Film vs. Digital

[ChrisA]

.... I'm just this minute looking at some Provia 400X chromes I shot on it last weekend, and I'm absolutely blown away. I get similar results from my cheap-as-chips Hasselblad.

Yes, I have film in my file that blows away any dSLR shots. I've scanned some and found I need about 100 megapixels to capture the detail of wedding shots done with a Rolliflex on Kodak 160 speed negative film.

The Mamiya RB67 captures a bit more when used on a tripos in the studio.

Do you know what the current price of a basic 500C system (lens, back and all) is today?

 

[snberk103]

It is worth noting that lens manufacturing techniques have dramatically improved over the years. A lens from 1960 is going to be pretty crap compared to a lens made last year.

Yes, lense design has come a very long ways. A lense made today could be better than one made 40 years ago, but that is not always the case. Lenses today tend to be zoom lenses, which means that there way more pieces of glass in a lense, and they are moving about. The huge advance in lense design and manufacturing is then pushed back by the compromises that need to be made to accommodate all those new pieces of glass and that they move about as you zoom.

You can directly really only compare lenses that are designed for the same format. Large format lenses often had far less resolving power than a 35mm lense because an 8x10 neg is enlarged far far less than a 35mm lense.

.... More modern lenses have the opportunity to be much better than older lenses. They are not always, though.

Agree....

A lot of people seem to like a certain softness or dreaminess in their film lenses. Speaking technically that's just a crappy lens.

Not necessarily. There existed lenses that were deliberately made soft in very specific ways to create the 'soft' look. Film photographers who wanted the dreamy look may have gone to great lengths to get a very specific softness, including using speciality lenses. Especially around portraits. Karsh obviously used sharp lenses on his male subjects, but then look at his female subjects. He often purposely makes them soft and dreamy. I have to admit I don't know where Karsh introduces the soft look (on camera - with lense or filter, or in the dark room - with lense or filter. There is a way to tell if it's camera or dark room by looking at the photo, but I can't remember off the top of my head. But it boils down to whether the highlights bleed into the shadows or the shadows bleed into the highlights.)

 

[Edge100]

Yes, I have film in my file that blows away any dSLR shots. I've scanned some and found I need about 100 megapixels to capture the detail of wedding shots done with a Rolliflex on Kodak 160 speed negative film.

The Mamiya RB67 captures a bit more when used on a tripos in the studio.

Do you know what the current price of a basic 500C system (lens, back and all) is today?

My 500c/m body, waist-level viewfinder, two A12 backs, and 80 f/2.8 C T* was $1000.

 

[Evil Spoonman]

No. Not at all. The physics of optics has not changed and by the lat 1950's the best lenses (thse made without compromise to cost) were about as good as are allowed by the laws of physics.

Completely agree, physics hasn't changed.

Now that people are using SLRs to shoot serious videos I've noticed the older manual focus Nikon lens have become very ... pro equipment (Like a Haselblad 500C system that was for decades the "standard" wedding and portrait camera. Today we put up with the poorer result because we like the quick, instant results of digital. The lenses were better.

I don't agree with this. I think the characteristics of modern lenses have opportunity to be (and sometimes are) significantly better. I have used a few very nice older large format lenses and they were better than midrange or kit lenses on all DSLRs today. However, a modern high end prime or high end zoom just dominates in almost all measure of optical control. This is because of a few things...

- You can model optical physics on a computer and build your lens with the tradeoffs you want. It gives engineers much better tools to actually build lenses with, and much clearer understanding of how the variables can be adjusted to hit their desired target.
- Machining of glass has improved significantly. You can build shapes now that were not practical for market then. Furthermore, you can build the shape repeatedly and relatively quickly.
- AR coatings have come a very long way in recent years. Even since the dawn of the digital camera. Vapour deposition, microscopic surface gratings. AR coatings on all glass elements internally.
- Glass chemistry has improved a lot too. We can create much better low dispersion glasses that are thinner and lighter than before. Glasses that have much higher refraction indexes than in the past.
- Glass lamination techniques are really fantastic. You can build a lens group with 2-3 different elements with different properties and laminate it together in such a way that there is no gap between layers. This was not reliably possible before the last decade or so.


