The Home of the Hybrid Photographer

Okay, I am officially in a mood. I am in the middle of two big development pushes, sitting on a book that I am not comfortable in completing and insanely busy at home and work. I have not picked up my camera for fun in over a month. Things are insane right now.

When I get like this, I get really agitated over pettiness, bravado, ignorance and plain stupidity. Which is unfortunate, since part of my daily wind down is checking a few photo blogs, message board and checking out Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus.

What has been gnawing at me for days is the frequent asinine comments I come across in those venues. I avoid the discussion myself, but I feel its time for me to address some of the common statements I encounter. Here they are in no significant order.

“Presets should be free / No one should ever pay for presets”

Okay, I develop presets that are sold to the public. I also have made quite a number of free presets for Lightroom and ACR over the years. Countless others do the same, but this hits somewhat home to me.

If someone is inquiring to the usefulness of a retail preset package, they are clearly considering using them to assist in the creative workflow. It is complete not germane to the conversation to give your idealistic view of presets should be free. Almost every thread I read in a message board relating to presets has at least one asshat who feels the need to drive home this point.

Feel free to tell them the package isn’t that great, or tell them how you have leveraged it in your workflow. But don’t take the time to reiterate for the thousandth time that they can do it themselves and that presets are simply scripts that should be free. Because the odds are you have never once put 15 hours into developing one set of presets that work reasonably well over a range of differing images.

Guess what hotshot, almost every Lightroom/ACR/Aperture/Photoshop user already knows how presets or scripts are made in the platform, even if they don’t know the actual process by which to do so. Also, consider this, maybe they like the look of a particular preset someone else has developed and do not want to waste their time reinventing the friggin’ wheel. They know presets simply adjust sliders, they know presets are scripts that do just that. Get over it.

This is not to say every preset collection is golden, this is not to say that the creator put hours of loving diligence into designing their product. There is crap out there. I like to think mine are quality products, but you may differ, that is fine. If you don’t like it, don’t support me. If you do and buy, thank you. Bottom line, people put time into these presets, if they give them away great, if they want to be compensated for their efforts they will sell them. You don’t have to buy, but don’t be the repetitive guy who has to lambaste every person asking about presets.

And remember, you can do everything any commercial plug in does with just Photoshop. It just takes a hell of a lot longer.

“Some photographers make art, others just make pictures”

Actually, all photographers make pictures… and they all make art as well… just not what you may define as art. Get off your bloody high horse. Don’t denigrate a photographer by calling their images simple snapshots. One person’s snapshot on a street is another person’s idea of the second coming of Cartier-Bresson. Just because you don’t see art in it doesn’t make the image any less valid.

So, you consider a shot of a toilet taken in low light with Tri-X pushed to EI 12800 art. Others may consider it a grainy picture of a toilet hung on a wall in bad taste. You may find a close up of rumpled bed sheets converted to black and white and heavy contrast to be fine, abstract art. Others see a mish mash of black and white.

All photographers make pictures, some viewers see art. You may see your own image as art… and it is! But to Bob Smith down the road, it may just be a picture of a damn frog.

Statements such as this are broad generalizations based off personal opinion. The statement means nothing in and of its self, and when I read these comments when an image is being discussed it sickens me. Say you don’t like it and move on.

I never liked Andy Warhol’s art personally, but I won’t deny that its art. It’s just not what I want on my wall.

“Photoshop is cheating”

So… then I guess Ansel Adams was a cheater as well, because he manipulated the hell out of his images back in the day. He exposed negative for the express purpose of post production, in the form of dodging and burning, sandwiching negatives and a multitude of old school, analog image manipulation techniques. There is nothing new under the sun… Photoshop did not change this in the least.

Photographers have been using masks, layers, compositing, dodging, burning, contrast manipulations and even cloning for years. Photoshop just made it a whole lot simpler. Ansel would be using Photoshop today, actually any photographer who ever pushed the boundaries of possibilities would be. And they wouldn’t be cheating by doing so.

