[Andrew Haley]

Scott wrote:
On Jan 28, 7:13am, Andrew Haley
wrote:
Audio Empire wrote:
I know a local photographer who uses a 4 X 5 sheet-film camera that
is fitted with a scanning digital back (from Leaf, I believe)
connected directly to a laptop to capture the gigapixels of raw data
that the camera produces. While his finished landscape photos are
spectacular, they look "different" from the same shot on sheet
Ektachrome or Fujichrome (he always makes a film exposure of the
same shot - it's easy, just swap the digital back for a film
holder). The film has more contrast and richer, more saturated
colors.

Indeed it does, and there's a parallel with audio here. That
contrasty highly-saturated look is a bit like the "smiley EQ" and
compression loved by record producers -- pretty it may be, but
accurate it ain't. I remember one wag who on seeing Michael Fatali's
photographs said "That's not God's own light, that's Fujichrome's own
Velvia!" Digital, on the other hand, is linear, or can be once you
find all the curves and filters in the workflow and turn them off.
Once you've done that it's regular, stable, and repeatable, and
*accurate*, just like digital audio can be. (I am rather sensitive to
this issue, because one of my jobs is copying paintings for
reproduction. If you want to be able to compare an original and a
print side-by-side on a wall under bright lights, the last thing you
want is a contrast and saturation boost.)

I know this is off topic but this is simply a load of misinformation
about color and contrast accuracy. Velvia is hardly the only film
stock in the world of film. And digital is anything but color
accurate. There is yet to be a digital color profile that begins to
represent the color palette of the real world. Neither film nor
digital imaging can match the contrast or color range of real life
but film still covers more of it.

Hold on one moment: I didn't suggest that any imaging device could
represent the entire visible gamut. I didn't suggest that any digital
imaging device had a larger gamut or contrast range than any film. I
disagree that "digital is anything but color accurate": it's not
perfect, of course, but from the point of view of repro work it's
linear and repeatable, and can be accurate if done right. Also,
digital (is there any other kind?) colour profiles certainly can
represent all visible colours, even though no physical device can.

My point was that the films popular for landscape photography are not
accurate *because they are not designed to be*. Very much like CD
mastering, in other words.

Andrew.