I’ve always been interested in film photography. There’s always something about them that give me the sense of depth and richness. Some of you might know what terms I’m referring to or what the concept/process behind it.
Anyway, here’s couple of examples of what so called “depth and richness” of film.
My question is what kind of process of taking or editing the photos one must follow to get those type of characters (Using a digital, I know it may not be possible to recreate it 1 to 1) but is there a way?
*Mind you I’m not only talking about the way film renders colors but also how the dynamic range looks and processed. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
It’s about a solution: taking the raw data, using it to illuminate a virtual negative (modelled using exact sensitivity characteristics), projecting that onto virtual paper (again, with the proper characteristics). I don’t know anything about the analogue processes involved, but it seems to be a rather accurate, science-based simulation; it’s certainly not just a silly retro-styled Instagram filter.
In addition to matching the colors, you can also simulate the not-so-sharp lenses in the above photos using contrast equalizer and diffuse or sharpen in Darktable. I think that 70% of the vintage look is lenses.
There are a lot of characteristics but they vary by film stock and printing/scanning method.
The agx film simulation mentioned above does an incredibly good job but is slow and under heavy development.
Others will have better suggestions but to me the .sin things are.
Highlights that faded toward a whitish tone very smoothly.
Blacks that lack detail and are desaturated
Complex colour behaviour that are quite far from observed colours.
Halation effects particularly around highlights
I have to say I disagree with the above but vintage lenses do affect the film look somewhat. They often handle blacks, high contrast and sometimes colour in ways that align with film characteristics. I think film has a much stronger overall impact though.
Some vintage lenses are amazing, but the lenses most people had access to are not particularly sharp by today’s standards, especially the zooms. So what gives away a photo with modern lenses is the sharpness of the areas in focus. This can be a particularly distracting if the subject is slightly out of focus, and something else is in focus.
The correction above is nearly imperceptible unless you check side-by-side, but for me replicates the “2000s DSLR cheapo kit lens” look. You can go further, and also reduce chroma, and scale up accordingly for older lenses. Diffuse and sharpen is another option. To replicate some older lenses, especially famed vintage portrait lenses one would need a more global correction.
