Life is a series of moments that leaves us with memories, both splintered and whole.
If you are just joining us, the PRELUDE & SYLLABUS section is the logical starting point for the series.
Welcome to Digital Photography #101
by Virtual Studio Photography (VSPHO)
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Welcome back,
This section is a lot of fun, but mostly, it explains the overwhelming advantages of DIGITAL IMAGING over 35mm FILM.
To the remaining 35mm purest photographers, I salute, understand and respect you! I’ve spent many hours, days, months and years in a darkroom as a corporate photographer for AT&T, I truly understand.
Here is a "very brief history" that will be expanded upon in a future article.
In 1826, a French inventor named Joseph Niepce basically applied a thin layer of home made tar doped with Silver Oxide on an 8×10 inch pewter plate. He then mounted the plate inside what was at the time called the Camera Obscura. Not a film camera, more of a novelty to trace images as sketches (and various other artistic amusements).
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CAMERA OBSCURA
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The first image on this crude photo-sensitive plate was produced in 1826 of the view out the window of Joseph’s top floor work-room in his home. Of course he tried a few different Exposure times, but this one (shown below) worked best at an Eight Hour Exposure.
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Joseph Niepce, Roof Tops, 1826
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Since then, a multitude of sizes and formats have been developed. The 35mm movie film format was innovated in 1887 by George Eastman (eventually of Eastman Kodak) and later evolved into the modern day 35mm, still frame camera format.
Digital Technology is making 35mm film more and more obsolete, just like the tube type television. However, 35mm film will always have a niche just as tubes are still utilized in a few top end Audiophile Sound Systems. But 35mm film will certainly be with us for a few more years, until the demand drops off to a non-profitable level for the photo developers.
In a simple direct comparison of 35mm film verses Digital Imaging Sensors, let’s look at the 35mm film medium first.
Manufacturing 35mm film entails a chemical compound of silver and halogen mixed into a liquid coating. This liquid emulsion is applied to a sheet of a plastic film base sort of like an old News Paper Press, but much slower. Because of the conveyer belt style transport system, the film starts off going straight up against gravity to ensure a smooth coating.
This causes a slight elongation of the wet surface pulled on by gravity before it dries. Then standard color film has three more layers of color dye added (Blue, then Green, the Red called RGB) to filter colored light frequencies.
These small dots of photosensitive material in the emulsion are called "Dye Clouds." As the liquid slightly spreads and elongates, it develops into a very esthetically pleasing photosensitive film with a smooth transition from one Dye Cloud into each adjoining Dye Cloud.
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INSERTED FROM SEGMENT ADDED TO THE PRELUDE SECTION:
I would like to point out a commonly used term of the DOT or PIXEL.
A DOT (as in: Dots Per Inch) composes any image that is printed on paper.
The image elements (Dye Clouds) on film have historically been referred to as DOTS when printed.
A PIXEL (concatenated from Picture Element) is still a Dot that is created by a super tiny square cluster of lights (Red, Green, Blue lights). That means that the images stored in your Digital Camera and shown on your Computer screen are Pixels.
But the term DOTS or PIXELS are interchangeable for common daily use.
(Note: In your digital photo editor, they will strictly be referred to as Pixels.)
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In 1918, America started to formulate a standard for the measurement of light. In 1928 the ASA (American Standards Association) was born, known now as ANSI.
In 1974, the ASA joined with the rest of the world and conformed their standards with the ISO (International Organization for Standards). I agree, it seems like ISO should stand for the International Standards Organization?
A standard was created to quantify exactly how much light was needed for a specific film exposure (film sensitivity).
As film technology evolved, the physics of light remained constant. Over time, Dye Clouds did get smaller, better film resolution for the same amount of light.
But eventually, chemical based film hit a point of diminishing returns. Plus, no matter how sensitive you could make the film to a specific quantity of light, the only way to allow a Dye Cloud to absorb double the light was to double the surface area, a 40% larger diameter. This equates to a 40 percent REDUCTION of resolution for every sequentially faster film speed.
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Here are the TWO big downfalls of 35mm film cameras:
1. If you were shooting all day in bright sun light, or you were using flash of professional lighting, you would use High Resolution but Low Light Sensitivity ISO 25, 50, 64 or 100 speed film.
That is one reason why professionals usually used twelve exposure rolls of film. If you needed to change Sensitivity for varying lighting conditions, you had to change the Film to change the Speed. Generally, that meant sacrificing the remaining unexposed film on the roll. PLUS, you had to take the time to change the film. Many photographers would carry multiple camera bodies with different film speeds loaded for various needs. (Somewhat cumbersome.)
2. As outlined above, every time you DOUBLE the Light Sensitivity, you lose 40% of the resolution. (In APERTURE Part 1 we outlined area reduction and enlargement.)
Films speeds reflect its light sensitivity, not the resolution. ISO 400 and ISO 800 were much more Sensitive to Light, but even a 4×4 picture in print could start to show a breakdown in resolution called being Grainy. ISO 800 was so grainy, even a blow-up to 8×12 (or 8×10) was not esthetically pleasing to the eye. 35mm film eventually got to ISO 6400. I never used film past ISO 400, but ISO 3200 and 6400 probably had worse resolution and dynamic range than the first generation Digital Images.
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So the advantage to 35 mm film was the visual esthetics with the slower film speeds. Because of the Dye Cloud mentality, the dots that compose the picture were almost microscopic and flowed together in print, just as the Dye Clouds on the negative. Speeds of ISO 100 and Slower could be enlarged and look just as beautiful and clear as a 4×6 print.
The colors and dynamic range of film (covered in Part 2) were spectacular, as long as they were developed properly in CLEAN chemicals.
There was a seamless flow of natural beauty in a well SHOT and well DEVELOPED picture. Developing a film negative and transferring the image onto photo-paper with enlargements is an art in itself.
This is a good stopping point for 35mm FILM verses DIGITAL IMAGING Part 1.
Please join us in Part 2 as we will continue the Digital Imaging pros and cons comparison.
Virtual Studio Photography (VSPHO)
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