Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Everything to do with colour negative shooting, developing and printing
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bakubo
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Unread post by bakubo »

I took your KM 5D shot and in about 2 minutes created this:

Image

I wasn't trying to duplicate your film shot, but just get it in the same ballpark. I also removed some of the magenta cast by adding some green to get the color cast more like the film shot. Note, your film shot looks like the sky and sunlit hilltops are pretty much blown out or, at least, way too bright. I decided not to try to match that.

Also, at first I thought you were suggesting you took these two shots at the same time, but I guess I just misunderstood you. It appears like they were several months or maybe even years apart. The 5D shot has many boulders in the stream, but the film shot just has a few. The camera position and angle is slightly different though so maybe that accounts for it.

Here is a photo I took yesterday afternoon with the A700, ISO 200, cRAW that has a wide dynamic range:

Image

Oh, something I should mention is that the photos I have posted in this thread are mostly garbage shots with no aesthetic value, but I am putting them here just to illustrate the points. Well, the Hawaiian beach girl photo is not bad, but the others (police cars, this one, and the one from Thursday) are not interesting and I deliberately processed them to have a rather wide, bland dynamic range. This one I am posting today of the Duke Paoa Kahanamoku statue at Waikiki Beach is just such an example. For this shot, in particular, if I cared about it and wanted to keep it I would process it differently.

http://www.hawaiiweb.com/html/duke_kaha ... tatue.html
bfitzgerald wrote:The other point to make is, for myself..once you get past the loathsome aspect of film scanning (and it is that until you get to grips with it), I find I spend more time on composition, and moving about, rather than snapping away, knowing that I have loads of shots I "can take". Film teaches restraint..and I think that is a plus point too. Obviously for sports and action, events etc etc..digital would be your ist choice.
I shot with film for so long before digital I still shoot with care. So, I don't need to go back to film to learn that. :) I find myself shooting more often, but not shooting much more on each occasion than I did before. Sure costs a lot less though. In 1993 I spent 10 weeks traveling in Africa from Capetown to Nairobi going through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania before getting to Kenya. I took 125 rolls of film (110 rolls of 36 exposure slide for SLRs, 15 rolls of 36 exposure print film for p&s). The cost for the film and processing (including taxes) was about US$1,500. I bought all the film at B&H and also the processing envelopes so that saved me a lot of money. It could have cost a lot more. Oh, and that $1,500 was in 1993 dollars. In 2008 dollars it comes to about $2,300. For those 4,500 photos you can get a pretty good DSLR and lens or two for that much and be able to get much more than 4,500 photos. :)
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

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I can assure you that the film and digital shots were taken around 10 minutes apart, if that.
Yes you can pull the 5d image around, but the results are some strange colour shifts in the shadow regions. Which goes back to the original point, there is more DR with neg film! And you have to adjust your shooting exposure, to compensate for the small highlight headroom.
Not to mention res wise, 6mp , whilst fine for many subjects, the film greatly out resolves it, even the ISO 200 stuff.
Like I said I don't shoot big volume, and for those who do, digital is an obvious choice. But everyone can make up their own mind, I know relatively few shoot film not (though maybe more than many think)
So for me at least, there are "some advantages" with both formats. I suspect those few extra stops would be more than welcomed by most. That alone is enough to stop the highlight burn out problem, from being as common as it is. Course, if we look at compacts etc, it's a serious issue for some shots..and I for one really dislike the pure white gone out sky look..
Nothing blown in the film shot, it's just "high key" but that is what neg film is like. Worth a mention, this isnt my film of choice, I got a load of it dumped on me for nothing, donated..so better to do something with it, than dump it! I hope the ektar is good, should be strong colour wise, decent contrast, but not "cartoon photoshop land" which I really dislike. I can get that film scan to look very different too, just by picking a film profile from the software
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bakubo
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Unread post by bakubo »

bfitzgerald wrote:I can assure you that the film and digital shots were taken around 10 minutes apart, if that.
The difference in position doesn't look to be so far away, but I guess it is. All those big boulders disappeared between shots.
Yes you can pull the 5d image around, but the results are some strange colour shifts in the shadow regions.
Yep, that can happen when working with a little jpeg rather than the raw file.
Which goes back to the original point, there is more DR with neg film!
Yeah, maybe there is. Unfortunately, none of your posted shots exhibit it. :)
But everyone can make up their own mind
Yeah, that is what everyone should do.
Nothing blown in the film shot, it's just "high key" but that is what neg film is like.
Okay, it is darn close to it though. Surprising since it is a film shot. :)
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

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Henry, for some reason you seem to want to dispute the information I provided. which is fine..but you seem to feel that I have been having a go at the A700, when I have directly been looking at the 5d compared to neg colour film.

