Digital black-and-white

[Bill Pierce]

Once again, in the last thread, we see the statement that digital files can’t produce good black-and-white prints. This can be true if you just convert to monochrome. To replicate the tonalities we have grown use to in silver prints we have to decrease the contrast in the shadow and highlight areas and increase the midtone contrast. There are a number of ways this can be done in programs like Photoshop and Lightroom. Increase clarity (midtone contrast), increase contrast (which increases the “S” shape in the curve, something different from changing grades or variable contrast filters in silver printing) or changing the curve yourself controlling the changes in the highlight and shadow areas to suit your own tastes for a specific image. If you are unfamiliar with these techniques, I suggest Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2, an add-on for these programs and Aperture, that can emulate specific b&w emulsions, provides understandable slider controls for the tonal manipulations and tosses in some local controls, film borders, e.t.c. as a bonus.

Remember, it’s all in the curves. Any other thoughts or tips on digital black-and-white?

[Peter Klein]

Control the ratio of Red, Green, and Blue, and you have almost infinite control over the "look." It's like using color filters with real B&W film, but even more flexible. Most image processing programs have a way to do this, some are easier to use than others. Photoshop has the channel mixer. Picture Window Pro (which I use) has Transformation, Color, Monochrome.

I also use Paul Roark's 3MK printing, which uses black ink only. It allows the full paper white to show through, and adds a tiny bit of texture that the eye interprets similar to fine film grain.

I don't try to copy the look of real film. I do try to make the digital B&W look as good as I can. And since I grew up with Tri-X and Plus-X, there's a bit of the spirit of those films in what I try to do.

--Peter

[Ronald_H]

It's perfectly feasible to get very nice digital b/w shots. Done it many, many times. As Bill states, it's all in the curves.

The one drawback I see is that pure white is pure white with digital, even with the much increased flexibility of RAW files. I have shot zillions of concerts and with the extreme contrast there, this is a limitation you will bump into quickly. Highlights will blow out without any hope at recovery.

In contrast (pun intended), you can brutally overexpose film in these circumstances, and still get away with some highlight detail. I overcooked some Tri-X recently, and although I could not salvage any highlights in the (16 bit) scans, I could get a somewhat decent wet print from those negs, even with my limited darkroom experience.

And having been exposed to classic b/w prints all my life, my brain is simply conditioned towards a classic silver look, and it perceives most digital b/w as 'fake'.

[Peter S]

I like quite a lot of the digital b+w that I am seeing lately. The conversion software is getting better and I think a lot of people who used to do simple grayscale or desaturate conversions have started realizing that digital b+w needs the same hard work and attention (and maybe even a bit more) as color. The only thing that I see too often is overburned unnatural looking skies. "Easy on the clouds, people" would be my tip.

[froyd]

Aside from good editing techniques, for me the single most important thing in digital BW is to pretend that the RAW image I'm capturing is actually BW. Sometimes I loose focus that I'm trying create a monochrome image and I start visualizing in color, especially if I sneak a peak at the color display.

[isorgb]

Remember, it’s all in the curves. Any other thoughts or tips on digital black-and-white?

Epson R-D1 RAW file and Epson PhotoRaw (Photolier in Japan) software.
If you will try it, you will know, what I want to say.
Really.

[AusDLK]

The single best plug-in for black & white is ALCE2 (http://www.bigano.com/index.php/en/alce/257-alce-2-new-features.html). It stands for "A Local Contrast Enhancer". It is beyond amazing the before and after effects. None of my photographs are seen without having this judiciously applied when I'm "developing".

[Harry Lime]

I think another big problem is the difference in spectral sensitivity, between b/w film and digital...

As an example, a red jacket photographed with Tri-X will look very different than digital converted to b/w.

The difference is even more severe with an orthochromatic film like Adox 25, which has less red sensitivity than modern panchromatic b/w films and a sensor.

On film the reds will show up very dark. The digital conversion will probably show up much lighter.

