In my mind I considered a digital sensor as this two dimensional field where the sensors were positioned via the x y axies, however as the sensors can record tone too, how do we represent this in graphical terms. (We could ignore a value for colour as maybe this could be attributed to different positions related to different colours). In my mind a value for tone would have to come into the z axis, therefore being out into the third dimension.
Each photo diode in the sensor contains an analog value of the strength of the light, as it passes through the Bayer filter, and so can have more values that simply 1 or 0. What makes it digital is the software algorithms that decide what color a particular point needs to be (one of the reasons that color digital images exhibit a continuous tone appearance). The Z axis really doesn't come into play as far as I'm aware of.
"A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist" -- Louis Nizer
Ross
I think you better to find some painting forum, or even airbrashing. Digital imaging has in common with photography just nothing, except that it try to steall the name.
My mind wondered if using tone, in tone based inks rather than perceived tone created by a ratio of black to white, we may perceive a form of depth or position so far denied to us.
Dear Ross,
Go back to your X/Y axis and consider the minimum useful size of black/white unit offered by silver and digital in small images (up to say 1 metre square) viewed from any reasonable distance.
I'm not exactly a digital fanboy (I rather resent it actually) but there's no question in my mind that digital photography is indeed photography. Where it diverges from being photography and becomes imaging is when the imported image recorded with light is manipulated in the computer.
We manipulate images in the darkroom too, of course. The question is the degree of manipulation.
When something ceases to be reality, it's no longer a photograph. It is an image. It may well be art. It's just not a photograph. Photographs by definition record reality, although the recording of the reality may be in some fashion enhanced or even unrealistic (as with infrared films). The picture is a reflection of reality, perhaps different from what the eye sees but real nonetheless.
Edit the image so that it's no longer real and it's not a photograph any longer.
I happen to like recording reality, so analog photography suits me just fine.
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Jim MacKenzie - Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Hang on a minute. Are you saying that a photograph is reality?
I did, but didn't mean to. A photograph is a record of reality. It records what was actually there (although not necessarily all of what was there; we drop the infrared and the audio and the ultraviolet and the x-rays and so on all the time ).
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Jim MacKenzie - Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
You can do that both with film and with digital. Choose the tool that fits your vision and technique the best.
Paul, yes I think I agree with you. What I mean is that in producing certain photographic images, with all my own emotional attachments to the process that is achieving that image, film is still the "best" way to get there. I could possibly achieve this "best" through digital means also, but maybe not surpass it. What I was wondering was whether the ability of digital processes to record tone at a micro/pixel level wheras silver only seems to be able to be black or not-black at that level, could achieve a new or different effect. I was not trying to state that silver imaging is morally or technically the best in any general way. In many respects I think digital photography is "better" than silver photography and is just a natural and useful part of the evolution of photography. I would also say that I feel very different about photography compared to other image production techniques, particularly in the emotional realm. I find using pastels much more intimate than photography for instance. I have also seen images produced in other media which are indistinguishable from film, or that can produce images which could not be produced that way. Each may well be the "best" in their own contexts
It intrigues me that you say that silver images are better than digital on the very small level as my own understanding makes me feel that the ability of digital to record tone at a micro level should actually be the opposite. maybe the technology and software lags behind the potential of the process.
Thanks for helping me to interrogate my own thoughts.
Fair enough, but even at that, it records what was 'actually there' at a given instant with a given viewpoint and a given focal length -- and arguably, even with a given agenda. And without colour (unless of course you prefer this new rubbishy colour stuff...)
The big question is, where does selectvity become falsification?
Once I took a picture in Red Square in the early morning, shooting on Fuji RF/RFP (the finest slide film ever made, in my book). There was a truck parked in front of St. Basilius. The driver, being a good Muscovite proud of his city, moved so I could take the picture.
Was the truck 'really' there? What difference would there be if, assuming I were a skilled enough Photoshop operator, I had cloned it out?
Go back to your X/Y axis and consider the minimum useful size of black/white unit offered by silver and digital in small images (up to say 1 metre square) viewed from any reasonable distance.
You will supply your own answer.
As Robert says, there is no Z axis.
Cheers,
Roger
I will admit that I am probably mixing too many metaphors, and bearing in mind that calculus (along with calculating the height of an equalateral tetrahedron from base principles) made me retire early from an engineering degree, probably makes this comparison far from ideal. I could easily demolish my own argument and say that instead of being limited to putting black or not-black on the graph, I could just use various greys and even colours and then keep everything in 2 dimensions. My ponderings were along the lines of whether there was anything truly revolutionary about digital imaging, due to the ability of recording tone at a point by point level, which gives us a new thingy to use in photography, which may have a significant impact on our perception of produced images. At the moment I think not.
Additionally, due to my own lack of inertia, I have not found out what the comparitive size of a silver grain is relative to a digital imaging sensor and the ratio of not-sensor to not-grain is, which probably has more influence over the whole affair.
I will also admit that there aren't 3 dimensions. We are lumpy things in space and science is purely a human construct.
You know, if quantum theory is right, then forget about the notion of continuous tone forever. Even in the real world. It's just discrete bits of things. Only nothingness is continuous...
__________________ Using film since before it was hip.
A photograph is a record of reality. It records what was actually there (although not necessarily all of what was there; we drop the infrared and the audio and the ultraviolet and the x-rays and so on all the time 
Linear Mode