I also note some interesting previous posts by yourself, on dp, regarding film and digital, some choice selelctions are:

1: "21mp beats 6x9 film"
2: "your 12mp DSLR is about equivalent to 4.5x6 film"
3: With regards negative film you suggested "The shadow areas are so muddy and noisy in a different and much worse way than scanned slides. I usually just have to adjust the black point so that the shadows turn almost black to get rid of the ugly look"

Not that I am picking on you here...

1: I would not want to suggest a FF 35mm DSLR would beat 6x9 film. I have not used a camera format that large, but I have seen prints from some, and pretty impressive would be a mild way of putting it.

2: This is the subject of much debate. The problems are numerous, which film? developing? optical or scanned? I see you once referenced to Ken Rockwell showing a D3 v a 35mm Retina and velvia..clearly the D3 not showing the details as well. Of course we could suggest the nikon has a worse lens, but I doubt that would hold up to much.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/2008-09-new.htm

So I have no doubts that compared to some film, 12mp isn't out resolving it. I have also been vocal and critical of the luminous landscape on this issue. As I have both 35mm and a 6mp APS-DSLR, I think my comments are valid. But as I have suggested, people who want monster prints don't shoot 35mm, they shoot LF. I note you have referenced to the LL before a few times, I assume you are not keen on my critical remarks. Well I have openly put these concerns to MR over at the LL, and the silence indicates much more to me than anything else. I think he is simply "missing the point", and feel his remarks are not indicative of real world conditions, and he is biased heavily to digital. But I have no personal beef with him, everyone can have a view.

3: We all now the 3 mediums are different, I don't even feel digital is "just like slide" either, there are differences. Neg film dislikes being starved of light, and is much happier with overexposure than underexposure, simply shooting in the same respect as slide, will yield more "grainy" results. Again this will vary from film to film. There is no reason shadow details should look muddy, if you expose for the shadows. But then you know this already..unless something went wrong when the film was developed.

Yes I would agree for colour fidelity slide is the place to go, over neg film. My points were based on dr and latitude.

Onto the other points..
"The difference in position doesn't look to be so far away, but I guess it is. All those big boulders disappeared between shots"

The boulders didn't go anywhere, I moved my position (to the right and up, hence less rocks) It's fairly obvious if you reference to clear points in the shot. Comments like this I don't really appreciate, as you are suggesting my integrity is compromised, and that the shots were taken at different times, weeks, months, years etc.


"Yep, that can happen when working with a little jpeg rather than the raw file"

Well I did shoot raw, for the obvious reason that shadow pulling on jpegs are not very effective, and their are limits. As I have said the 5d is pretty good with shadow depth, and it's possible to pull it up a fair bit. But, again it still has an effect on the tones and colours, and to my eye..by the time I have played about with it, I have a very "digital" looking image, which I don't really want. I would be the ist person to admit my pp skills are not at awesome levels, nor do I have the patience for extended processing of images, aka hours etc etc. Simply a case of workflow too, to scan the film takes not very long, and I prefer the results, this is subjective of course.

"Yeah, maybe there is. Unfortunately, none of your posted shots exhibit it"

I think they did. The ist shot is pretty challenging for digital, notable shadow areas at the base of the concrete/back of bronze face, with strong highlight areas blasting onto it. I found your shot, to not be anywhere near to that situation, and your shadows were far darker, nothing is clipped, no shadow areas are crushed in the film shot. No doubt in my mind the 5d would have struggled with that, again, forcing me to underexpose to attempt to hold the details.

The 2nd shot is a common problem for digital, where a large part of the frame is being exposed for with normal metering patterns, shadow area to the left in the enclosure...with the metering based on delivering an exposure for the midtones..it would quickly run out of highlight headroom, and possibly have some issues in shadow areas too. Again, the only solution would be to underexposed by some margin..and attempt to bring it up later on.

The bridge shot shows significantly more DR straight out of the film shot, without any attempt to adjust levels of curves etc. The digital requires some work to even get near the film one.

But the point that maybe you have missed, which I did say..is that for scenarios like this, it is easier to go about your business taking the photos, and not having to review/adjust exposures which IMO does not help concentration whilst out in the field working. And that if we had better DR, that these scenarios would be less common, and everyone would like that!
Are you suggesting you have never had to "re-take" a shot with the A700 in the scenarios I showed above? Are you suggesting that the A700 never clips highlights? Or that you have never missed a shot due to the exposure being not to your tastes?


"Okay, it is darn close to it though. Surprising since it is a film shot"

For a start the image is not clipped, and it's flat. The reason it is flat is, I scanned it like that. It lacks contrast, but that is down to my method of scanning..the ist shot lacks contrast too..but this is easily adjusted..
And I repeat again, this isnt the mother of all DR film, though the fuji appears to edge the kodak on these ISO 200 bog standard throw at you films.

