making a photography darkroom

[NY]

My compact camera doesn't have the option of shooting in RAW. My SLR does and I have set it to take both JPG and RAW for every photo. I still underexpose by 1/3 stop on both cameras for the benefit of the JPG, but I don't think it affects the RAW (I could be wrong on that). Occasionally I've had to go back to the RAW and have been amazed at the amount of extra shadow and highlight detail I've been able to retrieve. I also, when I am not in a hurry, try to look at the histogram and make sure that only a small proportion of pixels are peak white or jet black because these will be clipped. And I set the display to show brightly coloured pixels (the equivalent of zebra stripes on a TV camera's viewfinder) to show up any peak white pixels to help with exposure. Sadly because the SLR only has an optical viewfinder, this aid is only visible when reviewing photos that have already been taken, but for anything critical I check and retake if necessary.

In the days of film, I was gobsmacked by how much extra detail could be retrieved by scanning a negative than was visible in the print, especially when printed in a cheap lab which uses auto settings, rather than when things are hand-printed (which costs the earth).

The 0.3 stop correction may be a matter of personal preference and to counteract the manufacturer trying to produce brighter more vibrant pictures. I have a pathological loathing of pictures where any crucial detail has areas of peak white or flat featureless colour (usually cyan or yellow) because one of the three colours has maxed out while leaving the other two just below peak).

[NY]

Ah, you've moved the goalposts a bit. You were saying that it's better to learn using film than digital (which I disagree with). Now you're saying it's better to learn on a manual camera (or at least an automatic one with the manual features capable of being turned off for learning purposes). Any I fully agree with that one. My philosophy is that just about any gadget that has automatic modes should have a way of turning those off for the times when they get it wrong - or when turning them on would hinder learning. But that's a different subject to whether film is better than digital for learning on: a manual-capable digital camera is more use for learning that an auto-only film camera.

[dennis]

I bought one that did and they are difficult to find.

It should affect both but 1/3 of a stop isn't really much unless you are on the limit.

The RAW image usually contains 3-5 stops worth of extra image data. The JPEG is limited to 8 bits per colour while the RAW is 12+ bits depending on the sensor.

Prints are awful quality, the best white you can get is about 95% reflection and the best black is about 5% reflection so the dynamic range is far less than the range of transmitted light through a slide or negative and digital has even more dynamic range.

[dennis]

What's that got to do with digital or film cameras? You set the Fno and shutter speed on a digital camera or a film camera or you switch them to idiot mode if you want to. They do the same and behave the same the only differences are that you can review the digital there and then and the quality is better on digital.

Are you comparing iPhones to SLRs and saying the SLR is better because its manual?

[dennis]

The guests are too busy to stand there and take formal pictures.

The last wedding I went I gave the photographer the pictures I had taken and they are in the wedding album with the formal ones.

The brides mother is a professional wedding photographer so she could have done it herself if she didn't want to be in the shots.

How can you? Its personal choice and what you or anyone else thinks is pretty much irrelevant unless you are doing them for someone else.

Artists have advantages over photographers, they don't have to be at the viewpoint.

So is film.

However they have done so if you compare the latest showings with the original stuff.

Film was better but it isn't now. Insisting on using an old medium that is inferior quality is idleness as you can lower the quality in post processing if you used digital in the first place.

Just use an airport without the ILS.

You can teach someone to fly a cessena if you want but it won't teach them to fly a jumbo.

[dennis]

The best for teaching photography is a camera and digital gives you the results when you need to see the results.

If you want to teach darkroom techniques then use film.

Photography is the art of taking pictures not printing them.

Whats that got to do with film vs digital? Digitals can be manual the same as film can be automatic.

Its not photography without a camera. It is photography without film.

Yet again you are trying to make out that digital does it all for you. This is plain wrong you may as well say film cameras do it all for you if you buy one that only does auto.

If you think the ability to analyze the image on digital makes you a worse photographer then you don't understand photography.

[DJC]

For a SLR the time is limited by the speed of the mirror. Both digital and film SLRs have mirrors and shutters so there is no difference. The autofocus sensors are separate from the digital image sensor.

[DJC]

Professional photographers take lots of pictures, you only see the good ones. In days of film only a professional could contemplate that 'waste' of film.

[dennis]

The latest "SLR" don't have mirrors but do have shutters and use the same sensor for autofocus (some of the time). They do this because its cheaper as the alignment of the autofocus is guaranteed if its on the same chip. They also don't suffer from mirror shake and are quicker to react to the shutter button. You can easily spot mirror less ones, they are thinner as they don't need space for the mirror.

Professional photographers use them to do movies where they don't want to put an expensive camera like under cooling towers you are blowing up or on drones. Something you can't do with film cameras.

[NY]

However my grandpa had a friend who used to take photos for the local paper as a sideline, probably around the 1930s. Sometimes his job was to take photos of the local football matches. The paper gave him a small number of plates (older technology - not even frames of film!) and expected him to come back with every one of them a good photo that was capable of being printed. Talk about working under pressure! Nowadays sports photographers probably take hundreds or thousands of photos of a sports event, and then select the ones where they have caught the action at just the right moment and where the right part of the subject is in focus.