Stating photographer who use Photoshop is cheating is like saying Graphic Designers who use Illustrator are cheaters as well. In the old days they had do create their works through a multitude of mechanical means, including >gasp< drawing by hand. Because digital technology has made their tasks easier in no way makes it cheating, and they are never accused as such. Heavy Photoshop users are frequently accosted on in this manner.

Not that I personally care much, I am from the school of get it as right as possible in the camera. But that’s more a function of not wanting to work in Photoshop much, as opposed to having some self righteous opposition to people using the tools available.

“Film is dead”

And so is vinyl, but there are always new LP’s on sale at the few music stores left. I shoot film; most of my photographer friends shoot film to one degree or another as well. It is a different experience from digital photography, and has its own strengths and weaknesses, but is just as valid today as it was years ago.

Others point to external factors for film’s demise, aside from <sarcasm> the vast superiority of digital </sarcasm>. Case in point, Kodak filing for bankruptcy andFujicutting their film lines, both big issues for film photographers. While it is true these are not exactly great for film photography, it is far from killing it.

Kodak has stated that its film division is still profitable, doing much better than other business segments. What killed Kodak was their inability to be agile in the early days of digital technology, not developing good products and selling shovel ware crap re-branded cameras, amongst other really bad ideas. Kodak has cut film stock from their offerings, but they have also added new stock to their offerings in the past years as well. Kodak film is going nowhere for the time being.

And if Kodak goes under, there is a thriving craft market of film manufacturers inEurope. Hell, the Impossible Project brought us semi-functional Polaroid type instant film again. Rollei/Maco is producing beautiful black and white films, and Ilford is still doing what that brand name has been doing for years.

There is a multitude of other small market manufacturers breathing more life into film, and a few businesses are doing their part as well… Freestyle Photography and Lomography both keep the love alive. Even if I hate the lomography movement, I still love the movement keeping film rolling through the processors.

Film is not dead. You may just be too lazy or cheap to be bothered with it, and that is okay. But don’t sound the death knell for something you no longer have any interest in.

“Film is superior to digital”

And Vinyl is superior to iTunes AAC, but the odds are if you heard both in a dark room, you couldn’t tell the difference, aside from the pop and hiss of the turntable.

I shoot primarily film, I love film. I love its organic nature and stark simplicity. But it is not superior to digital or vice versa. They are simply different mediums for the same style of art.

Sensor vs film frame. If I were to take my son’s Minolta Vectis APS SLR and photography the same subject with my bother’s Sony A200 what would I see? Both images are made on the same basic dimensions (Actually, the Vectis is shooting in APS-H format which is slightly larger than the A-200’s APS-C sensor).

First, the odds are that the digital image will have better resolution, in terms of resolving power. At the frame size, I am getting 10 megapixels of quality image from the A200. Scanning the APS negative on a Nikon Coolscan at the maximum 4000 DPI setting renders me 12.5 megapixels. But it is over resolving the film, pulling out dye cloud structure, not more image. Subjectively, I will peg APS film on a Nikon at 10 megapixels, and that is being favorable to the film.

So, from two semi-equivalent image sizes, we should have two identical images, right? Not really. The demosaiced raw file from the A200 will generally have better sharpness than the film scan. This is due to the size of the grain converted to dye clouds in the film, versus the size of the pixels in the Bayer array of the A200. But what about dynamic range, you ask? Negative film has about a 12 stop range normally, slide film as between 6 and 8 depending on emulsion. The Sony A200 at ISO 100 and full RAW goes about 10 stops. Better range than Slide but slightly worse than Negative film. It’s a wash.

So, the digital image has one up on the film image, general sharpness and detail.DynamicRangeis a washout. So how about color fidelity? The A200, shot in RAW with properly set white balance will show a slight divergence from the real world colors. This can be corrected in Lightroom or ACR with a camera profile, but it will never match real life exactly. The Vectis will produce the colors that the film stock creates. If it were slide film, it simply would not match the real world at all; you get what the film gives you. Negative film is a slightly different matter.

