Category Archives: Photography

Film or Digital

Cameras

The answer to yesterday’s puzzle.

At the conclusion of the previous journal entry, I asked readers to determine whether film or digital was used to record the eight images included.

Here are the technical data for the pictures:

Image #1: Canon 350D, 17-85 Canon at 75mm (120mm equivalent), 1/50, f/7.1, ISO 100
Image #2: Canon 5D, 200mm Canon, 1/2000, f/4.5, ISO 200
Image #3: Canon 5D, 24-105 Canon at 58mm, 1/500, f/4, ISO 400
Image #4: Canon 5D, 24-105 Canon at 35mm, 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 250
Image #5: Canon 5D, 24-105 Canon at 73mm, 1/350, f/6.7, ISO 200
Image #6: Canon 5D, 24-105 Canon at 28mm, 1/6 (hand held and IS used big time!), f/4, ISO 800
Image #7: Canon 5D, 15mm Canon fisheye with ImageAlign used to ‘defish’ the picture (12mm equivalent), 1/750, f/8, ISO 400
Image #8: Panasonic Lumix LX-1, 6.3-25.2 Leica at 14mm (63mm equivalent), 1/1250, f/4, ISO 100

In other words, not a roll of film in sight. Properly exposed and processed digital is indistinguishable from properly exposed and processed film until the ISO gets over 200, in which case the Canon 5D beats film hands down every time.

All pictures processed (very little) in Apple’s Aperture.

How did you do?

Digital schmigital

Cameras

There is no such thing as a ‘film look’ – only bad processing.

I confess to finding all the talk about the classical ‘look’ of printed images taken on film to be so much rot.

(Please note: The pictures in this journal entry are purposefully large to enhance screen quality, so they make take a while to load on slower connections.)

Unless you make prints from film using an enlarger – an all analog chain if you like – every image we see is to a greater or lesser extent digital. Film has to be scanned to be shown on your computer. That’s digital. The scanned image has to be printed on some sort of printer, be it ink jet, dye sublimation, laser, using pigment inks or dyes. All digital. And, obviously, everything seen on the computer screen, where, let’s face it, 99.9% of photographs are now viewed, is digital.

This journal entry was prompted when I read a piece on a chat board written by a fellow extolling the ‘Leica glow’ in images which, he claimed, only his film based Leica camera and lenses could deliver. No indication of the basis for this judgement or, indeed, anything about how he makes prints. The thrust of his poorly reasoned argument seems to be that digital looks ‘plastic’ (the English I learned suggests that plasticity is a good thing in an image, but I’ll let it go) whereas film looks real.

It’s unclear to me why some, like this person, still fight digital imaging. It might be that people who write on chat boards are like visitors to a hospital. They only go there because they have a problem, even if the disease is hypochondria. Part of it is, I suspect, that some practitioners have given digital a bad name through excessive sharpening, contrast, saturation and so on. That hardly exonerates poor practitioners of analog printing who loved garish excess, like Ansel Adams. The reality is that you will get lousy results with any process if you have a lack of skill, taste or both.

Another reason for proclaiming the superiority of film may well be that its defenders have invested such huge amounts in now largely worthless equipment that some sort of justification is called for. They are, of course, Label Drinkers. You buy a Rolls Royce and it has to be good, even if the thing breaks down constantly. How could you admit otherwise? Everyone knows it’s the best. Clearly, the resale value of gear is irrelevant, and all that matters is whether it helps you take good pictures. The only problem for these fellas is that they have to have the latest and greatest and, well, trade-in values on that M6 or M7 Leica just aren’t what they used to be. The ridiculous price of the digital M8 just compounds their problem. Here’s a $5,000 body (no lens!) which is not weather sealed, has manual focus, limited automation and no zoom lenses. Absent low light snaps, where it probably excels, it’s an overpriced, bulky, point-and-shoot (which is what Leica rangefinder photography is all about) far less capable for the most part than any number of $400 offerings from the far east. So economics become a prop for an ill reasoned position. Not the first time that has happened. Makes film a lot more appealing, though, if you are stuck with those old bodies.

Amusingly, the same psychology – it’s expensive so it must be good – comes into play when they finally spring for that M8, having dumped the M6 or M7 at a huge loss. They are now duty bound to proclaim that the digital Leica takes better pictures (!) than anything else out there. But of course.