That is not to say every lens turned out today is way better than ever before. It has done two things...

1. The best possible lenses are better than ever before.
2. Normalisation of the midrange. A midrange lens today is hugely better than a midrange lens 15 years ago.

Not necessarily. I've got a "soft-focus" portrait lens that is designed deliberately to produce a certain amount of spherical aberration (the effect goes away as you stop down). snip...

Not necessarily. There existed lenses that were deliberately made soft in very specific ways to create the 'soft' look. Film photographers who wanted the dreamy look may have gone to great lengths to get a very specific softness, including using speciality lenses. Especially around portraits. snip...

I am aware of and I understand the soft focus or specialised effect lens. However, isn't this just a compensation for the fact that film is not as flexible as digital in some ways? Technically your camera should be pulling as much detail as it possibly can out of the shot. Then from there you can add localized blurs, tints, whatever you like to enhance the shot. You can always remove detail from a high quality shot. What you cannot do is add detail to a lower quality one. Speaking purely technically, that special soft-focus lens is intentionally capturing a worse image.

 

[Policar]

Digital sensors are far better than any film for a given surface area and modern lenses far surpass older ones, particularly in the case of zooms and wide angle lenses.

But a 50mm f1.4 from 40 years ago, stopped down a but, is still tack sharp and better than most challenging modern designs. And 8x10 is still just plain better than FF.

But modern gear is way more convenient. And generally much better.

 

[MacCruiskeen]

Technically your camera should be pulling as much detail as it possibly can out of the shot. Then from there you can add localized blurs, tints, whatever you like to enhance the shot. You can always remove detail from a high quality shot. What you cannot do is add detail to a lower quality one. Speaking purely technically, that special soft-focus lens is intentionally capturing a worse image.

It's not worse if it's the image I actually want. And why should I spend time futzing about in photoshop if I don't have to? That's too much like work. You don't really have a lot of fun with your cameras, do you? It doesn't sound like it. Here's one I took with my Speed Graphic, with a 90-year-old lens I got in an antique store for $2. The shutter was dead, so I had to use the Speed's focal plane shutter. I shot it on Fuji instant film, so I had my tiny print in a minute. This was just a test to see what I'd get from that lens, but I like the way it came out.

 

[Evil Spoonman]

It's not worse if it's the image I actually want.

I'm an engineer, not an artist. I have trouble with concepts like this. To me it is clearly and obviously an inferior product because all the ways you measure it show it to be worse. This also isn't the first time I've gotten myself in trouble attacking a point that is being interpreted two different ways.

So, I would like to apologise for coming off as a jerk. I do enjoy photography, but it is really hard for me to take great photos. I have the mechanics down perfectly, I can take a technically terrific photo. It just won't be of anything especially interesting. My images lack that certain something that more inspired people find in lenses with lousy sharpness.

Nothing but respect for you creative types. Wide-eyed wonderment sometimes, in fact. You keep doing what you do, and I'll keep trying to figure it out.

 

[snberk103]

....
I am aware of and I understand the soft focus or specialised effect lens. However, isn't this just a compensation for the fact that film is not as flexible as digital in some ways? Technically your camera should be pulling as much detail as it possibly can out of the shot.

I think we need to change the words we are using. We can show definitively that a lenses is 'sharper' or 'brighter', but that doesn't necessarily mean it's 'better'. Photographers use the characteristics of lense like tools - and they use different tools to get the effect they want. To say a lense with a particular characteristic is "better" is like saying a hammer is better than a screwdriver. It depends on whether you have a box of nails or screws. The analogy is that most homes are hammered together, so in most cases a hammer is the more appropriate tool for building a house. But that doesn't make it 'better'. It just makes it the right tool to build a house.

Then from there you can add localized blurs, tints, whatever you like to enhance the shot. You can always remove detail from a high quality shot. What you cannot do is add detail to a lower quality one. Speaking purely technically, that special soft-focus lens is intentionally capturing a worse image.

