Digital or film look? Which one you prefer and why?

[fathergll]

Agreed. For the record if I didn't mention it already I shoot medium format and after shooting 6x9 120 it makes 35mm film look like a joke, That said my 2K scans of 35mm do not give it justice, for a real comparison I usually request a 5K scan of 35mm, still I prefer MF....not that I don't break out my 35mm SLR every now and then but I've got 8K scans of my 6x9 Velvia and Portra shots that look amazing and still don't even have all the resolution resolved...I imagine many of them could double the resolution and still resolve a lot of detail, good glass and focus dependent of course. But yes The Dark Knight is amazing, both of them. I watch movies multiple times, usually at least once or twice in my home theater and untold amounts of times on my laptop. When watching a Blu-ray on my rMBP its amazing to see the subtle changes in film grain from anamorphic 35mm to 5-perf 70mm and then to the massive IMAX (15/70mm). At one point I was thinking of doing a stop motion film using medium format with slide film but then I woke up I love film but it is costly and I have a back log of 120 film that needs developing, some from last year, literally a whole box, kind of a stressful thing.

Funny enough I’ve been tinkering with the idea of dipping my toes into film with a ‘Texas Leica’ 6x9 camera(not sure if I have the guts to make the jump). I probably won’t at this point and keep everything digital but its a fun idea to entertain. Unfortunately true digital medium format is a long ways off in prices. The Pentax 645Ds are actually starting to come into full frame digital price range($3.5k) but even they are not a true medium format sensor size. It’s almost like they are an APS-C size for medium format and the new Sony 42MP mirrorless/Nikon D810 cameras really have closed a lot of the IQ gap.


But yes IMAX is amazing in that it looks almost digital in that its so clean looking but retains that ‘film look’. This is how I view a lot of medium and large format photography. I see this translate to still photography sometimes with medium format but it’s pretty rare that I see scans that show you this. Even majority of large format scans are not up to par and frankly I see better IQ from a x100 sometimes because the scans are really low quality. When the scans are on point…..boy are they amazing and in a digital age where even smartphones have good IQ they stand out above the crowd IMO. I have a 27” retina iMac and the some of the medium and large format images look amazing and I can easily see the IQ advantages over full frame digital counterparts. The smaller the screen the less this becomes apparent. If your viewing photos on Instagram on an iPhone then most of this gets lost.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I don't consider grain to be a creative component of a photo - purely personal bias, but since grain was something I sought to minimize/avoid back when I was shooting film, it's definitely not welcome now (and chroma noise is far less pleasant than film grain). I'm simply not big on retro. I never liked sepia toning. If I scan an old, yellowed b&w print or an intentionally sepia-toned print, I remove the color data. And applying specific film curves?

So, my bias is clear. Still, I started shooting in b&w. My aesthetic is strongly affected by b&w photographers (strong on light and shadow/zone system). So, I sometimes shoot with b&w as a final goal (I do shoot color, because adjusting color channels in post is far more effective than choosing a filter before shooting).

But as to "look" - I'm reminded of a debate that raged in TV production (including advertising work) back in the '80s - film look vs. video look. I was a music editor, so I had my hands on the 35mm work prints, and also sent them out for film-to-tape transfer prior to the recording sessions, as we would SMTPE timecode-sync the videotape to the 24-track audio recorder (relatively new tech back then).

Here's the thing... jobs shot on film still looked like film when they came back to me on videotape. If videotape was incapable of the nuance of film, then why could it capture the film look? The only reasonable answer had to do with a difference of technique, rather than the intrinsic qualities of the recording medium.

Different lighting directors worked film and video. Typically, video studios were brightly and evenly illuminated for 3-camera shoots (that high contrast, bright noontime daylight look). Film shoots were typically lit for single-camera technique; the lighting was/is adjusted for every angle, scene, and mood. And since video was more susceptible to noise in low lighting (and maybe because video crews that were used to shooting live events preferred to stop-down their lenses for an extra margin of safety, so there was a tendency to avoid shallow depth of field).

Sure, analog video was still technically inferior to film in a number of ways - "pixel-peepers" would have had a field day. But those differences tended to take a back seat to technique.

 

[sarge]

Even the best available ENG cameras were traditionally using sensors with 1/3 the area of 35mm film with interlaced, higher frame rates and capturing using YCrCb compression so there is a lot more in play besides lighting.

As for film grain I prefer the look of Tri-x over T-Max so the grain structure for me is an artistic choice. Different developers also impact the final outcome - some swear by Pyro PMK. I'm not a fan of sepia toning either but I wouldn't consider exhibiting a print w/o either gold or selenium toning it. Even though I'm not a alternative process printer, I have yet so see a machine print match the subtle beauty of a palladium or platinum print. Analogue processes in my opinion still rule the printmaking world.

Filmmakers frequently incorporate video to in their films -which also retain their 'videoness' to differentiate points of view or layers of reality. Many artists are hostage to circumstance and have to use the means available to them to tell their stories. My argument is, if you're open minded -and lucky enough, it's possible use all these different modes of expression to broaden your visual palette and tell a richer story

 

[kallisti]

I have nothing constructive to add to this thread (which is usually a red flag to not post).

But I have to say that this is one of the most interesting threads I have read on this forum. I'm reminded a bit of how I felt as a little kid allowed to sit on my father's lap while the adults talked about "adult things" and I listened unobtrusively, absorbing it all.