Trying films after 7 digital cameras

mtjade2007 · Sep 29, 2008

I met a guy two weeks ago who had many questions about films. It turned out that he has had 7 digital cameras but he is giving up digital and is trying to shoot films. That really triggered my curiosity. I asked him why. Apparently he is an amateur and is obviously unsatisfied with all his digital cameras. The quick answer from him was digital cameras are only good early in the morning and late in the evening. During the day the images are always too contrasty.

That's really very interesting. Although it is one guy's opinion I think it has much truth in it. I was in Hawaii a month ago to attend a wedding of a cousin. There was a wedding photographer hired for wedding photos. The timing of the wedding was arranged that it was really late in the evening. The photographer was hired on a contract of two hours. The timing was arranged so that half of the time was before and the other half was after sunset. To me that was too late during the day for a wedding. It was a little dark to my eyes. I wondered at the time why it was not arranged to be like an hour earlier. The lighting would have been more comfortable to my eyes. And I have seen weddings an hour or two earlier.

Well, not every wedding photographer shot late in the evening. But this one did. And I wonder if it has anything to do with the contrast issue of digital cameras. I shot only two rolls of film throughout the wedding. I guess the wedding photographer probably had shot easily a thousand images.

ann · Sep 29, 2008

well, there is no difference with film.

the lighting is always going to be an issue in the middle of the day, regardless.

mtjade2007 · Sep 29, 2008

ann said:
well, there is no difference with film.

the lighting is always going to be an issue in the middle of the day, regardless.

Some films have very wide dynamic range as wide as 10 or more stops. I think those films will work very well during bright sunny days. Velvia 50 is one that will have the issue but not Astia 100 and many negative films. I have shot Portra NC and VC both 160 and 400 on bright sunny days without contrast issues. And that includes wedding shots. Most negatives work great on sunny days.

ann · Sep 29, 2008

well, film does have more dynamic range, but the contrast can still be an issue, which is all i meant.

contrast at high noon is serious contrast, regardless of film or sensors.

and there is a big difference between sunny days and extreme contrast situations. as a serious user of black and white films it can be controled but for someone who is searching for a camera only to handle these conditions he is going to be hard pressed as it is about technique as well.

bob100684 · Sep 30, 2008

I think the guy just doesn't know how to meter correctly. I've gotten perfectly fine shots on digital in the mid day, and horrible shots on film at dawn and dusk.....but I've also gotten great shots using each at any time of day.

mtjade2007 · Sep 30, 2008

"contrast at high noon is serious contrast, regardless of film or sensors"

This is true. But that isn't what I was talking about. The gentleman was saying he had contrast issues using his digital cameras during the day, not just at noon. That is a sensor dynamic range problem common to most digital sensors, if not all. My guess is it was why the wedding photographer in Hawaii chose the time right before and after sunset to shoot the wedding photos. Had he tried to shoot an hour earlier he would have tremendous contrast problems. I was in Hawaii about 4 years ago and it was also for attending a wedding. The wedding photographer shot the wedding completely in the shade also at time near sunset.

Metering may reduce the contrast issue of digital sensors. My understanding is basically you give up highlight details to save the shadow. The better approach is to avoid high contrasty scenes and shoot at dawn and sunset. Obviously this is what the gentleman said and did. Try to compare head shots taking by films and digital sensors. Look for reflection of light from (oily) skin. You can identify which is taken by which by looking for light reflection from the skin. You will learn to identify digital shots instantly.

I guess what I am trying to say is I have heard it and I heard it again from this gentleman that digital cameras have the sensor dynamic range problem. But sometimes it is an advantage but it may be undesired some other times.

2F/2F · Sep 30, 2008

The guy you met is the kind of moron that keeps the economy moving, so we need people like him...but for god's sake, don't actually listen to him! Seven digital cameras, and not a clue how to use them. Kind of like those pricks who buy garages full of Ferraris, but would get stomped by a teenager in a beat up 25-year-old Toyota on a real road course.

hadeer · Sep 30, 2008

Wirelessly posted (Palm TX: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D050; Blazer/4.3) 16;320x448)

2F/2F said:
The guy you met is the kind of moron that keeps the economy moving, so we need people like him...but for god's sake, don't actually listen to him! Seven digital cameras, and not a clue how to use them. Kind of like those pricks who buy garages full of Ferraris, but would get stomped by a teenager in a beat up 25-year-old Toyota on a real road course.

'Seven digital cameras, and not a clue how to use them.'
Exactly. Probably this chap will never find out that one can control contrast through development either.

Steve Smith · Sep 30, 2008

Sounds like the type who used to have a full Pentax outfit, then traded it all in for Minolta, Then Canon, Then Nikon, etc. trying to find the system which would take the best pictures.

Steve.

Aurum · Sep 30, 2008

Steve Smith said:
Sounds like the type who used to have a full Pentax outfit, then traded it all in for Minolta, Then Canon, Then Nikon, etc. trying to find the system which would take the best pictures.

Steve.

Don't knock 'em! All the kit ends up on ebay at my sort of prices, not high street prices.

Thanasis · Sep 30, 2008

Too much money, not enough sense.

JBrunner · Sep 30, 2008

7 cameras, when all he needed was a good off camera fill flash through a translucent... or some shade and a fill... boggling. Here's a hint... if you go through 7 decent cameras, film or otherwise, and all of them produce poor pictures... news flash... it ain't the camera!

Poisson Du Jour · Sep 30, 2008

mtjade2007 said:
Some films have very wide dynamic range as wide as 10 or more stops. [...]Velvia 50 is one that will have the issue but not Astia 100 and many negative films.

Er—, 7 cameras...!? Something is akimbo.

