35mm film photography comeback?

If the film look is as bd as you say, why emulate it?

 

Nostalgia.

 

not all of them and not for long for those who still do. it's a useless
skill.

they don't teach engineering students how to build amplifiers that use
vacuum tubes nor do they teach them how to use slide rules either.

we have digital now.

be sure to bring *one* 64 meg (not gig) card so you can only shoot a
few images. think of it as sheet film.

 

some people are used to how film looks or they just want a certain look
for an effect. maybe they want it to look vintage.

quality-wise, it's a step backwards.

 

On 4/8/2014 7:09 PM, John Turco wrote:

Some still use them.

<https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97242118/CameraAwesomePhoto (1).jpg>

 

Not on point. Before you take a good image, you must see the image.
they still teach log.

 

But that doesn't make them idiots, or Luddites.

 

Nope, just folks who find something expressive and appealing in the
photographic work from the era of the great 20th Century pioneers who
laid the foundations of much of what we strive for today.

 

"quality" is NEVER a factor for the art of photography.

Of your kind of "knowledge"? You got that right:
I plead immediate and total ignorance!

 

There is no way in the world we can change the gain of an individual pixel.. The most a sensor can do is increase the gain of an amplifier of the WHOLE output of an entire row and column of pixels, and for that you need to go into the realm of pro-dslrs. None of the amateur ones or p&s do that. It can introduce horrendous processing problems down the line and is why cameras using these use a special "Hi" gain setting. Which is clearly reserved for "last resort" cases. In pro-class dslrs.

The vast majority of p&s and other digital cameras simply do not do any of that.

Raw data is nowadays almost all the time 14 bits, if not more. Which is plenty enough to "create" the astronomical ISOs that seem so important for some folks.

For those of us not so concerned with pixels and bits and more concerned with basics of *real* photography such as lighting, contrast and colour saturation, the solution is simple: control the exposure with aperture and shutter speed so that the sensor can do its magic of setting ISO as needed/possible/reliable by using a sufficient and significant amount of A-to-D to avoid analog amplification noise concerns.

Yes, very much so.
Original and commented areas highlighted below:

"The usual design is that the camera's parameters for interpreting the sensor data values into sRGB values are *FIXED*(as in: they are a property of the sensor and NOT a property of amplification), and *A NUMBER* (but not all!) of different EI choices are accommodated by varying the *SENSOR'S SIGNALGAIN* (the ENTIRE SENSOR's gain, NOT the gain of EACH pixel!) in the analog realm, prior to conversion to digital.
*SOME* ("some" means some. It doesn't mean ALL!) camera designs provide at least some EI choices by adjusting the sensor's signal gain *IN THE DIGITALREALM* (in other words, they manipulate the RAW file data AFTER A-to-D conversion, not before - precisely what I said!). *A FEW*("a few" means some, NOT all!) camera designs also provide EI adjustment through a choice of lightness parameters for the interpretation of sensor data values into sRGB (again: digital number manipulation of data AFTER A-to-D); *THIS VARIATION*(aka, HDR and "D-lighting") allows different tradeoffs between the range of highlights that can be captured and the amount of noise introduced into the shadow areas of the photo."

Like I said: the majority of digital ISO "gain" is done by manipulating howthe digital data - after A-to-D conversion - is calculated and stored. That has NOTHING to do with "amplifier gains" anywhere! Most analog amplifiers WILL introduce SERIOUS noise and distortion if their gain is pushed too far - hence why that technique is reserved only for advanced and pro-level cameras.


QED

 

So now it's "what matters to the user"? As opposed to "the photographer"?
Funny how the requirements keep changing depending on what bullshit needs to be pushed...

I have been using digital cameras for 15 years, moron! That is very likely longer than you have.

which has NOTHING to do with the ISO and all to do with aperture and shutter speed.

No they wouldn't. For exactly the same reasons they never leave out the number of megapixels, even though that is mostly irrelevant nowadays:
it is terribly important for morons like you who love the "bigger is better" nonsense.

 

Woah! Fancy carting that thing around all day! Wonderful old piece of
kit, though! What was the build quality like?

 

I think they were designed and built to last forever <http://graflex.org/>

 

He has several of them, for which he uses Polaroid film. But he enjoys
using that oldie. I once asked him what he would do when he runs out of
film. He said he had only two freezers full of Polaroid film.

 

Amazing! Just wondering why the large format, though? I mean, these
people were only shooting for newspapers in the main, so I don't see
the need for such huge negs. :-/

 

Rugged construction if the camera, and image quality was a fringe
benefit of the large format.
Not only were they used for newspapers, they also found their way into
combat zones along with Leicas, C2's, & C3's, even into the mid-1950's.
Here is a Speed Graphic shot from the South West Pacific in 1944.
< https://db.tt/FnlPOj1D >

 

A variety of reasons, probably. Film emulsions weren't what they later
became; 35mm cameras were widely regarded as toys. Inertia probably
played a large part, and (I think) the quality of the image was more
important then than now.

Having shot with them, a big old press camera, lens stopped down and
the subject blasted with a #22 flash bulb, couldn't help but capture
every possible detail.

 

I'm reminded of the old 'two rules of press photography': "F/8 and be
there".

Larger contact prints (or even negatives if you're in a real hurry) are
much easier to assess than little ones. They also require little or no
enlarging for the final print, and there's enough detail recorded for
heavy cropping - so the photographer doesn't need to carry so many
lenses. The bellows in the camera body also means that long lenses
don't need long barrels, which makes them easier to carry about. Any
dust or damage on the lens or film will be proportionally much smaller
in relation to the final image than the same dirt or damage on a
miniature camera, so handling at every stage is much easier.

Shooting 'sheet film' in double-sided film holders means the
photographer can annotate each frame - and bung it into a taxi to get
the 'scoop' back to base without having to leave the scene or unload and
reload roll-film to continue photographing. The dark-room can also rush
the processing of that one frame, saving even more time. (But a press
camera can of course be fitted with a roll-film back if that's more
appropriate).

 

Careful, his head might explode...

 

No chance of that. It's too far over his head.