No, a soft-focus lense is intentionally capturing a less sharp image. If you want a sharp image, then it is the wrong too. If you want a soft-focus image then it may (or may not) be the right tool. As I obliquely mentioned above, you get a very different look to a soft-focus image depending on whether you introduce the softness when taking the photo (using a filter or soft-focus lense) vs adding the softness when printing.

Digital sensors are far better than any film for a given surface area a...

Really? I can do things with film that digital cameras can't do. Like take exposures that run in the hours or days. Or, if you can find a roll of Technical Pan somewhere, take a photo that would blow any digital sensor out of the water. Tech Pan's resolving power was limited only by the lense. Then there was Lith Film, and Ilford's XP2 that had a tonal range that I've yet to see in a digital camera. I'd be happy to see myself proven wrong on that one, though I did spend some $$ on what was the closest thing I could find at the time.

It's not worse if it's the image I actually want.

Yes. Bingo.

Here's one I took with my Speed Graphic, with a 90-year-old lens I got in an antique store for $2. The shutter was dead, so I had to use the Speed's focal plane shutter. I shot it on Fuji instant film, so I had my tiny print in a minute. This was just a test to see what I'd get from that lens, but I like the way it came out.

Very nice... thanks for sharing....

I'm an engineer, not an artist. I have trouble with concepts like this. ....

That's just because we haven't found the right analogy yet. How about this one. It appears I have 'inferior' bolts holding the engine into my car. They are deliberately designed to sheer under stress, when obviously a 'superior' bolt wouldn't sheer. Of course I'd lose the benefit of the engine dropping down under the driver in an accident, but they are obviously inferior because they sheer more easily than other bolts. Does that help?

So, I would like to apologise for coming off as a jerk. I do enjoy photography, but it is really hard for me to take great photos. I have the mechanics down perfectly, I can take a technically terrific photo. It just won't be of anything especially interesting. My images lack that certain something that more inspired people find in lenses with lousy sharpness.

Nothing but respect for you creative types. Wide-eyed wonderment sometimes, in fact. You keep doing what you do, and I'll keep trying to figure it out.

I would love to get you into one of my workshops one day. You don't happen to live on the BC coast by any chance?

And - wanting to take perfectly sharp and perfectly exposed photo is entirely legitimate. Just as wanting to use a 90 year old half broken lense is.

Look up the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto. He works in themes or projects, which can be very very different from one another - so make sure you get a full overview.

 

[Prodo123]

I'm not thinking that film is 100% better than digital, the convenience of digital is obviously a massive draw. It's funny you say that every shot costs money because I think it's exactly that that will force me to become better. Knowing that there is a financial cost to every shutter click I'm sure would make anyone slow down and ensure they have the best possible composition.

I'm just finding it a little frustrating setting up a shot and getting what I think is a great photo, only to realise that I need to put more work in to LR just to get the colours back. Sure, it's only a few sliders, but I don't want to spend more and more of my time in front of a computer (he says, using one to type away on an online forum) when I could be doing anything else.

I'm sure you're absolutely right in that the convenience of digital will draw me back. I was never going to give that up anyway. We'll see

Alex

Now imagine that time spent in an actual darkroom, using gel filters instead of sliders and actually burning and dodging instead of just automagically brushing spots away to make your photo perfect. Oh, and it takes 10 times the amount of work and time than in Lightroom.

You have to put work into post-processing no matter what if you want your photo to look the way it did in your head.

 

[Padaung]

How they colour correct is by changing the colour of the light that shines through the negative and exposes the paper. In the old days this was physically a coloured filter... now I think they change the colour of the bulb directly.

A modern wet lab (i.e. they still use light sensitive paper and chemicals to process the paper) digital print machine uses a laser to expose the image, even when printing a negative. The negative is scanned (the scanner was part of the machine although buying one now a new owner may not bother with it - the machine also works without the scanner), then any adjustments are made either automatically by the software's algorithms or adjusted manually on a screen by the operator, and then the image is sent to the laser for printing. The quality is exceptional.

