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Author Topic: What Slide Film Taught Me  (Read 12274 times)

stever

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #20 on: March 15, 2012, 04:21:32 pm »

many, many years of slide film taught me how wonderful digital is
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John Camp

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #21 on: March 15, 2012, 04:44:12 pm »

I thought the article was just fine, and if there was nothing remarkable in it, it got me thinking about my own experience with various films; I think I got one really glorious chrome in my entire life, shot with an Argus C3. I can think of that one, but not any more. Of course, I mostly shot color negative.

The really surprising thing was Jeff's confession of...not exactly inadequacy, but of sloppiness, or laziness. He of the million Lightroom adjustments? Sloppiness? Jesus, I'm glad we weren't hearing from him when he was meticulous.
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Rob C

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #22 on: March 15, 2012, 05:37:30 pm »

many, many years of slide film taught me how wonderful digital is


But we both already knew that, I think. Wonderful and flawed, much like everything else.

Rob C

Isaac

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #23 on: March 15, 2012, 05:38:35 pm »

Get as frickin' life, lad.

Heed your own command - it has no authority over me.
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Rob C

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #24 on: March 17, 2012, 05:10:22 am »

Heed your own command - it has no authority over me.




I find you so sweet! How old are you - fifteen?

Still desperately awaiting news of where we can see your photography.

Rob C
« Last Edit: March 17, 2012, 05:12:41 am by Rob C »
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Dave Millier

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #25 on: March 17, 2012, 06:40:06 pm »

I feel that digital is easier than film photography, not least because you get instant feedback: you can tell whether you shot is 5 stops underexposed or out of focus an instant after you've shot it.

I'm steeped in the mechanics of film photography including zone system, done the courses, done the testing, have my personal exposure indices all worked out but I have to be honest here, my first 20 years of photography, whilst great fun, were also incredibly frustrating and I probably only have a dozen (serious) pictures from that period I'd want to keep today.

The last (digital) decade have been a liberation for me. Freed me from the consequences of my own terrible workmanship, I am a thousand times more satisfied as a digital photographer. And yes, the credit for that lies mostly with the folks who developed the software at the heart of the digital darkroom.  Being a sloppy workman with the camera was one half of the problem but the real problem was being a darkroom numpty (despite years of practice) or relying on minilabs.

It is the digital darkroom (plus the wise guidance of Norman Koren) that turned photography from an incompetent passion into a past time that quite often yields results that I find good enough to hang on my walls with pride and have even yielded prize money.  As much as I've never been a particular fan of Adobe and always despaired at Photoshop, Lightroom is a work of genius and I'm very grateful to those who worked on it (even you, Mr Schewe ;D  )

 

Well, when you write something that gets published, let us know...we'll be sure to blow you out of the water...

I guess some people don't get it...I did. And it's something I've really noticed about my own work in recent years...digital simply doesn't require the level of technical accomplishment that chromes did.

I used to get paid a ton of money because I could make a product look good on 8x10 film. That skill set was not "common". I used to expose brackets in 1/6 or 1/8 of a stop–because I could see a difference (plus the fact I marked up 8x10 film to $50/sheet).

When I got into Photoshop (1992) I discovered post production. I no longer had to nail the shot in a single sheet of film. I could do several shots, scan and combine them in Photoshop. It was easy to retouch stuff instead of being hyper meticulous on set. My photographic skills tended to take a back seat to my Photoshop skills. Yet I still counted my self a "good photographer" if for no other reason that I still had the skills to get the shots, even if the final image was really due to Photoshop.

Move forward a decade into digital...no longer did I really have to worry about what I could get on film. I no longer shot film. I just shot digital. Auto focus? Auto exposure? Heck, screw even looking through the view finder half the time. Just get the shot regardless of what it look like at default. I could fix it in Camera Raw and/or Photoshop.

Net result? My photographic skills have diminished...I'm no longer the skilled photographer I used to be...