And that is not a trivial thing to emulate. It can be done, but you would basically have to profile the film and sensor and then generate a matrix to perform a 3d color transformation. It's the same principal as an icc profile. So, you would need a special plugin for Photoshop that performed this transformation, or you could roll your own in a program like Nuke, but you're to need to know how to program and also generate your curves from samples.

It's a big problem in the movie business. It's next to impossible get a production insuranced, if you intend on shooting on bw stock. The thinking is that if the movie crashes and the insurance company has to take possession, they don't want to be stuck with a black and white film, which they view as box office poison. So, with a few very rare exceptions, everything is shot color and then converted to black and white.

'The Man Who Wasn't There' was shot on color stock and converted. The cinematography is absolutely superb (Roger Deakins), but to my eye it looks like color converted to black and white. Not because of the contrast, but because of the difference in spectral response. The opening shot is of a rotating barber pole. Barber poles are red and white and on b/w film the stripe should be dark. In the movie it's a medium gray. Skin tones and lips are a constant problem...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchromatic_film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthochromatic

http://www.adox.de/english/ADOX%20Films/Art/ADOX_Films/page1/page1.html

[jan normandale]

I think another big problem is the difference in spectral sensitivity, between b/w film and digital...

As an example, a red jacket photographed with Tri-X will look very different than digital converted to b/w.

The difference is even more severe with an orthochromatic film like Adox 25, which has less red sensitivity than modern panchromatic b/w films and a sensor.

On film the reds will show up very dark. The digital conversion will probably show up much lighter.

And that is not a trivial thing to emulate. It can be done, but you would basically have to profile the film and sensor and then generate a matrix to perform a 3d color transformation. It's the same principal as an icc profile. So, you would need a special plugin for Photoshop that performed this transformation, or you could roll your own in a program like Nuke, but you're to need to know how to program and also generate your curves from samples.

It's a big problem in the movie business. It's next to impossible get a production insuranced, if you intend on shooting on bw stock. The thinking is that if the movie crashes and the insurance company has to take possession, they don't want to be stuck with a black and white film, which they view as box office poison. So, with a few very rare exceptions, everything is shot color and then converted to black and white.

'The Man Who Wasn't There' was shot on color stock and converted. The cinematography is absolutely superb (Roger Deakins), but to my eye it looks like color converted to black and white. Not because of the contrast, but because of the difference in spectral response. The opening shot is of a rotating barber pole. Barber poles are red and white and on b/w film the stripe should be dark. In the movie it's a medium gray. Skin tones and lips are a constant problem...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchromatic_film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthochromatic

http://www.adox.de/english/ADOX%20Films/Art/ADOX_Films/page1/page1.html

+1

I also find that the renditions of digital BW are "too smooth". It's tough for me to put this into words but if you look at a BW from film then a BW from a digital camera the digital image looks "smoother".

I'm not a chip or programming guy so all I can think is these sensors are programmed to smooth out the information that the sensor receives prior to providing an image. It's a problem in my eye. It's like someone saying I'll just "smooth" that over. My thinking is don't make decisions for me. My guess is this is all done after a considerable amount of market research by camera manufacturers and sensor makers into "which image is most pleasing to the eye". This bears nothing to do with a representative image it's a construct of information thru post processing in camera.

Someone will probably provide technical information to refute this but I feel like Neil Young when he said digital/CD files were flat compared to music from analog / vinyl

[Harry Lime]

+1

I also find that the renditions of digital BW are "too smooth". It's tough for me to put this into words but if you look at a BW from film then a BW from a digital camera the digital image looks "smoother".

You are picking up on the lack of acutance in most digital images.
This is a result of.

- The AA filter in front of most sensors that kills micro detail.

- Bayer pattern interpolation to generate the final image. Foveon sensors to not have this problem and the images are very sharp, with good acutance.

- Overly aggressive noise reduction.