Early digital web labs also scanned the negative and processed the image before printing. They used small LED bulbs to expose the paper which did indeed change colour (using filters in front of each bulb I think?). The resolution wasn't great , you could see the dots of each bulb if you held the print close up to the eye. These machines were relatively quickly superseded by the laser machines because the print quality was generally poor.

Modern dry labs are much like a home ink jet printer - however, the speed and quality is much higher. A 8x10 print can be printed in about 30s. An 8x10 print through a wet lab would take about 4-5mins to print, process and dry. The dry lab prints are also totally waterproof, so no smudged ink. You can even dunk a picture in water and wipe it dry with no damage to the image or paper. A wet lab print would absorb some water causing the paper to swell a bit, often causing permanent damage.


snberk103, I really enjoyed reading the rest of your post. You expanded information very nicely. I remember having filter setting charts for different emulsions on the photo lab wall!


This has been one of the most enjoyable threads I've read for a long time on Macrumors. Even the debate between film and digital has been healthy, with some good to-ing and fro-ing about old and new lenses too. I agree that it is zoom lenses that have probably improved the most recently, simply due to the complexity of the designs and modern manufacturing capabilities. There are some exceptional old manual prime lenses out there - anyone mention Leica and Hasselblad

Just for reference, my Dad uses his old OM Olympus lenses and old Leica lenses on his digital Olympus Pen, along with the lenses designed for the Pen. You'd be very hard pushed to know (if at all) which lens was used at regular viewing sizes/distances.

I feel the reason people like film photos is because we have become so used to images taken with much smaller sensors (rendering so much morel of the scene in sharp focus, for example) that the aesthetic qualities that a larger sensor size can provide have become more pronounced. With full frame DSLRs still relatively expensive, film is a far more affordable way to step up to a larger 'sensor' size.

 

[MacCruiskeen]

I'm an engineer, not an artist. I have trouble with concepts like this. To me it is clearly and obviously an inferior product because all the ways you measure it show it to be worse. This also isn't the first time I've gotten myself in trouble attacking a point that is being interpreted two different ways.

As an engineer, you should appreciate the idea that if a thing was designed to operate a certain way, and the user wants it to do that, then it is not "worse" than some other solution. After all, engineering is not just about making everything adhere to certain technical standards, but creating solutions to problems, and sometimes duct tape and 'chute cords are your best friends. (I was in engineering school myself for a while before escaping.) Frequently those technical standards don't matter. I mean there was wholesale adoption of digital cameras when by those same standards they were complete crap. One of the reasons I started buying up all those old cameras was that I was given a digital camera that was had all the horrors--purple fringing, blown highlights, terrible shutter lag, etc. Since then I've been waiting for one that seemed worth buying and wasn't too horribly expensive. So far the only temptation has been the new Fuji X-series. But then, it was deliberately designed (there it is again) to appeal to people like me. I expect that in the long run, my workflow will be color-->mostly digital and b&w-->mostly film.

 

[snberk103]

A modern wet lab (i.e. they still use light sensitive paper and chemicals to process the paper) digital print machine uses a laser to expose the image, even when printing a negative. .....

Ahh... so that's how they do it. I never worked a wet lab directly, but I was closely connected with a small 1 hour lab. Plus I did my own BW and colour printing in their darkrooms. But my connection with them ended before these new-fangled modern machines came on-line (smile). Thank you for the very good explanation.

... I remember having filter setting charts for different emulsions on the photo lab wall!

Oh, the good 'ol days... I don't miss the colour darkroom at all. I still have romantic notions of getting back to a BW darkroom - but not colour.

This has been one of the most enjoyable threads I've read for a long time on Macrumors.

Personally, I think the photography forum is the best forum here. It's worth the price of admission alone.

... - anyone mention Leica and Hasselblad

They will now!

....

I feel the reason people like film photos is because we have become so used to images taken with much smaller sensors (rendering so much morel of the scene in sharp focus, for example) that the aesthetic qualities that a larger sensor size can provide have become more pronounced. With full frame DSLRs still relatively expensive, film is a far more affordable way to step up to a larger 'sensor' size.

This is an area that doesn't get the discussion it should, imho. That is to say, that the depth of field (for similar compositions) is different depending on the size of the sensor (or film) (Due to the focal length of the lense used to get that same composition).

