Does digital translate into film?

L

leaftors

Well-known member
Will shooting black and white digital first give me a good indication of what it will look like on black and white film? Example, will the blacks, white, greys, in the digital come out the same in film?
 
are you transferring the digital image to B&W or are you testing with a digital camera then shooting on B&W film? I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the B&W film, especially if you get the digital image to look nice. The film will give you much more room to play with the highlights and shadows and the contrast, well it just doesn't compare.
 
leaftors said:
Will shooting black and white digital first give me a good indication of what it will look like on black and white film? Example, will the blacks, white, greys, in the digital come out the same in film?
Click to expand...

Film film Black & White has a spectral response for a given film stock. The usual 'B&W' option that is available on a digital camera, that is pretty much a simplistic 'desaturation', does not really correspond to this sort of spectral response. One has to use a 'channel mixer' in post to get better representation...

But I have read where people just select the camera B&W, up the contrast in their NLE of choice... and are happy with the results...

The other issue of difference is that an electronic sensor is more sensitive to 'red' where as film film, is more sensitive to blue. Panchromatic film was a compromise to give better representation to the 'reds'. You can see this in old photos and movies, where 'redish' areas, especially human lips look much 'darker' than they seem to be in 'color'. The digital sensor has compensation for the 'red' sensitivity difference, but results in more 'noise' in the 'blue/bluish' areas of an image on a digital image.
 
I can say that enjoy the look of black and white film compared to video converted to b&w. I shot a short with the Panasonic DVX100B, and converted it to black and white. On set, I desregarded color temperature, knowing that I was converting to b&w. In the final product, i could see almost what seemed like a greenish tint in the whites. With all the color correction i tried, i couldn't make it look natural. Here's a short I did on Kodak Plus-X and Kodak Tri-X B&W stocks. It looks so much more natural. edit: i did this with broken light meter (which my school lent to me), so it was all shot by only using the light meter as a suggestion. Then I did i light pass in 3-way color correction in FCP.


It short, if your shooting B&W, shoot film, its so much better.
 
Joe Calabrese said:
I can say that enjoy the look of black and white film compared to video converted to b&w. I shot a short with the Panasonic DVX100B, and converted it to black and white. On set, I desregarded color temperature, knowing that I was converting to b&w. In the final product, i could see almost what seemed like a greenish tint in the whites. With all the color correction i tried, i couldn't make it look natural. Here's a short I did on Kodak Plus-X and Kodak Tri-X B&W stocks. It looks so much more natural. edit: i did this with broken light meter (which my school lent to me), so it was all shot by only using the light meter as a suggestion. Then I did i light pass in 3-way color correction in FCP.

It short, if your shooting B&W, shoot film, its so much better.
Click to expand...

In Final Cut Express, and presumably in FCP, there is the video filter 'Channel Mixer'. If the 'monochrome' option is selected, you should not see any 'color fringing', provided your monitor is setup. (You can also mix back in some of the 'color' image to get some of those fancy 'greyed off' color looks...)

I don't think using the color corrector is the appropriate tool for transforming to B&W, or tweeking B&W. Since I have After Effects, if I wanted to change the characteristics of the B&W, I'd head for the 'curves' filter, and change things there.

Now if I wanted to add a 'sepia' or perhaps add a bluish cast, since many people preceive 'blue/violet' to be a better B&W cast, I'd look at adding a solid color layer then using some blending mode like multiply to give a 'cast'. I'd have to experiment with it to really tell which worked better...

Then again I didn't do too much color matching in FC to really get familiar with the color correction tools...

If in 'monochrome' you still see a color cast, then perhaps a monitor calibration is in order...

(As a note, was the B&W film film you shot positive or negative film?)
 
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