Photorealism gives the impression of capturing the truth, but any reasonably skilled photographer knows this isn't the case.
Text generated by LLMs has similar properties.
When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
21–30 of 42 posts
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#22Photo-receptive chemical immitations will never be real art
Commission a painter
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#23> This meant toting hundreds of pounds of equipment — including volatile chemicals, a darkroom tent and fragile glass plates — to wherever they hoped to snap a scene. I am something of a "photography genealogist" for the family. My father's half-aunt lived to be 103, never had children, and left behind a suitcase stuffed with photos — going back to a tintype of her mother from the 1880's. I was lucky the suitcase was…
> So sad that we traded fast lenses and film for color. I am not sure the quality ever quite caught up again to the better B&W until we get to modern digital. Can you explain why color film would be a tradeoff against fast lenses? Can't you use the exact same lens with color or B&W? Or what you mean by "traded film for color"? After all, color film existed decades before digital.
Maybe someone else knows why black and white film looks sharper and has more detail then. Was there a race to the bottom in terms of optics when color film showed up in the consumer camera? Is it because they moved to a smaller film stock than the medium format 120 film that was common in B&W cameras before color? Or is color film, with three layers of gelatin, an inherently "noisier" film stock?
I don't know. I only observe the quality fall off when color arrives. Worse, I am not even sure. that my mom's 35mm camera (Canon AE-1) in the 70's shot as good and crisp photos as the B&W cameras in the family in the 40's (before she was born though).
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So sad that we traded fast lenses and film for color. I am not sure the quality ever quite caught up again to the better B&W until we get to modern digital. Can you explain why color film would be a tradeoff against fast lenses? Can't you use the exact same lens with color or B&W? Or what you mean by "traded film for color"? After all, color film existed decades before digital.
Maybe someone else knows why black and white film looks sharper and has more detail then. Was there a race to the bottom in terms of optics when color film showed up in the consumer camera? Is it because they moved to a smaller film stock than the medium format 120 film that was common in B&W cameras before color? Or is color film, with three layers of gelatin, an inherently "noisier" film stock? I don't know. I only…
There’s multiple things going on.
The larger the film stock, the easier it is to get a certain final resolution. Both because the film itself needs to be magnified less when creating the final print and because the lenses don’t need to create as small of an image.
And BW film even today is still MUCH sharper, even if just perceptually, than color film.
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#25> This meant toting hundreds of pounds of equipment — including volatile chemicals, a darkroom tent and fragile glass plates — to wherever they hoped to snap a scene. I am something of a "photography genealogist" for the family. My father's half-aunt lived to be 103, never had children, and left behind a suitcase stuffed with photos — going back to a tintype of her mother from the 1880's. I was lucky the suitcase was…
> Suddenly in the 1950's square color photos appear in the collection and the quality is actually some of the worst of all the family photos. Could part of the problem be that color photos, especially early ones, did not age as well as B&W?
That's a good point. I do digitally correct the scans — which often does pull up the more faded colors getting the color balance often very close to something that looks neutral or normal.
Detail though never appears.
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#26> This meant toting hundreds of pounds of equipment — including volatile chemicals, a darkroom tent and fragile glass plates — to wherever they hoped to snap a scene. I am something of a "photography genealogist" for the family. My father's half-aunt lived to be 103, never had children, and left behind a suitcase stuffed with photos — going back to a tintype of her mother from the 1880's. I was lucky the suitcase was…
> So sad that we traded fast lenses and film for color. I am not sure the quality ever quite caught up again to the better B&W until we get to modern digital. Can you explain why color film would be a tradeoff against fast lenses? Can't you use the exact same lens with color or B&W? Or what you mean by "traded film for color"? After all, color film existed decades before digital.
[I am not agreeing with the grandparent comment]
Color film typically benefits from optical coatings on the lenses and coated lenses are common from about 1950 onward and uncommon before WWII.
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe someone else knows why black and white film looks sharper and has more detail then. Was there a race to the bottom in terms of optics when color film showed up in the consumer camera? Is it because they moved to a smaller film stock than the medium format 120 film that was common in B&W cameras before color? Or is color film, with three layers of gelatin, an inherently "noisier" film stock? I don't know. I only…
There’s multiple things going on. The larger the film stock, the easier it is to get a certain final resolution. Both because the film itself needs to be magnified less when creating the final print and because the lenses don’t need to create as small of an image. And BW film even today is still MUCH sharper, even if just perceptually, than color film.
No one has ever looked at a photograph and wept because it was so sharp...
...of course many photographers have wept because a photograph wasn't sharp.
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe someone else knows why black and white film looks sharper and has more detail then. Was there a race to the bottom in terms of optics when color film showed up in the consumer camera? Is it because they moved to a smaller film stock than the medium format 120 film that was common in B&W cameras before color? Or is color film, with three layers of gelatin, an inherently "noisier" film stock? I don't know. I only…
There’s multiple things going on. The larger the film stock, the easier it is to get a certain final resolution. Both because the film itself needs to be magnified less when creating the final print and because the lenses don’t need to create as small of an image. And BW film even today is still MUCH sharper, even if just perceptually, than color film.
> And BW film even today is still MUCH sharper, even if just perceptually, than color film.
Maybe perceptually - due to stronger contrast and perhaps also the fact that B&W film often comes in higher speeds and probably incurs less motion blur of the subject overall.
But I don't think it's actually objectively sharper per se?
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#29The discourse around photography and art reminds me exactly of the discourse around AI and art too: https://medium.com/@aaronhertzmann/how-photography-became-an... In some cases pieces I've read on AI and art contain phrases or paragraphs that are almost word for word identical to photography and art discourse. There were moral panics around photography too, especially its obvious use in pornography. There was of cou…
A counterpoint: photography enabled integrity and authenticity of images, which fueled journalistic credibility, in general becoming one part in fostering a high-trust society. AI image generation leads to these advances being slowly eradicated as generated images increasingly cannot be differentiated from unfabricated evidence. In this light, photography was socially progressive, while AI generation of photorealisti…
> photography enabled integrity and authenticity of images, which fueled journalistic credibility
Countercounterpoint: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So sad that we traded fast lenses and film for color. I am not sure the quality ever quite caught up again to the better B&W until we get to modern digital. Can you explain why color film would be a tradeoff against fast lenses? Can't you use the exact same lens with color or B&W? Or what you mean by "traded film for color"? After all, color film existed decades before digital.
Maybe someone else knows why black and white film looks sharper and has more detail then. Was there a race to the bottom in terms of optics when color film showed up in the consumer camera? Is it because they moved to a smaller film stock than the medium format 120 film that was common in B&W cameras before color? Or is color film, with three layers of gelatin, an inherently "noisier" film stock? I don't know. I only…
Your square color photos are almost certainly made from medium format film!
The most common frame size used in 120 is a 6x6cm square, especially in consumer cameras of the time. 6x6 cameras stayed popular for snapshots because they could be contact printed straight from the negative, without an enlarger. A whole roll of 120 can be contact printed onto a single sheet of paper and then cut. Much cheaper and faster than enlarging 35mm negatives.
With film there’s no such thing as a b&w specific camera. The difference you’re seeing is probably down to the glass in whatever cheap & cheerful 6x6 rangefinder they took those 1950s family snaps on, vs the photos from the AE-1 which is an all time great camera & lens system.