- Lack of grain. Adding some grain can actually make an image appear sharper, because it gives your eye something to lock on to.


The M8/M9 do not have an AA filter in front of their sensor and at 18MP the M9 is quite sharp. Leica also performs very little or no noise reduction in camera. I like their approach, because it allows the user to have full control over how much detail they are willing to remove.

Combine that with Leica glass and strong micro contrast and you have something special. The M-series also use a CCD vs CMOS and some people claim that CCD's generate more filmic images.

[GSNfan]

The biggest problem with digital b&w is for it to look appealing and 'credible' it has to look like b&w film, which pretty much kills the whole point of digital b&w with its crazy long time post processing or plug-ins that make one feel like a cheater.

When b&w film is no longer available or its too expensive then I might be forced to shoot digital b&w... Or if the sensors have pixels that are on the same size as a film grain, which means hundreds of megapixels.

[Steve M.]

Images on TV and the movies look so bad these days, I don't think most people know what a B&W image is supposed to look like anyway. I can't watch the stuff on the tube and at the theatres. If digital converted to B&W floats your boat, fine, but it is a far cry from what a B&W shot should look like. If we're simply talking about an image on a monitor, then digital converted to B&W looks "good enough" I suppose, but it's a far cry from what it could look like. And of course you're not going to get any beautiful fiber prints digitally. To me the whole subject of digital B&W is a dead issue. A lot of people try to talk it up, but it is inferior to B&W film in so many ways. Maybe people seem to feel they've got a ton of money in the digital technology, so they want it to be the best.

That smoothness people talk about in digital files is a lack of detail in the shot. Probably not bad for portraits, but again, it isn't as good as film, and I for one refuse to cover my eyes, turn off my brain, and pretend that it is.

[jsrockit]

And of course you're not going to get any beautiful fiber prints digitally.

This is a myth.

[kshapero]

The biggest problem with digital b&w is for it to look appealing and 'credible' it has to look like b&w film, which pretty much kills the whole point of digital b&w with its crazy long time post processing or plug-ins that make one feel like a cheater.

When b&w film is no longer available or its too expensive then I might be forced to shoot digital b&w... Or if the sensors have pixels that are on the same size as a film grain, which means hundreds of megapixels.Yes I share this point. Well said.

[biomed]

I respect all of the above opinions and agree with most if not all. I suppose for the purist, digital BW will never do. That's OK. Some of my feeble attempts at digital BW have been very satisfying and others not. Indeed the results depend on many factors. Assuming correct exposure, contrast and color balance seem to be the two main factors that make or break a digital BW image (IMHO). Even though I have enjoyed photography for 50+ years I am still very much a novice when it comes to digital imaging.

Mike

[Bill Pierce]

It’s often easy to tell the difference between silver and b&w inkjet prints. Viewing the print at a steep angle can show on many papers that the ink is on the surface of an inkjet print rather than under a gelatin coating. This is not obvious when the prints are framed under glass and your judgement is based on tonality, sharpness, e.t.c.. On my NYC apartment walls there is a mixture of framed silver and b&w inkjet. No one, and that includes a number of excellent photographers, has ever been able to tell which is which. I have shown museum curators and gallery owners a mix of prints. In some cases I was asked to show silver. After the prints were put away, I have asked some of these folks if they realized they were seeing a mix of silver and inkjet. The answer was no.

You can control the color and tonal conversions in a digital black-and-white, if you wish, to mimic silver. Asahi, some while back, ran some tests to see what folks thought was “sharp.” This led them to working on 35-MM lenses whose MTF curves held up very well to 30 lines per mm and then fell off. Yes, anti-aliasing and a Bayer array does effect sharpness, just not quite as much as a lot of folks think. The degree of anti aliasing is up to the manufacturer. Get a full frame DSLR and you are not going to have much of a problem. I expect the situation will continue to improve. if you are comparing your final print results to those from a 400 speed 35-mm film, the anti-aliasing/Bayer argument falls exceptionally flat. Start shooting 4x5.