Unless you are taking pictures in very challenging lighting, requiring fast lenses and low noise, high ISO sensitivity, and you need to make really large prints, then there is simply no difference in the image taken with costly gear like the top Nikons, Canons or Leicas and the $300 point-and-shoot. Digital or film, it makes no difference in regular prints. Up to, say, 8″ x 10″ in hard copy prints or up to a 30″ computer screen, it all looks great. I was reminded how terrific some 6 mp images taken on a Nikon looked, when I examined them on the 30″ Apple Cinema Display the other day in the Apple store. The only reason I know they were Nikon digital originals is because that’s what it said on the file information. You simply could not have asked for a better image – dynamic range on the screen greatly exceeding anything a print could offer. Like looking at projected slides in days of old.

Reverting to that chat board thread, one correspondent confidently stated that he can always tell which images on his computer screen are digital (whatever that means – I suppose he is referring to the original being snapped with a digital camera) – which left me laughing helplessly. Anyway, for that expert and fellow travellers, here’s a selection of my snaps from the archives wherein I invite you to guess which are digital and which film. Meaning, in my world, which were taken on a film Leica as opposed to a digital Canon 5D. And don’t go guessing by aspect ratio – both my Leicas and the 5D share the same native 3:2 image ratio and I crop away depending on my mood. All will be revealed tomorrow. Oh!, and by the way, I hope you enjoy the pictures!

By the way, there as those dogs again….


Image Number 1. Filoli Mansion, Bay Area.



Image Number 2. Autumn from Jack Creek Road, central California.


Image Number 3. Alleyway, San Francisco.


Image Number 4. American Bull.


Image Number 5. Devotion.


Image Number 6. Lunch. Ashland, Oregon.


Image Number 7. Cayucos. “Wanna date, love?”


Image Number 8. Hats. Moonstone Beach.

Withdrawal symptoms

Cameras, Leica

Well, just one Leica left.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.

Be under no illusion. Selling off the last of my Leica equipment was emotionally wrenching. These may be mass produced machines, true, but when something has been a part of you for more than a third of a century, well, parting is not easy.

I cannot but reminisce about some of the wonderful optics that made their home on my Leica and Leicaflex bodies. And, in truth, there were more optics than one could recall without saying, in the same breath, that he was privileged indeed to have enjoyed so much that was wondrous. For whatever their future, Leica can claim, without any fear of exaggeration, to have made most of the best lenses that have graced any camera. Ever.

Some stand out not so much for their optical prowess as for the results they delivered. And if I sound a bit like Woody Allen reciting his favorite things on this earth, towards the end of the beautiful film that is Manhattan, well, so be it. Favorites in the early years were the 90mm Elmar – small, modest, unpretentious, yet always willing. The perfect match for that stroke of genius we know as the M3 viewfinder. On those trips to Paris it ceded primacy to the 35mm f/2.8 Summaron. The “eyeglasses” this needed to frame properly with the M3 were not the most chic of Leitz’s designs, but the lens was superb in every way, certainly more affordable to this impecunious student than its f/2 Summicron stablemate. Suffice it to say this optic saw more use on the M3 than anything else during my monochrome London years.

As affluence raised its head after a year or two in the world’s greatest democracy, the M3 was joined by a Leicaflex SL with the ne plus ultra 50mm Summicron-R.

Hard to do anything wrong with that combination. Certainly, the svelte style of the M3 was missing from this bulky pair, but the camera came with the best viewfinder and focusing screen ever built into an SLR – a fact to this day – and once that body was mated to the superb 180mm f/3.4 Apo-Telyt-R, well, this photographer had found his Chateau Lafite Rothschild of landscape equipment. Throw Kodachrome into the mix and you have maybe the finest equipment the twentieth century ever made available to an aspiring photographer. With but one exception, read on below, this was the best lens I have ever owned.

After years of providing for old age, a process that common sense dictated was something you would be foolish to trust to government, the photographic ethic saw a return to the M and its street capabilities. The so-so 50mm f/2.8 Elmar gracefully gave way to a lovely v3 Summicron, the last model with the removable lens head, and the increased contrast and lovely tonal rendition of this masterpiece, now used exclusively for color, were a joy to behold.

Small, fast focusing, it has moved to a good home. It served me faithfully for the best part of two decades.

