Looking for experts for qualitative study

Jud23 · Apr 28, 2021

Hi,
as I have resently written, I am currently doing some research on the differences between analogue and digtial look.
For my work I'm going to do a qualitative study including interviews with experts on the issue.
Therefore I thought I could ask here if some of you experts would be ready to take part in my study.
It would only be important, that you can bring something up, what makes you an expert, like being an analogue photographer or something similar.
I would be very thankful if some people would be ready to help me. The interviews would be done via Zoom.

Greetings and thanks in advance

runswithsizzers · May 18, 2021

I don't know which word is going to be more difficult to define: "expert" or "look" (as in "analog look" or "digital look")?

Good luck with your project, and I hope you will share your results.

wiltw · May 18, 2021

My profile:

Analog photographer and darkroom, experience with both in B&W and in color transparency and neg since I was 13, with professional work shooting fashion models and headshots for hairdressers starting at 15..
Shot professionally with medium format and large format , primarily in color neg and color transparency since 1990, doing portraiture, weddings, and product photography..
Continued darkroom, for personal pasttime primarily color printing using Cibachrome/Ilfochrome
Digital photographer and RAW shooter, with RAW conversion and JPG editing sicne 2002, hung up the pro shooting for the kids.

Jud23 · May 19, 2021

Hello wiltw,
thanks for sharing your experience. So would you take part in a zoom interview?

AgX · May 19, 2021

Jud23 said:
.
It would only be important, that you can bring something up, what makes you an expert, like being an analogue photographer or something similar.

You listed this thread under "hybrid workflow". The hardcore analog photographers amongst us disabled this setting and thus would not even see your thread.

Maybe you are looking for experts on a hybrid workflow, or doing analog and digital photography apart, next to each other. But then you should make any of this more clear.

grain elevator · May 19, 2021

AgX said:
You listed this thread under "hybrid workflow". The hardcore analog photographers amongst us disabled this setting and thus would not even see your thread.

Maybe you are looking for experts on a hybrid workflow, or doing analog and digital photography apart, next to each other. But then you should make any of this more clear.

Looks likely to me the OP is looking for people who can compare film and digital form personal experience. Film only fundamentalists aren't likely to have all that much knowledge about digital to draw reasonable comparisons.

AgX · May 19, 2021

That was my impression too, but he did not make that clear. Could be that he just wants to inform about "both positions" and draw conclusions himself.

Jud23 · May 19, 2021

Yes, grain elevator is right.
Actually I am looking for experts on both. But if someone is only an expert in analogie shooting it would be OK as well.
To have all the knowledge is not nescessary, only to be familar with the visual differences between analogue and digital images.

Lachlan Young · May 19, 2021

Jud23 said:
Yes, grain elevator is right.
Actually I am looking for experts on both. But if someone is only an expert in analogie shooting it would be OK as well.
To have all the knowledge is not nescessary, only to be familar with the visual differences between analogue and digital images.

You haven't defined the specific sort of practitioner 'expertise' you're looking for - or the specific nature of the outcome of your research. People might be more forthcoming if you define these very clearly. There are quantitative measures you can refer to (with some limitations) that attempt to understand and control for qualitative perceptions to arrive at image content/ capacity conclusions, but the methodologies used are far more complex (and require some fairly arcane instruments - x-ray microdensitometry for example) than the usual inane film/ digital silliness will handle. Psychophysics and bandwidth/ noise relationships are important aspects to consider.

bernard_L · May 19, 2021

Jud23 said:
I am currently doing some research on the differences between analogue and digtial look.

You will find experts that will give you their expert opinion on, respectively, the analogue look and the digital look, or on the difference between the two. But you first need to establish (a) that the difference exists (b) that your experts can reliably (i.e. scoring better than random choices) sort out digital from analogue. Preferably same scene, same time and lighting, same lens, printed on same paper.

The standard tool for this is double blind test. Why double? The expert must, of course, not know which is which; but the same applies to the person who presents the prints to the expert. And the order must be random. Truly random: flip a coin, use table of random numbers. Ignoring this protocol is heading for a waste of time.

grain elevator · May 19, 2021

bernard_L said:
You will find experts that will give you their expert opinion on, respectively, the analogue look and the digital look, or on the difference between the two. But you first need to establish (a) that the difference exists (b) that your experts can reliably (i.e. scoring better than random choices) sort out digital from analogue. Preferably same scene, same time and lighting, same lens, printed on same paper.