[Brian Sweeney]

I've seen prints from 100MPixel Monochrome cameras. No color Mosaic filter. They are amazing. At work I used to have a Tektronix Phaser IISDx Dye Sublimation printer. The prints are amazing, have held up for almost 20 years and going.

Most of the images in the LFI issues are monochrome. If Leica introduced a monochrome version of the M9 along with a dye-sub printer to match up with it.... amazing.

[gavinlg]

... digital b&w with its crazy long time post processing or plug-ins that make one feel like a cheater.

Crazy long like the hours spent in the darkroom first developing and then printing the film?

As for 'cheating' with plugins, I suppose that comes down to perspective. I don't really see it as any different to choosing a certain film for it's characteristics - like tri-x for grit or neopan 1600 for heavy noir. I mean - both the film and the plugins are available to anyone, and both are just a means to an end...

[Andrea-dsi]

I agree with Bill, you can make a great b&w image digitally and now you can even have a traditional silver gelatin print made as well from the same digital file.

With a pluggin like Silver Efex Pro 2 you can address virtually every issue posted in the forum so far. SEP 2 also has built numerous profiles that emulate different film types including the film's bias to different wavelengths of light, the grain pattern, and overall contrast. SEP 2 also allows the photographer a level of control far superior to the traditional wet darkroom and it is repeatable.

Now on to printing. That great black & white digital file you created with SEP2 can now be printed on real light sensitive photographic paper. There are companies (full disclosure: like the one I work for) that can take a digital file and using a laser expose traditional fiber baryta photo paper. The print you get is identical to any you can make in a traditional darkroom. In the end you have a hybrid process that combines the best of modern tech with the traditional beauty of a silver gelatin print.

FYI the company mentioned above is www.digitalsilverimaging.com

[rogerzilla]

OK, pop quiz. One of these is digital, one is on colour film converted to b/w in Photoshop and one is on b/w film. Which is which? All of them are toned to confuse you, but there is a clue if you look hard enough.

http://www.peeble.com/fix6.jpg

http://www.peeble.com/trig.jpg

http://www.peeble.com/choral3.jpg

[ReeRay]

1st B+W
2nd Colour
3rd digital (blown highlights!)

Maybe!

p.s. love that 3rd shot

[soubresaut17]

Agree with ReeRay

1st B+W
2nd Colour
3rd digital

[Michael Markey]

Colour
Err err

BW
Digital

[Gid]

1st Colour
2nd B&W
3rd digital (do I see dust on the sensor?)

[PKR]

[quote=Steve M.;1625726]Images on TV and the movies look so bad these days, I don't think most people know what a B&W image is supposed to look like anyway. I can't watch the stuff on the tube and at the theatres. If digital converted to B&W floats your boat, fine, but it is a far cry from what a B&W shot should look like.

Snip

A couple of quotes from the Kinderdigi at the local (one an art school) schools:

"Why would anyone want black and white, when you can have color?"

And my favorite: "digital images are best, because they look like our Big Screen TV".

[pluton]

The biggest problem with digital b&w is for it to look appealing and 'credible' it has to look like b&w film, ...

Why would anyone want digitally originated photographs to look like film?
Is there no 'native to digital' look that can be pleasing and fascinating?

A well-trained jazz-oriented drummer friend was asked(in the early 1980's): "Aren't you concerned about drum machines replacing real drummers?"
His response: "I'd be worried if my goal was to play like a machine."

[lynnb]

1. colour
2. bw
3. digital
I think...

I grew up with Tri-X/D76 and now do a lot of bw conversions from a 5D sensor. While I am generally happy with the tones I can get in the converted files, the absence of grain is noticeable. Digital noise at higher ISOs is a poor substitute. Harry Lime's comments are spot on.

