After a dreadful grey start winter has been quite colourful since January. This gave me an opportunity to further explore color film photography. And as usual, I wrote a post about the result for 35mmc.com:

http://www.35mmc.com/22/03/2016/quest-colour-guest-post-aukje/

This time, apart from merely sharing the link and some photos, I want to add something. Where 35mmc.com is mainly focussed on film photography, for me my digital camera is still my main tool. And although I am trying to find the difference characteristics between digital and film to be able to find the best use for each, I also like to compare the results in order to get a grip of what is and what isn’t possible with each tool. So with this post I want to show some comparisons between results with the digital M 240 and the analogue M2.

Late last year, in november, I shot my first roll of color film with the M2. It was early morning, the colors in the sky were wonderful, and I was very excited about the result of my first exposure. When I got the film back I was really disappointed. The film result was really deprived of the colors I remembered from that specific morning, and which I captured with the digital camera. In the comparison below the difference is obvious, with digital on the left and film on the right.

I got some useful comments on my photos, some suggested doing more post-processing. But with this right photo there is not much to be gained. Even adding saturation in post is not bringing colour back. There is just nothing to work with. In hind side I suspect that this film was under-exposed.

From then on I tried to be more consistent with exposure, measuring each time and making sure I over-expose at least one stop, preferable two (if there is enough light available). Below you can see the results from a very rainy morning, meaning difficult light. Again digital on the left, film on the right. This time I am pretty pleased with the result. Even with the overcast sky there is color, and they are similar to the digital ones. A result that I would expect based on my experience with digital photography.

Luckily there were a couple of mornings with lots of colour in the sky, and here too I am pretty pleased with the result. I guess being more consistent with exposure pays off. A big difference however is the color temperature and tint. Below the left and middle photos are digital result, the right is the film photo. The auto-white balance of the M 240 made the sky a kind of purple blue (left photo), and this matches the sky as I remember it pretty well. However the film result is more turquoise, or green. I could make a decent match in colour by adjusting the white balance in the digital file (middle photo). If you then compare the two the colours match, and even the saturation levels seem to be quite similar. A not here: the actual color you get with film depends on the characteristics of the film itself (in this case Fuji pro 400H), but it also depends on the scanning. I don’t know how much the person at the scanner adjusted white balance to create this. But, although different from the original digital file, I do like the colors a lot, and at least it gives me a different perspective on my digital files. I would not have come to such a result without this film example.

A similar result from a different day, but the colors are pretty identical to the ones above. Again, original digital file on the left, film on the right, and digital file with adjusted white balance in the middle.

Here is a third example. In this case the film (on the right) did seem much less saturated than the digital photo on the right. However, the digital photo is much darker, which may cause the difference. The film file does have color, and in this case there is enough to work with. So here I tried to do some post-processing on the film file to try to match the digital file: I decreased exposure, changed the white balance and added vibrance. The result is shown in the middle, and now they match very well.

I think the point I want to make is that I found with this roll of film the result appears different, but there is enough information on the film to create the same look. So any apparent differences are only differences in post processing, choices either made by the camera (for digital camera’s with jpeg presets), by me (with the raw digital files) or by the guy at the scanner in the photo lab. With the correct exposure the film file will have as much information to work with as a digital file. But the film results did gave me an eye-opener with respect to possible looks, and I think there might be something there that I really like.

Thanks for reading!