But when is the last time you saw the “real” colors produced from negative film stock? The orange mask of the film makes that equation a bit crazy. If you scan your own film, you can take care to correct completely for the orange mask, and upon inversion, get the colors produced by the film stock… which again strays from reality quite a bit. And if you send your film off to a lab, the odds are it gets scanned in a Fuji Frontier machine and color corrections are done by the machine automatically, deviating even more from what the film captured.

What about darkroom prints then? Well, color printing requires the use of filter packs to correct for the orange mask and color balance. Then you are at the mercy of the printer, of if doing it yourself, your own eyes. Color fidelity is a joke of a metric anyways. Choosing a film is like choosing your paints, it defines the appearance of the image. Much the same as your camera picture settings or camera profile in Lightroom, or hell, what presets you apply.

The advantage goes to digital right, well not so fast. There are more variables to consider. While the digital image may be shaper in general, the grid array of the sensor leads to jagged edges in the image, due to the pixel structure. This is corrected with anti-aliasing. This decreases the overall sharpness, yet it still tends to be sharper than most film images and it does not eliminate the appearance of jaggies at large print sizes. Film handles this much more organically with the film grains, which are random, and the dye clouds, which tend to blur together.

In general we are looking at two different media for the same art style.

“Digital is Superior to Film”

First see above. It’s a wash at the same sensor size in general. So, let’s look at 35mm 135 format film vs a Full Frame sensor. At 4000 DPI, a film scan yields approximately 24.1 megapixels. Some modern Full Frame cameras exceed that in 2012, others fall short. This also discounts film quality, some stock will be better than others; Fuji Velvia scanned is pretty damn close to being equivalent to 22 megapixels, other films fall short of that.

So, Digital is now in the driver’s seat with resolution and resolving power. So it’s a win right? Not really. Remember the megapixel wars? How many pixels do you really need? Velvia in 135 format can make wall sized prints that look good if so desired, just as good as a 30+ megapixel full frame camera to be honest. Digital still has pixelization and jagged edges at large sizes.

But we can always step up in film format. Medium format anyone? The modern Digital medium format cameras utilize the 645 format (4.5 cm x 6 cm). Phase One has a back that does 80 Megapixels! Scanning a 645 negative on the no longer available Nikon 9000 can render a 645 frame at just less than 67 Megapixels so win for digital right? Yes and no. Film can always be shot in an 8×10 camera, which at 2400 DPI (under the possibility of over-resolving most films) can yield 460 megapixels. Just saying.

And if you print film opically, the discussion of megapixels is moot anyways.

Another film advantage over digital is in the area of highlights and shadows. Film’s response to light is logarithmic, as it’s a chemical function, digital on the other hand has a linear light response, because it’s well… digital. This means on two, otherwise equal shots, as demonstrated in the APS battle earlier, film will have less blown highlights and more recoverable shadow detail than digital. Day in and day out. Sure, if you are scanning, you will have to use multiple scanner exposures, and merge the image to retain all the shadow and highlight detail, but you can. You have to bracket images and merge an HDR to do the same in digital. The point is, film handles light much more gracefully.

Either way, it is still a draw betwixt digital and film.

Anyways, that’s enough for today. I have a second part to this coming up as well, with more comments that royally piss me off.

Michael

[Image scanned by ScanCafe from old, cheap 3M film shot on Minolta Maxxum 7000 ]

I really don’t know what triggered this, but it seems the great film vs digital debate has risen from the depths of Flickr groups and message boards and surfaced in the photo blogging community. In the past few weeks I have read pieces from all over focusing on film, and casting it in either a positive of negative light in comparison to digital. Frequently the comments below these posts have exploded into heated discussions from both sides of the aisle.

Film vs Digital seems to be the great argument in the photo community, and has been for a while. Much like the Windows vs Mac debate in the computer world and the right-wing vs left-wing squabbles in politics, film vs digital seems to never die out and occasionally rises to prominence. It seems to be a prominent discussion at the moment.

