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[OM] Re: landscape shooting film or digital ?

Subject: [OM] Re: landscape shooting film or digital ?
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 01:47:12 -0700
Komtanoo Pinpimai wrote:
> Many landscape images of Graham nicely depict the earth and the cloud
> which are not easy or even impossible to create with digital camera
> without photoshop. 
It appears that you assume that Graham's posted images are created in 
some 'pure' way directly from nature to film to the images he posts 
without manipulation or any processing in a photo editor. That in not 
correct. Graham uses filters with his B&W film and PS for both B&W and 
color images.

I believe that it is no harder to create those kind of images with 
digital than with film. Some of the skills overlap and others are 
specific to each medium. If you cruise around the pro's sites, you will 
find stunning images created with digital cameras. The process of 
scanning is not automatic, somehow creating a finished image. 
Considerable skill is exercised in the scanning application and/or an 
image editor to get a great image. Automated scanning software can 
produce perfectly nice results, like those from automated consumer 
printing of 4x6s. Great images? No.
> It makes me thinking that shooting landscape should be done in negative film, 
> 'coz it has wider range of exposure. 
I don't know what the theory and/or scientific measurements show for 
sure. I seem to remember someone doing and posting results of some 
careful testing with a pro Nik*n that showed RAW files and color neg 
film to be pretty close in overall brightness range they can capture. As 
a practical matter, I've scanned quite a bit of film and shot a lot of 
Can*n RAW files and don't believe either one is inherently better. They 
are very different, and one has to know how to expose them. Much of 
color neg's extended range is in the direction of tolerating 
overexposure, while Raw files are less so.
> I wonder if most pro landscape shooters convert to digital or are they still 
> shooting negative ?
>   
I don't have a survey at hand, but I'll bet most, but not all, have 
converted partially or completely to digital. High end DSLRs simply 
resolve more detail with less noise/grain than the films 35mm 
landscapeists were using. Many also feel they are equal to or better 
than common  120/220 MF films/formats. Since detail without noise/grain 
is the holy grail of many of those folks, digital is a natural for many 
of their applications.

By the way, the great/famous B&W photographers of the last century 
manipulated their negatives extensively in the darkroom. Many of the 
great color landscape photographers manipulated their images through 
choice of film, through use of filters, through choice of paper and 
through manipulation in printing. If you want to avoid PS because it 
takes time and effort to learn and use, I feel your pain.

If you want to avoid post processing in the hope that there is some holy 
grail of simplicity with film that will get you images like Graham 
creates without learning and using many forms of photographic expertise, 
good luck. It's not the film, equipment and software that create his 
great landscapes, it's Graham and his eye, skills and experience that 
account for the quality.

Moose

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