Film black and white vs digital black and white

[Josh66]

B&W film vs. digital seem pretty close to me - as far as exposure/range goes. I do like the look of film over digital though.

IMO, where digital really has some catching up to do is dynamic range compared to color negative film...

The ISO battle is just stupid now. Do we really need ISO 128,000? I mean, has everyone just accepted that skies are always going to be blown out, or what?

Just a snap-shot example:

2012011027 by J E, on Flickr

If that were digital, it would look a little different. The sky would definitely be blown out, and maybe the sand too. Not exactly a shot you could do an HDR for either...

 

[compur]

A digitally scanned film image is a digital image. It is no longer a film image.

All images on the internet are digital.

Comparing "digital vs film images" by posting them on the internet is nonsensical. They're both digital with the latter being at least second generation.

 

[bhop]

The only advantage I truly see with b/w film is the ability to adjust hilights after exposure. With digital, your latitude is pretty fixed - it's like having slide film with 6-8 stops of useable dynamic range - which is probably close to b/w film without taking into account adjustments in development time. All other issues, including highlight handling, can be addressed through exposure, processing and greyscale conversion.

But - I don't mean to understate how much of a disadvantage this is. Adjusting highlight density is an enormous advantage to b/w film.

Basically this is it for me. I shoot a lot of b/w film and can almost always adjust it to my liking in the scanning process, even if some of it's seems to scan with blown highlights, i'm somehow able to tone it down to something that's useable in those blown spots. Digital blown highlights are just.. well, there's nothing there to work with.

 

[The_Traveler]

OTOH, digital allows us to do relatively easily what would be impossible with film - and routinely.

The reverse is also true, especially when it comes to things that really matter in a photo, like tones and how they balance out. How organic and natural tones look and such.

That's only because you grew up and experienced the tones of B&W as what is real.

 

[Derrel]

A digitally scanned film image is a digital image. It is no longer a film image.

There are no images on the internet that are not digital.

Comparing "digital vs film images" by posting them on the internet is nonsensical. They're both digital with the latter being at least second generation.

See, this is the point I was asking about earlier...to me, once the film is "digitized" by being scanned, I think it's a digital image....a digital image of a piece of film...I dunno...I looked at that woman's landscape prints of the snow scenes, and to me, and to perhaps one of America's best dye transfer printers, and print-makers in general, Ctein, digital "has trouble" in showing the nuances of TEXTURE on real-world subjects. Of course, her on-screen images are very,very SMALL, web-reductions, and frankly, not very good ones....the photos look pretty bad,actually, but then, she has been ripped off before and she does not want to see her images "lifted" by posting GOOD web-reductions...

Anyway...I'm not 100% sold on the B&W "look" of anything shot digitally, even in good inkjet print form. I've gone to galleries, shows, and many times been to the state fair's World Exhibit with top professional photos flown in via DHL and FedEx and all the couriers, from Asia, Europe, the island nations, as well as all across North and South America, and I have seen "top-quality" B&W DIGITAL images, and I have also seen Edward and Brett Weston Printed B&W original prints from the 30s, 40s, and 50's, and Wynn Bullock stuff printed in the early 1960's I guess it would be...I dunno...I like how "CLEAN" B&W digital images are, but they also look, well...a bit "sterile" or maybe "disinfected" or "pasteurized"...they seem to lack the nuances in minor,minor,minor tonal variation that film-captured images have. Perhaps its something at the micro-contrast level. Digital images are for the most part, RGB images made up with very discrete elements...it is very much a discrete Either this, or THAT, or THAT....with the millions of silver grains in a negative, and then the even more millions of silver grains in the enlargement paper, it seems to me that WET-printed B&W film on silver-based, fiber-based paper has a degree of "nuance" that seems to make textural clues more visually apparent on even modest-quality B&W prints, and I don't mean on the stuff that Brett Weston printed from his dad's negs, or Bullock's own prints, or genuine Ansel Adams printed images--I mean on just "regular amateur photographer work", film-captured B&W prints seem to look very,very different than regular-grade digital B&W work printed on inkjet systems. Again....digital is little RGB dots, and then little dots of ink, as opposed to millions and millions of tiny, overlapping silver grains with actual DEPTH...first on the film, and then on the enlarging paper.

I'll use an analogy that I think is appropos: film B&W is like silk...digital B&W is like fine polyester or Rayon...they look a hell of a lot alike--don't they!!! From a distance, virtually indistinguishable to most people. Both are made of fine, fine fibers, woven. Both are shiny and supple. Both make wonderful backings on your suit vests. One is very,very OLD-fashioned, outmoded, and outdated. The other is a modern marvel of industrial engineering. Rayon or fine polyester is the equal of natural silk in the hands of the masters. Uhhhhhh....NOT!!!!!!!!!

I dunno...just seems like scans of film = a digitized, digital image to me...

 

[Josh66]

I dunno...just seems like scans of film = a digitized, digital image to me...

I agree - but in most cases, I think you have more information to work with in a film scan than you do with digital capture. Especially so with color neg film.

Like bhop said - with digital, blown highlights are just gone - with film you can almost always recover them.

 

[Derrel]

I dunno...just seems like scans of film = a digitized, digital image to me...

I agree - but in most cases, I think you have more information to work with in a film scan than you do with digital capture. Especially so with color neg film.

Like bhop said - with digital, blown highlights are just gone - with film you can almost always recover them.

My contention is that you have vastly more information to work from in a WET-printed film-negative print (either contact print or enlargement) than you do with a SCAN made of the same exact piece of film. I think the FILM contains MORE discrete, as well as overlapping, bits of information than a scan is capable of rendering. Same for the printing-out process on silver-rich fiber-based paper---I think the "wet" darkroom process has more data points, with more minute differences, and more variations in the density, size, and tonal information than a scanner can handle, or an inkjet print can deliver...

