Are you THAT good?

Yeah no, I don't get it and still suck at composition. I crop in PS. I'll get there one day...come heck or high water :)
 
Well, I guess I messed up on my communications skills. I was not trying to suggest that digital was better than film. Certainly the tone, colour and resolution on many top films particularly in large format cameras is unsurpassed.

What I did not understand was why anyone would shoot in large format, scan to a computer, edit in Photoshop and then go to print. Yes, you have a high quality original, but to retain that quality you need a high quality scanner. My perspective is obviously not yours, but in Canada I cannot even find a store that handles a medium quality slide scanner, let alone a high quality film scanner. How much did you pay for yours?

Even with one, it would seem to me that the size of the file, once scanned, again to retain the quality of the original would be gigantic. Then there is the time it would seem to take to scan multiple film shots to huge files. You are also compressing about the equivalent of a 46 bit+ original down to a 16 bit file.

Then without a very fast computer, I cannot see how you would load and postprocess huge files very efficiently and even if you do, how much quality is lost from the original to the final product. Considering your skill in camera work, and darkroom work too, I'm sure, I wonder why photoshop?

Also, if you did one shot through film, scanning and photoshopping and another through digital to photoshop, I wonder whether the difference in quality would be worth the effort and time involved. Maybe it would!?! Since I have not done it of the same shot, I honestly don't know.

skieur
 
The file sizes are roughly comparable between digital and film for color. You have to bear in mind frame size. 35mm FF is roughly equiv to 35mm scanning. MF and LF digital are not, because they're not full frame. For black and white, they're obviously smaller for film.

It does take a long time to scan, depending on what kind of quality you're going for and white size neg you're scanning. A single 6x9 can take between 5 minutes and 45 minutes depending on the precision that I want. That's on a Super CoolScan 9000. I'm fiending for an Imacon FlexTight. The Nikon is a couple grand. The Imacon is $5k-10k. I do work on fast computers...a quad processor G5 with 2 gigs of ram on each processor.

My style of shooting doesn't necessitate that I use digital. I don't need autofocus, I don't have client deadlines to meet, I love developing film and printing in the darkroom. Because I don't shoot AF, I just can't rationalize spending thousands of dollars on really great AF glass. If I had that kind of money, though, I would be more than happy to spend it on exceptional manual focus glass.

As Brandt mentioned, he feels that he can get more detail out of shooting film and scanning [than from shooting digital]. I tend to agree with him entirely except for contact printing onto AZO and developing in amidol (if you've ever seen those prints in real life....the tone range is absolutely mind-blowing). There are certain applications for which PS is better suited, for sure. Color shots that require any retouching are better suited to PS IMO. When I shoot models in color, it's always color neg or chrome and then scanned. When I do this architectural gig coming up, I will scan.
 
I only try to enhance the composition by cropping if I failed composing while taking the shot (or simply changed my mind).
Of course I never compose in postprocessing if i shoot slide film ;)
 
How important is composition in your photography?
Very. I try very hard to visualize the shot before I get the camera out. Until my skills are where I want them to be, I do pad just a bit.

Are you careful and mindful about it- or just click away?
On shots where there is no movement, I take my time. I will take several shots at different settings at this location because I feel it has the strongest impact. Then I may move over, up, back and take several at each position. There is this thing called serendipity.

Then to go back to the original question of if I'm all that - simply, NOT YET. Will I keep trying - ALWAYS.
 
I learned photography using film developing everything myself in a darkroom and became adept at doing whatever I needed to do to crop things and many of my classmates did crop, but I never did. I would always use the full-frame negative carrier (the one that would leave a black border around your image on the print) to show that I composed that shot the way I wanted when I took it, and didn't need to rethink/crop it. Of course, I could crop it if I needed to, but I can't recall a time when I did.

I take this same approach to digital photography: I can crop and manipulate the image if I must, but I feel so much more rewarded when I am able to say that whatever is in the final image was in there for a reason. I edit digitally the same way I print in the darkroom: tweak for best color/contrast in the final print and that's about it.

Composition is key; if it's not interesting and arresting, no one's going to care. Granted if it's terribly exposed they won't either, but a perfectly exposed poor composition won't get you much farther.
 
How important is composition in your photography?

Are you careful and mindful about it- or just click away?

Every time I release the shutter it is my goal to capture the image I see in my head.
 
Composition is absolutely necessary to tell the viewer what to focus on. With poor composition you'll confuse the viewer and they wont have a clue what they're suppose to be looking at.
 
Well it depends on how you break down the word composition.
There are many aspects of composition that you just cannot adjust after you have taken the shot.
Composition can be broken down into many layers:
compression
colours
layers
framing
positioning

Compression is going to be the choice of lens and angle.
Alot of people think with landscape photography a wide angle is essential, well in some aspects it can be, but wide angle lenses will also give alot of depth to the shot. Sometimes you want things to appear more compressed, which is why you'd use a telephot lens. Something that you can't change after you've shot and something you need to consider before you take the shot.

