Getting that film look

Doug Robbins wrote:
Photography is a craft. Whining that "it takes to much time" to get the look
you want is a confession that you don't have the commitment to do good
photography. Get a point an shoot and take your photos or memory card to the
Wal-Mart. Easy. Just don't expect much and you be having lots of free time.

Doug
Well I believe you are right in part, the people who complain that they
don't want to spend time on each photo will likely not get as good
photos. But it is the some of the film people who are making this
complaint and using it in part as the reason they do not want to use
digital cameras. Digital or film I will adjust the photos that I am
getting printed larger then 4 x 6 and even a fair number of the 4 x 6
photos get adjusted.

From what I read a large number of film users just want to drop their
film off at the lab and then pick up the prints. I can do better then
this by scanning the negatives and sending in a digital file, it takes
more time but I get a better print then if I just sent the film in.

Scott

Itsme wrote:
Why do you need to scan the image into your computer? The idea of using
film is you don't need to scan etc. Just get it processed at the lab.

I get much better prints if I first scan the film and then get it
printed. If I just get it processed at the lab the white balance will
normally be off. This is particularly true for photos of the ocean,
you get that amount of blue in a photo and the labs auto white balance
will be way off. In any number of photos I will also do a bit of
dodging and burning to bring out the shadow. Negative film has a
pretty good dynamic range, but you get very little value from this fact
if you just drop off your photos.

When I went from black and white photography to color I really missed
the control I had when doing my own prints. I would look at the color
enlargers from time to time but the cost and effort to set up a color
lab was too high. Getting the photograph into a digital format
allowed me to do what I wanted to do since the 70s, have some real
control over the color prints I was making.

I have a vast number of negatives and prints that both my wife and I
have taken over the years, one of the things that makes going back and
scanning the old negatives worthwhile is getting the prints to look
right.

Scott

Doug Robbins wrote:
Getting that film look is quite easy when you use film.

Doug
It is only easy if you don't care that much about your photos. Sure
if you just want to drop off you roll of film at the lab then it is not
much work. But if you want to be the one in control of the print then
using film is a lot of work. I still am making prints from my
negatives, it takes me much more time to get a print from a negative
then it does from a digital photo, even if I make a fair bit of
adjustments to the photo.

Getting a film print to look good is not all that easy. If you are
printing from slides then you are working with a tiny dynamic range, in
some photos the small range is not a problem in other it can take a lot
of work to get the photo to look as good as it can. With negatives
there is much more range it takes a lot of work to get the colors
right.

I am not arguing that everyone should give up on film, I am saying that
for many of us film is far more work and in the end I get a better
looking print from digital. Film does give more contrast, but if I
don't want as much contrast there is not much I can do about it.
Starting out with a digital photos I can adjust the contrast to where I
like it best.

Scott

no_name wrote:

Actually, the guy in the purple shirt has the skin tone of a Barbie doll
that's been left in the microwave too long in all three.

You are close, the guy in the purple shirt has the skin tone of a man
who was way sun burned. It was a very sunny day without a whole lot of
shade, as the day went on the skin tones shift more and more to the
red.

Scott

Charles wrote:
which film look?

Years ago I shot the same scenes with Kodacolor and Vericolor.


The Kodacolor prints looked like I expected pictures to look, the
Vericolor looked like the real scene.

Which was better?

This is in fact a very good question and that has no one right answer.
When viewing photos on the computer screen I like a more natural look,
but most people prefer a high contrast high saturated look. On one of
the digital photo contest sites I belong to I can get higher scores by
simply turning up the contrast and saturation of my photos, I don't
like it as much but most people seem to. When doing prints it is a
whole other story, you have a very limited range in the print, trying
to fit the whole of the range of a digital photos in a print will make
for one washed out looking print.

Scott

"Scott W" wrote in message
oups.com...
There have been a lot of people who say they just don't like the look
of digital photos, that they look flat or like plastic. There are
some people who will not care, they just don't like the idea of
digital. But for those people who might want to use a ditial camera
and get at least some of the look of film this might be valuable to
look at. Others my have better methods of getting that film look, I
would love to hear them.

Digital cameras try to get the most accurate capture of a scene that
they can. Whereas a digital capture might be very accurate it will not
be to everybody's taste. Film, particularly slide film, boosts the
contrast of a scene, this also makes the colors more vivid.

This is a scan of one of my Kodachrome slides that shows the kind of
look you get from Kodachrome.
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/53746257


If you have 'scanned' the Kodachrome slide, you now have 'digital', yet you
are saying it looks better than 'digital'. I don't understand


Snip a lot



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Pinehollow wrote:

If you have 'scanned' the Kodachrome slide, you now have 'digital', yet you
are saying it looks better than 'digital'. I don't understand


Not better so much as different. Some people prefer the look of
slides, for these people a bit of processing on a digital file can make
it look more like the slide then when it comes straight out of the
camera.