There is an interesting article here...worth a read, yes a few years old, but highlights something about what I have said:

http://www.photojournalistas.com/Storie ... rog01.html

I would just take one line to show how much I agree with it.
"Each format still has strengths that the other one doesn’t have"
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bakubo
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

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bfitzgerald wrote:Henry, for some reason you seem to want to dispute the information I provided. which is fine..but you seem to feel that I have been having a go at the A700, when I have directly been looking at the 5d compared to neg colour film.
Then you have misunderstood. I have just been pointing out that a DSLR (at least my A700) can do quite well also. So far, all of the photos you have posted to illustrate the superiority of color negative film with regard to dynamic range don't really illustrate it, I think. I have posted several digital examples that show that in real life digital can often do as well. Maybe it can't in every case, but I know from several years of using both that digital works pretty well too. You seem to be getting upset over all of this and I can't for the life of me figure out why. I have tried to always be courteous to you and just have a friendly discussion but, especially in your latest post, you seem to be going on the attack. For that reason this will be my last post in this thread.
I also note some interesting previous posts by yourself, on dp, regarding film and digital, some choice selelctions are:

1: "21mp beats 6x9 film"
2: "your 12mp DSLR is about equivalent to 4.5x6 film"
3: With regards negative film you suggested "The shadow areas are so muddy and noisy in a different and much worse way than scanned slides. I usually just have to adjust the black point so that the shadows turn almost black to get rid of the ugly look"
What does this have to do with this thread about highlights and dynamic range? Maybe start a new thread for this. There are a couple of recent threads on dpreview where you participated extensively. Anyway, it just seems to be changing the subject.

I wish you had provided the links to those posts though since I don't feel like going back to find them. I believe that in #1 and #2 those were just links to articles that someone had written for people to discuss if they wanted. I don't believe I made any statements saying that film or digital was superior. As for #3, yes that is my experience for many negatives I have scanned. With slides there is sometimes noise in the shadows, but it isn't the globby, ugly stuff like in some of the negatives. I suspect with color negative film it depends a lot on how the processing was done too. Just one more variable that affects how good your scan is going to be.
The boulders didn't go anywhere, I moved my position (to the right and up, hence less rocks) It's fairly obvious if you reference to clear points in the shot. Comments like this I don't really appreciate, as you are suggesting my integrity is compromised, and that the shots were taken at different times, weeks, months, years etc.
You seem to have a chip on your shoulder and are assuming way too much. Barry, I didn't mean to suggest you were lying and I am surprised you feel that way. You didn't make it clear whether they were taken at the same time and I can't see any reason why that would matter anyway. What was interesting was the missing boulders. I was just asking. Actually, a type of book that I enjoy very much looking at is the sort that has two photos of the same scene many years, usually decades, apart. I have looked at some of Vancouver, San Francisco, Austin, Honolulu, Tokyo, and some natural areas in the western U.S. Amazing to see some of the transformations in a scene over time.

I find that a DSLR can do quite well and I generally don't have any problems with highlights. Of course, I am not expecting magic. I also don't mind watching exposure. Yes, you are right though, if a person likes to shoot with little regard for exposure (for example, a p&s with one shutter speed and fixed aperture like a single use camera) then color negative film is great. The printer can also fix many problems. The meter in the A700 is pretty good and after so many years I generally quickly size up a situation and decide to adjust the exposure compensation before even bringing the camera to my eye. That gets me about where I need to be most times. Sometimes I check the histogram and see that more or less exposure would be better. If it is possible to reshoot I do, if not then I don't. I am usually pretty darn close to a good, usable exposure. Using raw just gives me a bit more insurance.

Oh well, this has all become very tedious and I am bored with it so I won't even bother with the rest of your post. Nothing wrong with film. I shot it for decades and scanned it for quite a few years. Barry, let's all just shoot with what we prefer and create some good images! :) Peace.
Last edited by bakubo on Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

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The point of the thread was to discuss the DR and highlight range of neg film, yes. I mentioned the dp threads, as I felt you have pre-conceived thoughts on film, there is nothing wrong with that. Not upset over anything, but I disagree, with your suggesting not a single sample shows situations that many digital cameras can struggle with.
I also provided one sample in which the 5d was used and film. So really, there is little point in advertising the fact the A700 has better highlight range than the 5d (which I don't dispute by the way) Neg colour film is not 100% fire and forget exposure wise, some of the b&w films are almost

The most interesting thread on dp so far, is the A900 v 35mm, one of the areas that stands out (leaving aside res etc), is the way neg film deals with highlights, and you can clearly see a smoother graduation in the highlight areas, on the fuji 35mm shots v the A900.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=29704253

