I shoot a high volume and am always trying to turn things around as quickly as I can, so I’ve been on the digital train since the bad old days of terrible color, low resolution, and insanely high prices. Digital has come a long way and turned film into a niche market … but it’s a beautiful niche.
dSLRs have come a long way with dynamic range in particular — the D800 is startlingly good, in particular. But when you reach the very ends of it, you’ll always come down to the ones and zeroes that make for harsh roll-offs. So, when I was faced with the extreme contrast of this scene with Kelsie — direct Boise sun beating on the light sand with her face in reflected light and the background in shade — I turned to film, with the Mamiya 645 and the 80mm f/1.9. The sand is overexposed by more than two stops, but film retains the information.
This is as good as I could get the scene with the D3s:
Not horrible, but the highlights are still garish. The D3s (and the D800 even more) keeps a remarkable amount of dynamic range in the shadows, so if I’d really wanted to get the absolute best out of it, I would have exposed for the highlights, underexposing her face by as much as three stops, and then dodging it back in post (*very* different than the optimal way to shoot the scene in film). But in a scene like this, that would take a lot of work to make it look right, while film nailed it in one shot.
Film is on a bit of a downward spiral — getting more and more expensive as less and less people use it, which causes even less people to use it, which makes it more expensive — but I do hope the niche stays more active than, say daguerreotype enthusiasts.
(More Kelsie — showing off the strengths of digital — here)
Dearth - Great post – it’s really rare to see such a good side by side comparison of film vs. digital.
Seth - a beautiful shot and an honest post. what else could you ask for?
Dennis Pike - Very true, the dynamic range is WAY better in the film shot. That being said… the colors look 1000 x’s better in the digital shot. I would take the blown highlights and beautiful, vibrant colors of digital over the retained highlights and muddy looking colors of film. Personal preference of course
Dr. Nick - I think when you say “film” you mean color negative film- because slide film will have the same dynamic range issues as digital and needs to be exposed in the same way as digital (for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may.
Max - Amazing the detail in the highlights!
Digital seems that it clipped the highlights.
Heiko - Digital will get there, it’s just a matter of time… and then it will go beyond, I am pretty sure. Let’s hope sooner than later! :)
Tim Driver - Great to see a comparison, you very quickly remember how good film was in some situations- Still have a F5 in the cupboard but is there any film in the freezer ??
Tilo - love that post, great job, congrats!
thing is, that at least as I know, film has not really a greater dynamic range … digital can do approx 11..12 stops, not bad at all.
But obviously, film does respond totally different at the ends of its range. More like a slow and nice falloff compared to the hard digital clipping …
Digital could / can do the same, depending on the sensor. There are CMOS sensors, with logarithmic response curves (instead of linear curves).
anyway, great comparison!!
Joe Marshall - Being born in the digital photography age. This is an eye opener on the differences between film and digital dynamic range. Thanks!
Ashley - Great shots, I too use the mamiya 645, a few rolls each wedding and tend to love the film shots better than our digital.