As a self-described hybrid photographer, using both digital and film in my work and even blending the two together, I fail to understand the need for this discussion. Both have advantages and disadvantages, and a reasonable person can see this. There are cost, creative and stylistic issues for both.

As you can plainly see from my work on LifeInDigitalFilm, from my film emulation presets, to discussion film and scanning, I love film. From my articles on X-Equals, it is plain to see I am just as devoted to digital. I feel as such, I can give a fairly balanced overview of the argument and show, in the basest terms, there really is not debate at all.

I could discuss this on a point by point basis, but that is asinine and could make this article drag on forever. So I am going to make this quick and do a quick pros and cons list for both digital and film photography. This is by no means a thorough listing, but the points that come to mind most frequently when I find myself in this discussion.

Digital Photography

Pros

• Lower cost per shot. You pay for the camera up front and take virtually unlimited shots with no encumbrance of development and scanning costs.
• Highly flexible. Digital allows you liberties with your images that film simply cannot offer. Shoot in Raw and the world is your oyster, you can do most anything your heart desires with Raw processing programs and graphics editors (Lightroom and Photoshop in particular).
• Consistency. Once you understand your camera’s operation, you can consistently get great results, controlling almost all variables. Be it ISO, noise or even color … digital gives you consistent results from frame to frame and shot to shot. You normally know what you will get before you even push the shutter.
• Virtually unlimited shots. With just a few memory cards, you can go out and shoot all day. Each card allows literally hundreds of shots with little to no down time while shooting. Aside from full buffers and the occasional change of card, you can shoot all day without interruption. No need to change film. Plus you get multiple renditions of any particular scene, allowing you the freedom to choose exactly the one you want.
• Shoot now, process later. Digital does not force you to commit to a style beforehand. You can shoot away, in Raw format, and worry about stylistic decisions later. Make a black and white image, boost saturation, re frame shots via cropping. You are not locked in at all, the Raw format free you to make those decisions later.

Cons

• Overabundant options. Nothing can stifle creativity more than unlimited processing options. Upon reviewing each photo, you have to consider your processing options. This process can be more time consuming than actually carrying out the process. This creates the photographer’s version of writer’s block, you don’t know what you want to create because there is little to constrain you. Constraints are challenges, and challenges encourage creativity to overcome them.
• Virtually unlimited shots. Many of use frequently fall back to a “run and gun” mentality when shooting digital. When take countless photos of the same subject, at differing angles or exposures. A simple afternoon outing can translate into thousands of photos quickly. From this glut of images, you have to take time to find the images you really want. If you do not have self control, you can quickly overwhelm yourself when it comes to processing time.
• No surprises. Consistency is a pro, but also a con. Frame after frame, upon import the images tend to have a similar feel, even from shoot to shoot. Your Raw files will have their own feel, unchanging until you start your processing workflow. Before, different films would give you different feels, and that would impact your shooting and change things up. Again, it is easy to fall into a rut without even realizing it.
• Upfront costs. Now this is a bigger issue for some than others. Digital systems can get expensive, as good DSLRs get quickly up into the multi-thousand dollar range. Obviously you don’t have to stay on the cutting edge, but to maximize returns on digital photography, you still want to stay close to the blade. New models drop frequently, each with new desirable features, better noise handling, higher ISO and larger resolutions. And lets not forget the cost of the top-end lenses required to get the most out of these bodies, check the price on good Canon L glass lately? If the prices on those lenses don’t make your checkbook cringe, then this is not remotely an issue. However, for the average photographer it is an issue. And don’t forget flash units and other must-have accessories. I won’t even touch on Digital Medium Format
• Development cycles. Tying into the cost scenario, the rapid development of DSLR technologies keeps bringing out better tech each year. Obviously no one is holding a gun to your head trying to make you let go of your D40, but you have to admit it is getting rather long in the tooth by today’s entry level technology. In the film era, the only real upgrade you had to worry about was new. better film. You rarely had to upgrade bodies, instead you simply changed film. To stay up on image quality in the digital era, you have to be ready to sacrifice some cash to the camera gods, as a DSLR is essentially one huge roll of film that only runs out when you replace your gear or it dies. You can just push your DSLR film speed further and easier than you could with film.

