One of the things digital makes possible
Apr. 24th, 2009 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumVariation. Before I got the D2H, I carried two camera bodies. That way I could shoot two film stocks. I could look at a picture and decide if I wanted to shoot color, or black and white.
Or, with a bit more planning, I could pack two different stocks in color/B&W (lets say, Fujichrome 100/Kodachrome 64 or Tech-Pan/Tri-x), and get different color space/tonal range/contrast images.
Both of those options required either duplicating lenses, or swapping them. To get precisely the same framing I'd need to use a tripod. The only other way to manage it was to use my Hassleblad, and swap backs.
Not so with the digital. Editing applications let me play with how things look. If the app allows me to save the tweaks (Photoshop will let one build an "action" LightZone will let one save a "style". I confess I don't know how to build actions. Styles import a set of actions, which can then be tweaked some more, to tailor them to quirks of the specific image. This came in really handy when I was asked to edit about 700 photos for a book on felting. It was pretty straightforward. There were about six errors, which meant I could do them in batches. If they were fixed, then I was done. That meant the time for the fiddly bits was a lot greater, and I didn't have to spend five-ten minutes on each one, but I digress).
Compare this picture, which did my best to render "true to life":
With this version, which I think reminiscent of Kodachrome 200:
No need to swap cameras, use a tripod, etc.
A couple of minutes later I took this:
Which I treated to the set of tweaks I'd saved as "Kodachrome 200"
Not needing to carry a second body around means my camera bag is either lighter, or has more stuff in it (the answer is, lighter; and more stuff. I've dropped a body/lens combination (because I had a lens on each body, based on the sorts of things I was most likely to default to color/B&W), and added a different pair of lenses (the second lens covered some of the same area as the one on the other camera), and I can have the exact same image, in as many color/spaces as I like.
Or, with a bit more planning, I could pack two different stocks in color/B&W (lets say, Fujichrome 100/Kodachrome 64 or Tech-Pan/Tri-x), and get different color space/tonal range/contrast images.
Both of those options required either duplicating lenses, or swapping them. To get precisely the same framing I'd need to use a tripod. The only other way to manage it was to use my Hassleblad, and swap backs.
Not so with the digital. Editing applications let me play with how things look. If the app allows me to save the tweaks (Photoshop will let one build an "action" LightZone will let one save a "style". I confess I don't know how to build actions. Styles import a set of actions, which can then be tweaked some more, to tailor them to quirks of the specific image. This came in really handy when I was asked to edit about 700 photos for a book on felting. It was pretty straightforward. There were about six errors, which meant I could do them in batches. If they were fixed, then I was done. That meant the time for the fiddly bits was a lot greater, and I didn't have to spend five-ten minutes on each one, but I digress).
Compare this picture, which did my best to render "true to life":
With this version, which I think reminiscent of Kodachrome 200:
No need to swap cameras, use a tripod, etc.
A couple of minutes later I took this:
Which I treated to the set of tweaks I'd saved as "Kodachrome 200"
Not needing to carry a second body around means my camera bag is either lighter, or has more stuff in it (the answer is, lighter; and more stuff. I've dropped a body/lens combination (because I had a lens on each body, based on the sorts of things I was most likely to default to color/B&W), and added a different pair of lenses (the second lens covered some of the same area as the one on the other camera), and I can have the exact same image, in as many color/spaces as I like.