What is wrong here is a complex of failings on the photographer's part. Sorry, but that's what I've seen far too often.

But let's sort something out. Taking an example, Velvia's dynamic range is narrow, typically around 2.3 stops. Print film is, as pointed out in this thread, up to 10+ stops. The difference is stark and is a major stumbling block for those coming to tranny film from digital.

Digi camera sensors have some failings. They tend to head straight for 255 in highlights way too easily while Velvia rises gracefully. I, too, have contrast blocks with my digi compact, getting the best results in diffuse light. Surprise, surprise.

I think people moving from digital to film, i.e. Velvia, need to critically assess what they are doing and not point the finger at film or cameras at the first hurdle. Print film is very forgiving and many are happy with that. But then there is that other brute, Velvia. RVP is just awful in bright sun/deep shadows because it is a high contrast film. Same thing can happen with digis in strong light. As I've pointed out many times, this sort of light is not RVP's design intention, it being quite at home in diffuse light. But you can have fun with it, and contrasty digi cameras: here in Australia, there are landscape photographers who photograph the stark brilliance of desert colours on Velvia at 50 (sometimes, too, with a polariser — yikes!) and then print to Cibachromes, with utterly striking ("Disneychrome") results. Personally I never use RVP like that (i.e. mid-day), preferring to control colour and saturation in ideal conditions through selective metering, ISO, over- under-exposure or using a POL to tone down spectrals

mtjade2007 · Oct 1, 2008

You made a very good point. Digital cameras are in many ways different from films. You will have to use them in a way that's best for them. I just want to ask your opinions that digital cameras tend to produce higher contrast images due to the nature of narrower sensor dynamic range. I am not trying to say it's bad or implying films are better. When I talked to the gentleman about his experience from using 7 digital cameras I did not find him being a moron. I was actually impressed by how he described his problems and how he appeared to know very well about Nikon and Canon. There is really nothing wrong in trying to explore a different world of shooting films. I am sure he will face all kinds of problems associated with films too. WHen he complains about those problems I am sure some people will say he has not a clue of how to shoot films. It is really the other way around.

pentaxuser · Oct 1, 2008

2F/2F said:
Kind of like those pricks who buy garages full of Ferraris, but would get stomped by a teenager in a beat up 25-year-old Toyota on a real road course.

Oh please! It's bad enough that the wife reminds me of this fact.

pentaxuser

Poisson Du Jour · Oct 2, 2008

My personal experience (using a Fuji E900 compact digital, a Canon SureShot and Canon 5D, these latter 2 loaned) is that if digital cameras are used in bright, contrasty point light then you will not escape ending up with a very contrasty image, particularly if fill flash has not been used. Having said that, the wider dynamic range of digital camera sensors (considerably wider than, for instance, Velvia) gives allowance for a few transgressions in regard to contrasty scenes i.e. setting the scene to 'shadow'. It all comes down to the need to better educate digital camera users in the foundations of recognising good and bad light. That has so far failed to happen in my view; consumers are more interested in the latest gimmickry, styling and freebies. The major digi problem as mentioned previously is the blowing of highlights that occur too easily (as opposed to Velvia, Kodak trannies or even print film), blocking of shadows and the failure of so-called real photographers to recognise this as symbolic of a lack of understanding of 'fitting the image to the dynamic range of the sensor', as we do with Velvia.

Robert Budding · Oct 7, 2008

There are some situations where I choose neg film over slide or digital. My son's soccer games, for instance, are normally played when the sun is high in the sky, so I shoot film. Fill flash wouldn't work well with a telephoto lens. And I'd prefer not to flash the players from eye level.

keithwms · Oct 7, 2008

mtjade2007 said:
WHen he complains about those problems I am sure some people will say he has not a clue of how to shoot films.

So, I still believe that the exposure learning process is best done with film.... or if it must be digital, then at least with some preliminary schooling in how to meter a scene.

At some point, a photographer needs to learn how to determine how many stops of range there are in a scene, and how much range a give film can handle under particular processing conditions. A photographer needs to be able to get what they want and know that they got what they wanted, with confidence, i.e. not relying on post-processing to rescue an ill-conceived exposure.

The big problem I see with learning exposure on digital is that folks are so tempted to look at the screen or histo or highlight warning, and keep or erase a capture on the fly and move on. And now, with active d-lighting and matrix metering and HDR merges etc., digital shooters are getting less and less inclined to make strategic exposure decisions before clicking.

Case in point: last weekend I went out with a bunch of folks and everybody was shooting digitally. Afternoon light, clear sky, shadows still quite contrasty. I observed the following: people were shooting and then automatically looking to the screen for a verdict. If the screen image looked blown, they'd just delete and move on. Now, this is a very different approach from looking at the scene as full of good and bad photo opps.

N.b. I would not say that digital shooters can't be equally good at assessing the light and determining exposure. I am just saying that I see a lot of click/check/delete, as opposed to moving around and reaching for the camera only when the right light is found.

Poisson Du Jour · Oct 7, 2008

Absolutely, Keith. Well said.

This business of judging a good or a bad photograph by examining the low-res, low dynamic range LCD on the back of digis is plain daft. Since LiveView came into being (a feature of many mid- to high-range SLRs where the scene can be composed and examined on an additional plug-in LCD), I'm seeing cashed up yuppies carting around fairly bulky storage units with big LCDs on them (and even bigger hard drives, the last being 50Gb!!), where the picture is wirelessly transferred (yes, even in a rainforest at the base of a waterfall) for judgement, too often erased and so the silly process repeats. Then there's this horrid 'interference': Scene by the river dramatis personae: "So, do you modify your images on a computer?" "Yeah, mate, I'll add sparkles to the water and tidy up the trees..." Exit Poisson...

Trying films after 7 digital cameras

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