Scott

wrote:
In article . com,
says...

Scott W wrote:
Chris Loffredo wrote:
Scott W wrote:

O.K., avoiding the great debate (for the moment).

Just, all your pictures have an American flag in them: Is it an article
of the Patriot Act that all photos need to have a US flag in them?

I've lived in seven different countries and, AFAIK, I have no pictures
of flags.

Oh well, de gustibus...

It's not me, it is where I live. I did not even notice the flags in
the photos, show how much the flag flies around here. When I was in
Canada taking photos I did notice I ended up with a fair number of
photos with the Canadian flay in them.

Scott

I'm just getting started in digital photography. I shot film for years
(60's into the 80's) and eventually lost interest. I considered myself
a serious amateur and sold some of my work. My eye isn't terribly
sharp, compared to my son's, who is a professional photojournalist. So
all I can say is, I'd love to have taken any of these pix!
I can also say that I disagree with the "if you want it to look like
film, shoot film" comments. There are so many advantages to digital,
I'm discovering, that it certainly makes sense to try to duplicate film
as closely as you can using a far more user-friendly medium. Keep up
the good work! And thanks for sharing with us.


The advantages are debatable for various reasons. Not always easier to
use digital. As for user friendly it depends on if you enjoy working with
computers or using a trusted lab and spending more time at the beach and
a good cafe.

I love computers and digital and having the control but it really is not
fare to say it is more user friendly for everyone as it truly is not for
everyone.

I don't recall saying it was more user-friendly for everyone. Just a
general statement. Maybe for some experienced darkroom users, a
darkroom is easier. What percentage of the population is that? As far
as darkroom processing, in which I have limited experience, I can
safely say that for the majority (being conservative here, deleting
"vast"), mixing up a bunch of noxious chemicals and working in a
darkened room is considerably more difficult than dragging slide
switches on a computer. And I'm talking B&W darkroom here. If we start
comparing color, there's absolutely no comparison!


My wife shoots only slides and uses mostly one lab in Italy that does
great work. She really has no reason to go digital and there are no
advantages for the type of work she does. For photojournalists digital is
the way to go. For the average shooter like yourself it if most likely
digital is best as well but someday, who knows, maybe you will take
interest in a particular style and digital will not have any real
advantages.

The main other advantage I've observed so far is the ability to see
your picture immediately, with the opportunity, in most cases, to
reshoot if you're not happy with the first one. And even get a
histogram for even more information. Not to mention all the choices I
have with a digital I never had with film, and certainly not in-camera.

Add to that the convenience of digital image handling. I can store it
for long periods without worrying about it degrading. I can email it to
all kinds of photo processing labs with widely varying prices and
quality, my choice. I can buy a photo printer and print them myself.
Even better, I can send them to my son and he can do a professional
photoshop job on them, print them on his high quality printer, and send
them back to me. It doesn't get any better than this in terms of
choice.


Now if we just introduce enough distortion in these CDs they will sound
"almost" like vinyl. How much time will that take?

In article .com,
says...
dd to that the convenience of digital image handling. I can store it
for long periods without worrying about it degrading. I can email it to
all kinds of photo processing labs with widely varying prices and
quality, my choice. I can buy a photo printer and print them myself.
Even better, I can send them to my son and he can do a professional
photoshop job on them, print them on his high quality printer, and send
them back to me. It doesn't get any better than this in terms of
choice.



Points well taken. The only thing I would suggest is to never assume that
your digital photos will not fade, so to speak. There is already serious
issues with this in audio which is why NASA and Smithsonian archive on
film and digital.

As I said, I love computers and the so called conveniences but I have
found after 20 plus years of working with them that I would rather spend
my time at a cafe. Simply a lifestyle choice.

In article ,
Doug Robbins wrote:
Photography is a craft. Whining that "it takes to much time" to get the look
you want is a confession that you don't have the commitment to do good
photography. Get a point an shoot and take your photos or memory card to the
Wal-Mart. Easy. Just don't expect much and you be having lots of free time.

Doug

Or he could make the commitment he feels is worth to him, and use the
tools that help him to do photography as he likes it.


"Scott W" wrote in message
roups.com...
Joseph Kewfi wrote:
Others my have better methods of getting that film look, I would love to
hear them.

Use film ?

This is one options, but not for me. It takes me less time to adjust
the digital photo then it does to photoshop out the dust on a slide,
much less the scratches on a negative.

Scott





--
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assumes definite, tangible form and bears concrete results is worth a
million ideas that are born but to die." -- Manual of the U.S. Army, 1911