Experimental Grainy image

[tbob]

Opinions on this, may not be my long term style for processing

I decided to go quite wild. Maximum harsh grain and sharpness.

[JBW]

perhaps if you were to just apply it to the structure?

[tbob]

perhaps if you were to just apply it to the structure?

Debated that Brian. However my thought was it would look like really bad focus, and not intent, if not applied overall to be "artsy"

[DanK]

Sorry, but this processing looks bad to my taste. It just looks noisy and oversharpened.

Other than that, I like the image, although I would crop some from the right.

[xpatUSA]

Sorry, but this processing looks bad to my taste. It just looks noisy and oversharpened.

+1

[John 2]

IMHO this treatment has its place but only with a suitable subject. For me, the problem here is that the subject and the treatment are not complimentary. But it's worth persevering.

[tbob]

Thanks all

I may try this on something else. This was the first go at it. I may try it off and on until i find a suitable subject (as I have not clue one what that constitutes)

Any thoughts if shooting at high ISO would be a detriment or benefit to the overall effect?

[xpatUSA]

Thanks all

Any thoughts if shooting at high ISO would be a detriment or of benefit to the overall effect?

Perhaps, Trevor ... but here's a detrimental Sigma DP1M shot, at 6400 ISO and cropped 1500x1000px:



... so perhaps not - depending on your camera!

The grain achieved by high-ISO noise is not global, that's fer sure ... check out the lamp with it's graded noise.

[DanK]

Any thoughts if shooting at high ISO would be a detriment or benefit to the overall effect?

generally, a detriment, I would think, since if you rely on in camera amplification rather than postprocessing to add noise, you lose control over the characteristics of the noise

It's all a matter of taste, but I rarely find graininess appealing. It was a cost we had to bear in the old days for increased film speed, but now it's easier to avoid that cost. Just my taste.

[Shadowman]

I think it would look good if applied to the structure only, one thing I've noticed about adding grain/noise is that it disrupts the edges of objects (skin especially) that should visually remain smooth.

[tbob]

This thought came to me when I came across an old photography book from sixties.Reminded me this was quite the artsy genre then; people would specifically shoot special grainy black and white film (as well as high contrast film) and the results were quite admired.

[DanK]

people would specifically shoot special grainy black and white film

Interesting. I wonder about the history of this. Some genres required fast film--e.g., candids of jazz musicians in clubs. And "fast" film--Tri-X--was only 400 with its normal processing. That often wasn't enough, and if you had to push it in developing, that made it grainier yet. So I wonder if grain was initially just a by-product of the technical limits of film that some people then associated with "artsy" because of the genres of photography that had to bear that price. However, I have no idea. I do have read a bit about the history of photography, but I don't recall any explanation of this.

If you look at fine-art black and white portrait photography, you rarely see any sign of this, at least in the photos I have looked at.

If you like the Tri-X look and the look of other classic B&W films, SilverEfex has a bunch. They are fun to play with because you can watch the tone curve change as you switch from one to the next.

[Manfred M]

Trevor, your shot is not working for me either, specifically for the reasons others have already given.

Back in the film days, I would on occasion push fast (high ISO) B&W film fairly hard to enhance the grain in the shot. It worked quite well for action shots, for instance male athletes at sporting events (I did not find it was particularly effective for women, but that might have just been personal taste), theatre, etc. I found that it was not at all to my liking in landscape work and in fact I switched to very low ISO (AgfaPan 25 was my favourite) to cut the film grain down to levels where it was non-existent in the final print.

Grain in colour in faster negative and positive films was something I never really liked so Kodachrome 25 was my film of choice for a lot of work. When that film was discontinued, I shot Kodachrome 64 and that made some beautiful Cibachrome prints. For current landscape work, I tend to shoot at base ISO as much as I can, just to make sure that digital noise has been minimized.

[tbob]

I usually shoot at the lowest ISO I can use, for the very reasons you do. I even used the same film!

This was one of those attempts to break out of my mold (mould may be more appropriate)

[xpatUSA]

A general question about film noise:

Does the grain noise (or should I say SNR?) vary with the local exposure?

I posted a seriously noisy indoor shot in post #8 where the SNR is inversely proportional to the local image brightness. I wonder how the lampshade would have looked on film.

Pardon my ignorance: my only serious photographic experience is digital.

[Manfred M]

A general question about film noise:

Does the grain noise (or should I say SNR?) vary with the local exposure?

I posted a seriously noisy indoor shot in post #8 where the SNR is inversely proportional to the local image brightness. I wonder how the lampshade would have looked on film.

Pardon my ignorance: my only serious photographic experience is digital.

No. Film grain was purely related to the size of the silver halide crystals in the emulsion. Slower films would use incorporate smaller crystals while faster film would use larger ones. There is a bit of a parallel in sensor technology; smaller senses are less sensitive to light than larger ones.

In film certain developers would give a slightly smaller grain structure while “pushing” the film by underexposing relative to the film ISO and compensating by increasing development time would result in a larger grain structure. Film grain in the film emulsion is evenly distributed in undeveloped film, but that would vary by film density after exposure. Areas that were hit by light would turn black as the silver salts are turned to metallic silver during development, but unexposed areas would not and the silver salts would be dissolved by the fixing process.