Film or Digital
In photography there is a popular question at the moment: film or digital? Actually it's not really a new question. The first digital camera was tested in 1975. It weighed 3.6 kg, and its cassette tape-recorded image had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels and took 23 seconds to capture its first image. That was a test, of course, but the first publicly available digial cameras came onto the market in the late 1980s. They were expensive!
In contrast, photographic film was first being produced 100 years before that. So you can see that, though there are many millions of digital cameras available today, digital imaging is a much younger science. (On the other hand, things are moving faster these days)
Film is good (or it would not have existed as the professional standard for 130 years) but you can't see what it looks like until it's developed. Digital cameras let you see the picture immediately. That means you know what you've got. It's very helpful, and you can see why they are popular.
I could talk about ease of use for a while (I'm sure the internet is full of that kind of discussion if you want to read about it). Obviously digital is really convenient and makes pictures easy and fun to take. That's presumably why it's popular!
There is, however, the question of how the medium responds. Digital is improving all the time but for me, at the moment, it doesn't have the same feel as film. There are several reasons for this. I don't know enough about the details to explain them properly, so let's just say how I feel.
It seems to me that when the image gets over-exposed, film and digital behave differently. Over-exposed means some or all of the image is so bright that the film or sensor can't hold any detail and it burns out to white. This is not necessarily bad if you want it to look like that in some way - but it looks to me that film and digital behave differently.
Here are two pictures. The first one is an old picture from last year. It's quite pleasant but there are some big holes in the sky where it has exceeded the latitude of the camera's sensor (i.e. the difference between the brightest and darkest parts of the scene was too great to include all of it, and detail was lost in highlights or shadows). Those are the big white blobs. I didn't notice when I took it because I didn't know what it meant. Now I know and I know I didn't want it to look like that! Here it is:
(click to enlarge)
The point about that image is that I want you to notice the way it burns out in the sky. Now compare with a picture taken on film:
(click to enlarge)
Perhaps you can see the sky also burns out in this picture (also not intentional!). But it looks to me like it burns out more gracefully. I know that in the middle of the burn it is white...but somehow it gives the impression of being yellow. Whereas in the first picture it seems to go straight to white.
As far as burnt-out highlights go, I prefer the more gentle way of film.
I picked these pictures because they illustrate the point about burnt-out highlights. My best work you will have to wait for - it doesn't exist yet!
PS If you go to the cinema, then you are seeing "films" (movies, in U.S.) that were shot on film. Presumably they do that because it looks better. Don't worry though, I'm sure digital will catch up.
On the other hand, I released my CD on CDs not on vinyl...
In contrast, photographic film was first being produced 100 years before that. So you can see that, though there are many millions of digital cameras available today, digital imaging is a much younger science. (On the other hand, things are moving faster these days)
Film is good (or it would not have existed as the professional standard for 130 years) but you can't see what it looks like until it's developed. Digital cameras let you see the picture immediately. That means you know what you've got. It's very helpful, and you can see why they are popular.
I could talk about ease of use for a while (I'm sure the internet is full of that kind of discussion if you want to read about it). Obviously digital is really convenient and makes pictures easy and fun to take. That's presumably why it's popular!
There is, however, the question of how the medium responds. Digital is improving all the time but for me, at the moment, it doesn't have the same feel as film. There are several reasons for this. I don't know enough about the details to explain them properly, so let's just say how I feel.
It seems to me that when the image gets over-exposed, film and digital behave differently. Over-exposed means some or all of the image is so bright that the film or sensor can't hold any detail and it burns out to white. This is not necessarily bad if you want it to look like that in some way - but it looks to me that film and digital behave differently.
Here are two pictures. The first one is an old picture from last year. It's quite pleasant but there are some big holes in the sky where it has exceeded the latitude of the camera's sensor (i.e. the difference between the brightest and darkest parts of the scene was too great to include all of it, and detail was lost in highlights or shadows). Those are the big white blobs. I didn't notice when I took it because I didn't know what it meant. Now I know and I know I didn't want it to look like that! Here it is:
(click to enlarge)
The point about that image is that I want you to notice the way it burns out in the sky. Now compare with a picture taken on film:
(click to enlarge)
Perhaps you can see the sky also burns out in this picture (also not intentional!). But it looks to me like it burns out more gracefully. I know that in the middle of the burn it is white...but somehow it gives the impression of being yellow. Whereas in the first picture it seems to go straight to white.
As far as burnt-out highlights go, I prefer the more gentle way of film.
I picked these pictures because they illustrate the point about burnt-out highlights. My best work you will have to wait for - it doesn't exist yet!
PS If you go to the cinema, then you are seeing "films" (movies, in U.S.) that were shot on film. Presumably they do that because it looks better. Don't worry though, I'm sure digital will catch up.
On the other hand, I released my CD on CDs not on vinyl...
Labels: choice, photography
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