[Brian Sweeney]

Okay. Who can guess how these Digital Black and White image have been processed...

http://www.ziforums.com/picture.php?albumid=206&pictureid=2020

http://www.ziforums.com/picture.php?albumid=206&pictureid=2024

(none. Straight conversion from RAW CCD output, resized in Photoshop, exported as JPEG)

DSLR's were simpler in 1993. Not many options.

[bigeye]

It's easy to judge and find a good answer when you test using your own (same) shot for both film and digital.
.

[Brian Sweeney]

It's even easier when the camera is Monochrome.

One interesting side-effect of converting a color camera to Infrared: the dye's of the Mosaic Filters all pass the deeper portion of the IR. Once you get out to 900nm or so all of the color elements are out of their color absorbtion range. You get true monochrome. Of course it is Infrared. I had an Olympus EP2 converted to Infrared, and converted an old Coolpix 950 myself. The latter uses a 4-color Mosaic filter rather than the classic Bayer pattern filter.

[deirdre]

M8, processed with Nik Silver Efex Pro:

http://gallery.me.com/deirdre/100304/L1003339_2/web.jpg

Panasonic GF1, processed with same:

http://gallery.me.com/deirdre/100304/P1100016/web.jpg

http://gallery.me.com/deirdre/100304/P1090855/web.jpg

[GSNfan]

Why would anyone want digitally originated photographs to look like film?

Because digital b&w out of a camera or with direct conversion looks lifeless, texture-less and with dim highlights and ugly shadows.

But aesthetic experience with b&w is essential, hence one of the reasons why digital b&w is not acceptable by "film zealots" ...

[lewis44]

I went back to some old shots done with a Epson R-D1 Shot in Color and used Nik Silver Efex Pro to convert to B&W.
Here are a few:
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5029/5553046605_b76949539f_b.jpg (http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/%3Ca%20href=)">
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/5550136593_b112d20e8c_b.jpg (http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/%3Ca%20href=)">
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5059/5550138957_726873e548_b.jpg (http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/%3Ca%20href=)">

[back alley]

Because digital b&w out of a camera or with direct conversion looks lifeless, texture-less and with dim highlights and ugly shadows.

But to actually be able to comprehend that aesthetic experience with b&w is essential, hence one of the reasons why people go around bewildered why digital b&w is not acceptable by "film zealots" when in fact its their own lack of eye-time with true b&w that is the culprit... I mean to go back to a far more 'relevant' music analogy, those who have not heard and enjoyed Coltrane probably think Kenny G is the best sax player ever...

how can you stand yourself?

[bwcolor]

how can you stand yourself?

I'm sure that this isn't a personal attack in response to a reasonable point of view. So, this one went over my head.

[back alley]

a reasonable pov?
stated with pure arrogance...

[SciAggie]

I went back to some old shots done with a Epson R-D1 Shot in Color and used Nik Silver Efex Pro to convert to B&W.
Here are a few:
">">http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5059/5550138957_726873e548_b.jpg (http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/%3Ca%20href=)">

Wow! These shots should quiet anyone who doubts what 6 megapixels can do. These are nice. I have to get the LCD on my Rd-1 repaired and order some software!

[bwcolor]

I'm not a big fan of digital B&W and I'm not sure why. I also can state that I've seen digital that I liked, but have seen far more film based B&W that I favored. I was reading this thread thinking that I should be more open with respect to exposing myself to converted digital images. In other words, I was thinking that my point of view might just be unfounded prejudice and that I might be able to learn something by exposing myself to the other point of view. Maybe I need to find a good venue to view first rate prints made from converted digital files. I took these remarks as suggesting that those that like digital might view things differently if exposed to more good film based B&W. I interpreted this as exactly what I was doing, only in the reverse sense. I suppose that I overlooked the forceful way it was expressed. So, in an odd way I could appreciate this point of view.

[astro8]

Hey Lewis44, can you share what lens and settings in SEP you used?...I gotta have me some of that. Maybe I'm cracked but last shot reminded me of a set off Lost In Space.

Great shots.

