he said. “Digital for me stays exactly like film was before. The quality of the image is different, but......
From Peter Lindbergh's website.
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Rob C
I think it depends on what era of digital and film you're talking about and the client's you're shooting for.
Today I agree somewhat with Mr. Lindberg, especially in large production because you have too many people standing around the monitor when tethering and some comments can break the continuity you're building with the talent.
But early on in digital I had a different opinion. The Canon 1ds to me was a revelation as it shot to a film quality image, needed lighting and didn't tether that well, so you could shoot to a card, then while you continued to work, the AD/clients/Managers could review a large part of the session.
I honestly found that way of working more like film because you had to craft the shot, not relying on "we'll fix it in post". Actually I became more intimate with the image on the 1ds more than film because I knew the processing lab (us) I knew where I wanted to take the look (us) and I knew it was there, in focus and covered.
I believe our work improved because we could get the basic idea in the can, show it, get it approved and have time to experiment and shoot different options. With film, you had to somewhat overshoot, because nobody really knew if it was there until they saw it a day later from the lab.
Also at that time even good labs were all over the place in keeping their lines straight as they weren't running the volume of film they did in the past, especially transparency film.
Today, we work at a furious pace. We try to shoot like film, but if it's faster to take a wrinkle out in post, or a smudge on a wall, than do it on set, we shoot and do it later.
Now with high iso cameras, I agree they look less like film, maybe because we do less with lighting, more later and to me many of them are way too smooth, even with raw they start way too un film like, so they take some effort to get the precooked colour and smoothness out of them.
With the 1ds, to produce web galleries, for a 3 day shoot we could make decent web galleries in 5 or 6 hours. Now for everyday shooting it's at least a day or two to make galleries, because we post process to a level that in the moving film industry would call 1 light dailies.
Actually with the 1ds we shot to make the jpegs look as good as possible so out of camera, we just used them. Later on when we moved to medium format you had to produce jpegs and the post work was heavier.
These two images were with the 1ds. The top image is obviously lit, but the post work is at a minimum. There is some skin clean up, some coloration changes, but it was shot like we shot film. If it didn't look right on the electronic polaroid,(back of the camera) we made it look right before we started the session.
The second image (also with the 1ds) was at Lake Como Italy and it was in available darkness around 400 to 600 iso. We used fill cards to balance it, but it was the end of the day and medium (today) iso was fine. Since it was at the end of the day/early evening we hadn't planned it but the location matched the wardrobe, it was too cool not to try.
Today we also shoot a much higher volume, regardless of the creative brief, genre, or style.
Maybe that's why I like the Leica S2. It requires light, or a tripod, or more than just pushing the button. If it has grain, it has grain, life goes on. Also the tethering isn't instant, if you overshoot the buffer a little the images come in slower which is fine because it lets a client see a session rather than every frame ths millisecond after you shoot it, which lowers the image by committee (hopefully).
Though this last shot didn't have 20 clients and shot with my leica S2, I probably didn't shoot more than 20 frames on this session, maybe less. If it was full blown commerce, it would have been a lot more frames and a lot more discussion.
But things have changed. A friend of mine worked for Guy Bourdin in his later years and hand Guy rolls of uncut film. Guy would start with a roll and if he liked the 10th frame, he would just mark it and not look at the rest of the session, because he didn't overthink what he was after and if he like it . . . he liked it.
I doubt you could do that today.
IMO
BC