Hopefully - this thread will continue, eh?

 

[kingalexthe1st]

This is an area that doesn't get the discussion it should, imho. That is to say, that the depth of field (for similar compositions) is different depending on the size of the sensor (or film) (Due to the focal length of the lense used to get that same composition

Wait...what? I think I've missed a trick here. How does the depth of field change depending on sensor size? Surely that's only aperture-dependant? I think you're referring to the illusion that a cropped sensor gives, making it look like you've 'zoomed in' more than on a FF sensor.

Personally, I think the photography forum is the best forum here. It's worth the price of admission alone.

Totally agree! When I log in, 9 times out of 10 I scroll right past all the the iPhone/iPad/Mac sections and delve straight in to this one to see what interesting things have been posted. It's so much of a community here, with photo of the day, weekly challenges and lively topics to boot!

Alex

 

[acearchie]

Wait...what? I think I've missed a trick here. How does the depth of field change depending on sensor size? Surely that's only aperture-dependant? I think you're referring to the illusion that a cropped sensor gives, making it look like you've 'zoomed in' more than on a FF sensor.

Nope, in this case you are wrong. Sensor size does affect DOF.

Think of it this way. DOF is shallower as you get closer to a subject. A FF sensor allows you to be closer to the subject with the same lens than a crop sensor. If you have the same framings through the viewfinder with a FF and a crop you will find the FF photo has a shallower depth of field (assuming the same aperture was used).

This is why a lot of people enjoy MF photography as the DOF has a really different characteristic about it. As another example, I can be the same distance from a subject with an 80mm on my 500CM as someone with a 40mm on their 6D. Both at f2.8 the MF shot is going to have a shallower depth of field.

Totally agree! When I log in, 9 times out of 10 I scroll right past all the the iPhone/iPad/Mac sections and delve straight in to this one to see what interesting things have been posted. It's so much of a community here, with photo of the day, weekly challenges and lively topics to boot!

From looking at my post history my last 250+ posts would have to agree!

 

[Padaung]

Wait...what? I think I've missed a trick here. How does the depth of field change depending on sensor size? Surely that's only aperture-dependant? I think you're referring to the illusion that a cropped sensor gives, making it look like you've 'zoomed in' more than on a FF sensor.
Alex

Depth of field can be affected by:

1. Focal length of lens (the greater the focal lenght of the lens used, the shallower the dof)
2. Aperture used to take the photo (the greater the aperture used, the shallower the dof)
3. Focus distance (the shorter the distance to subject, the shallower the dof)
4. Sensor size (the greater the sensor sized used the shallower the dof for any given focal length of lens)

There may be other factors I've forgotten, but these are the ones that came to mind.

For greater in depth info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

 

[kingalexthe1st]

Think of it this way. DOF is shallower as you get closer to a subject. A FF sensor allows you to be closer to the subject with the same lens than a crop sensor. If you have the same framings through the viewfinder with a FF and a crop you will find the FF photo has a shallower depth of field (assuming the same aperture was used).

Aaah. The key here is what I've put in bold. I was assuming all things the same; distance to subject, lens, aperture and the rest.

Alex

----------

Depth of field can be affected by:

1. Focal length of lens (the greater the focal lenght of the lens used, the shallower the dof)
2. Aperture used to take the photo (the greater the aperture used, the shallower the dof)
3. Focus distance (the shorter the distance to subject, the shallower the dof)
4. Sensor size (the greater the sensor sized used the shallower the dof for any given focal length of lens)

There may be other factors I've forgotten, but these are the ones that came to mind.

For greater in depth info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

Oh yeah. My brain isn't on par today.

 

[snberk103]

Wait...what? I think I've missed a trick here. How does the depth of field change depending on sensor size? ....

Nope, in this case you are wrong. Sensor size does affect DOF.
Think of it this way. DOF is shallower as you get closer to a subject. A FF sensor allows you to be closer to the subject with the same lens than a crop sensor.

[UPDATE: Seems I took too long to write this post... already explained above... sigh.... got to be speed typist around here.]

