civilized ku # 2397 ~ experience is everything

Jersey Shore ~ Stone Harbor, NJ • click to embiggenOn a recent entry, ku # 1219, wherein I wrote about my 8×10 view camera picturng MO, John Linn commented/asked:

The image capture area of 8 × 10 is order of magnitude larger than the full-frame 35 and of course full frame is order of magnitude larger than most digital camera sensors. At these scales the quality of optics is super critical, but still, is 8 × 10 quality really possible with comparatively tiny digital CCD and CMOS sensors?

my response: In a sense, pictures made with an 8×10 view camera ain't all that they're cracked up to be. Resolution / sharpness wise, upon close inspection, they are not all that sharp. That's because: a) lenses for the 8×10 format tend to not be the sharpest tack in the lens makers box, and, b) color negative film (my film of choice because of their extended exposure range / latitude and the fact that prints were my final destination) is layers and layers thick, which works against ultimate sharpness, and, c) making prints from a color negative involves the use of another lens.

That written, there is no question about an 8×10 film's ability to be enlarged, overall quality wise, to print sizes that would not be possible with smaller format film. Although, I would venture that up 16×20 or, alternately, up to the point where the image falls apart due to the limits of smaller format film, a print from a Hasselblad using a Zeiss lens would be sharper than that made by an 8×10 view camera. Then again, large format digital files, sharpness wise, blow 8×10 film put of the water at virtually any size.

However, IMO, the real reason to use an 8×10 view camera, at least in the analog/film days gone by, was the incredible smoothness of tonal and color transitions. There was just so much more grain acreage on which to spread the light that, on a print, the color and tonality are visually very "liquid"-like - a visual characteristic which can only be experience by viewing an actual print, as opposed to a reproduction thereof.

Now, all of that written, "is 8×10 quality really possible with comparatively tiny digital CCD and CMOS sensors?"

Never having done a side by side comparison, but relying upon my years of experience shooting and making prints from 8×10 negatives, not to mention having viewed quite a number of Shore and Meyerowitz (I have met and talked with both), et al prints, my answer would be, up to a point (i.e., the limits of enlargeable-ness), "yes".

I am consistently amazed by the print quality I get from small sensor files - keep in mind that I use µ4/3 cameras/sensors. Part of that is due to the fact that I know exactly what a C-print made from a large format color negative looks like and, in my file conversion and processing, I am tailoring the end result to closely resemble the look of a traditional C-print made from a color negative. My primary concern in converting / processing a digital file is to avoid the over-sharpened, over-saturated, overly contrasty look of the typical digital print.

By over-sharpened, over-saturated, overly contrasty, I do not mean taken to wretched excess, but rather, by comparison to the look of a traditional C-print made from a color negative. A look which is much "softer" than that of what many in today's digital realm aspire to obtain. Unlike the look of traditional transparency films (which digital developers seem to want to emulate), color negative film was superb / unsurpassed in its ability to capture and subsequently reproduce subtle colors and delicate tonal values.

That is the look I strive to attain. And, I am constantly amazed that the digital domain processing tools are, in the right / experienced hands, in fact, able to replicate. Exactly? No. Very close? most definitely, yes.