Film Photography

Pros

• Incredible variety. In direct opposition to digital, where your sensor defines how the image you are shooting is rendered and cannot be changed, film photography allows you to change your film at your whim. This leads you to entirely different interpretations of the scene, each unique to the particular film emulsion and format you choose to shoot. Even today, in what many consider the waning days of film, there is still a wide variety of film stocks each providing their own unique rendition of the world on the other side of the lens.
• Wider variety of equipment. As it appears we are in the waning days of film, it is surprising the bargains that can be had on great gear. From 35mm to Large Format, great deals can be found on great cameras and excellent lenses due to the rapid migration of many to strictly digital. I, for example, shoot Canon for digital and Minolta manual focus for film. I have a small selection of lenses for my Canon gear, primarily due to the cost of the equipment … I have just the lenses I need for weddings and portraits, and they ain’t “L” glass either. Now, for less than the price of a Canon Rebel, I have an extensive Minolta collection, anchored by an SRT and an X-700 with a wide variety of Rokkor lenses. These old lenses are every bit as good as most lenses on the market today, and some can put “L” lenses to shame with the right film behind them.
• Simple limitations. As mentioned earlier, limitations can enhance creativity. Shooting film automatically limits you to the film you chose, and the film’s speed. If you are shooting black and white, you will never have a color image from those shots. If you shoot color negative, you will never get the same vivid colors slide film can provide. High-speed film produces some wicked grain, and virtually grain-free film are painfully slow (try shooting at ISO 6 – EI 6 for film purists). You know these limitations going into your shoot and create your images accordingly, sometimes having to get creative to express what you desire to be conveyed to the eventual viewer.
• Forced deliberation. Film had no preview and rarely allows a second chance. To nail a shot you have to expose carefully and still you bracket your shots. The known limit of shots forces you to slow down and work more deliberately. Sure you can do this with digital, but temptation to chimp and delete bad images is overwhelming. Shooting film, you won’t know if you got it right until you develop your film or develop a large degree of faith in your photographic skills.
• Freedom from post. If you sent your film out for development, scanning and prints; your post processing ends at dropping the film off at the lab. What you get is what you get. Now this benefit does not apply to me, as I develop, scan and print my own images from film. This is why I shoot digital for weddings, I would hate to have to develop and scan 25 rolls myself. If you are not going to do any of the developing or scanning yourself you are done. This can be liberating and the excitement of seeing your images for the first time is beyond description.

Cons

• Backside costs. You can easily put yourself in the poor house buying film and paying for development, scans and prints. This cost can be mitigated by going develop only and scanning for yourself or even go all out and start souping your own negatives. However the money saved is offset by time lost. If you shoot a lot and are not restrained in your snapping, you will quickly abandon the thought of film photography and seek sensible refuge in the low cost per shot world of digital.
• Film lock in. Unless you want to get into the rather advanced techniques (although quite simple really) allowing you to change out film mid-roll, you are locked into one ISO and one color rendition for anywhere between 12 and 36 shots. You lose a lot of flexibility by going the film route.
• Technique. Film photography really requires a lot more technical skill to get consistent quality results. Quite a few older cameras have no light meter, so you have to use a handheld meter, use the “Sunny 16″ rule or get good as guessing exposure. Then you have to account for your film’s reciprocity and it’s inherent reciprocity failure, exposure based color shifting and compensating for light temperature by using filters and flash gels. None of this is remotely a concern in the digital world, and these rules and techniques can slow a shooting pace to a crawl until you warp you brain around them. Although understanding these quirks can improve your digital skills, not knowing them will not hamper your abilities as a spectacular digital photographer. And I didn’t even mention the cocepts of pushing and pulling film.
• Filters, filters everywhere. And keep in mind, you will need a lot of different filters for film photography that are simply not needed for digital. In digital photography, all you really need are a few Neutral Density filters and a good Circular Polarizer. For film, you will want split ND’s, color correcting filters, ND’s, Polarizers, Circle Polarizers just to get started. Delve into black and white and you will want a variety of color filters, ranging from reds to blues. I guess you really don’t need these, as you can just shoot straight on, but for advanced techniques you will be wanting them. That said, once scanned you can simulate many of these effects in Photoshop, much like you would with digital, but the desired effect is rarely as good as if you shot with the filter or faked it with a digital image.
• Freedom from Post. Lets not kid ourselves, Photoshop and Lightroom are great tools and can really make an image sing. If you take the hands off approach to photography, you are precluding yourself from utilizing these tools to their fullest ability. Albeit it is freeing to drop off a roll and wait for the final results, you loose a lot of control over you images. Again, you can go the scanning or self-development routes. But again, those methods require an investment of time. While rewarding and giving a great feeling of accomplishment, the do it yourself methods are painfully slow compared to the all-digital methods.