The 90mm Elmar gave way to a Leicaflex design mounted in an M mount, the 90mm f/2.8 Elmarit-M. Nowhere near as compact as the old Elmar, its lens element did not rotate as you focused, so the apertures were always clearly visible on top. Almost worth the trade off in size and weight, and the jump in definition and resolving power was out of this world.

But the M3 lusted after something better still, and before you knew it the Elmarit-M was joined by a brand, spanking new 90mm Asph Apo-Summicron-M. The only new Leica lens I ever owned and there are no words in the vernacular to describe the capabilities of this optic. It is as if the M3, released in the early ’50s, had finally found a lens to do it justice some forty years later. Suffice it to say that it simply intimidated me every time I mounted it on the camera, for the knowledge was certain that there was simply no way I could do it justice. Without a doubt one of the best lenses I have ever owned.

But that was far from the end of it. Like the poor kid who grew up lusting after Ferraris but never dreamed he would own one, I chanced upon a new 400mm f/6.8 Telyt.

This lens had always fascinated me when I was a kid, just like those Ferraris.

The lens had been owned by a collector (Ugh! A lawyer to boot, as if that was a surprise) for twenty years and never taken out of the box. Sacrilege! The lubricants in the trombone focus action were dried up, the schmuck lawyer’s protestations notwithstanding, making focusing about as much fun as a root canal, but a quick trip for relubrication saw another example of Leitz’s genius mated, with the appropriate adapter, to the Leicaflex. The design may only have used a couple of glasses but, goodness, was it sharp. The thing was a foot and a half long, making for a discomfiting feeling in later years as everyone was now watching everyone else, but it cranked out some great pictures despite the perceived threat to life and limb of all and sundry.

Reverting to the streets, where I had pretty much grown up as a photographer, called for something really wide, so why not the best? The late ’90s market was booming, everyone was an investment genius, money was cheap and, so it seemed, was the outrageous 21mm Asph Elmarit-M.

The third best lens I ever used. Sure, the clip on viewfinder was simply lousy, plastic casing and all, and the lens hood was consigned to the garbage can as soon as I looked at it, but it replaced a bizarre, if cheap, Russian 20mm Russar (a design that Comrade Stalin appropriated from Zeiss) and showed this user what a super-wide was really about. This one really became a part of me. I find it hard to believe that the coverage and micro-contrast of this very special optic will be exceeded at this focal length.

And finally, because I simply had more money than sense at the time, why not a 135mm f/3.4 Apo-Telyt-M?

I already knew what the magical combination of apochromatic glasses and Telyt design could do, so the 135mm replaced a long string of 135s – the Hektor, the Elmar, and the Tele-Elmar. It badly embarrassed all of its predecessors.

There were many others, of course. Like old girlfriends, you never forget them. (There were, I hasten to add, more lenses than girlfriends). Each had its genius. Each had its faults. All were loved. And remain so to this day. (Lenses and girlfriends).

So now I have one Leica left. My M2, with what is perhaps the ultimate street snapper’s lens, the 35mm Asph Summicron-M. Yes, another gift courtesy of the Internet Bubble. The pairing is on extended loan to a fine English photographer, and will probably return home sometime in 2007. That Summicron replaced a very modest 35mm f/3.5 Summaron which, despite its unprepossessing looks, was as good as you could wish, at any aperture. Indeed, with the sole exception of the 50mm Elmar my M3 started life with, all those wonderful Leica lenses never much cared what aperture you selected, for they were equally good at anything the lighting conditions dictated. And the 35mm Asph is maybe the only design where Leica finally got the lens hood dead right.

So, will I sell both? Well, the M2 body must move on. I am simply not returning to the drudge of film/processing/scanning/dust removal that digital obsoleted. Further, I have little interest in cropped digital sensors, especially at the outrageous price Leica is asking for the M8, so unless the House of Leica comes out with a full frame sensor, affordable M9 (as likely as finding integrity in a politician), and stops making all those darned excuses about technology, the 35mm Asph will go also. Modern point-and-shoot digitals get better daily at prices, compared to the M8, that represent impulse buys. They also permit cost effective annual upgrades, something no M8 owner will like to contemplate after a mere twelve months of ownership. And that, by the way, is why I think Leica’s M8, after the honeymoon is over, is doomed to fail.

Complacency is easy. Change hard. Neither negates the fact that technology marches on.

Grain

Technique

Who needs it?

