP that make the Iphone picture last 100 years without having the recopy, re-software, the image.

 

[AlexGrey]

I think that part of the differences between photographic film and digital are:

1. aw an S-curve. This is film's response to light. Now draw the S curve using only three line segments instead of curves. This is perceived by many to be a digital sensor's response to light.
2. Negative film captures a higher range of values than is representable on paper. This is what makes film have a higher latitude than a digital sensor, so you can get a usable picture even if over or under exposed by a stop or two. Digital sensors (and reversal film), not so much. With negative film you can get a larger range of tonal values in a single exposure without having to resort to multiple exposure HDR techniques.

Wow, amazing explanation! I understand now why it's not good idea at all. Why cameras developers don't create cameras that capture on the film (for better quality of the source), but at the same time make same photo on digital sensor to just display result on display (cheap quality, but for result preview)? I guess for you, who used to work with analogue films this digital cameras era is like a step back?

 

[AlexGrey]

At the beginning of photography, one could only make a positive. The introduction of a negative-positive process made it possible to reproduce the photograph, and added a stage for retouching that could itself be reproduced through the printing process. For instance, one could apply pencil, powdered graphite, airbrushing, or dyes applied with a brush to add density to the negative or use a knife or abrasives or bleach to reduce density locally on the negative.

I understand now… But still at the beginning of this discussion somebody said that negatives do help to see composition problems and problems with light. But your point is absolutely correct - this was part of the stage that impossible to skip for analogue photo!
Thanks for the answer, it's interesting to discover such things like retouching films, because I never seen it in real, because there is not so much people with analogue cameras around. And is it possible to make analogue photo sharper?

 

[AlexGrey]

I think you guys jumped the gun. He did ask ( I think) if there some way an iPhone app could be connected to your film camera to help you take better film shots? Much like we used polaroids in the past. Wouldn't it be neat that before we exposed the film, let's say expensive 8x10, that we can examine what the lens saw in a digital format through our iPhone or other digital device, and then if it looked right, snap the shot. We're still shooting film and then processing and printing it as film. That's not anti this forum. I for one would find that advantageous as I always bracket my shots. I could save a lot of film if I could see if my exposure and composition looked OK on my cell phone before committing myself to exposing the shot.

AlexGrey: Is that something that you can do for us?

Yes, thanks Alan! I'm trying figure out is it possible to connect iPhone to film cameras, and while I'm never work with analogue. But I guess it's impossible, because of the absence of the chip and the matrix, which can transmit such information. But whether there are analogue cameras that also have digital matrix?

And if analogue quality so much richer, why whole industry switched to digital? Sounds sad. Do you have some difficulties in buying additional analogue things, like chemicals, films, and so on? Or analogue photo industry still alive, but only concentrated on professional photographers? I'm just from small town and I just never saw analogue photographers here – all with digital, so I don't have people to ask all about it.

I'm also not a native English speaker, so I don't notice information about digital talks restrictions, please excuse me for that, I don't want to bother anyone.

 

[ME Super]

The reasons the market largely shifted to digital can be boiled down to three things:

1. Perceived cost - Once the camera, computer, and associated software have been purchased/acquired, there's no per-shot cost. Maintaining an archive, however, can be costly for digital, but those costs are "down the road" and not at the time the image is made. With film, there is a cost for each image, and these costs are not shifted up front.
2. Speed - The image is instantly viewable, so you know instantly whether you got the shot or not.
3. Convenience/Speed - The image can be nearly instantly shared with anyone the photographer wants to share it with.

Film has some advantages over digital, and digital has some over film. Examples of film's advantages over digital include what I mentioned in an earlier post. Other advantages include:

1. Quality of presentation - There's nothing like a projected slide, where the sides of the projected image can be measured in feet/meters, not inches/centimeters. I've projected slides on the side of my garage at 4 feet by 6 feet (roughly 1.3 x 2.6 meters) with an inexpensive slide projector, and the results are stunning!
2. Ease of maintaining the archive - Put the slides/negatives in sleeves and store them in a binder. No copying of files from one medium to another (hard drives eventually all fail, DVDs and CDs can suffer from bit rot). If you want to scan them and put them in a database, nothing is preventing you from doing that.
3. Longevity - see above issue with bit rot and hard drive failure. My parents have slides from 50 years ago that look as good as the day they were shot. B&W film negatives can have a life span in hundreds of years (the film base will go bad before the silver will oxidize). Hollywood has discovered that film archives are easier to maintain than digital ones. That's why there's a market for color separation negatives these days to preserve movies.