[Bill Pierce]

Because someone can’t make a good black-and-white print digitally or in a conventional wet darkroom doesn’t mean that good b&w inkjets or silver prints can’t be made. Silver has been around long enough that, if we see a bad print, we blame the printer, not the materials. Inkjet hasn’t been around as long and folks can still get away with saying, “It’s not my inability to make a good print, it’s the fault of the inkjet process.” As more and more good inkjet prints are circulated, as more and more good b&w images from digital camera appear on the internet, this excuse will disappear.

But, for me, right now, when somebody says digital b&w is awful, it’s just a statement about their own limitations.

[ChrisN]

Hey Lewis44, can you share what lens and settings in SEP you used?...I gotta have me some of that. Maybe I'm cracked but last shot reminded me of a set off Lost In Space.

Great shots.

I was looking at it and thinking the lighting has given a great sense of depth - that can't be natural! It does look like a film set.

A very good pic, and the treatment given is very effective. Probably nothing like a film image, but with a charm of its own.

The one thing I dislike about SEP is the lack of an audit file (or sidecar file in Lightroom terms) to record the steps applied. The changes are applied directly to the file, and once you save the file there's no record of how you achieved it (unless you save the settings as a custom preset, and even then it can't save the local enhancements). For version 3 they really need to implement non-destructive editing.

[btgc]

Digital b&w afwul? It's rather expensive compared to 5-pack of film, I mean good digital camera and computer, let alone processing software. Lets assume 5 rolls of film would be what average person would expose during vacation, then review contacts and make some prints.

[lewis44]

Hey Lewis44, can you share what lens and settings in SEP you used?...I gotta have me some of that. Maybe I'm cracked but last shot reminded me of a set off Lost In Space.Silver Efex has quite a few adjustments.

I normally use the Neutral preset and then make my corrections to that. On the right side, in Silver Efex, I adjust Brightness, Contract and Structure, then go to Film Types and Adjust for Grain (Usually 500/Fine).

Below that is Sensitivity, which gives you sliders for color (Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue & Violet.)
That is where I make the most important adjustments. I don't have a preset for that, as each scene is different. I may then go back up to Contrast & Structure for a final Tweak.

The lens was probably a 50 Summilux or VC Nokton f1.5. These were shot about 3-4 years ago, so Im not quite sure which it was.
I was debating whether to get another R-D1 and went back to look at some of my old stuff and worked these images.
I did not have Silver Efex Pro then, so redoing them in B&W was Kinda' fun.

I find that landscapes with Real Blue Sky's and Cloud Structure are great to work with.
Glad you like the images.

[semordnilap]

Bill,

I really like the Lightroom system you described a while back:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92977

I've found it makes for phenomenal conversions, at least from my M8 files.

Thanks!!!

[Gabriel M.A.]

The single best plug-in for black & white is ALCE2 (http://www.bigano.com/index.php/en/alce/257-alce-2-new-features.html). It stands for "A Local Contrast Enhancer". It is beyond amazing the before and after effects. None of my photographs are seen without having this judiciously applied when I'm "developing".


What, no Demo available?

[David_Manning]

My personal opinion is that b&w doesn't look the same without grain. Now, I know fine art b&w shot with large-format cameras are essentially grain-less, but my mind's recollection of b&w prints reflects visible grain structure.

Digital is convenient...which nobody will dispute...but sometimes I use digital for it's ease of use and then convert to reflect what I would have shot on film if I wasn't so lazy at that time (or had the time and/or money).

That being said, I shot this with a D700 and used Nik SilverEfex Pro for the conversion. It looks exactly as I hoped it would...like a landscape shot on 35mm Tri-X film. I enlarged it to 20x30, and it held up nicely, which I'm not confident Tri-X would have done in the end.

Just different tools I guess...

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5092/5538350745_5f9c6314e8_b.jpg

[astro8]

Silver Efex has quite a few adjustments.

