Let me say up front that it certainly wasn’t simple/easy making a choice as to film or digital in any of the 11 comparisons of this experiment — none were “givens” in my opinion! I found myself able to do only a few comparisons at a sitting before losing focus and beginning to doubt what I was seeing or what I thought I knew.
I believe that difficulty was the reason only two readers, Sabrina Henry and myself, made it all the way thought the comparisons. It was for me like getting into the middle of a history test and suddenly realizing you must have studied the wrong chapter or was asleep when the teacher discussed the material. ;-)
What did I personally learn from participating in this experiment?
- I learned to not assume anything about photographs I see and to pay closer attention to the details. The clues as to the technique or methods used to create a photo are often in the details but you have to be a good detective to have them tell you their story.
- NIK Silver Efex Pro does a better job of simulating black and white film then I suspected. I’ve used Silver Efex often but I never knew how accurate it was — it can be very good.
- I confirmed my respect for film and digital — in b&w, film continues to deliver but digital has arrived as well. You need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Chris, thank-you for your hard work setting this up and sharing it.
The photo above is of one of my two major photographic subject attractions, flowing water — the other, paths. I’m naturally drawn to both and have many photos of each in my archives. There’s no doubt a core reason for these particular attractions, perhaps something to do with a journey or change. In any case I’m certainly still on that journey.
A beautiful mountain stream that looks great in this deep interpretation. Love the highlights of rich colors in the picture.
don, thanks. It was a partly cloudy day with sun breaking through the clouds making for some deep tones, of course with the help of a little post-processing. ;-)
I’ll tell you what, with all of this GSMNP pictures that you are taking, you’re making me miss it an awful lot. I think that I need to make a trip here pretty soon! It’s been way too many years.
Yeah, I spent two days driving and shooting. Readers may be getting tired of seeing ‘GSMNP’ but it’s better than anything I’m shooting around here at the moment, especially with recent temperatures.
After all that time you spent in the ‘tidal pools’ of SC a little ‘smoky altitude’ would probably do you good my friend. But, it was crowded a couple of weeks ago and it’s probably worst now.
Thanks for pointing out the comparison. I admire anyone with the perseverance to conduct such tests these days.
Yes, I read that piece by Chris Klug and did my own self test trying to identify which was digital and which was film–and you definitely won, Earl! I’ve been saving up for that Nik product. Right now, I have to try to push my monochrome work within my RAW editing application as best I can.
Jim, It’s no easy job anymore telling film from digital if there’s been some processing of the digital to resemble film. I think for many film photographers it’s more about the process these days.