Yes, I can "buckle down" and be serious and call up those skills if I absolutely need to...I rarely need to. And I often see shots where I think after the fact, "what was I thinking?". Just use your skills and you wouldn't have to be spending so much time "fixing" things.

I can sympathize with the author....I get what he's saying (in a genteel sort of laid back sort of way). No, it's nothing earth shattering or ground breaking (and it's not at all a controversial style–maybe that's why the forum denizens of LuLa are pouncing).

Get a hold of yourselves...look at your face in a mirror. Don't you really miss the ah hah moment of seeing the perfect chrome? That's all he's saying. And for those youngsters who never shot chrome, you missed something....
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Tony Jay

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #26 on: March 17, 2012, 08:31:30 pm »

Agree with several aspects of this post.

The rapid feedback, in camera, is very useful to check compostion and to a much lesser extent exposure and focusing.
Obviously on the monitor, properly calibrated of course, exposure and focusing are easy to check.
To learn with rapid feedback such as is possible with digital capture allows for rapid improvement in ones technical and creative skills.

I do feel that as far as IQ goes digital capture forces significantly more attention to detail while shooting since digital sensors seem most unforgiving when it comes to issues such as movement blur, focusing, diffraction blurring, and chromatic abberation. Chromatic abberation is the only aspect of these issues that is really amenable to post-processing correction - and not necessarily perfectly either.

Before I learn't to take all of these things into account I often took shots that seemed brilliant as far as composition and exposure were concerned but then found that they were soft and mushy on the monitor. No amount of post-processing could fix these images.

Usual rules of thumb relating to minimum shutter speeds for particular focal lengths stemming from the film era for handheld capture are completely invalid in the digital era. Shutter speeds twice, thrice, or even five times those regarded as adequate for film are now required.

On a tripod, where one may be shooting with relatively slow shutter speeds vibration in general and more specifically related to mirror and shutter movement is a major issue. Mirror lock-up, or more ideally live view if possible, combined with remote shutter control is then critical to prevent reducing the effective resolution of one's 20 MP sensor to about 6 MP.

Diffraction limits aperture to between f8-11 on 35 mm sensors and less on smaller sensors. Obviously this raises isses where a large depth of field is concerned. Creative decisions then need to be made. Focus stacking may sometimes be a practical solution.

Despite all the performance envelopes alluded to digital capture really is magnificent  in allowing experimentation and rapidly learning what works best for one's combinations of camera and lens.
As with the previous poster I shot film for some years, a complete exercise in mediocrity, but rapidly improved as a photographer in the digital era.

Regards

Tony Jay
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image66

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #27 on: March 20, 2012, 06:06:23 pm »

I shoot digital and film. The discipline involved in shooting Velvia is on a whole different level than shooting digital. Especially if it's a sheet of 4x5 Velvia. You'll wake up brain cells which have been dorment for a long time. When I see the Luminatti here claim that they still shoot the same way with digital, I cry foul. Let's go out on a shoot with a view camera and hand them a holder with just one sheet of film. That claim will evaporate in a hurry.

I've been working with a digital workflow since about 1990. Even when shooting film, I was shooting for the process and output. No different than my B&W photography and the darkroom.

The main difference I see between the two capture mediums, and I'm being very specific about it being about the capture, not the process or output, is the margin for error. It is also about metering styles. With Velvia, you have to be extremely precise with your exposures. And you have to figure it all out through scene analysis. With digital, you do so through an iterative process using on-screen analysis tools. There is usually less understanding of the lighting of the scene, but more understanding that everything got captured, so you can bend stuff around later if you have to.

And we do.

The negative is the score, the print is the performance is actually a weak excuse for most of us.

I still have a portable light "table" (more like a tablet), but just like the author, I'm using my iPad or the computer screen for looking at the archival sheets.

Ken
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jjj

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #28 on: March 21, 2012, 04:20:11 pm »

I find you so sweet! How old are you - fifteen?

Still desperately awaiting news of where we can see your photography.
Er...how many years was it before you posted anything Rob?
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Rob C

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #29 on: March 21, 2012, 04:56:19 pm »

Er...how many years was it before you posted anything Rob?