[NY]

I'm intrigued by this statement. Surely the mirror remains down at all times except for the brief instant either side of the shutter opening.

The autofocus time is governed by where the lens is currently focussed (ie was it previously focussed close-up and you're now focussing on something in the distance) and on how complex the picture is - how much the object that you are focussing on can be distinguished from the background, which governs whether the mechanism needs to "hunt" either side of the focus point to select the focus that gives the sharpest focus (which I think is often judged by the camera as being the highest contrast on an edge-detector).

All of that is done with the mirror down. Once the focus is correct, the photographer presses the shutter release. Only then does the speed of the mirror come into effect, governing the delay between pressing the button and the shutter opening.

Some cameras even have a setting (on or off) which will only release the shutter when the AF says "in focus" to prevent you taking a photo while it's still trying to achieve best focus.

I've had limited success with taking photos of flying birds (eg puffins on the Farne Isles returning with the beaks crammed full of sand eels) because the buggers move extremely fast and you only see them for a few seconds, so framing and focussing in that time is very hit-and-miss, as is following them in flight when you are hand-holding a camera with a long lens (I really ought to take a tripod so I can concentrate on following without having to also bear the weight of camera and lens). Either you choose a small focussing zone in the centre of the frame, in which case the bird *will* be in focus, but only if you can position it dead-centre in the frame (or wherever you've positioned the focus zone). Or else you set a larger focus zone in which case the AF focuses on (I presume) the closest object that it sees in that zone, which may be the wing-tip of another bird, or even (if the bird is flying very low) part of the ground. Continuously-adjusting focus rather than single shot (only when you initially half-press the shutter release) is essential.

I never know whether it's better to use a shorter lens (eg 200 mm which is equivalent to 300 in a 35 mm camera) and choose birds which are close enough to fill that field of view, where there may be a fair spread of birds at different distances, or to use a longer lens and go for birds further away where the spread of distances will be smaller. Obviously a closer bird will pass through a greater angle as it flies past me and I follow it.

This really is a very demanding test of autofocus - and a situation where manual focus almost certainly isn't much use because the human eye can't react quickly to keep an object in focus where the distance is rapidly changing, and if you choose a fixed distance and wait until the bird's path takes it to that distance, you are dependent on reaction speed which makes things very hit and miss.

If only puffins could be made to follow designated flight paths so you could position yourself where you were a constant distance away as they fly! ;-)

[whisky-dave]

From the teachiong point of view it is better to use film than digital beca use there's less distractions, you can concentrate on ONE aspect at a time.

you don't need autofocus and 10 fps bursts or know about diffraction limiti ng on sensors to leanr photogrpahy which is the 'art' of using light NOT paint .

there are few auto only flim camera in existance today, there's plenty of a uot only 'cameras' around today and most peole have them min their phones, using such a device is NOT the best way to learn photography. Photography a nd gettign a selfie IS NOT the same. This is why peolpe still employer phot ographers at wedding rather that rely on friends and family to take 'good' picutes with their phone.

[Thomas Prufer]

Look at some of the alternative operating systems for cameras:-)

F'rinstance, there's "CHDK" for many Canon compact cameras: RAW, also: timelapse, macros that take a picture when lightning flashes, that take pictures when something moves, etc. etc. I copied the list below.

All goes on a SD card: move the write proctection to "lock", and you are running CHDK, move it back, and it's out-of-the-box original.

Thomas Prufer

Shutter-priority (Tv) exposure - via shutter value override feature Aperture-priority (Av) exposure - via aperture value override feature Shooting in RAW, with RAW Average, RAW Sum, and RAW Develop features DNG (Digital Negative) in camera conversion, and USB download options Bracketing -Tv, Av, ISO, and Focus bracketing, using scripts, or in continuous or custom timer modes Live histogram (RGB, blended, luminance and for each RGB channel) Zebra mode (a live view of over and under-exposed areas of your picture) for many cameras Depth-of-field (DOF)-calculator, Hyperfocal-calculator with instant hyperfocal and Infinity focus-set, and more

Battery indicator RAW and Video space-remaining gauges with custom low-limit alerts USB cable remote shutter release Motion-detection trigger - automatically fires camera on motion detection. - Ability to capture lightning strikes. Adjust Video quality and size (compression) adjustable while recording Elimination of 1 Gig video-size limit (for most DIGIC II cameras) Zoom during video function - for cameras without this feature Shutter, Aperture, and ISO Overrides Ultra-long shutter speeds - at least up to 64 seconds - and longer for supported cameras Ultra-fast shutter speeds - up to 1/10,000" and higher High-speed Flash Sync at all speeds up to 1/64,000 second Custom, user-editable visible grids for framing, cropping, and alignment (not all cameras) File browser Text reader Text editor Calendar Games Fully customizable CHDK display, info placement, user colors, fonts in menus, etc. Multi-language Interface - CHDK supports many languages Custom CHDK User Menu - for instant recall of up to 10 favorite functions Scripts execution - including intervalometer, motion detection, etc

And many others.

