Good Fine-Grained Film for Portraits

[fschifano]

I suspect you're right Jeff. Scanning and digitizing are parts of the standard workflow in a commercial lab. Optical prints from color negative are the exception, not the rule. It only makes sense that films would be optimized for that. Wasn't it only recently that Kodak discontinued RA4 papers that were more suitable for analog printing? The current crop of papers is optimized for laser output. That ought to tell you right there where the market is.

[keithwms]

Those of us who sometimes use the word 'scan'... why don't we write 'thcan' instead. Then anyone who has an allergy to thcanning can get a giggle and leave uth in peath.

[hughitb]

It's safe to come out now, right?

Thanks for all the helpful info .. will probably have a few more questions shortly. I just got hold of a Metz flash, hooked it up to my Rolleiflex and it seems to work nicely. I do have a question about Flash sync but I'll head over to the MF Camera forum to ask it ...

[mopar_guy]

I have really liked the results from Portra 160 NC. I will be using several rolls of 120 over the next month.

[BradS]

We don't talk about digital here! If you wanna talk about that or do it....fine but, don't talk about it here on APUG! (FULL_STOP).


Why can't people honor that simple wish? It is about courtesy, plain and simple.

[mr rusty]

We don't talk about digital here!

I must say as a newbie here, and a recently returned convert to film, I find this argument quite bizarre

I was just looking at Fuji's new film and they say;-

Fujicolor Pro 160S Professional is an ISO film speed 160 daylight-type color negative film designed for professional use, featuring more highly optimized skin tone reproduction and neutral gray balance, especially important for portrait photography.

Through its use of Fourth Color Layer technology, the newest emulsion technologies and new coupler technology, this film is able to deliver better grain quality and smoother skin tone reproduction than current films.

Moreover, thanks to its well-controlled gray balance, it provides a wider exposure latitude that makes it more suitable for digital scanners. The further addition of single-channel printing results in uniform printing efficiency with other films in the FUJICOLOR PRO series.

Oh no!! they mention the S word! I really don't understand this segregation at all. Surely this forum is about film? If Fuji understand that one of the reproduction techniques for their *professional* film is s*****g, why can't we here?

[Dave Pritchard]

I must say as a newbie here, and a recently returned convert to film, I find this argument quite bizarre

I was just looking at Fuji's new film and they say;-



Oh no!! they mention the S word! I really don't understand this segregation at all. Surely this forum is about film? If Fuji understand that one of the reproduction techniques for their *professional* film is s*****g, why can't we here?

mr rusty,

I suggest you visit hybridphoto.com, and even get an account there. I have an account there, and enjoy reading the posts.

Take a good look at the topic areas while you are there. There are discussions about monitors, scanners, operating systems, scanning software, photoshop, mac vs pc, and numerous other topics which are pretty far away from film and light.

I personally don't want to have to wade through lots of posts about computers in order to get information on film and film cameras. We would have to add all those topic areas to our list in order to do justice to hybrid techniques.

[David A. Goldfarb]

There are many venues for discussion of all aspects of digital photography on the internet. Many APUG users come here precisely to get away from that and to stay focused on the matter at hand, even if they also use digital techniques in their work.

After some experimentation with an area for discussion of hybrid film and digital techniques on APUG, we decided to create a separate forum for that discussion at http://www.hybridphoto.com . There are many knowledgeable participants on that forum, many of whom are also on this forum, who can help anyone with issues relating to hybrid digital/traditional workflow.

This way, we don't have to worry so much about where to draw the line on the hybrid forum and it can be a bit more wide ranging in consideration of digital topics that also involve a traditional component, and we can maintain an information rich analogue photography resource here, so that if someone wants to learn about something like Ilfochrome or RA-4 printing with an enlarger, they won't have to wade through a forest of threads on digital printing and won't have to worry about the hostile response that traditional photographers sometimes meet on other forums.

[keithwms]

I agree Mr. Rusty, and I think anybody who wants to rehash these points or propose rules about what we can or cannot say. This is not a thread about shooting with a DSLR and drastically manipulating it with photoshop and so forth. This is about someone who wants to do his work on film and then use scanning to present it. Just like all of us who show our work in the APUG galleries and portfolios... it's all scanned... all of it.

[BradS]

I agree Mr. Rusty, and I think anybody who wants to rehash these points or propose rules about what we can or cannot say. This is not a thread about shooting with a DSLR and drastically manipulating it with photoshop and so forth. This is about someone who wants to do his work on film and then use scanning to present it. Just like all of us who show our work in the APUG galleries and portfolios... it's all scanned... all of it.

Keith...really? You've been here long enough to know this is not new...not by a long shot.

David summarized the situation very well in his post just above.

The way I see it, it's like keeping your voice down in the library, or keeping your feet off the seats in the train. It's all about respect.

This place is an oasis in the desert of digital noise (pun intended!). Please, just respect the intent of the site.