Saturday, January 06, 2007

Festival of Film #2


This is MUCH easier to do with digital!

My goals here were to capture the early morning colors AND the reflection of the lighthouse beam on the water which only lasts a second or two. With digital that is no big deal. you shoot and see if it's there. If not, you wait for it to come around, and shoot again. With this film stuff you shoot three or four frames and hope. Then you wait for the lab to open. Then you drop it off and wait some more. Finally you get the film and scans back and pop the disc in the computer and say, "Ain't that dandy," or, in the alternative, "Ah $hit," and if the latter, hope and wait for the next perfect dawn which happen about once every six months.

All things considered, I like the "arty" quality of film, but I'm not sure it's worth all the work and time.

As it happens, this one was of the dandy variety.

But then again would this flower look quite as good in digital? I don't think so.



Or this shot of the Yosemite Valley?




The picture above was re-worked in Adobe Lightroom. It was seriously under-exposed. The sky was a washed out milky white without a hint of color. But to restore the natural sky color in PS would have blackened the foreground. In Lightroom there is a feature for bringing up foreground light without impacting the overall exposure. So I darkened the exposure and then brought up the foreground. Very quick, simple and neat. Rather remarkable program.

4 comments:

Ptelea said...

This is beautiful - you really did capture the reflection well as it skips across the textured water. The colors are perfect.

I don't think I would have the patience for film. I have a hard time seeing what I have until I get back home - so digital is no guarantee.

Anonymous said...

John, I know what you mean about the immediacy of digital; however, I am feeling a calling to shoot a bit of film. :-) As a matter of fact, I will shoot some this week and develop it myself.

As a youngster, some 20+ years ago, all I shot was B&W and I loved it. Now, with digital, all I seem to shoot is color. Sure, I can shoot in color and change to B&W in PS, but I just feel like shooting a couple of rolls of the real stuff and developing. It also makes me slow down as I only have a finite number of shots. With digital, I can have nearly any number of shots on an outing!

Certainly, film has its own characteristics. The only thing that digital has been able to reproduce accurately is grain. Certain films just have a lovely grain pattern that cannot be reproduced faithfully. Color transition is probably one that is very close, but not exact.

Keep an eye on my blog for up some film shots! :-)

BTW, that flower is absolutely lovely! What a glow.

Wingnut said...

Hey John, really great suff, I feel the need to call ya out on PS though :0 :0 very friendly of course, hehehehehehe. I can't say I have used light room, but I have no problems finding my way around photo fixes in PS2, course I work in it daily... It is however such a powerful program that one person could not possibly know every part, and getting around in it for an average user could become mind boggling. Having said that, I could see where lightroom may have an easier user interface for selective processes specific to photography. Just my measly 2 cents!

I always enjoy your work, so whatever gets you there is great by me!

micki said...

I love your internal battle between film and digital, John.

Oh, and if you're getting scans back of your negatives instead of true photographs, you need to switch labs. ;o)

Your images lately have been exceptionally good. I'm really enjoying your work in a whole new way.

*jealous of your son's new lens. Didn't he borrow your car a few times years ago? I think he owes you now.

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