So there, a fairly balanced list of pros and cons for each. There is no right answer for the question of film or digital, so I compromised and use both. For work shots I shoot about 80% digital and 20% film. For personal work its about 80% film and 20% digital, so more or less I am 50/50. When shooting film, I develop myself and then scan in myself, digitizing my film early in the process and working up the images as I would any shot from a DSLR. I still step in the darkroom once and a while and make some optical prints, but I have also been known to make a transparency print from an inverted digital shot and make contact prints on photo paper from my digital work. I blend both photography techniques together on a regular basis, working towards what I envision my final product to be, not limiting myself to a chemical or digital workflow at any time. I do what works best. There is no film vs digital debate in my book.

One other benefit of film I forgot to mention is resolution vs cost. I can much more affordably shoot medium format or large format film and scan in for a high resolution image than invest in a digital medium format system. a $300 dollar camera and a $6 roll of medium format film can easily be scanned into a 40+ megapixel image at home on a consumer grade photo scanner. To get comparable results in the digital world would require an prohibitively expensive setup. Sure, comparing 35mm film to digital is one thing, digital has won that war years ago. But comparing Medium Format and larger film to digital is another situation entirely. When I know I need to go large, I still shoot larger format film.

From my point of view, film and digital where equivalent in resolution around the 10 megapixel mark in DSLRs. Now this is a generalization, as maximum resolution in film really depends on the film used. I would still put 35mm Velvia up against any Pro level DSLR today. Velvia’s resolving power and resolution is still insane to this day, but the DSLR will still win out in the end, especially if you include color accuracy in your rating matrix. I shoot a lot of 35mm film still, but the argument really leans in digital’s favor in this film format. I still love the unique look of each film available, and I love using the inexpensive, high quality gear at my disposal, so I still shoot 35mm film. But as I just alluded to, digital will not be displacing my Mamiya gear any time soon.

So, those are my arguments both ways, take them for what they are. I love both methods and use each every day. I see no need to debate film vs digital, as in my consideration photography is both film and digital. With proper technique, even 35mm can compete with digital any day of the week, and like it or not there is a certain feel to film that digital does not have. Same as records vs CD’s, there is a certain warmth to film.

Now let me know your thoughts on the matter. Fire off your thoughts in the comments below. I would also love to run a series on why you use film still today, so if you would be interested in writing up a piece telling why you still love film, email me at michael@lifeindigitalfilm.com and let me know, I’ll get your opinion up for the world to see, along with some of your work if you would like.

That’s it for now.

Michael

[Photo Info: Kodak Portra 160 NC, Minolta Maxxum 7000, Minotla Maxxum 50mm f/1.7]

Okay, I still have not written an actual article, and I don’t want to release a preset tonight as I have released quite a few this week…I will have a new black and white preset up tomorrow however. I did want to take a few minutes though to say s few things that dropped into my mind today.