Yes, that is one way.... Nice explanation. And, there is another factor. On the other hand if you don't want to get physically closer, then you need to change the focal length of the lense to get the same cropping... and that will also change the DoF even at the same aperture.

You are correct, that changing the sensor does not change the DoF directly. However the DoF is affected indirectly by the photographer needing to cope with the crop factor of the smaller sensor. If you have lenses that were made for 35mm film (or full frame) then when you use them on a camera with a sensor smaller than 35mm film then you will need to calculate the actual (longer) effective focal length of the lense with that sensor. Different focal lengths... different DoF.

Of course the fun comes when you try to remember whether changing the camera to subject distance affects DoF more than changing the lense focal length to get the same cropping.... I used to know, and somewhere I have a very useful set of photos that show the same cropping at different focal lengths and camera/subject distances... it's a good visual memory aid... in a pinch I can pull it up out of my aged memory banks (still using vacuum tubes in that section) to help me decide whether to change lenses, or use my feet, to get a composition. Cripes. I was just now reaching back into that memory bank, and heard a couple of tubes pop.

It is a useful exercise though. Place your subject (like a person) in front of a distance background with constant light - it's important not to change the aperture). Not too distant, just moderately distant. Take 3 photos (more or less - two extremes and a middle setting) of your subject ... for instance a head & shoulders shot. Use the wide angle setting (lense) and a telephoto setting (lense) and then one in the middle. The whole point is to see how the DoF changes, so adjust scene until you are seeing a really good change in the D0F.

And some people think photography is easy, eh?

I really like this forum....

 

[MacCruiskeen]

I don't agree with this. I think the characteristics of modern lenses have opportunity to be (and sometimes are) significantly better. I have used a few very nice older large format lenses and they were better than midrange or kit lenses on all DSLRs today. However, a modern high end prime or high end zoom just dominates in almost all measure of optical control.

It's true that MF and LF lenses generally have somewhat lower spatial resolution measured in lp/mm than the best small-format lenses, but that doesn't really matter because you're covering a lot more film, so you still end up with much more detail in your image. Also, you typically don't enlarge as much. This is why you can still use a Tessar-style design on a large-format camera and get good results. Technical measures are only meaningful in the context to which they apply, which isn't the same for all situations.

 

[ChrisA]

Completely agree, physics hasn't changed.


I don't agree with this. I think the characteristics of modern lenses have opportunity to be (and sometimes are) significantly better. I have used a few very nice older large format lenses and they were better than midrange or kit lenses on all DSLRs today. However, a modern high end prime or high end zoom just dominates in almost all measure of optical control. This is because of a few things...

- You can model optical physics on a computer and build your lens with the tradeoffs you want. It gives engineers much better tools to actually build lenses with, and much clearer understanding of how the variables can be adjusted to hit their desired target.
- Machining of glass has improved significantly. You can build shapes now that were not practical for market then. Furthermore, you can build the shape repeatedly and relatively quickly.
- AR coatings have come a very long way in recent years. Even since the dawn of the digital camera. Vapour deposition, microscopic surface gratings. AR coatings on all glass elements internally.
- Glass chemistry has improved a lot too. We can create much better low dispersion glasses that are thinner and lighter than before. Glasses that have much higher refraction indexes than in the past.
- Glass lamination techniques are really fantastic. You can build a lens group with 2-3 different elements with different properties and laminate it together in such a way that there is no gap between layers. This was not reliably possible before the last decade or so.


That is not to say every lens turned out today is way better than ever before. It has done two things...

1. The best possible lenses are better than ever before.
2. Normalisation of the midrange. A midrange lens today is hugely better than a midrange lens 15 years ago.






I am aware of and I understand the soft focus or specialised effect lens. However, isn't this just a compensation for the fact that film is not as flexible as digital in some ways? Technically your camera should be pulling as much detail as it possibly can out of the shot. Then from there you can add localized blurs, tints, whatever you like to enhance the shot. You can always remove detail from a high quality shot. What you cannot do is add detail to a lower quality one. Speaking purely technically, that special soft-focus lens is intentionally capturing a worse image.