Colours play a huge roll in photography, even in black and white. You need to consider how the colours in the shot react to each other. Are they complimentary or do they clash. Is there an angle to shoot at, which will put the different colours in different places. Are there filters you can use to enhance the colours or totally change them. (polarisers, graduated filters, tabacoo filter for a sunset for example, which in digital photography can be done afterwards)
Again in B&W photography different colours take on different tones, and tones can make all the difference with B&W work. (again you may choose different filters, red, yellow, orange, green, blue)

Layering again is a key part of composition. Do you have a foreground, midground and background. How do these layers work together, where is your main point of focus. Are you using zone metering throughout.

Framing kinda speaks for itself. are you using anything in the shot as a frame. Maybe foliage or buildings, all key aspects to draw your eyes into the center (or where ever your point of focus is) of the shot.

I guess positioning is the main thing that people think of when they look into composition. Are you trying to follow any rules? (thirds, leading lines, golden triangle, golden mean(square))
Is the rule your trying to follow suitable for the shot? In a busy shot how are things positioned around your main subject?

So if you think about composition as just being positioning of the subject at hand, then think again. Nothing is set in stone in photography, but taking these different aspects into consideration can usually help to make a more visiually pleasing shot.


I guess after writing that... I'm very much aware of my composition in all areas of photography.
 
As Brandt mentioned, he feels that he can get more detail out of shooting film and scanning [than from shooting digital]. I tend to agree with him entirely except for contact printing onto AZO and developing in amidol (if you've ever seen those prints in real life....the tone range is absolutely mind-blowing).

Damn skippy right you are on that one, hard to touch an Azo/Amidol contact print. If any one has any, I'll buy it. Hopefully we will have a new silver chloride contact printing paper soon! If anyone lives in southern Maine area and wants to see what he is talking about, PM me. :wink:
 
I love developing film and printing in the darkroom.


Hallelujah! I love B&W film and the darkroom. Although I do shoot digitally, film is my baby. It's what I learned on. It's what I'm still learning on.You cannot match the beauty of an image captured on film.
 
Damn skippy right you are on that one, hard to touch an Azo/Amidol contact print. If any one has any, I'll buy it. Hopefully we will have a new silver chloride contact printing paper soon! If anyone lives in southern Maine area and wants to see what he is talking about, PM me. :wink:

You know you can still purchase AZO from Michael and Paula AFAIK (http://www.michaelandpaula.com/mp/Azo_Prices.html) It's not even that expensive.
 
Well it depends on how you break down the word composition.
There are many aspects of composition that you just cannot adjust after you have taken the shot.
Composition can be broken down into many layers:
compression
colours
layers
framing
positioning

Compression is going to be the choice of lens and angle.
Alot of people think with landscape photography a wide angle is essential, well in some aspects it can be, but wide angle lenses will also give alot of depth to the shot. Sometimes you want things to appear more compressed, which is why you'd use a telephot lens. Something that you can't change after you've shot and something you need to consider before you take the shot.

Colours play a huge roll in photography, even in black and white. You need to consider how the colours in the shot react to each other. Are they complimentary or do they clash. Is there an angle to shoot at, which will put the different colours in different places. Are there filters you can use to enhance the colours or totally change them. (polarisers, graduated filters, tabacoo filter for a sunset for example, which in digital photography can be done afterwards)
Again in B&W photography different colours take on different tones, and tones can make all the difference with B&W work. (again you may choose different filters, red, yellow, orange, green, blue)

Layering again is a key part of composition. Do you have a foreground, midground and background. How do these layers work together, where is your main point of focus. Are you using zone metering throughout.

Framing kinda speaks for itself. are you using anything in the shot as a frame. Maybe foliage or buildings, all key aspects to draw your eyes into the center (or where ever your point of focus is) of the shot.

I guess positioning is the main thing that people think of when they look into composition. Are you trying to follow any rules? (thirds, leading lines, golden triangle, golden mean(square))
Is the rule your trying to follow suitable for the shot? In a busy shot how are things positioned around your main subject?

So if you think about composition as just being positioning of the subject at hand, then think again. Nothing is set in stone in photography, but taking these different aspects into consideration can usually help to make a more visiually pleasing shot.


I guess after writing that... I'm very much aware of my composition in all areas of photography.

Sorry, but you are way, way, off base about what composition is. It is based on the elements of design in art. Take a look at this website which will give you a much clearer idea about what compostion REALLY IS:

www.photoinf.com

skieur
 
the title is misleading...i was looking forward to adding my comment of one of the best compliments i have ever received :)
 
You know you can still purchase AZO from Michael and Paula AFAIK (http://www.michaelandpaula.com/mp/Azo_Prices.html) It's not even that expensive.

Yes, but there is much background info on that, including a change in grade 2 that is just horrible to deal with, including the stock that was set aside for them at Kodak was sold out from under them, so thier stock is quite low from what it should be, not sure if they have any grade 3 left, but I would contact them directly on that. Not to mention it is not even made any more. So, the older stock, no matter how old is better. Michael and Paula are good friends and working on a new Silver Chloride paper, I already have commited funds for a pre-order and looking forward to it getting made, as with them involved it will probably be better than Azo was.

Cheers!
 

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