The standard tool for this is double blind test. Why double? The expert must, of course, not know which is which; but the same applies to the person who presents the prints to the expert. And the order must be random. Truly random: flip a coin, use table of random numbers. Ignoring this protocol is heading for a waste of time.

Agreed, I think the opinions of most self-proclaimed experts will be far from factual truth. Most "experts" you'll find are practitioners, not scientists. That's cool if you're interested in the film vs digital debate as such, in practice of the craft such as workflows etc, but don't take their words as the truth about the "looks". IMHO, if the end result is a digital display or a digital print, any film look can be simulated digitally with enough knowledge and effort. If it was my research, anyone who denies this would be already excluded from "expertship"... of course these things need to be disclosed in your research.

Lachlan Young · May 19, 2021

grain elevator said:
IMHO, if the end result is a digital display or a digital print, any film look can be simulated digitally with enough knowledge and effort.

Short answer: no they can't - at least not to the point of being properly convincing. Something is always 'off' to the viewer, even if they can't pinpoint its cause. And this is where the problems of psychophysics come into play. You can tamp down the worst of the visual 'digitalisms' quite hard, but the fundamental MTF/ noise disconnects between the origination mediums remains (notional usable resolution for normal photography is the outcome of this relationship, not whatever someone thinks a high contrast chart is saying) - the only playing field levelling occurs if the digitisation method for the film is a consumer flatbed or low performance 'film' scanner with grossly overdone sharpening by the user after the fact.

Jud23 · May 19, 2021

Thank you all for your great input!
What I am looking for are people who have a proefssional background when it comes to the digital vs analogue topic.
Of course in the best case they have a scientific background but I also accept photographers who shoot analogue and therefore know about the analogue look.

grain elevator · May 19, 2021

Lachlan Young said:
Short answer: no they can't - at least not to the point of being properly convincing. Something is always 'off' to the viewer, even if they can't pinpoint its cause. And this is where the problems of psychophysics come into play. You can tamp down the worst of the visual 'digitalisms' quite hard, but the fundamental MTF/ noise disconnects between the origination mediums remains (notional usable resolution for normal photography is the outcome of this relationship, not whatever someone thinks a high contrast chart is saying) - the only playing field levelling occurs if the digitisation method for the film is a consumer flatbed or low performance 'film' scanner with grossly overdone sharpening by the user after the fact.

If "digitalisms" are the giveaway, wouldn't films scans, being digital images, also suffer from them?

Lachlan Young · May 19, 2021

grain elevator said:
If "digitalisms" are the giveaway, wouldn't films scans, being digital images, also suffer from them?

Not if the scans are good enough to adequately transparently transmit the film information (ie image content and inherent film grain information - obviously there are limitations of resolution as opposed to fully optical processes) - digital can be a good transmission medium (if not compressed to hell via bad & lossy means) but an often poor origination medium from the standpoint of creative representation.

Andrew O'Neill · May 19, 2021

Scientific background... well that's me out then...

grain elevator · May 19, 2021

Lachlan Young said:
Not if the scans are good enough to adequately transparently transmit the film information (ie image content and inherent film grain information - obviously there are limitations of resolution as opposed to fully optical processes) - digital can be a good transmission medium (if not compressed to hell via bad & lossy means) but an often poor origination medium from the standpoint of creative representation.

Either film has more information than digital, then part of it is also lost when film is digitised (unless you're saying scanners are fundamentally different form digital cameras in that regard). Or film has less information than digital, in which case digital can be processed to look like film. Can't be both, can it?

Craig75 · May 19, 2021

Who has loupes for eyes basically

Lachlan Young · May 19, 2021

grain elevator said:
Either film has more information than digital, then part of it is also lost when film is digitised (unless you're saying scanners are fundamentally different form digital cameras in that regard). Or film has less information than digital, in which case digital can be processed to look like film. Can't be both, can it?

