Can you tell the difference between film and digital?

[intheflow]

Poll question: Can you tell the difference between film and digital?

Just for ha-has, I took the same photo with both my film camera and my digital. Both are untouched except that I resized them to be the same size. Can YOU tell the difference between the two?

Photo A



Photo B

[F.Gordon]

1. I know! I know! (raising hand)

They are both digital because the film shot has been .... digiteralized. I love these trick questions. I win!! I win!!!!
:woohoo:

Completely untouched? Hmmmmm.... I'm lookin' for signs of halo and CA ..... You're messin' with my head. I didn't think a P*S was capable of producing an "off axis" polarization filter effect. I'm pretty sure I see CA in "B" but that could be nothing more than a 30 year old LSD flashback.
:smoke:

I went with A.

[intheflow]

6. The answer is not that they're digital, F.Gordon!

:eyes: I meant what were the shots in their original format!

:P Of course I know you're yanking my chain. But all chain-yankin' aside, what the heck is "CA"?

[F.Gordon]

7. CA?

Check out this thread........

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=280x8326

I don't know if what I'm seein' is CA or just my monitor playing tricks with me when I blow up the shots. There is also the halo thing which I'm pretty sure I see in B. When I'm a little more motivated I'll post a thingee showing the difference between film and digital... I screw up a lot so I have tons of examples. :P

This is a good poll.... comparison.

[regnaD kciN]

9. "Digiteralized"...? Are you a Republican mole?

If so, I suspect we misunderestimated your subliminability.

;-)

[F.Gordon]

15. LOL yyu owded me

Hay.... Ima nut tha won huu cheetahed un tha tast.

It's a "F.Gordon" thing. You'd need to talk to Ms F to understand it fully. :crazy: I thought about right clicking and seeing which one was film, but noooooooo... I was a good boy and played nice.:)

I might repeat intheflow's challenge myself one of these days. I'll make the EXIF data go bye bye and I'll do a black & white "side by side". No color. Use the same lens-same setup. There will only be one thing that will identify which is film and which is digital.

[Maestro]

2. Okay I'll go against wisdom and say that A

is digital. The colors just look too vibrant as if the digital process is overdoing the color hues. But I could easily say that B is digital because it looks washed out compared to A. In short, no, I can not tell. ;)

[RagingInMiami]

3. I voted for A

[Maestro]

4. Hey so what is the answer?

I'm curious. :hi:

[intheflow]

5. No answer until the poll is up for 24-hours.

Just to see what the final result will be, and to hear a bit more speculation. :evilgrin:

[regnaD kciN]

8. A is film...

...while B is not only digital, but was taken with a Canon Powershot A85 on September 1, 2005 at 10:52:44 A.M. local time (although the camera's clock may have been mis-set, since I can't imagine where you'd get autumn colors like that at the beginning of September). The focal length of the Canon's zoom lens was set to 5.4mm, and the scene was exposed for 1/320th of a second at F5.6, using multi-pattern metering and 0 EV exposure compensation.

Seriously, for a test like this, you need to strip the metadata from your digital images before posting them. :evilgrin:

[RagingInMiami]

10. Damn

You have to teach me how to do that.

[Touchdown]

11. Know-it-all!

:P

[intheflow]

12. I knew someone was going to do that!

:spank:

I don't know how to strip the metadata. Enlighten us, O Wise and Evilly Grinning One!

[ET Awful]

14. I did that too, but I kept quiet in the interest of fairness. :)

What's odd is that in this case, contrary to popular belief and opinion, the digital shot seems to have more shadow detail . . . or maybe it's just my monitor :).

Also, some very minor tweaks during post processing could make the color in the digital version almost indisinguishable from the film version.

[regnaD kciN]

20. How to strip metadata (using Photoshop)...

1) Open the photo in ImageReady.

2) Go to the "Optimize" palette in the tabbed window on the upper-right of the Photoshop layout.

3) Select "JPEG" in the "format" drop-down menu.

4) Uncheck the "Add Metadata" option in the palette.

5) Choose "Save Optimized" or "Save Optimized As..." from the File menu.

Result: no shooting data.

[regnaD kciN]

22. Actually, there's another way to tell, too...

Most digital cameras have an aspect ratio close to 4:3, while the average film SLR has a slightly "widescreen" ratio. If you look at the two images, the film is 506 x 336, while the digital is 506 x 379, and exhibits more sky at the top and grass at the bottom.

[intheflow]

13. So, yes, A is film.

And yeah, I only have a point and shoot digital, but honestly, based on these two shots, I gotta say my bias toward film seems justified.

But then, I also have much nicer lenses on my film camera, so that could be the difference too. Except that I can help but think the image is just more distinct with the film. Does that make any sense?

[F.Gordon]

16. I saw the difference in the leaves on the tree

Look half way down on the right side of the two photos and compare the leaves in the open space between the branches.

But the thing that really gave it all away? I blew them both up and I could see a bear shitting in the woods in A but not in B.

[intheflow]

17. ...

:spray:

OMG, that was half my coffee on the monitor! You kill me, F.G.!

[RagingInMiami]

18. But you did not manipulate them

So the next challenge should be to use Photoshop to make the digital picture look like the film picture.

Even Ansel Adams "manipulated" tones in the darkroom to make his photos more superior. Photoshop is nothing but the digital darkroom.

[regnaD kciN]

21. How are you getting your film image on the computer?

I assume you are either scanning it yourself, or having a lab do it for you. In either case, one needs to ask the question of what effect the scanning has on the image.

I've been doing some scanning of film images myself, and what I'm seeing in "A" is typical of a scan -- an increase in contrast (note the gradient effect on the sky from left to right), and the boosting of color (it seems to me that a scan will either saturate or desaturate color, but rarely leaves it the same).

In short, it really isn't accurate to say that no manipulation has been done to either image. The very nature of scanning, whether DIY or photolab, will manipulate the film's image.

And, IMHO, although A is certainly aesthetically striking, and more immediately impressive than B, I'm not convinced it's a more accurate reproduction of the scene; in fact, just the opposite. It strikes me as "hyperreal," much like I've seen when someone takes a digital image and Photoshops the **** out of it to make it more spectacular. In particular, I've never in my life seen a sky with that much of a shift in tone over a small angle of view, and doubt I ever will.

[intheflow]

23. The lab put this image on disk for me.

But it looks true to both the print and my memory of the scene as I took the shot. Much more so than the washed-out looking digital. But you're right, just the fact that we're looking at a digitalized image in both cases means that it's not a scientific poll by any means. :)

[regnaD kciN]

24. There's another factor, too...

What film were you using? There can be drastic differences between one emulsion and another. Ask anyone from back in the 70s, where you could shoot any subject with Kodachrome, and then take a second shot with Ektachrome, and you'd wind up with a difference almost as drastic as the example above.

[ET Awful]

25. Also - The processing/developing of the film imparts that particular

labs preferences of color, etc. to the print. If you were to take the same negatives to two different labs and have both do prints, you'd probably be able to notice a difference between them.

Now, if you use pro level calibration tools and software, your scans will match your screen which will in turn match your prints. Of course, full calibration can be a nightmare to do, but it does work.

I agree with you about the color shift in the sky. Though I can think of a few things that would cause this unintentionally such as shadows from something out of frame falling on the lens, etc.

[Blue_In_AK]

19. I KNEW it...

What tipped me off was that blue, blue sky. I just don't get sky that color with digital, although as Raging says, I probably could if I knew more about PhotoShop (or PaintShop, my brand X). In any event, it's a beautiful shot either way, ITF.