It is the reduction of the millions of tiny silver bits into DISCRETE, "scanner data" that is Either/Or, that messes up the process. Scanned film is a hybrid system...

 

[Josh66]

I have yet to make a wet print (one day soon), but I have no doubt that you are right.

So, I guess it would be fair to say that film scans are somewhere in the middle. Wet print > scan > digital ...?

 

[dxqcanada]

Good point! So do you guys think I should get a negative scanner to upload my film black and white shots on web?

My wife and I are working towards rebuilding our Darkroom to work dually in digital and analog photography ... going back to our roots.
We also do have a film scanner to be able to present our Film images digitally, but our real use of film is to produce a chemically developed silver based print.

 

[compur]

I'll use an analogy that I think is appropos: film B&W is like silk...digital B&W is like fine polyester or Rayon...they look a hell of a lot alike--don't they!!! From a distance, virtually indistinguishable to most people. Both are made of fine, fine fibers, woven. Both are shiny and supple. Both make wonderful backings on your suit vests. One is very,very OLD-fashioned, outmoded, and outdated. The other is a modern marvel of industrial engineering. Rayon or fine polyester is the equal of natural silk in the hands of the masters. Uhhhhhh....NOT!!!!!!!!!

That's a good analogy.

Many fine old things have been replaced by modern cheap things that supposedly look just as good ... but they don't. Not when you compare them side by side.

For example, I'm also a fan of vintage watches. Many modern watches are made to look like the vintage ones but there is really no comparison when you see them together. This is true of many things.

 

[Derrel]

I'll use an analogy that I think is appropos: film B&W is like silk...digital B&W is like fine polyester or Rayon...they look a hell of a lot alike--don't they!!! From a distance, virtually indistinguishable to most people. Both are made of fine, fine fibers, woven. Both are shiny and supple. Both make wonderful backings on your suit vests. One is very,very OLD-fashioned, outmoded, and outdated. The other is a modern marvel of industrial engineering. Rayon or fine polyester is the equal of natural silk in the hands of the masters. Uhhhhhh....NOT!!!!!!!!!

That's a good analogy.

Many fine old things have been replaced by modern cheap things that supposedly look just as good ... but they don't. Not when you compare them side by side.

For example, I'm also a fan of vintage watches. Many modern watches are made to look like the vintage ones but there is really no comparison when you see them together. This is true of many things.

Thanks. It took me a few minutes of thinking to come up with an analogy I thought would be simple, and yet "accurate" and appropos...

 

[dxqcanada]

I'll use an analogy that I think is appropos: film B&W is like silk...digital B&W is like fine polyester or Rayon...they look a hell of a lot alike--don't they!!! From a distance, virtually indistinguishable to most people. Both are made of fine, fine fibers, woven. Both are shiny and supple. Both make wonderful backings on your suit vests. One is very,very OLD-fashioned, outmoded, and outdated. The other is a modern marvel of industrial engineering. Rayon or fine polyester is the equal of natural silk in the hands of the masters. Uhhhhhh....NOT!!!!!!!!!

That's a good analogy.

Many fine old things have been replaced by modern cheap things that supposedly look just as good ... but they don't. Not when you compare them side by side.

For example, I'm also a fan of vintage watches. Many modern watches are made to look like the vintage ones but there is really no comparison when you see them together. This is true of many things.

Thanks. It took me a few minutes of thinking to come up with an analogy I thought would be simple, and yet "accurate" and appropos...

It was good !!!

 

[epatsellis]

It depends on what you're working with. Compare a properly exposed Betterlight image to a film image here:
http://www.betterlight.com/rest_of_the_picture.html then let me know if you still consider digital to be secondary to film.

I personally use both, depending on what I'm shooting and what the end result will be. I have exhibited both 6K digital scan back and film images side by side, and there's no difference, though the digital tends to look to be of higher acutance. A good photographer can create world class images using either medium, if you are detail oriented.

erie

 

[unpopular]

Basically this is it for me. I shoot a lot of b/w film and can almost always adjust it to my liking in the scanning process, even if some of it's seems to scan with blown highlights, i'm somehow able to tone it down to something that's useable in those blown spots. Digital blown highlights are just.. well, there's nothing there to work with.

Or you could cut development time according to the zone system ...

I'll use an analogy that I think is appropos: film B&W is like silk...digital B&W is like fine polyester or Rayon...they look a hell of a lot alike--don't they!!! From a distance, virtually indistinguishable to most people. Both are made of fine, fine fibers, woven. Both are shiny and supple. Both make wonderful backings on your suit vests. One is very,very OLD-fashioned, outmoded, and outdated. The other is a modern marvel of industrial engineering. Rayon or fine polyester is the equal of natural silk in the hands of the masters. Uhhhhhh....NOT!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps but, like film, in the wrong hands silk may as well be rayon


http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh149/pianoplayer_photos/subalbum/30vhf9u.jpg

 

[Arpeggio9]

A digitally scanned film image is a digital image. It is no longer a film image.

All images on the internet are digital.

Comparing "digital vs film images" by posting them on the internet is nonsensical. They're both digital with the latter being at least second generation.

It's not the same tho'. It has something to do with how the information is initially captured. Something is lost when film image gets scanned, but there is still that film vibe to the scan. Just like listening to an old album from the vinyl Vs. that same recording but from the CD. IMO record sounds so much more pleasant but it's not that bad coming from the CD. There is still that analog tape sound.