Given a choice between vacuum tube guitar amp overdrive and digital distortion/ clipping, which would you prefer to hear? If they were both recorded digitally at high bitrate and via tape (or other analogue means) and played back, which would you prefer the sound of? Ignoring the aesthetic/ visual perception component in favour of the noise floor levels of the originating medium alone (which is essentially what you are implying) is ignoring 60-70% or more of the image. The precipitous decline in quality of work from many acclaimed (and collected by culturally influential/ hegemonic institutions) colour photographers who have gone digital is going to leave art historians to confront some awkward questions about these artists' inherent colour knowledge/ use vis-a-vis their unknowing reliance on a lucky accident of their choice of media that happened to be so well engineered that it took their work to a completely different level without any conscious knowledge thereof.

Alan Edward Klein · May 19, 2021

What is the point of the study? What do you intend to determine? Why?

Also, keep in mind there are variables such as format size, ie. 35mm vs. medium formate vs let's say 8x10". There's color vs BW. There's also digital vs chemical printing and special photographic techniques. Which of these will you be studying?

Also, coming here o get opinions will open the debate to prejudice from people who use both methods or only film. Will you be analyzing subjective vs, objective viewpoints?

wiltw · May 19, 2021

All this debate taking place in advance of any study, IHMO is the reason for the study! IOW,..

is it possible to tell which is analog vs. which is digital photo?
what are the visible characteristics that permit someone to distinguish which is which?
do you work in one (analog vs digital) because something (a 'look') is simply not possible with the other

...THAT is the point of the study...to derive conclusions based upon many observations. Prejudging with opinions defeats the purpose of a study, because it brings biases, even when biases are not true.
Someone pointed out a double blind test...that proves or disproves a hypothesis that is formed from many observations which lead to a hypothesis to be tested for validity.
I think this study may be an effort to debunk some myths that have formed on their own, and perhaps come up with some hypotheses for test. Just my humble opinion...only OP knows!

bernard_L · May 19, 2021

Jud23 said:
What I am looking for are people who have a proefssional background when it comes to the digital vs analogue topic.
Of course in the best case they have a scientific background

Scientists also are liable to believe that, just because they have scientist status, their prejudiced opinion is as good as scientific evidence. A recent example is how the WHO experts refused, for one year, to accept that Covid can be propagated by aerosol (floating in the air) and not only by droplets (falling under gravity), with obvious consequences for indoors precautions.

grain elevator · May 19, 2021

Lachlan Young said:
Given a choice between vacuum tube guitar amp overdrive and digital distortion/ clipping, which would you prefer to hear? If they were both recorded digitally at high bitrate and via tape (or other analogue means) and played back, which would you prefer the sound of? Ignoring the aesthetic/ visual perception component in favour of the noise floor levels of the originating medium alone (which is essentially what you are implying) is ignoring 60-70% or more of the image. The precipitous decline in quality of work from many acclaimed (and collected by culturally influential/ hegemonic institutions) colour photographers who have gone digital is going to leave art historians to confront some awkward questions about these artists' inherent colour knowledge/ use vis-a-vis their unknowing reliance on a lucky accident of their choice of media that happened to be so well engineered that it took their work to a completely different level without any conscious knowledge thereof.

Don't get me wrong, I shoot only film and wet print, and have a tube amp and I agree with your judgement of many famous colour photographers' work. It's where it's hybridised that we differ. I'm simply very skeptical that if it's a "je ne sais qua", it exists, and if it's a "je sais qua", it can't be added IF the result is digital anyway. That it may be very difficult, especially with color, especially to do consistently AND artistically, is another matter. I was just talking about the possibility per se. Earlier, I think you mentioned the different contrast behaviours of both media at different spatial frequencies. That's one of the things that have become quite easy to simulate. Again, if both end products are digital anyway.

Lachlan Young · May 19, 2021

grain elevator said:
I'm simply very skeptical that if it's a "je ne sais qua", it exists, and if it's a "je sais qua", it can't be added IF the result is digital anyway.

Lots of people have tried and essentially everyone has failed - even the one time 'film simulations' are now tending to market themselves as 'film looks' - it's not as simple or as linear as people assume (and the rather complex MTF behaviour of film is something that would require extremely tricky sharpening approaches to translate meaningfully) - the best you can get is something that vaguely looks film-ish until you realise that the sharpness, colour behaviour and granularity/ noise seem off-kilter from what should be the case. A well scanned neg on the other hand can be readily worked up to something parallel but slightly different to a good darkroom print.

Alan Edward Klein · May 19, 2021

Digital tends to look much sharper than film. More sterile. Maybe that's the fault of my scanner.

Looking for experts for qualitative study

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