Beautifull image! as always.
I have a question regarding the B&W rendering. As you work a lot in B&W and with the Mamiya, I guess you have worked both on film and digital.
I've read many times that B&W is still one of the things that do better film.
I've been tempted by the gigabite kind of film (although just available for 35mm) because I saw a big print in a gallery that really impressed me,
but I'm not sure if using back film for B&W is not more an hassle than a real interest. In the end I'm not deciding myself because it is changing the all chain.
What are your thoughts when comparing film and digital in black & white for fine arts prints?
Thank you.
I think there is no need to seek exhaustive comparisons between film and digital for the purpose of finding a winner.
These are matured tools, both powerful in hands of people who can master them. What matters most is the level of skill.
Which style of martial arts is better... We, photographers, at least bleed less trying to come up with a justified answer:)
The most challenging aspect of photography is a large number of factors that play role in the final result.
Just consider the speed and timing of agitation during development of both film and paper. The variations of results one can come up with is unlimited!
I used to have fun photographing film with subject on black paper background and printing white high key prints with silky tonality.
Thinking of this problem of a vast number of factors, one can simplify it by locking some parameters and playing with others.
The same happened with film, especially black and white. The BW film's recipe was locking down the interpretation of color into negative density.
This allowed for a further more focused creative reinterpretation of luminosity in development of prints.
In digital world, we want prints to match exactly what we confirmed on the computer screen.
This is where the locking of parameters occurs - in using calibrated monitors, printers, papers and inks.
The initial locking however is during RAW development when camera profile is applied.
This is where digital can play its card. We can vary this stage of the process, experiment on the fly, see results in real time.
It is all real time - a new kind of magic juxtaposed to darkroom:) And did I mention UNDO?
With all this in mind, lets come back to your question of B&W rendering in film vs digital.
In film there are excellent existing somewhat fixed recipes. In digital you have a freedom to create unlimited number of them.
And this is were usually the problem lies. We now can create vast number of variations effortlessly in real time.
And after that we need to spend much more time, choosing between them.
There is nothing stopping a digital workflow be calibrated to reproduce any given film's spectral characteristics.
There is simply more freedom in control over the process and with it a more work to do. The answer is in how much can one really enjoy their freedom then:)
My favorite BW films were Delta and Acros at ISO 100. They suited me perfectly and I enjoyed them playing with locking and varying all kinds of parameters.
Then I realized, that besides having all this fun I have work to do. So I locked almost everything to just very few recipes.
In digital I am still having this fun:) However, mostly in post. I use custom linear camera profiles and take it from there.
In the image I just posted there was a peculiar detail which was specifically noticeable during conversion to BW.
It is in separation of model from the background which was gray. Notice how it fades in image 3.
Notice how much the sharpness of the BW image varies with variation of the spectral interpretation (there is no sharpening difference between samples, the same image 1 was used in all as a source)
This is a freedom of choice I truly enjoy. But at the end, I will create a few somewhat locked recipes and then another revolution in photography will arrive.
P.S.
I never used color film for BW work, but after scanning a few negatives and slides can say that I don't like the sharpness and grain texture of color films compared to BW.
BW negatives are challenging to scan, especially with very fine grain as it is causing Newton rings - I have to dust them first with baby powder! ICE does not work on them, but Nikon Coolscan 8000 is very happy in covering full dynamic range of my studio negatives.