I was making an 18” x 24” print the other morning for a friend and noted, with mild annoyance, the presence of grain, however fine, in the blue sky. The original was a 2 1/4” square medium format Kodak Portra VC160 negative, taken on a Mamiya 6, aand scanned in a Nikon Coolscan 8000 scanner. All sold earlier this year, by the way, with the advent of the Canon 5D.


That ‘grainy’ picture….

My reaction gave me pause for thought. First, no rational person could complain, as the grain was extremely fine. Second, at any normal viewing distance, no grain was visible. I confess to having had my nose in the print when I noticed the grain, as it was coming out of the HP DJ90 printer. Just like the old darkroom days, it’s still exciting to see the end product of all that work!

So what is the significance of grain to the art print today?

As an art concept, I think that Tony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon as he would later become, popularized the idea of intended grain with his monochrome series of inmates of mental homes in England. I don’t have it lying around at home, but the work was very moving, rendered more powerful by that Tri-X grain. It was a great idea that worked to complement the pictures and, inevitably, became a cliché though overuse.

While the great early Leica photographers – Cartier-Bresson, Kertesz, Brassai – all struggled with grain owing to the poor emulsions available at the time, for the most part you see their work reproduced in books. Rarely are the reproductions larger than 8” x 10” and what little grain is visible at that modest enlargement ratio is further masked by the printing process. So we don’t think of them as ‘grainy’ photographers. Grain, stated differently, is not relevant to the aesthetic appeal of their work.

Absent the excesses of a David Bailey and a Sarah Moon (who did it in color), fashion photographers avoided grain like the plague. After all, they did actually have to show the fashions, and the finer details of lace don’t exactly benefit from coarse clumps of grain.

Today, grain is mainly used by the cadre I think of as “photographers’ photographers”. That’s anything but a compliment. What I mean is those photographers who use grain and, yes, black and white, to make ‘art’ prints whose content is solely appreciated by other …. photographers! In much the same way that those late nineteenth century French academic painters strutted their stuff with some of the most insanely boring pictures ever committed to canvas – folks like Bouguereau, some of whose excrescences, incidentally, may be found on the walls of Hearst Castle here in central California.

Show the loving mother a grainy picture of her baby and she will immediately dismiss it as an example of poor technique. Show a grainy landscape to anyone but a photographer and the reaction is similar. And warranted.

So, gazing at that grainy sky in the print I had just made, I consoled myself that today, with the best digital gear, grain is already a thing of the past and that, for the point-and-shoot class of equipment, it will likewise disappear very soon as sensors are perfected.

And I, for one, will be more than grateful.

Mounting Really Big Prints

Printing, Technique

Some practical hints.

Every year, a couple of months before Christmas, I invite a few friends to select a couple of prints from a small web presentation, asking that they elect 13″ x 19″ or, now that I have the HP DJ90, 18″ x 24″.

So as this year’s print ‘orders’ came in, I thought it might be instructive to share my technique with readers. Those who see obvious errors are encouraged to set me on the straight and narrow and those contemplating the self-abuse that is print mounting might like to see what they are letting themselves in for.

First, I should point out that I do not accept the apologia proferred by many for ‘hinge mounting’ where a print is held to a backing board with a few pieces of tape at the top in the purported interest of archival permanence. The moment the humidity changes, the print cockles and you have a throw away print. It’s just another excuse to cut corners masquerading as technique. Don’t believe them when they tell you ‘curators insist on this’. Sheer Rot. I have prints which I dry mounted thirty years ago (using a domestic iron, no less), before we knew about acid free this and pH neutral that, and they remain perfect and unfaded. So when people tell you dry mounting is no friend of permanence, look elsewhere.

Key dimensions:

I typically mount both 13″ x 19″ and 18″ x 24″ prints on 22″ x 28″ boards. The HP DJ90 and 130 leave a 1/4″ border top, left (long side) and right (long side), with a bottom border of 9/16″ (short side). For the HP Designjet 90/130, after allowing another 1/8″ for safety,the mat openings are as follows:

  • 13″ x 19″: Opening is 12 3/8″ x 18 1/16″
  • 18″ x 24″: Opening is 17 3/8″ x 23 1/16″

These openings will leave 1/16th of an inch of printed image to work with on all sides, for alignment purposes. Matboard & more will custom cut these for you. Stock mats which come with 12 1/2″ x 18 1/2″ and with 17 1/2″ x 23 1/2″ openings will not work, leaving white borders on the matted print.