I normally use the Neutral preset and then make my corrections to that. On the right side, in Silver Efex, I adjust Brightness, Contract and Structure, then go to Film Types and Adjust for Grain (Usually 500/Fine).

Below that is Sensitivity, which gives you sliders for color (Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue & Violet.)
That is where I make the most important adjustments. I don't have a preset for that, as each scene is different. I may then go back up to Contrast & Structure for a final Tweak.

The lens was probably a 50 Summilux or VC Nokton f1.5. These were shot about 3-4 years ago, so Im not quite sure which it was.
I was debating whether to get another R-D1 and went back to look at some of my old stuff and worked these images.
I did not have Silver Efex Pro then, so redoing them in B&W was Kinda' fun.

I find that landscapes with Real Blue Sky's and Cloud Structure are great to work with.
Glad you like the images.

Love the images and thanks for the insight.

[Dr Gaspar]

Hey Lewis44, can you share what lens and settings in SEP you used?...I gotta have me some of that. Maybe I'm cracked but last shot reminded me of a set off Lost In Space.

Great shots.
I was just about to say that... and then I read your post.

Looks like a tv set from the 60's, damn right.

[Peter Klein]

I was just about to say that... and then I read your post.

Looks like a tv set from the 60's, damn right.

Hey Lewis44, can you share what lens and settings in SEP you used?...I gotta have me some of that. Maybe I'm cracked but last shot reminded me of a set off Lost In Space.

Great shots.

Astro8, you are not cracked at all. I love Joshua Tree, have been there multiple times. And I've said the same thing for years. At any moment I expect Dr. Smith and the arm-waving robot to appear from behind the rock formations. :)

[Brian Sweeney]

Panatomic-X in Microdol is as close to Monochrome Digital that I could get when shooting film.

http://www.ziforums.com/picture.php?albumid=171&pictureid=2548

http://www.ziforums.com/picture.php?albumid=171&pictureid=1597

I've never felt the need to add CGG (computer generated grain) to a digital image. It is as close to Pan-X as I can find.

[Peter Wijninga]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3191/3013239202_cfa86fab0b_z.jpg (http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/%3Ca%20href=)

[Ronchnam]

Epson R-D1 RAW file and Epson PhotoRaw (Photolier in Japan) software.
If you will try it, you will know, what I want to say.
Really.
Hi,
I do use an epson R-D1, most of time in Raw + Jpg setting.
I also have a IMac computeur and I didn't succeeded opening any raw file through Epson PhotoRaw. Either I have uploaded them in Iphoto or directly from the Sd Card.

Could you help me ?

Regards

[Stuart John]

B&W film is the real thing nice as digital B&W can be often it's just a simulation.

APX100 in Rodinal
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/rffgallery/gallery/3357/U3357I1308041337.SEQ.0.jpg

[Stuart John]

And a digital one , I used DXO film pack 3 TriX or HP5 can't remember which one.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/rffgallery/gallery/3357/U3357I1315515981.SEQ.0.jpg

[semilog]

You can control the color and tonal conversions in a digital black-and-white, if you wish, to mimic silver. Asahi, some while back, ran some tests to see what folks thought was “sharp.” This led them to working on 35-MM lenses whose MTF curves held up very well to 30 lines per mm and then fell off. Yes, anti-aliasing and a Bayer array does effect sharpness, just not quite as much as a lot of folks think. The degree of anti aliasing is up to the manufacturer. Get a full frame DSLR and you are not going to have much of a problem. I expect the situation will continue to improve. if you are comparing your final print results to those from a 400 speed 35-mm film, the anti-aliasing/Bayer argument falls exceptionally flat. Start shooting 4x5.

+1.

I think that a lot of people are confusing grain and tonal relationships with "acutance" and "detail." An 8 Mpix shot* from my old Olympus 4/3 DSLR with a pretty strong AA filter (and a very good lens) has at least comparable detail (that is, it resolves at least as much fine structure) as a similar shot on Tri-X taken with my M6 (and a very good lens).

