Flowers: C-5050/D7000/FG

This is, admittedly, sort of a random, grab-bag of leftovers.

Let’s look at them in order of sensor size.

Once again, digital wins in terms of contrast, color and saturation; film wins in terms of soul.

And, again, they’re all pictures, and all have some sort of purpose. It’s probably more preference than anything.

I honestly can’t say which I like best… I like the picture from the C-5050; I like the glossiness from the D7000, largely because it was my first ‘proper’ camera; I like the character in the film.

All in all, I’m glad I did this. The results are much as I expected.

It’ll be interesting to go out with one lens, two bodies, and a body cap, set the D7000 at the same ISO as whatever film is in the FG, and then shoot the same pictures, more or less, from more or less the same angle… Maybe a day with the Zomb-E… or maybe 6 shots with 6 lenses, or 12 shots with 3 lenses… something like that.

But that’ll have to wait awhile. Work and life is rather busy just now, Alhamdulillah.

Bokeh Battle: D7000/FG

Bokeh really is all about the size of the recording medium.

Again, it’s contrast, saturation, sharpness vs raw physicality. But this time, the difference between the 1.5 crop and the ‘full frame’ is obvious… InshaAllah one day I’ll get my hands on a medium format or 4×5 (or 8×10…) and see what real bokeh looks like.

Different Circumstances: D7000/FG

So these pictures are more or less different: one is in a greenhouse on a bright, sunny day; the other is at a roadside picnic spot on a cloudy day.

But there’s something similar, maybe, compositionally anyway.

Again, the differences come down to saturation, contrast, sharpness. But there’s also grain & bokeh.

The grain off the Lomography Color 400 film, and the bokeh off that (relatively) big slab of film just whollop the 1.5 crop CMOS in the D7000.  The film photograph is physicial, it has a tactility in and of itself that is quite simply missing from the digital picture.

But the digital wins in terms of color, saturation, sharpness, and contrast, if that’s what you’re into.

And from time to time, that’s precisely something to be into; and so is the physicality in the film.

Again, no winners or losers, just pictures.

Looking through, looking past: LC-A/C-5050/D7000/FG

Continuing on with the compare/contrast event, here are some examples of looking through things, looking past things, with two small, point-and-shoot-type cameras and two slr-type cameras: the Lomo LC-A, Olympus C-5050, Nikon D7000 and Nikon FG.

This isn’t quite as straightforward a comparison as yesterday’s, and it’s more about lens characteristics than anything else.

But one thing is clear: at this level, the differences due to recording medium (2x 24x36mm film; one 1/1.8″ CCD sensor; one 16x24mm CMOS sensor) are less readily apparent than I imagined they might be, but still fairly clear, methinks.

Color, contrast, saturation are similar: the LC-A falls a bit short, but that’s probably due to film choice or lens characteristics.

Blur is probably best in the FG, but the others are no slouch. Granted, its a bit busy in the digital shots, but that’s due to framing and composition more than anything else.

Once again, it appears as if it’s about pictures, rather than about cameras.

Shocker, I know.

Olympus C-5050 / Lomo LC-A

I ended up at 3 different nurseries with 3 different cameras. I didn’t much realize it until later, but it makes for a good opportunity to compare/contrast digital and film cameras.

Disclaimer: I’m not interested in disparaging either: pretty, fun, decent, mediocre, bad, artistic, etc. pictures have been made with both, and it’s not about the camera, or the format, or the film, or the lens, or anything, really—a photograph is a photograph, a good photograph is a good photograph, and a bad photograph is a bad photograph no matter the format.

But it’ll be fun to compare/contrast anyway.

First up: similar shots from the LC-A and Olympus C-5050.

The color, contrast, and saturation are far more pronounced with the digital, and the image is a bit sharper.

But the light was flatter in the greenhouse with the LC-A, and it was later in the day.

I have to say, as pictures, I don’t much mind either of these. Maybe the C-5050 wins in the glossy race; but the LC-A wins, hands down, in the fun race… Continue reading “Olympus C-5050 / Lomo LC-A”