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Film vs Digital
- Thread starter Harlequin565
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I think I touched on a similar subject earlier but for me it's a mixture of all sorts......
I do sometimes enjoy looking for and then sitting on a single composition waiting for light or colour as I also sometimes drive to locations to shoot night skies and end up with just the one Milky Way image from the trip out.
On other occasions I could wander a Village or seaside town and grab a dozen or more (what I like to call) snapshots and try to find scenes that go together well or different shots of the same subject/theme to present as little 'sets' which if you follow me on Instagram is fairly common lately.
As for which I enjoy the most......? I'm not sure I can answer that
What I do enjoy though often, is getting out and about walking, watching, waiting, new places etc with or without images.
Plain Nev
Vincent Furnier
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I think we do. Particularly with film. Those of us who use it know what that's like. It does put psychological pressure on you to make the most of your exposures. Probably the most fun I've had with film is shooting fully automatic, to be honest. And that is a result of learning the hard way. It's good to cut loose sometimes.
excalibur2
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Well for me have to admit most of my shots are record shots and recent e.gs. for the last 10 years (each year) have been photographing an abandoned house get more delapidated.....also now and then shots of places nearby I find interesting.
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This may be the motivation for some out there but I don’t believe it to be the case with the majority in this section if the forum.
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I do both, but more film than digital these days. I am interested in the end result, a photograph, but I enjoy the whole process including the anticipation when taking the negatives out of the wash and hanging them. I think certain types of photo lend themselves to digital, especially where tiny details can make or break a shot as in macro and close-ups, but these genres have existed for more than a hundred years in wet photography too.
Some heavily processed digital shots are a bit like a vindaloo which gives an immediate "wow" to your senses but a well taken film shot can leave lasting memories, like your mother's cheese scones.
Some heavily processed digital shots are a bit like a vindaloo which gives an immediate "wow" to your senses but a well taken film shot can leave lasting memories, like your mother's cheese scones.
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This comment interests me and I'm not saying I disagree......totally ....but why does it ?
Is it because you've less shots to play with ....memory card Vs a roll of film ?
In which case why don't we as photographers just shoot with digital cameras but with film in mind ? Let's all try and get "the shot" in our first 3 attempts.....so I think it's more the photographers mindset and not the cameras fault if it takes a roll of film or a memory card .
I learned on film and I can say that my photography came on leaps and bounds since digital simply because I could learn by my mistakes faster . When shooting film I used to note my camera settings for each shot and then cross reference them to the negatives when I got them developed to see where I had done right or wrong . Did that make me a better photographer? Absolutely not ....it just took a longer period of time from taking the shot to seeing the results and knowing where I went right or wrong .
excalibur2
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....and after all that if you haven't got the gift, genes or whatever.......then it would be pure luck that you get a great photo.
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Sorry don't get ya....and after all that if you haven't got the gift, genes or whatever.......then it would be pure luck that you get a great photo.
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Well i agree with everything you say.
But here’s the thing.
A painter/artist can use all different mediums to express his feelings/thoughts/vision on any surface (wall, canvas, paper). Or he can just use a computer and try to mimic the medium (of lets say oil paint brushstrokes).
It’s just a matter of what tools you have at your disposal to craft what you envisioned.
Photography is the same thing. Digital and analogue is just different tools. You can’t compare them because they’re different tools (in my opinion).
To me digital is too distracting…
And some times the answer is simply, that’s the tool i prefer to use.
I can’t pretend digi is analogue by tricking my mind into doing things. Because the whole process of talking a picture to printing an image with film is totally different.
I really enjoy the process, from putting the film in the camera to wet printing an image.
I’m not a professional so it’s not a biggie for me to go through all that process.
And yes, i still use a digital camera, but only when i want to just play around( just take silly pictures of family). when going on a trip, or just going out for a photo walk i take the film camera. Why? Because i’m going to hang a photo on the wall, I’d rather it be a wet print!
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All valid points but none cover why film makes you a better photographer ...you just talk about the experience it gives you .I think comparing a painter using a computer instead of a brush against film Vs digital is an not quite accurate. Taking a shot with film Vs digital requires exactly the same understanding of the scene , the light the composition and input to the camera . What you then do to the digital image in lightroom is pretty much 90% of what you can do in the darkroom . So totally agree it's a different experience.....but a better photographer because of it ? Na I don't think so and certainly not in my experience as someone who started out and still uses film ...to potentially open a can of worms the standard of photography right now is incredible and the highest it's been and that's certainly not because of film ...... just compare the images in a 2023 wedding album Vs one from 1973. I know what one I'd want .