And thanks quite greatly to you and, more directly, Fred, I eventually did. Speaking for myself, it was a mixture of several things that held me back:

a. no idea how to construct a site;
b. great trepidation about model releases or not model releases.

Once that was resolved, it was fun. In fact, were it not for having a site, I'd probably have drifted right out of photography on all levels because the web is the only outlet left me. Retirement is a crock of the proverbial.

However, within the current little piece of opera upon which you've stumbled, I find caustic comment, based on a background that's a void, nothing short of a little much. I'd rather know if the kettle is as black as the pot, or not.

;-)

Rob C

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #30 on: March 21, 2012, 06:47:40 pm »

Er...how many years was it before you posted anything Rob?

To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less if Rob never posted any photograph. Not because I do not enjoy his photography (i do, who wouldn't ;)) but because he is such a good writer, with a great writing style and smart observations. We do not always agree, but I always enjoyed disagreeing with him on occasion. In contrast to some other posters, shall I add, with whom I almost always disagree, yet derive very little, if any, joy out of it.

Dave Millier

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #31 on: March 22, 2012, 03:34:49 pm »

Rob

I just noticed the link to your website and paid a visit.  I like the colour abstracts, really good. I'm sure the glamour stuff is good too but that kind of photography has never appealed to me (in a photographic sense I mean). Obviously the girls are good to look at. ;)
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Rob C

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #32 on: March 22, 2012, 06:30:05 pm »

Rob

I just noticed the link to your website and paid a visit.  I like the colour abstracts, really good. I'm sure the glamour stuff is good too but that kind of photography has never appealed to me (in a photographic sense I mean). Obviously the girls are good to look at. ;)



Thank you; I've just spent the evening watching a programme on BBC 4 on art nouveau. Those girls depicted therein are fantastic - just what I think I'd have loved to explore, and why Sarah Moon turned out to be one of my favourite snappers! Atmosphere, atmosphere and more of the same. Didn't at all like the man doing the commentary, but you can't have everything. Andrew Graham-Dixon would have done it so much more convincingly and sympathetically.

;-)

Rob C

jjj

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #33 on: March 26, 2012, 04:25:16 pm »

To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less if Rob never posted any photograph. Not because I do not enjoy his photography (i do, who wouldn't ;)) but because he is such a good writer, with a great writing style and smart observations. We do not always agree, but I always enjoyed disagreeing with him on occasion. In contrast to some other posters, shall I add, with whom I almost always disagree, yet derive very little, if any, joy out of it.
I was just pointing out the irony of Rob demanding someone post images when for a very long time he did not have anything to show himself.
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Rob C

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #34 on: March 26, 2012, 04:55:56 pm »

I was just pointing out the irony of Rob demanding someone post images when for a very long time he did not have anything to show himself.



Not quite accurate. I had a lot to show, but since more or less all of it at the time was copyright/model release dependent, it wasn't so simple, as you may remember me agonizing.

;-)

Rob C

jjj

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #35 on: March 26, 2012, 05:28:49 pm »

I do. Hence my comment. ;-p
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Isaac

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #36 on: March 26, 2012, 05:41:53 pm »

I find you so sweet! How old are you - fifteen?

Still desperately awaiting news of where we can see your photography.

I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #37 on: March 26, 2012, 06:12:14 pm »

I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.

Looks like you are much more versed in classical literature, from Shakespeare to Jane Austin, than photography. Either that, or you have a quotation-generating app handy? ;)

Isaac

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #38 on: March 26, 2012, 06:34:30 pm »

Looks like you are much more versed in classical literature, from Shakespeare to Jane Austin, than photography.
Have you already forgotten complaining about my quotations from the words of famous photographers!
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: What Slide Film Taught Me
« Reply #39 on: March 26, 2012, 06:50:57 pm »

Have you already forgotten complaining about my quotations from the words of famous photographers!

I meant your own photography... I never had doubts about your quotation-generating abilities ;)
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