 

[fotch]

The reasons the market largely shifted to digital can be boiled down to three things:

1. Perceived cost - Once the camera, computer, and associated software have been purchased/acquired, there's no per-shot cost. Maintaining an archive, however, can be costly for digital, but those costs are "down the road" and not at the time the image is made. With film, there is a cost for each image, and these costs are not shifted up front.
2. Speed - The image is instantly viewable, so you know instantly whether you got the shot or not.
3. Convenience/Speed - The image can be nearly instantly shared with anyone the photographer wants to share it with.

Film has some advantages over digital, and digital has some over film. Examples of film's advantages over digital include what I mentioned in an earlier post. Other advantages include:

1. Quality of presentation - There's nothing like a projected slide, where the sides of the projected image can be measured in feet/meters, not inches/centimeters. I've projected slides on the side of my garage at 4 feet by 6 feet (roughly 1.3 x 2.6 meters) with an inexpensive slide projector, and the results are stunning!
2. Ease of maintaining the archive - Put the slides/negatives in sleeves and store them in a binder. No copying of files from one medium to another (hard drives eventually all fail, DVDs and CDs can suffer from bit rot). If you want to scan them and put them in a database, nothing is preventing you from doing that.
3. Longevity - see above issue with bit rot and hard drive failure. My parents have slides from 50 years ago that look as good as the day they were shot. B&W film negatives can have a life span in hundreds of years (the film base will go bad before the silver will oxidize). Hollywood has discovered that film archives are easier to maintain than digital ones. That's why there's a market for color separation negatives these days to preserve movies.

+1

 

[Sirius Glass]

Wow, amazing explanation! I understand now why it's not good idea at all. Why cameras developers don't create cameras that capture on the film (for better quality of the source), but at the same time make same photo on digital sensor to just display result on display (cheap quality, but for result preview)? I guess for you, who used to work with analogue films this digital cameras era is like a step back?

If one is a good experienced photographer then they know when they got the photograph and a digital copy would be some what less than totally useless.

 

[Sirius Glass]

And if analogue quality so much richer, why whole industry switched to digital? Sounds sad. Do you have some difficulties in buying additional analogue things, like chemicals, films, and so on? Or analogue photo industry still alive, but only concentrated on professional photographers? I'm just from small town and I just never saw analogue photographers here – all with digital, so I don't have people to ask all about it.

Do you have some difficulties in buying additional analogue things, like chemicals, films, and so on? No, no, no and no.

Or analogue photo industry still alive, but only concentrated on professional photographers? Yes and no. I am not a professional.

 

[Sirius Glass]

The reasons the market largely shifted to digital can be boiled down to three things:

1. Perceived cost - Once the camera, computer, and associated software have been purchased/acquired, there's no per-shot cost. Maintaining an archive, however, can be costly for digital, but those costs are "down the road" and not at the time the image is made. With film, there is a cost for each image, and these costs are not shifted up front.
2. Speed - The image is instantly viewable, so you know instantly whether you got the shot or not.
3. Convenience/Speed - The image can be nearly instantly shared with anyone the photographer wants to share it with.

Film has some advantages over digital, and digital has some over film. Examples of film's advantages over digital include what I mentioned in an earlier post. Other advantages include:

1. Quality of presentation - There's nothing like a projected slide, where the sides of the projected image can be measured in feet/meters, not inches/centimeters. I've projected slides on the side of my garage at 4 feet by 6 feet (roughly 1.3 x 2.6 meters) with an inexpensive slide projector, and the results are stunning!
2. Ease of maintaining the archive - Put the slides/negatives in sleeves and store them in a binder. No copying of files from one medium to another (hard drives eventually all fail, DVDs and CDs can suffer from bit rot). If you want to scan them and put them in a database, nothing is preventing you from doing that.
3. Longevity - see above issue with bit rot and hard drive failure. My parents have slides from 50 years ago that look as good as the day they were shot. B&W film negatives can have a life span in hundreds of years (the film base will go bad before the silver will oxidize). Hollywood has discovered that film archives are easier to maintain than digital ones. That's why there's a market for color separation negatives these days to preserve movies.

+1

 

[Sirius Glass]

Hot flash!!! Have you ever used a cell phone as just a telephone? No pesky text messages and truly stupid expressions from brainless selfies.