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It was a different world in 1973.
Around that time, I was doing two or three weddings every Saturday from April to September, operating for a Devon studio. We worked on the Album System: the customer specified 12, 24 or 36 pictures in an album they chose when ordering and we produced to a strict table of contents, depending on the number of images ordered.
There was, as my boss put it "no art involved and satisfaction guaranteed". That seemed to work for the customers, because it wasn't unusual to do a wedding one year and do a siblings's wedding the following year.
An advert image I used when I set up on my own around that time...
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Yeah but the greatest wedding photographers of that time don't have a patch on the greatest now . I have no doubt that some of the greatest photographers off all time live amongst us right now and many wouldn't know what a roll of HP5 was if it hit them on the head . The whole " film makes you a better photographer" makes for an interesting debate
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Well, I don't buy "great photographers".
As with all art, it's in the eye of the beholder and one man's zenith is another woman's nadir. Or to put it with a slightly different emphasis: whoever you admire, someone else will despise.
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That's a charming photograph of its age and, may I say, beautifully executed.
I have a few sets of 6x6 negatives of weddings from the 1950's, which I bought ont' web. They came from the same London photographer and there probably wasn't any discussion of what content the client wanted. You get two 12 exposure films and you get all the stock shots; groom waiting anxiously for bride, bride steps from car, walks down aisle, none of the ceremony of course because the clergy don't want you to have fun, bride and groom outside church, bride with bride's family, groom with groom's family. Cut to bride and groom getting into wedding car, honeymoon? No way! Off to the church hall and a view of the cake and cake cutting then photographer clears off, job done.
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At the studio I worked for, it was slightly different.
The boss had worked out the individual shots, as you mention, and put them on an order form that was, effectively, a menu. The buyer decided which pictures s/he wanted and then the person taking the order crossed off all the other options (with a ruler!) and got the signature and deposit. The studio was, for the time, very modern, with the form printed on three part NCR: top for the studio, second for the operator (photographer) and bottom for the customer.
Leaving the country was recommended for the operator who missed a shot or took one not on the list!
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That's interesting and I've never looked at it that way . To me a great photographer is just that . There's many photographers who's work I don't like but I can recognise that they are very good at what they do .
But we are probably going off topic and as I've said the standard of photography now has never been higher regardless of what your personal taste is .
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And yet, in my estimation there have been such. What determines (or reveals) them? A pertinent vision and a consistent one, I suggest.
There are many angles to the art & craft (those are not synonymous terms) of photography, and no given practitioner has to inhabit all of them to achieve relevance and meaning.
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I know we like to polarise because it makes argument/discussion easier if we divide, but to me it's not one or the other. Film gives a certain look to an image, and while it *can* be replicated for digital especially if the film image is digitised before reproduction, there is not too much point in doing so other than cost.
Film can't save a picture that's poorly composed, dull, witless or just technically poor. Bad craft is always that, whatever the recording medium. There have been plenty of people who showed tedious images that were enobled by the use of film in their eyes. Film may enhance a good picture if used well and appropriately, but it may not add anything at all.
At risk of sounding like a broken record, the original image - negative or raw file - is always the starting point for the picture. Getting it right in camera means making a negative suitable for processing after capture. A photographer may choose to limit themselves to the post-processing built in to their camera or their printers default settings. Or they may wish manipulate the image themselves in making the picture. The nice thing about digital is that it's just much quicker, cleaner and easier than the chemical-driven darkroom, though I accept it's less involving in a physical sense, since I don't have to hold my hands under the projection from the enlarger to dodge and burn my prints now.
Film can't save a picture that's poorly composed, dull, witless or just technically poor. Bad craft is always that, whatever the recording medium. There have been plenty of people who showed tedious images that were enobled by the use of film in their eyes. Film may enhance a good picture if used well and appropriately, but it may not add anything at all.
At risk of sounding like a broken record, the original image - negative or raw file - is always the starting point for the picture. Getting it right in camera means making a negative suitable for processing after capture. A photographer may choose to limit themselves to the post-processing built in to their camera or their printers default settings. Or they may wish manipulate the image themselves in making the picture. The nice thing about digital is that it's just much quicker, cleaner and easier than the chemical-driven darkroom, though I accept it's less involving in a physical sense, since I don't have to hold my hands under the projection from the enlarger to dodge and burn my prints now.
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We'll have to agree to disagree, then.
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What about 'great photographs'?
