civilized ku # 383 ~ damn it - a clarification, pt. II

The light at breakfast ~ Auberge du Vieux Port - Montreal, CA • click to embiggenAnil Rao left a 2-part comment (see following entry for part 1) on yesterday's damn it entry. Part # 2 read:

2) In a recent post, you had stated that your new digital camera was so good that you really didn't see a need for other (supposedly bigger or better) cameras/formats, except of course for some very specialized needs ... So, why do you want to go back to a Hassy system, color negative film and scanners? Seems contradictory to your earlier position, no?

Good question. And, the truth of the matter is actually quite simple.

While I am indeed quite please and happy with my new digital camera - the Olympus m4/3rds EP-1 (I don't need no stinkin' EVF), I just can't get by the fact that a picture made utilizing large format color negative film (i.e., larger than 35mm) and good optics is, to my eye and sensibilities, the absolute pinnacle of the color print making craft.

IMO, color prints made utilizing digital print making materials and equipment are the equal to, and even surpass, the quality and look and feel of the traditional C-print. However, I have yet to experience a digital picture making device, i.e., sensor, that well and truly delivers the look and feel of a traditional color negative.

IMO, those who would claim otherwise simply haven't seen enough high-quality - custom, hand printed by an experience crafts-person - C-prints to render an informed opinion. To be perfectly clear, that would be an opinion, not about the quality of digital capture, but about "the look" digital image capture vis-a-vis "the look" of traditional analog / film image capture.

Let me also be perfectly clear on a related point - my preference for "the look" of pictures made with color negative film v. those made with digital capture is just that, an aesthetic preference.

All of that said, I really don't want to return to the picture making days of good ol' yesteryear. My picture making life has its fill of ill-processed film, the joys of embedded dust / dirt / scratches, jammed / locked-up Hasselblads, and other "nostalgic" folderol.

But, what I do want is a sensor that captures picturing "data" in a manner that replicates "the look" of color negative film.

Comments

[the wife]

That is a fancy way of saying that gravitas has what i call "an overactive wanter."

[Andrew]

This is why I bought a Mamiya 7ii. Good as digital is, and convenient, well photographed medium format film is still unbelievable at times. And it is heresy to some, but there is a difference between digital and film. They are two different media with different characteristics. You can post process a digital image all day, but you will never turn it into a film picture.

Get thyself a Hassie and go picture.