The people who worry about this the most are the ones doing video. Yes you can do the same things in post in video as still but it is hundreds of times more work with video. The effects have to be drawn in and keyframed and then you have to watch it in real-time, so even looking at the result takes longer. There is more motivation it "get it right in the camera" with video. Unless you have a huge budget to pay a staff of assistant editors and color graders

When us still photographers shot film it was the same, we had a big motivation to do it right in the camera because any post processing involved not only lots of complex darkroom work but a loss of quality, every time a film image is reproduced something is lost. I rember have 4x5 internegatives made from 35mm sides. Image editing was expensive and took forever.

There are many ways to make a good lens less good, fishnet over the lens or a soft focus filter or a lens with a de-focus ring. People did this all the time. Lenses have always been to sharp for older female portrait clients.

About lens quality, all 35mm type lenses made by Nikon and the like are designed to cost. There are a few "cost is no object" lenses made for these small format camera but they are made by Zeiss here is one:
http://lenses.zeiss.com/camera-lenses/en_de/camera_lenses/otus/otus1455.html
But this lens cost so much that few will be sold. For me my Nikon 50mm f/1.4 is good enough

BTW I have three 50mm lenses. One is a 1950's vintage Carl Zeiss "biotar" in exacta mount, then a 70'd vintage manual focus Nikon and finally a new Nikon autofocus. They all have equally excellent optics. Of the three the mechanical build quality of the manual nikon is worlds above the other two. It's not even close.

EDIT: I found a web site that shows off the Zeiss lens that is very close to the one I have, except this lens was adapted to a modern Canon dSLR. The results make me want to find a way to put mine on the Nikon as I doubt I will use the Exacta VXIIa much anymore.

Look here to see the shots take with this mid 1950's lens. He has a whole web site where he test other older mostly German post war optics.
eos350d_biotar.html

 

[ChrisA]

I'm an engineer, not an artist. I have trouble with concepts like this. To me it is clearly and obviously an inferior product because all the ways you measure it show it to be worse....

Perhaps as an engineer you measure the wrong things? I have a long background in engineering too. I find that we have a big problem in that we measure what ever is easy to measure. We ignore the attributes that are hard to quantify. It's the latter that matters to most end users

Things that matter are the way colors are rendered, the "look" of the parts of the scene that are not in short focus. The "bleed" of the highlights. The MTF graph does not tell you this and might even be counterproductive. If you like to measure, I think what makes a lens produce good looking images is the shape of the PSF, a smooth Gaussian might be best.

Sharpness is a poor criteria that is not of much practical use to most photographers because the output media can't show it. Only if you make large fine art print will it matter.

 

[teleromeo]

How they colour correct is by changing the colour of the light that shines through the negative and exposes the paper. In the old days this was physically a coloured filter... now I think they change the colour of the bulb directly.

That was before the digital era. Minilab systems used to have three coloured filters that changed the colour of the light during exposure. Once digital minilabs like the Fuji Frontier were introduced the negatives were scanned and printed or written to any digital medium. Those labs have three coloured lasers that expose the image to the paper. Some manufacturers used some sort of colour LCD-display and a lightbulb to expose the paper.

 

[snberk103]

That was before the digital era. Minilab systems used to have three coloured filters that changed the colour of the light during exposure. Once digital minilabs like the Fuji Frontier were introduced the negatives were scanned and printed or written to any digital medium. Those labs have three coloured lasers that expose the image to the paper. Some manufacturers used some sort of colour LCD-display and a lightbulb to expose the paper.

Yep. As I said above, my connection with wet-labs ended awhile ago. However Padaung helpfully filled us in on how the system works now. My point was still stands... that Film and Digital handle WB very differently, and the corrections are different.

Cheers

 

[Macshroomer]

For the tech types, I shoot black and white film in a full Hasselblad system and use a pair of Chamonix 45N2 & 45F1 for 4x5, use 6x12 roll backs for that format. I print using a Saunders LPL 4550XLG with the VCCE head, all RH Designs metrics, Jobo CPP2 for processing. I have all Apo enlarging lenses including the amazing Rodenstock 150mm F4 Apo N. The paper is Ilford warmtone fiber, the films are Kodak Tmax 100, 400, Tri-X, Ilford Pan-F, FP4, HP5 and Fuji Acros. I am building a portable horizontal mural enlarger at the moment...

