photo 1 : Lumix G7, 16Mpx, capteur micro 4:3, Objectif 14-140mm

photo 2 : Olympus AF-10 mini, pellicules 135, Fuji 400ISO 36Exp., objectif 35mm

Même jour, même heure, même lieu.

#photography #DigitalVSFilm #DigitalPhotography #FilmPhotography #Comparison

Don’t Look Back; A Reason To Shoot Film

by Johnny Martyr

I was listening to the latest episode of The Nikki Glaser Podcast and writer/comedian Brian Frange made a comment about stand-up comedy that resonated with me as a film photographer.

Nikki was talking about the value of being authentic vs giving the audience what you think they want.

Brian clarified " Whenever you're trying to give people what they want, not only you're being inauthentic, which is an anathema to stand-up, but you're also backwards looking. And the key to being funny is to be forwards looking and be new and different…. When you're trying to do something that you expect, that means you saw something that worked and you're copying it. Which is why AI is going to fail; it's backwards looking."

I can relate to Brian's sentiment, not only in how he intended it but also in terms of shooting digital and having a preview screen and shooting film and not having one.

When a photographer chimps their digital shots, they are reacting to a first draft rendering of the scene instead of reacting to the scene itself.

It's kind of like the Magritte painting, The Treachery of Images.

"Ceci n 'est pas une pipe", French for "This is not a pipe" - indicating that this is a painting of a pipe, not the pipe itself.

Brian's comment about looking forward vs. looking backward feels similar.

Looking backward is reviewing the last shot(s) that you took instead of taking the next shot or looking for it (looking forward.)

Another media artifact that reminds me of this concept is the passage in the Chuck Palanuik book and its popular film adaption, Fight Club. The main character Jack says "This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can't touch anything and nothing can touch you"

The aliasing in this jpg depicting Edward Norton in the movie Fight Club seems to demonstrate the point!

From these lines, one can imagine the tangential distance one can put between their original, source motivation for taking a photo and how the constant checking of previews interferes with that vitality.

I'm not going to invalidate instant photo review in photography and you don't need to shoot film just to avoid using it. There are technical and social means of avoiding preview if desired. You can simply turn your preview screen off and ignore it or shoot with a Leica M-D. Or you can, as most people do, view image preview as a critical tool. If these are your thoughts, I don't disagree with you. You're not wrong. The benefits of preview are indisputable and I don't mean to directly equate them to inauthenticity or anything negative.

But I do think that for some genres of photography such as photojournalism or just as a creative exercise in general, taking photos without using image preview can bring more authenticity, both to ones approach and to ones final images.

Comedian Nikki Glaser, taken with a Leica M6 TTL and Kodak Tri-X film

But I would submit that having the option of previewing ones photos, regardless of if one chooses to use it or not, affects how we take photos and interact with our subjects. I'll leave it up to readers to decide when it is or is not right for their particular process to use instant image preview. And I certainly wouldn't claim that the lack of it is anything close to the main reason one should shoot film. But I do think that cultivating the habit of trusting and moving on instinct, creating images based on reactions to life vs other images is one of many core reasons why film photography can take ones work in a different, potentially useful direction than more utilitarian, scientific digital photography.

To me, lack of image preview is one of the ways that we can harness personal intellect and emotions to more directly influence what we choose our subjects to be and how we choose to render and convey them. And regardless of if you predominantly shoot digital or film and whatever the reasons, I find that this is one reason why I lean on film for my work.

I'm disappointed that Brian Frange was unable to attend my last shoot with Nikki this past June (and wasn't touring with her when I photographed her in November) but I look forward (not backward!) to his hilariously insightful comments on the next episode of The Nikki Glaser Podcast!

What do you think? How much does the preview screen play a role in your digital photography? What do you think about the notion that it holds you in the past when you should be looking forward? Let's discuss in the comments below!

Thanks for reading and happy shooting!

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Why Digital Cameras Will All Die but Film Cameras Live On

#educational #equipment #opinion #digital #digitalcameras #digitalvsfilm #filmvsdigital #futureproof #learn #lifespan #mikesmith #obsolescence #obsolete

Leica M10 Monochrom vs Kodak Tri-X 400: B&W Digital vs Film

The Leica M10 Monochrom is a $9,000 digital camera dedicated to black-and-white photography, but how does it compare to a $10 roll of Kodak Tri-X 400 black-and-white film? That's what the folks at Camera West TV decided to find out.

In the 10.5-minute video above, photographer Carlo Velasquez (@leftf0otforward on Instagram) does a shootout between the Leica M10 Monochrom and Kodak Tri-X 400 loaded in a $5,300 Leica M-A -- the Leica 50mm f2 Summicron lens was used on both bodies to keep the comparison focused on the sensor and film.

"I know what you're thinking: wouldn't the high-resolution sensor of the Monochrom beat out 35mm film, or wouldn't you just convert your color photos into black and white?" Velasquez says. "The reason why we're doing this comparison today is because many videos and many articles about film versus digital how one's better than the other better usually talk about how the color stands out and how it's hard to replicate that film look.

"Well, today this is the first time we've seen a black-and-white film go up against a black-and-white-only sensor."

Velasquez shot photos at Ocean Beach in San Francisco with the Tri-X 400 (his favorite film for its versatility and iconic look) at box speed, ISO 800, and ISO 1600.

"They say that at higher ISOs, the noise that you get from the sensor mimics film grain, so we'll see how it stacks up against film," he says.

Here are some of the photos Velasquez ended up with:

Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400

The Leica M10 Monochrom is a digital rangefinder that leaves out the Bayer color filter array that digital cameras ordinarily use to capture color information. Without the need to interpolate color information from pixels, the Monochrom should theoretically offer better image quality than standard color photos converted to black and white.

Velasquez notes that Kodak Tri-X is beloved by film photographers for its wide exposure latitude (you can get good results even when pushing and pulling), its medium contrast, and its pleasing grain.

Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400 Leica M10 Monochrom Kodak Tri-X 400

"I hope this [experiment] gave you more insight between black-and-white film and a black-and-white digital camera," Velasquez says. "Neither is better neither is worse really. It just depends on what tool fits the job and they have their own respective processes."

You can find more of Velasquez's work on his website and Instagram. You can also follow along with Camera West TV's videos by subscribing to its YouTube channel.

Image credits: Photographs by Carlo Velasquez and courtesy Camera West TV

#educational #equipment #reviews #blackandwhite #camerawesttv #digitalvsfilm #film #filmvsdigital #kodak #kodaktrix #kodaktrix400 #leicam10m #leicam10monochrom #monochrom #monochrome #shootout