In both cases resolved detail is, more often than not, limited by focus error and camera movement, not by the sensor's characteristics. A shot from my 12 megapixel Olympus is even better, and since that camera has in-body image stabilization, it's better still. Yet the pictures look different, unless some care is taken in post to make the digital output look like film. Thus, "detail," even fine detail, cannot explain the difference.

What it really comes down to is (1) the rendering of tonal relationships from scene to print (including spectral mapping), and (2) perceived acutance (versus acutance from edge effects) due to grain noise. Note that edge effects are easy to obtain (http://www.amazon.com/World-Sharpening-Photoshop-Camera-Lightroom/dp/0321637550/) in digital.

*This particular combination of camera and lens (E-500 and 12-60SWD) resolves well over 700 vertical cycles (= horizontal line pairs; measured casually by me; I'm certain it could do better in a well-controlled lab test) – almost exactly equivalent to 30 cycles/mm on FF 135 film. In the lab, using a 10 Mpix sensor with a weaker anti-aliasing filter (http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/olympus_12-60_2p8-4_o20/page3.asp), the same lens delivers more than 1400 vertical cycles at MTF-50, all the way across the frame. That corresponds to 58 cycles/mm on FF 135 format. Guess what the maximum MTF50 of Tri-X is, under highly optimized** laboratory conditions? The answer, from Kodak's own spec sheet: about 53 cycles/mm (http://www.kodak.com:80/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/f4017/f4017.pdf). So, no, "detail" is not the difference, and neither is acutance, at least in the commonly-accepted technical sense (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acutance) of that word.

**Note that this is the MTF of the film alone, not overdeveloped, etc., while the digital results are the MTF for the entire imaging system. When combined with a camera (that won't ever hold the film flat enough unless it's a Contax RTS III), a lens (that has various aberrations and probably isn't focused precisely anyway), a scanner or enlarger, etc., the Tri-X result for the overall imaging system will always be worse (http://www.amazon.com/Image-Clarity-High-Resolution-JOHN-WILLIAMS/dp/0240800338) than the film's rated MTF.

[semilog]

http://semilog.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Monochrome-landscapes/i-wRjDdXT/0/L/20110705-7052467-L.jpg

http://semilog.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Monochrome-landscapes/i-Fw7tSNs/0/XL/20110619-scan1109-2-XL.jpg

Both shot the same evening, in my back yard.

Top: E-500, 12-60 SWD; bottom: M6, Neopan 400 (XTOL 1+1), 50mm Summicron-M.

Note: the only way to get the top image to look even remotely like 35mm film was to add grain and back the "clarity" slider off to –20 in Lightroom. :-P

[KEH]

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/rffgallery/gallery/1632/U1632I1316559805.SEQ.0.jpg

Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island - seriously old growth forest.

Lumix LX5, Silver Efex Pro 2

Cheers,
Kirk

[segedi]

Does anyone filter their digital shots on the lens? I've been thinking of trying a red or orange filter on my DSLR to see what difference it makes and if it's even doable.

Years ago, I sold a shot of a lily to some lily fanatics, nice older couple in Knoxville. Before they bought the print, they asked if the flower was real :(
The smoothness of the digital file converted to B&W made the flower look artificial. On other shots I added in some grain, made a big difference. As did fiddling with Curves.

I still prefer B&W film though. Just got some Efke developed an am anxious to see what it looks like on the scans (no darkroom so scanning it is!) And I don't have to apply PS filters to emulate a particular film, I just use it!

[Sam Kanga]

Hi Kirk,

I recognized Cathedral Grove right away. What a great place to shoot black & white, the light can be beautiful.

I shoot people, I don't shoot landscapes, however, when going through Cathedral Grove some years ago, I couldn't help myself, the light was fantastic and the place was inspiring - so after 20 years of photography (at that point), I shot my first photos without people in them.

Thanks
Sam