One . . . more . . . load

This post was inspired by recent write-ups on Paul Lester’s blog as well as forum entries on The Getdpi.com forums. As many of you know, Paul has recently gone through (still going through) a period where he is shooting a great deal of film and has been talking about how the results from different cameras and lenses look, even when using the same film. On the Getdpi forums, there are ongoing discussions about how the images from an M8 and M9 are different, even though they use the exact same sensor from Kodak (the M9′s sensor is just larger). What is going on with that? Firmware? Signal Path? What? Why do they look different?

If you use film, in addition to your camera and your lenses, you get to choose a look by which film you use (and, if you develop your own film, which developer you use). In this equation, the two main variables are lenses and film.

Lenses bring contrast (single-coated = softer, multi-coated = harder). Lenses ‘draw’ in a certain way (boy, I love it when people describe lenses that way). Film brings tonal shifts, contrast, and color.

On the digital side, there really is no user-controllable equivalent to the film & lens variables. It’s clear that different sensors deliver different image qualities (and I’m not talking about pixel size). Color, contrast, sharpness: these all differ sensor-to-sensor. Clearly, as illustrated by the M8/M9 discussions, not only the sensor but also the signal processing path affects those issues. Or, perhaps, in the M9′s case the thicker IR-cut filter has affected the color. The Leica M8 and M9 do not possess a diffusing filter in front of the sensor like most other digital cameras (this filter prevents ugly moire patterns owing to the interrelationship between the pixel pitch and tiny patterns in the image, patterns normally found in fabrics). Leica is willing to endure complaints in this realm in order to keep their images as crisp as possible, so they eliminated this filter. Canon and Nikon both ‘fuzzy’ their images slightly in order to avoid complaints about moire.

There are CCD sensors, CMOS sensors, and Foveon sensors. There’s the Fuji sensor array which delivers greater dynamic range. But that seems to be about it, and very, very few users are even aware of the differences between those. I have seriously thought about a Sigma DP2 just to get my hands on a Foveon sensor. I have also thought seriously, if Peg and I shift to Nikon, about getting a used Fuji S5 just to see what this ‘expanded dynamic range’ thingy is about.

Do SONY-built sensors have a different color cast than those built by Kodak? I don’t know. Why don’t we know? Why don’t we make more of a big deal about this? Is Photoshop the big equalizer?

Me, myself, no, I honestly don’t believe that these differences, large or small, can be emulated/accounted for entirely in Photoshop. We can get close, but I’ve never seen a ‘Velvia’ digital filter give me the same look as the real stuff. Nik Silver Efex is very, very good, but I’d rather shoot Tri-X, all things being equal, if that’s the look I want, than try and emulate it. The variable they never talk about in these conversions is the fact that the way the color is being captured by the sensor before conversion is not the same as the color is being captured by the film. Thus, most conversions are bound to be off by some amount. The way the natural color is my RAW files from my 10D look is VERY different than the way the natural color appears in RAW files captured by my wife’s 40D.

Just like the colors that appear on a roll of Ektar shot through Paul Lester’s 50mm Summicron will be different than the same scene on Ektar shot through his 80mm Mamiya lens. It’s not just the sharpness but the contrast, the micro-contrast, and the color.

There are many times I’d love the shoot with a Foveon sensor, and a Fuji high-dynamic sensor. But I can’t. I only get one sensor per camera.

I’d love a sensor that had not color, that captured only luminosity. But that isn’t gonna come anytime soon, and I’m not sure it would do what I want, because someone on the engineering team is gonna have to decide whether it has Tri-X’s color sensitivity or HP5′s.

With film, I can choose what I want as a source AND I get to manipulate it in Photoshop. That, to me, is a plus.