The Quiet Picture

Recently I’ve been thinking about digital noise and wondering if it’s time for me to switch to full frame. But every digital camera has noise, the only difference is how the photographer sees it. My noise threshold is low, probably because the digital noise seems too patterned to me. Film grain on the other hand is random. If you claim that you prefer the noise to film grain, then I bet you’ve never seen a Velvia slide up close! Or then you just really like noise (or you’re really young and think that analogue cameras belong to a museum together with vinyl records). I remember when I switched to digital and was looking at the nearly noise-free ISO 100 images, the smoothness blew me away. Now I look at my old slides and see the grain in Velvia 50 and think that it’s beautiful! Grain is the nature of film, it’s part of its charm (your mileage may vary), but noise is just… well, noise.

Just to have an idea of the noise on a full frame camera, I tested a Canon 5D Mark II and to be honest, I wasn’t impressed. I was seeing a lot more noise than I had expected after reading all the positive reviews, so the 25K investment is not justified in any way, even if it looked like the noise was more random (thus more tolerable) than it is on my 40D. When it comes to full frame, I get to play with it on my cheap 2nd hand film camera anyway. Will be nice to see how my lenses perform, the 15mm fish-eye in particular should be interesting.

So with regard to getting back to film photography, there isn’t really any big reason to do it, it’s more of a feeling than a rational move. But here’s one thought: When I switched from film to digital, it quickly improved my photography thanks to the quick feedback. Now that I’ll start using film again, I’m actually half expecting it will make me a better photographer because it will slow me down!

I’m going to do something radical – go back to film!

Ok ok, not really going back but I will get a film camera again. I think I once mentioned half kidding that I want a medium format camera (2nd hand kits come cheap these days), but now I decided to settle with 35mm. The reason it’s happening now is that my 40D has to go to service and although I’ve played with the thought of relying on my G10 during that time, in the end I just couldn’t cope with the idea of living without an SLR. Besides, an analogue SLR is a whole lot more fun than a digital compact!

The running costs of shooting film will be high, because now I have to pay for each exposure. But then again this is a hobby – the most important part is that I enjoy it. The feeling of seeing the new slides on the light table is quite simply unbeatable, I’ve missed it from the very beginning when I switched to digital. You can think of it this way – with film you have to finish the picture before you press the shutter, so you better make sure you got everything right. With digital, you can snap and check the LCD, and try again… and then download the RAWs and start working on them. It kind of dilutes the sense of achievement even if the picture turns out to be great. I’m not very disciplined so if an easy road is offered to me (like checking the histogram instead of double checking exposure beforehand), I’ll take it. Slide film doesn’t offer any such shortcuts.

And let’s face it – digital captures may be cheap, but the digital cameras sure ain’t!

A 5D mkII costs about 25000 SEK and a used 5D (mk I) costs about 10000 SEK. I’m getting an EOS 3, which is roughly the film equivalent of a 5D (mk whatever). Back when it was still sold as new, it cost about 12-13K but I’m now getting it for about 10% of the original price. Before I switched to digital, I had an EOS 5 which was 3′s predecessor. The 5′s can still be found and they would be even cheaper than a 3, but I didn’t want the same camera I once sold myself and the price isn’t an issue in any case, not when people are just trying to get rid of their old kit.

Having said that, my decision has nothing to do with money (other than realising that it isn’t such a big investment at all). It’s just a desire to try something new – or old, as the case may be!

Not purely photography related, but I sure got a good laugh!

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It was supposed to be overcast with a chance (risk) of snow, so I figured I had good odds at photographing the creek I was betting was still open. My theory is that if you can see your shadow, it’s not good for waterfall photography. So when I got to the creek (had to do some very serious wading through the snow, even with snowshoes on), the sun started coming out. I made a few half-hearted efforts but gradually lost my inspiration as my shadow was growing more distinct. Packed my gear and pulsed through the snow again and when I got back on the road, the clouds started moving in again. 

[sarcasm]What a lucky break.[/sarcasm]

Is it just my imagination or is that a silhouette of a wolf’s head in the ice? Or a pig. I can’t decide. Anyway, it’s very unusual I see things like this and now this is the second time in a week. I think my brain is going soft.

Interesting – first month since Feb 2007 that it didn’t get above freezing. Or it did, but it was frozen by the time I got home and made my observations. So nevermind. Anyway, one thing is for sure – we now have more snow than we’ve had since I started making these observations. And I’m pretty sure it’s the highest snow cover since I moved to Loos, and now even the locals are saying that we have a lot of snow. In a place which is used to snow, I guess that’s a lot then.

Things you never thought you’d hear me say: I think we have enough snow now. For one thing, my snow meter is only graded to 80 cm so I’ll have to start improvising if we get more. And secondly, spring would be nice. Flowers. Green. Summer.

Observations missing for 3 days, it was cold and snowing during those days.

Temperature (High): -3°C
Temperature (Low): -15°C
Temperature (Average): -9°C

Barometer (High): 1029 mbar
Barometer (Low): 998 mbar
Barometer (Avg): 1014 mbar

Total of sunny days: 7

Snow cover (High): 75 cm
Snow cover (Low): 51 cm
Snow cover (Avg): 64 cm
New snow: 33 cm
Days with snowfall: 13

2007
2008
January 2009