Now then: 2013 is a magical year for me....

It marks my 19th and final year in shooting digital. I started with it at a newspaper job with the Kodak NC2000 and am wrapping it up with a set of D800's and an X100S used for high end advertising, corporate and editorial, soon to be sold…

I watched for two decades as digital transformed from horrible sub one megapixel appliance sized cameras to the amazing lineup of technology we have today. But I never stopped using film, always knew I would use it for my entire life. So now we live in an age where there are less photographers and far more camera owners who like to call them selves one. Even the notion of what makes a great photograph gets corralled into forums like these causing those who are uploading photos by the billions to not get an honest opinion about their work, but simply a "like".

I could keep on using digital, it will continue to amaze and be the next "Web Sensation"…..but I am not going to. I am done with it because I am done with the mindset of the digital onslaught much more than I am the tools. I have enjoyed a lot of great success in both creative and financial terms as a professional photographer for nearly 25 years, but I want to continue to do that and besides making brilliant imagery, I see making those new brilliant images on film and printed by hand in a real darkroom as an extra large dollop of assurance to my ongoing success. It feels right so it is right...

It's already working too, the transformation is in full swing as I am now starting to make really good money in selling people great photographs printed on silver gelatin paper shot on medium and large format black and white film. It's not that I could not continue to earn a great living as a photographer on digital, it is because I don't want to, I no longer like it, am done with it and I am spending the rest of my career being different and MUCH happier because of it...

But you know what is cool? I am not alone..even young people who want to show their true talents free of the sameness of a computer are diving in head first. Film will never see the heyday it once did and that is OK, because I doubt anyone aspires to be like everyone else, ordinary...

Film is alternative process, it is niche and it is nice to have an alternative to the world of digital everything if you are deeply rooted in your being as an artist.

 

[Macshroomer]

I've been shooting 6x12 on a view camera lately, and I try to focus without a loupe, but it's tricky. Making sure there's no variance in swing is harder than it seems, and Scheimpflug is a pain and I'm not sure where to set my sharpest focus or what stop to stop down to without losing to diffraction. I'm just not good at it yet. My sharpest shots are at f32-f45, which means my other shots must be misfocused.

Check your ground glass for focus accuracy with a lens like a 150-200 ish 5.6 wide open on a good object that will show you either back or front focus once you get the film under a loupe. Learning the basics of LF is not too hard but *really* mastering it in terms of when to use front tilt, back tilt, a little of both and how far to move your focus in or out is not so easy, it took me awhile. Of course you want to avoid high F-stops like being near or at the minimum. But then you have the scene at the lake with the mountain tops in the upper part of the photo and the flowers near the bottom. One's instinct is to peg both the flowers and mountain tops in one slick front tilt. Nope, you need to do a little front, a tiny bit of rear ( better use of lens cone for image quality purposes ) and then stop way down to get the far lakeshore or middle of the shot in focus. So you "compensate' your focus inward a bit.

And yeah....watch the swing and use a loupe.

 

[kingalexthe1st]

Film will never see the heyday it once did and that is OK, because I doubt anyone aspires to be like everyone else, ordinary...

Film is alternative process, it is niche and it is nice to have an alternative to the world of digital everything if you are deeply rooted in your being as an artist.

First of all I think it's awesome that you've made the decision to go with your gut and with what you enjoy more, and are clearly making a success of it. All too often we do what we're expected to do, not what we want of ourselves.

Philosphical musings aside, I pulled this small quote from your post to highlight what I think about the practice of using film (this is my personal view). Digital has obviously come along and pushed film to the side. When the car was invented, people said that horses would never be used again, and instead horses became a niche for enthusiastic riders. I doubt when the flying car is invented that formula 1 or nascar has much to worry about And as the vinyl player has become something for the music enthusiast, I think so will film. It will always be around, one way or another.

Alex