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Film bokeh 20213/3/2024 ![]() For this second part, I decided to shoot underground, in the Hong Kong subway system. Then for good measure, I also included Cinestill 800 for this comparison. I needed the extra stop to shoot above 1/30th of a second, for the sake of the reciprocal rule. Given insufficient available light, the two lenses I used for this comparison were the current version Leica 35mm f/1.4 Summilux ASPH FLE and the vintage 35mm f/1.4 Summilux Double Aspherical (AA). As a result, I was forced to shoot wide open. Cinestill 50 wasn't the best choice, since it wasn't fast enough to provide me sufficient available daylight to shoot stopped down with greater focus accuracy. Unfortunately, the sky wasn't cooperating on the day of my shoot. I had to dismiss any suspicion of bias against film which I might be accused of having. I wanted to make sure that I handicapped the comparison in favor of modern lenses in film capture. I wanted to use the finest grain film I had, in order to optimize the sharpness of the image captured by the modern lens. But to know for sure, The only way to be certain is to compare the performance of a modern lens against that of a vintage lens, while shooting the same film on both cameras. That I'm assuming based on the anecdotal evidence I've experienced with digital and with film. From my perspective, modern lenses are designed to optimize sharpness on digital capture, since it's suppose to retain greater detail at resolutions beyond that of film. I wanted to see if it made sense to use modern lenses when shooting film. So it was under this cloud of uncertainty I found myself, when I conducted the shoot for this article. It isn't an ideal situation, but again, what is one to do when the available light isn't enough to stop down for greater focus accuracy? For the sake of composition, you're forced to shift your camera out of confirmed focus, thus potentially losing focus altogether. There's no more unsettling doubt when shooting wide open on a manual film camera than reframing a shot after confirming focus. If not, you're going to miss focus, since the paper thin depth of field leaves no room for error. The only problem is, your shooting fundamentals had better be up to standard. The only solution left is to shoot wide open with a very fast lens. And we cannot slow down the shutter speed, given the reciprocal rule. One needs to widen the depth of field, in order to increase the chance of getting focus.īut what is a film photographer to do, when the available light is insufficient? We cannot bump up the ISO, with film already loaded and shot halfway down the roll. Consequently, the correct practice to follow is to stop down when shooting film, given the absence of high ISO, image stabilization, and focusing aids. It's no wonder then that shooting wide open with film is significantly more trying than digital, especially with a manual focus rangefinder. With advances in autofocus technology along with focusing aids, getting tack focus wide open in the dark is no longer a hardship. Whatever problem we used to have is a thing of the past.īy contrast, shooting film today is definitely a thing of the past. ![]() Though truth be told, the only reason why we even do this is because we can. Yet despite all the advances in technology, we still prefer to shoot wide open in low light - mainly for the bokeh. Nowadays, we can stop down to increase depth of field in suboptimal light for the sake of increasing sharpness and focus accuracy. In our modern era of image stabilization and high ISO digital photography, shooting wide open is no longer required in low light.
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