Archival issues:

My goal is a print which will outlive me and here’s what is involved:

1 – A printer with fade free inks. The DJ90 uses dyes, others use pigments. Both are great. Most modern ink jet printing inks are fade free. Look for them when making your printer selection. Older designs will fade in as little as a year in bright light.

2 – Cotton gloves. Yes, I do advocate delegating the drudge of routine printing – meaning anything under 8″ x 10″ – but when it comes to show prints I am not about to let the clerk at the framing store, who has just feasted on a Big Mac, cheese and fries, get his hands on my print. Grease is the last thing I need. Not to mention that ten of these will pay for that overpriced Seal press. The cotton gloves are used from the moment the printing paper is removed from the box all the way through final placement of the mounted print in a protective glassine bag for shipping. Cheap insurance.

3 – Acid free mounting board. I use the 3/16″ thickness – it costs little more than the 1/8″ and is more robust.

4 – Acid free mats cut by Redimat. Their machine cutter is incredibly accurate. As Apple’s Aperture leaves a 1/2″ border around the print with the DJ90, my 18″ x 24″ prints get a 16 7/8″ x 22 7/8″ cut out, while the 13″ x 19″ ones use 11 7/8″ x 17 7/8″. That way I have 1/8″ to play with when positioning the print on the mounting board. Color? Anything your heart desires. I mostly use black. Simple. No distractions.

5 – Seal Bienfang RC Colormount tissue. This seals at 185F and is intended for RC paper. Its low sealing temperature is ideal for ink jet prints. Go much over 210F and these start to fry.

6 – A Seal mounting press.

7 – A Seal tacking iron to tack the mounting tissue to the print and the print + tissue to the mounting board.

8 – 3M two-sided adhesive tape to attach the mat to the mounted print.

9 – Release paper for tacking and heating in the press

10 – Bert the Border Terrier to keep me company. These are very hard to find and, in my opinion, essential.

Strict cleanliness throughout this process is key. Any dirt or grit and your print is shot.

The tissue is precut using a sharp knife and a granite counter.

The Seal tacking iron, set just below ‘Med’ and no higher, is warmed up.

Using a small piece of release paper betweeen the mounting tissue and the back of the print, the tissue is tacked to the print – count for 10 seconds – remember those darkroom days? “Elephant One, Elephant Two, Elephant Three….”

Hold the tacked part down for a couple of seconds to cool.

Get one mounting board and one mat – the latter will be used as a positioning template.

Having positioned the print + tissue on the board using the mat (the mounting board and mat must have identical outside dimensions), tack the print to the board, protecting the print with the release paper:

Once more, hold the heated area for a few seconds to ensure a good ‘tack’.

The print is now tacked to the board.

Heat the press to 170F.

Place the print + board in a folded over piece of release paper.

The press must be adjusted so that reasonable hand pressure on the lever closes it. Too much and you will have creases in any print that needs multiple passes. In my press, an 18″ x 24″ print needs four passes. This is where you put the Border Terrier in play.

The red light indicates the press is on, and the orange light to the left will extinguish once the set temperature is reached. Once the orange light goes off you are at the set temperature. I do not bother to preheat the print or board to get rid of moisture as both are stored in a dry, heated home.

Each heating cycle must be for at least 90 seconds – pull out that 60 year old Kodak analog timer, the one you can read from across the room. Overdoing it is not a problem – I sometimes let it run 4-5 minutes while I do something else, but if you are in a hurry, less than 90 seconds is a no-no.

My press makes its home in the wine cellar, but yours does not have to.

Once the heating process is complete, pull out the Scotch 3M double sided tape dispenser. Do not economize by using something cheap.

Place two inch strips in the center of the board on all four sides of the print between the print edge and board edge. Now place the mat on the print, aligned edge to edge, and press down on these four points. The goal is to lightly glue the mat to the board – the framing process will ensure the two stay together.

Do yourself justice – sign the bloody thing. Wilting violets …. wilt. I use a white ink pen from the art store.

Sticking with the cotton gloves, insert the ‘sandwich’ into an acid free, sealable, glassine sleeve for storage and transit.

Stand back and admire your work.

Finally, pray the post office does not bend your prints in transit.

Framing is addressed here.