Okay, so I just got a gibe about how if one does capture in color with a digital camera, that it still cannot match the quality, tonal range or beauty of B&W film. Once again, I say poppycock! Let’s have a look.
My friend Jim Moore needed a quick shot after hours for a FOID card that he was renewing. As it was too late to go to one of the photo stores’ passport photo setups, he gave me a call, and I obliged. Now, Jim doesn’t like mussing about, so I got to squeeze off exactly two frames before he was bored, and luckily I got not only a pleasant shot he could use for his FOID card, but this one as well. I think he actually likes this one more, as it makes him look tougher than even Clint Eastwood. The problem with that of course, is it doesn’t look nearly as intimidating in color as it does in B&W, so in less than 5 minutes in Lightroom, and I had this result:
A side-by-side comparison of the original in both color and B&W as seen in the Develop module of Lightroom.
The shot setup was as simple as it can get for a 5 minute prep time in the studio: Our stock Thunder Grey seamless, a single Bowens QuaDX head with 15″ Bowens Softlite reflector (a beauty dish + counter reflector) on a Bowens QuaDX 3000 power pack. The exposure was metered at f/11 for ISO100.
Many people ask me just how I get such rich results from Lightroom for my B&W conversions. I won’t be modest here, but 25 years’ experience in the darkroom really helps. I guess I’m lucky to have learned the old way before it was too late, but there are few experiences in the world that compare to pulling prints on graded paper under a cold light in a traditional wet darkroom. After years and years of having to be patient overnight just to see one’s dry-down results, and after awhile you get a knack for it. But just in case you’re wondering where I start, I’ve saved the little recipe I used here for you to play with in Lightroom on your own:
And, here is a more detailed result of the above preset:
Detailed output of the Lightroom settings described above.
Octabox 78" double weighted on boom. Notice that even at just 1,200w/s it's managing to match the raw sunlight pouring onto the studio floor in front of it. This could prove useful for outdoor synchro sun work.
Okay, so I light with panel style scrims a lot, everyone knows this. It’s an old Hollywood way of controlling light, and I’ve found it to be the most versatile, flexible, beautiful way of setting the proper diffused value of subjects. Now, I’m not opposed to softboxes, nor do I have anything against them philosophically. In fact, on a recent location shoot for an executive portrait I kept reminding myself how much less time and fuss it would have been to just have brought a medium sized softbox.
Even in the studio I think softboxes have their place. Although I think we have a nice sized studio, we don’t have an aircraft hangar, and so controlling spill and bounce can be challenging at times. I think that this year we might just invest in some nice Plume Wafers for just this sort of thing. But, I have to say that since we already have great rectangular panel scrims, I still wanted to have a nice, round-ish softbox too. Round really has its place: both for the even, radial fall-off and of course for the shape of catchlights it creates in subjects’ eyes. Well, I took a look at the beautiful, hand sewn Chimera OctaPlus 57 model and then the fabric grids for it. Then, after I picked myself up off the floor over the $2,500 cost, I started looking around. After all, I really only wanted to see if such a monster would suit my needs as a “softbox” without sinking $2,5k into the experiment.
Alright, alright – so I’m a big believer in HUGE light sources, but that’s probably just me. My all time favorite lighting source is the 78″x78″ scrim, but that requires two rolling stands and a third for the source. That’s a lot of set space. But, I also like small, controllable point sources like fresnels, optical spots and beauty dishes. Having a mix of the two always seems to suit my shooting style best. Interestingly enough, I managed to get the best of both worlds out of this thing, thanks to my friend Tim Stotz, who came over to the studio to be the subject of my tests. As we were trying the different combinations of interior baffles, front diffusers, etc, Tim suggested we try one with just the bare bulb raw light inside the octabank and simply add the fabric grid to the front. Bingo – awesome result! A large, soft-ish light source with direction, and an interesting cookaloris pattern to boot:
Tim Stotz in front of 78" Octabox with just the fabric grid attached. This awesome effect is thanks to Tim Stotz's suggestion - one I never had considered.
See? It’s always great to have other creatives around when you’re trying new things. Thanks Tim!
Then again, it’s important to be able to take advantage of such a huge, contained source’s ability to control the soft diffused quality with its double diffusion & fabric grid all in place. Below you can see the effects of the same octabank on the same cyc at about the same distance. The only difference between this and the shot of Tim above is that this time instead of having the light at subject height from 45º left of camera, I had it directly over the camera aimed down at around 30º to the subject on axis with the lens:
The perfect "North light" too. Short of a skylight, this is where it's at for this look.
Okay, so the thing is a beast to handle, weighs more than it should, doesn’t really have a shallow profile, and frankly is a bit floppier & sloppier than I suspect is the Chimera version. And, I probably ought to upgrade its mounting with some true grip gear so that we’re not putting so much gaff on the flash head’s bayonet mount. But, the real appeal for me is the 33 sq.ft. of soft, contained light that is directional, radial, and in this case somewhat focusable.
In the course of my digital career over the past decade, I get asked time and again whether or not I miss the control, beauty and overall experience of having a complete B&W darkroom. The simple answer is: “No.” Alright, so there is something wistfully nostalgic about secluding oneself alone in the darkroom to mix chemistry, run water baths and watch in amazement again and again as a latent print image emerges from below the Dektol in a tray, but really I don’t miss it. Really.
“But there is something about B&W prints that digital just can’t match”, I hear. Okay, for selenium toned silver prints, or luscious palladium contact prints I agree; there is something to the medium in nice gallery lighting that is hard to match, but it never stopped Graham Nash or Stephen Johnson. “But digital can’t match the tone & range of B&W film!”
That’s poppycock. Let’s look. Here’s a Scitex CT scan done in 1999 from one of my more iconic images:
Scitex CT scan of black hands & flower.
And, you know something? That’s pretty much what the contact sheets looked like on a grade 1 paper with low contrast proofing development. The negative is thin (as intended, and as correct) but the full range of tones are there in both the neg and the excellent scan. