Pixiq

Quite possibly the least attractive t-shirt, ever. :)

Film's graveyard???? Please.

While I will miss Kodachrome, there are still amazing films such as Ektar 100 in colour, and many great films for black and white (such as my venerable favourite Tri-X). There are still may many people for whom film-based processes are an essential part of their photographic vision. What you describe as a "graveyard" looks pretty lively to me :-)

John I think you misunderstood Jack's idiom choice. He didn't say the graveyard he said "whistling past film's graveyard."

The phrase "whistling past the graveyard" means that you're trying not to be upset around upsetting things. This definition sums it up, from usingenglish.com

Idiom Definitions for 'Whistling past the graveyard'
If someone is whistling past the graveyard, they are trying to remain cheerful in difficult circumstances. ('Whistling past the cemetery' is also used.)

John I think you misunderstood Jack's idiom choice. He didn't say the graveyard he said "whistling past film's graveyard."

The phrase "whistling past the graveyard" means that you're trying not to be upset around upsetting things. This definition sums it up, from usingenglish.com

Idiom Definitions for 'Whistling past the graveyard'
If someone is whistling past the graveyard, they are trying to remain cheerful in difficult circumstances. ('Whistling past the cemetery' is also used.)

Jack: Had to buy the "t" shirt! I did leave Kodachrome behind before even digital with E100VS. Kodak sponsored me for years, and I really miss that.

If I misinterpreted that one metaphor, I apologize. However a further statement in the post " People may argue as to when digital overtook film, but no one can argue against the fact that this date puts an exclamation point on the end of film as we knew it." is one I still challenge; the film photography community is still very active and dedicated to preserving a medium in the face of the "spray and pray" attitude.

Again, I'm going to call a grammar foul here. The phrase was "the end of film as we knew it."

Sure, there's an active film community still, and they're actively dedicated to preserving a medium. But that's not how we knew film. By definition, if someone is trying to preserve a tool that used to be readily available, they have reached the end of that tool, *as we knew it."

Just a few short years ago there was NO digital photography, only film, and no shortage of places to buy film or have it processed. That's not the case any more. It is NOT "as we knew it."

Regardless of your, or anyone else's feelings about digital, it changed the course of film's trajectory radically. Step into any pro shop and the massive coolers of film that dominated so much floorspace have shrunken or disappeared. Step into a convenience store and the rolls of consumer film and disposable cameras have been replaced with SD cards and batteries.

It doesn't matter how wonderful film WAS. Jack is saying that it's no longer what it was, and that's true. The fact that a handful of people are fighting to preserve it doesn't disprove his point, it reinforces it.

Also, it's just a posting about Kodachrome going away, that doesn't make Jack a spokesperson for the superiority of film.

Cut myself off there. Meant to say "spokesperson for the superiority of film or digital."

>> And I still find it funny that there
are so many plug-ins and other software programs whose only role, when you
get right down to it, is to try to disguise the digital origin of the image.
If someone wants the look of film, why not try the real thing?<<

For two reasons. First, people always have been trying to get a look, the film itself was secondary. No one every said "this picture should be more Fuji-ey" they said "I'd like this photo to have more saturation in the green and blue range, oh, Fuji does that."

It's always been about getting a look. It used to be that the film companies tweaked their emulsions to get the looks. Now it's a piece of code. The only reason that many of the plug-ins say things like "Tri-X, Pushed 3 stops" is because that's a common language. The could just as easily say "clumpy grain patterns with high contrast and a slight halo to light sources."

Cross processing is a perfect example of this—if people wanted the look of Kodachrome or Fujichrome, why cross process at all? Because it was the end result they were going for.

The other reason is that film is both slow (between shooting and processing) and tied to that look. If you shoot with Fujichrome but then realize that you wanted more saturation in the skin tones, you had to change the processing of the image or turn it over to a retoucher. Brought 100ASA film and you need to shoot at 400? Push process and deal with grain and reciprocity failure.

>>who is does not spray and pray, I
maintain there are many who do, and again I am not alone here.<<

So what? Really, the number of images that were caught on film by accident—when the shutter was triggered at an unintentional or coincidental point—is huge. You only had 36 chances on a roll at most to get that right.

If someone takes a huge number of photos but gets a great image out of it, so what? I know many, many photographers who can (and do) thoughtfully and purposefully capture every frame and their images are just awful. Does the duration of the shutter release being pressed change the skill of the photographer to compose? In many cases it does not. A good photographer, taking lots of photos in a row with digital, usually ends up with a lot of good photos. A poor photographer doing that ends up with a lot of bad photos. It's not the quantity of frames captured that determines the value of a photo.

@ John - I'm really enjoying your feedback here. Just wanted to let you know that I'm enjoying the dialog.

First of all, analog photography existed for an awfully long time. Like with any new media, the transition from one to another usually looks at first very similar.

For example, when CDs first came on the market they were largely bland-sounding poorly-remixed (if remixed at all) versions of the vinyl masters. People talked about the sound of vinyl, because they were used to it, and so they described CD audio in those terms.

Then recording technologies caught up and many fine CDs came to market.

Then the MP3 players showed up and provided compressed audio, and once again, the technology was described in the terms of its predecessor. Music wasn't as good as an MP3 as a digitally mastered CD.

But remember that digital and analog photography are aspects of the same artform. Chemists at Kodak and Fuji and the like would tweak the film based on customer requests. They'd ask for a film with less grain and Kodak would release T-Max. Then they asked for a faster speed T-Max and got 400 and then 3200.

Thousands and thousands of rolls of film later and photographers refer to the "look" of film that they know by those films. But many of the new presets and plugins for Aperture and Lightroom don't refer to the name of the film. "Toy camera" simulates a cross processed film in a Lomo.

It's natural for people though to refer to what's familiar. I remember when Epson released its Fiber paper and the marketing material specifically talked about non RC paper stock. Fewer people printed their own images though, which is why I think that papers abandoned naming themselves after films and just called themselves "super luster".

On the second point, if you think that methodical photographers who produce bad images is an "edgy" case, I'd refer you to Flickr, Snapfish, and the like. You'll see plenty of images that are poorly composed and poorly orchestrated despite lack of a high-speed frame rate.

I think the problem is the term "spray and pray" which by its very nature means someone who is not composing their images. Certainly someone who puts no thought into it and just pushes the shutter release is a poor quality photographer. But capturing images at a speed or quantity greater than film doesn't mean you're "spraying and praying."

But it's not edgy at all to use a high speed capture mode to pick out the right moment when events are moving faster than the eye can follow them. That's just a smart use of technology.

Let's put this in a film context—a photographer who shoots print film because they over or underexpose out of poor skills and uses the film's latitude to save their image is doing the same thing from a technical standpoint as a photographer who is shooting slightly under and planning to push it a bit in printing to capture a certain dynamic range. You could say both were "shoot and tweak" but one is clearly using the technology as a crutch and one is using it as an advantage. The term spray and pray isn't, therefore, accurate when describing photographers who are using the fast frame rate as a tool, even though they're lumped in with people using it as a crutch.

Just to address a technical issue here

>>Regarding grain (or noise), if digital doesn't have it, why are noise
reduction tools so popular?<<

Grain is the underlying structure of film. As the plane is exposed to light, chemicals clump together to form the image. The small particles that react to the light are the product of a *correctly* exposed piece of film. (Where the film is not exposed, particles don't clump and are washed away in development.)

As a result, all film has grain if exposed at all.

Noise is the reaction of digital imaging sensors to the electrical signal of pixels near them, either from long exposure or from high gain (ISO). Sensors are picking up the charge of nearby photons and adding it to the charge reading of their own pixel.

Because noise is more present at high ISOs and long exposures, it takes place when an image is more likely to be either improperly exposed or pushed past the specifications of the camera. In other words, only a percentage of digital photos exhibit noise. Those that do tend to be high ISO shots.

All film has grain, pushing the film to a higher ISO brings out even more of the grain effect.

Noise reduction technology is popular for a few reasons.

1 - Because cameras can switch ISO on the fly photographers are much more likely to try to capture images beyond the normal operating range of the camera and still get an image. If you have ISO 50 film and walk into a room where ISO 1600 is called for you're not going to get it without pushing the film way beyond its limits (and switching film if you already shot some images at ISO 50.)

2 - Because noise occurs at higher ISO and because many photographers don't light a scene, it's advantageous to try to eliminate noise, where possible. Personally I think this is great—photojournalists who used to lug around lights to capture a scene now can shoot with available light, which has much less of an impact on a subject and scene than lighting it.

3 - Because many newcomers to photography don't really know how to use the settings on their camera there are a lot of instances of people shooting high ISO when they shouldn't. Noise reduction particularly helps these shooeters.

4 - Noise in an image is partially connected to the sophistication of the camera. The better the camera compensates for the random spikes of electricity that cause noise ,the less it's needed. Noise reduction software likewise is very helpful for people shooting gear that doesn't handle noise well internally.

Well if you ever get to Toronto look me up, and we can argue over some good Canadian beer :-)

Hey John
I know that these posts are really old but I had to jump in and tell you you’re wasting your time trying to get your point of view across. A true artist doesn’t close his or her mind about tools used in creating true art (and that is what photography is… true art). As an artist myself I decide whether to use a brush a knife or a camera to create my art.
I have taught art as well in many academic disciplines. I have found that there are always people out there that think it’s all about the technology rather than the artists’ eye for creativity or visual capture. All these things are tools to create our art. Digital is perhaps less messy and better for the environment (well only if we stop throwing out our technology every couple years because were told we have to buy a new one). These same people that are arguing that film is dead are the same people I hear arguing that Canon is better than Nikon or vice versa (and Leica to them is just an expensive toy for the rich to these people). They don’t see that all cameras are tools, each with their strengths and weaknesses. As an artist it is our job to decide what tool to use to achieve our vision. Let these other know it alls waste their time telling us what we are supposedly doing wrong. Oh and as far as posting someone else’s work and saying see how digital is the only tool to use just grin and bear it for you are conversing with a consumer of electronic products and Not conversing with a true artist.

Best Regards
Mark Ingram
BA, MA, BSc, MSc
Ontario Canada