[whisky-dave]

So what is the advantage of RAW, and what is the equivalent in film. Of course I have a pretty good idea as I know a bit about photography and taking snap shots.

a 1/3rd of a stop surely with digital this should be expressed as 0.33333 of a stop and what is a stop in digital terms ;-)

[whisky-dave]

the differnce between gettin the picture you want and getting a snap shot.

few photographers would use idiot mode unless all they wanted was the most basic snap shot.

what you see on the LCD of a digital camera isn't the same as what you get as the captured image, but then again only someone that knows a bit about photography.

No. I'm saying that to teach photgraphy film is a better option because as you've proved digital has many distractions such as the LCD which as you claim shows you in advance what you 'get'.

The same as if you wanted to learn to sing you'd employ someone that can sing rather than a multimedia guuru with an auto tuner. NOTE I'm talking about actual singing rather than making money ffrom you're voice or by girating you're vagina on stage for money.

[whisky-dave]

Oh a formal picture what do you mean by that. Why can't guests take formal pictures ?

why didn;t you take the formal ones aren;t uyou a good enough photographer ?

what's the point of a professional wedding photographer when all you really need is someone with a digital camera. Why spend the money , I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of those at wedding have the ability to take a photo.

which is why professional photographers are employed because few snap shooters know a good photo from a bad one, some don't even know when told.

neither do photographers when they can digialty manipulate an image. I put a large fishing trawelr on teh surface of mars. I didn;t have to be there. I've yet to see an artists do that, maybe they havent; the imagination who knows.

Yes and it lokos shit, have you seen the depp space 9 remastered and conpared it with the original with kirk or TNG. The DS9 images are grainy, because of teh low resolution.

So why aren't they doing that with the new star wars film.

that won't get you a pilotsd licence any mor ethan playing a flight simulator on a PC.

of course not but few learnt to fly in a jumbo, jst like few learnt to drive in an automatic car or an F1. And we all know what the furture will bring the best drivers will be those in google or maybe Apple cars, because they wonlt have accidents.

[whisky-dave]

But isn't as good for teaching photgraphy.

well you'd need a darkroom too.

You could also simulate it with an app, you wouldn't need a darkroomm to teach darkroom techniques. But I'm bettign if teaching darkroom technigues you'r be better off in a parkroom than on a PC simulation.

Photography is the art of use light to form an image.

which digital camera would you choose for teaching photography ? could you treach photography without a battery ? Can you take a photo without the aid of electricity ?

correct so you need a camera. A PC can produre photographs, but we don't think of them in that way.

Camera obscura that doesn't have film or a lens nearly 1000 years ago.

It does most of it for you.

film does not change it's sensitity, contrast, colour/monochrome, fast/slow by pressing a button on it. With film you have to know what you want before you even load it into the camera. Sure it's more convinet and useful to be able to change your mind after taking the photo has it's advantages but does it make you better at the job.

and if you think having a digital camera means you're a better photography .....

[dennis]

More rubbish, there are a few people about that can get decent pictures from film cameras so not all film is snap shots.

What you see through the view finder isn't what you get on film and what you get on print isn't what you got on the film either. But at least you can see if its close on a screen.

So what do you recommend a box brownie so all you can change is the viewpoint and the lighting? That will teach a lot about photography and you can buy a digital to do that.

Why does the tutor need to be able to sing? Do you just want to copy someone else? Is that your idea of photography, being able to copy someone else?

[NY]

That sounds fantastic if you can load alternative firmware/OS into a camera. My old Minolta digital had the ability to take timelapse (photos of a morning glory flower opening as the sun came up) but I've never seen it on any of the more recent cameras, whether compact or SLR.

I'll give it a try!

[NY]

It is very approximately the equivalent to going back to the negative and printing it at a different exposure or with different colour-correction filters so you map a different part of the wide exposure latitude of the negative onto the more restricted latitude of the print. Many automatic printmaking shops have their machine set to clip the brightest 5% of the print (the darkest part of the neg) to white and the darkest 5% to black (thus losing detail at those two extremes) because this produces more contrasty, less muddy prints.

For digital, some cameras are set to do the same sort of thing when going from the sensor image to the JPG, as well as to apply some sharpening and JPG compression, whereas AFAIK the raw file is not lossy compressed, is not sharpened and often doesn't have any white balance correction; you are left to do all those things to your own preference using proprietary RAW -> JPG/TIFF/PNG software that comes with the camera or with packages such as Photoshop which can read various cameras' RAW formats. Some cameras' RAW files actually have the suffix DNG (digital negative) because that is effectively what the file is - what the sensor saw before any in-camera corrections.

As with film photography, 1 stop is a halving/doubling of the amount of light getting through the lens (eg f 5.6 -> f8) or a halving/doubling of the shutter speed. Maybe 1/3 stop should be expressed as 0.33 recurring, as you say :-)