So, today I opened my freezer and saw rolls of film that I have shot over the past year, awaiting development. The picture above is one of the frames snapped on the rolls I had developed. I also had my roll of Fuji Press Film 800 I bought a while back developed finally, so an emulation is a week or so away, but I digress. As I dropped the film off at Wal-Mart, as I told them “develop only, no prints” I got a look of confusion from the clerk at the counter. Almost like, why are you even shooting film if you don’t want prints. I didn’t say anything, it just jump started my brain.

On the drive back over to my mother-in-laws house to pick up my wife, I was asking myself “Self, why did buying a fancy new DSLR lead your right back into the world of film photography?” Now I know the answer for the one roll of Press Film, I am going to emulate this film for LIDF so I can get a look similar to this film on any of my digital shots. That did not explain the other three rolls I just got processed. It had me wondering, and I came upon my answer, shooting film makes me a more disciplined photographer. Shooting film also keeps me firmly in touch with the past and makes me appreciate the advances in the field of photography. Plus, shooting film seems organic, like a natural determined act. That makes no sense, but its how I feel.

I think it is refreshing to get out with a film camera and a roll or two of film. I know I only have 24/36 photos to take, and that each one has a defined cash value. I think about my shots, I don’t take 20 frames of the same subject to find the right one later, I take time to find the correct shot and take it….then I move along. I am not saying there is anything wrong with taking a long series of photos to get the right shot, but it forces you to think more when those same 20 shots esentially end your shooting for the day.

I love the feeling of opening the envelope and seeing my photos for the first time. I still can’t develop C-41, so i can’t say pull the negative out of the spool, but it is the same feeling. This is the first time my eyes have seen these images. On my DSLR, I can see everyimage instantly, there is no wondering. When you have that perfect shot, you smile and move on, you are out shooting after all. With film, the second your mirror blocks out your viewfinder, that is the last time you will see anything approximating that image until you open the envelope. And when you are sitting in your car in the parking lot and see that you got the perfect shot, you rejoice…celebrate even. The time removed from the act of shooting allows you this luxury. You can enjoy the beauty of your shot for the first time and breath it in. Your LCD does not go black, reminding you to get shooting again. This is Zen.

Then when you look at the images, the color and tone, the feel of film is different. Which that is what LIDF is all about, bringing that feeling to digital. But it is only inspired by the original film. Making your perfect shot look like it was taken on Velvia is not the same as actually capturing it on Velvia. Both feelings are great, but there is just something about the old-fashioned way…Not saying that using my presets is not also great…but it is not the same. But it may soon be the only way to live that moment with your favorite film.

Please, take some time and shoot a roll of film if you have not done so lately. Get back in touch with the past. You don’t even have to have a great SLR, a good point and shoot film camera works great…hell, even a disposable will remind you what it felt like before. If you have never shot film, give it a chance. Take a film camera out for a day, maybe even learn to develop the film yourself. It is really fulfilling, but that is just me.

Well that ends my rant, on to some items I want to cover before I log off for the night.

First I would like to ask you to take a jump over to profiPhotos. Markus just posted a new video tutorial today on making HDR images using HDRSoft’s Photomatix Pro plugin with Lightroom. It is very informative, as is his entire site. If you love Lightroom, this is a definite must visit. Just make sure to give him a visit!

Speaking of both Markus and Photomatix, I want to remind you that there is only one week left in the Presetting Lightroom photocontest on Flickr. Markus and I both adminstrate the group, and have been trying to kick up the activity level there. We have a photocontest running currently with HDRSoft’s Photomatix Pro as the grand prize and three copies of my Cold Storage collection floating around for the top 3 finishers. There are not many entrants thusfar and the odds are pretty good to take home some type of prize. So please, come by and enter one of you preset processed photos…and by all means, feel free to enter a photo of your’s processed with a LifeInDigitalFilm preset, I have no supporters entered in the contest so far. Follow the link HERE TO ENTER!

So that is it for the evening, come back for a new preset tomorrow.

Until then,
Michael