Do iPhone and Droids now come with lobotomies or is half the brain removed at the time of purchase? Jus' sayin'

 

[michr]

From my point of view, as an answer to what I think your question is, seeing a negative on a computer screen would not be more helpful than seeing what the camera sees. A realtime histogram and showing clipping regions would be more useful. Turning the image upside down would be more useful for composition, with a grid overlay. Having the option to choose black and white, or emulate color filters (e.g. show a black and white image, but darken the blues significantly before converting to black and white, simulating a yellow filter) would be useful. The ability to use a median filter or some other way to abstract the detail out of the image would help with composition (in my opinion).

If you want to make a photography app, there's really no way you're going to get many users of film, by emulating the trappings of the use of film, rather you have to ask what tools photographers would use and benefit from that aren't available in film cameras, or better yet, aren't available anywhere.

With that said, you're really in the wrong forum for asking about digital imaging. Film photography is a small portion of photography overall, at this time, and the users of this forum do not want to be overrun with general-interest (read: digital) photography-related discussion.

 

[Nodda Duma]

.... A realtime histogram and showing clipping regions would be more useful.

.....

To add to what he says:

Showing the zones in the negative (kind of like a topography map shows different elevations) would be really useful.

 

[OzJohn]

Did anybody else ever use a Tamron Fotovix? In essence it was a light stage and negative holder, a zoom lens and the guts of a video camera. It produced either positive or negative images on a monitor and both density and colour could be manipulated. Mine remains in working condition and I still occasionally use it. I have found it to be one of the more useful photo devices I've ever acquired - far more so than the video colour analyser that cost considerably more and was slow and painful to use for results no better than I could get by manual evaluation of a test strip. OzJohn

 

[Alan Klein]

To add to what he says:

Showing the zones in the negative (kind of like a topography map shows different elevations) would be really useful.

How about an adapter that clips your smart phone onto your camera so the phone camera sees the image on the groundglass. Then the APP could provide exposure zones, histograms, exposure settings, level indicators, out-of-focus areas, and other info to help select settings before shooting. I have a polaroid film back for my Mamiya RB67 that was used at one time to make exposure decisions before switching to the regular film back to shoot the pictures. This would be one step better.

 

[AlexGrey]

From my point of view, as an answer to what I think your question is, seeing a negative on a computer screen would not be more helpful than seeing what the camera sees. A realtime histogram and showing clipping regions would be more useful. Turning the image upside down would be more useful for composition, with a grid overlay. Having the option to choose black and white, or emulate color filters (e.g. show a black and white image, but darken the blues significantly before converting to black and white, simulating a yellow filter) would be useful. The ability to use a median filter or some other way to abstract the detail out of the image would help with composition (in my opinion).

If you want to make a photography app, there's really no way you're going to get many users of film, by emulating the trappings of the use of film, rather you have to ask what tools photographers would use and benefit from that aren't available in film cameras, or better yet, aren't available anywhere. .

I understand now, thank you for the great answer!

 

[michr]

How about an adapter that clips your smart phone onto your camera so the phone camera sees the image on the groundglass. Then the APP could provide exposure zones, histograms, exposure settings, level indicators, out-of-focus areas, and other info to help select settings before shooting. I have a polaroid film back for my Mamiya RB67 that was used at one time to make exposure decisions before switching to the regular film back to shoot the pictures. This would be one step better.

those sound like great ideas, adding the possibility of selling the app as both a photographer's tool and as a more advanced camera application.

 

[removed account4]

hi alexgrey

something i would find useful would be a "no brainer cropping device" so one could see
what a certain focal length lens and aspect ratio would look like before i photograph it ( with all the fixin's ).
there are already things sort of like this, you can buy, like cards, or one of those "scopes"
if you are a movie director ( i don't wear a beret or have a pencil thin mustache, wear jodfers, a megaphone or some cigarettes out of a cigarette holder
so the scope is out of the question for me ! ) but it would be nice to be able to hold my device up to a scene, and click on half frame 24mm lens
and see what it looks like, or 16" and 11x14 and see what it looks like so if i am "scouting " a location i already know
what camera and lens i like and how it looks in my head without the fuss ... and maybe something that automatically converts a
colour scene to black and white and maybe with written ( or whatever ) filter info so you can "pre visualize" and it is easier to visualize ...
yeah, i know its a lot of fixin's but since you are asking i figured i would say it all

good luck with your project !
john