Tastes can change, both cultrually and individually. I used to think Cartier-Bresson's photos were 'great photographs' and really liked them. I like them less nowadays but still think he was a 'great photographer'.
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In an ever-evolving artform there is no best or greatest but there are many, many great photographers. Great photographers of the past have inspired all the great photographers of now. Where would we be if there had been no Cartier-Bresson, Doisneu, Adams (Ansell and Robert), Julia Margaret Cameron, Dorothea Lange etc.
A great photograph is a great photograph no matter what the medium.
A great photograph is a great photograph no matter what the medium.
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I think working to a shot list was fairly common back then, we certainly did it, with 12 shots on a roll and only maybe 36 for the wedding more time was taken on each shot and even working from the tripod was common (I was never that fussed abut a tripod personally) so it was more practical working from a set list of pics.At the studio I worked for, it was slightly different.
The boss had worked out the individual shots, as you mention, and put them on an order form that was, effectively, a menu. The buyer decided which pictures s/he wanted and then the person taking the order crossed off all the other options (with a ruler!) and got the signature and deposit. The studio was, for the time, very modern, with the form printed on three part NCR: top for the studio, second for the operator (photographer) and bottom for the customer.
Leaving the country was recommended for the operator who missed a shot or took one not on the list!
Todays machine gunning approach and people taking a 1000 or 2000 shots would need a big list.
Is it better? I'm not convinced (says the man who has 43 confetti shots at the last wedding)
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Yeah, what with all those drones, go-pros and HDR 8K AI highlight control, wedding photography for example has truly reached an all time high.
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I think working to a shot list was fairly common back then, we certainly did it, with 12 shots on a roll and only maybe 36 for the wedding more time was taken on each shot and even working from the tripod was common (I was never that fussed abut a tripod personally) so it was more practical working from a set list of pics.
Todays machine gunning approach and people taking a 1000 or 2000 shots would need a big list.
Indeed, I worked to a shot list too, though usually 2 frames of each group and up to 5 rolls of 15 on to give me a little creative freedom. Almost everything was done from behind the tripod because that's how it worked then.
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Not true for me glad to have moved on from film and darkrooms etc. Regarding film making you a better photographer; you need to explain how. Could it be that the need to get it right and not waste frames makes you concentrate on the technical aspects. I rather feel that the technical certainty my digital photography now gives me, allows me to concentrate more on the pictorial aspects.
I was a film photographer for 30 years so has this better photographer effect now worn off with a further 18 years of digital or could the 18 years added to my knowledge and skills. I think the latter. I do not deny that the years of film gave me a good understanding of exposure, DOF, dynamic range etc.
Dave
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Without wishing to appear argumentative just for the sake of it: One man's "great" is another man's "meh".
It really doesn't matter who or how many enthuse over something, there will be millions, possibly billions, who will never see it and if they did, would not be impressed.
Plain Nev
Vincent Furnier
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Yes, and no. You have to concentrate on the technical aspects, to a degree. But that's part of learning, and it's not as if it's exclusive of your composition. It's part and parcel of it. One doesn't preclude the other. You become fluent in one medium and apply your skills to another. Rather than "the effect" wearing of, digital is just a continuation. It doesn't mean you become "pictorial" and change your way of thinking.
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Heh, absolutely. Below is the result of a "great landscape photograph" image search in Google. Thinking about its algorithms and such, these must be popular results. Yes - Google is defining the word "great" in order to give results, and yes, it's probably not the best example, but anyone who states that an image is inarguably great is setting themselves up for a fall. If you were a new photographer, and went to google as a first port of call, this would be your baseline for "great".
I have no doubt some people will think these are great. For me, they are less than meh.
And this is one reason I really don't like digital photography and why I'm hopeful that AI will just kill off this kind of uncreative, cookie cutter image (pun intended) of what a "great" photograph should be.
I'm so glad we're all different.
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A search for 'greatest ever photographs' returns something different. Still some s***e, but some widely acknowledged 'great' photographs.
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Isn't that what they used to do some time back ? Progress is great !nex 3 last year for a quick shot of something in the garden and couldn't use it without a black sheet over my head as I couldn't see the screen with the sun on it.
excalibur2
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makes you think do the Japanese (or any country) designers actually use their products also some motorbikes or cars, kitchen etc and my annoying feature on the Nikon FM with the wind on lever sticking up my nose when used vertically.
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Think your looking at the wrong people buddy lol
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Because if it the title was “differences between film and digital” nobody would care
We need drama not objectivity