The 3rd set down shows the point I have made about highlights (esp look at the road)..course, with raw one might be able to recover them better. Though the point made, is that they are most of the time "just there" without any additional processing required, or with the danger of channels clipping.
By the way, I fully understand that most will have had their time with film, never to return to it..and digital can be a great medium, but having used a fair few cameras (but not the A700), I think we are still some way off getting to a DR level, that is much nicer overall. I am sure specific cameras can do better, such as the Fuji S5. And no doubt the situation will improve over time.
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

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This post came up on the Dp forums.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=31039467" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you click on the link, you can see Ektar 100 v a Canon 20d, true newer cameras have better DR, but this highlights how big the gap is regarding highlight latitude. This is rather compelling in demonstrating my points made.
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Unread post by bakubo »

bfitzgerald wrote:If you click on the link, you can see Ektar 100 v a Canon 20d, true newer cameras have better DR, but this highlights how big the gap is regarding highlight latitude. This is rather compelling in demonstrating my points made.
I notice that the exposure series starts at 1/30 second and goes to 3 seconds. I didn't read the whole thread. Where is the series that starts at 1/250 second?
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Unread post by Dusty »

I'm an old film addict, but a recent convert to digital. My non-scientific testing shows about a 2 stop DR advantage for film. I can live with that., though, due to the $0 developing costs and the ability to tweak a shot on-screen w/o having to print test photos.

I'm still going to hold on to my 4x5 and 120 film cameras for a few uses (and my 35mm, cause it's just not worth the few dollars I'd get to sell them!)

Some day when the DR goes up and I can afford a 25-65MP camera, I'll put them in my museum.

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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Unread post by Dr. Harout »

The majority of my pictures archive consist of... films, and specially B&W. I have shots that it was impossible to get with digital, and you know why?... because at that time there were no digital :lol:
As for the discussion, there are many pros and cons for either side, i.e. film and digital. I cannot get into this, but I can sadly note that film is dead here in my country (almost). So you're stuck to digital, want it or not.
Some say there is no soul in digital. But frankly haven't felt it yet. Anyway, when comparing, I think, and that is my very subjective thought, that we should not compare film with APS-C digital. That would not be fair, because you would miss too many points. Let's compare film with FF sensor.
Also, all films were not identical (do excuse for the dumb statement). You couldn't have the same "touch" or "feel" or "sense" say with Ilford HP5 Plus and T-Max 400. Same goes for different color negatives and slides. And I'm sure this kind of non-identical-ity should and is continuing on sensors. We all love the colors of Minolta, but hey, were they the same on different films, such as Kodak, Fuji, Agfa...? A late friend of mine compared the 5 major brands (Minolta, Pentax, Olympus, Nikon and Canon) with "Impressionism", "exhibitionism", "Surrealism" and so forth. (I don't remember exactly which he referred to which). And now, I think sensors might act so (and why not?).
I even think of interchangeable sensors (or probably softwares) which may include "à la Ektar" or "à la Polaroid", "à la Velvia" and so forth...
Did I talk too much... :roll: :lol:
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

Another test is done here..
http://shutterclick.smugmug.com/gallery ... n2LsD-O-LB" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Back to the points raised, DR is only one reason to shoot film. I have said before, fully 100% understand some folks having no interest in the stuff, and I won't debate the huge advantages of digital in some respects. But for me, film has character and something unique about it, I shall be having fun with this...



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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Unread post by Dr. Harout »

Barry, you're bringing back good memories... Nostalgia :(
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Unread post by Javelin »

wow .. they must be doing well (Ilford) the machine that produces those fin-seal pack usually run about 200 packages a minute.
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

From what I hear, Ilford are doing pretty well. They got bought out a few years back, but seem on track nowadays.

I think most of the damage is done digital wise, leaving the enthusiasts to buy and use film, or which there are probably more than people think, but obviously digital is the mass market as such.

All those films are good, in their own unique way. I stick to Ilford for b&w mostly, have to experiment with some I have never tried, fuji b&w etc. You find something you like, and stick with it. Both FP4 and HP5 are fantastic films, the new Ektar is an unknown for me, I didn't load up with too many, just in case I don't like it.

I would encourage folks to just put a roll of film through a camera, it's a different experience, I rather like the wait till the prints are done aspect. But you might have some problems finding a decent lab, which is why some of us scan our own..and I hope to have some optical printing setup sometime this year. I have to say, a real wet print is really something unique.
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Re: Reasons to shoot colour neg film part I ;-)

Unread post by Javelin »

Bofore I made the decision to buy a DSLR I broke out my x700 and everything else I still had including winder, 2 flashes, 4 lenses, bellows, filters bought a 6 pack of film and carried it around everywhere with my for 3 weeks. I really wanted to know If I could fit a whole system into my life again. had to relearn but I had a ball. It is definatly a commitment. the film cost me a small fortune to process. got some good results and here I am today. I stopped carrying the fim camera after developing abut 250.00 worth of film and not getting a single good shot out of the whole works and got discouraged
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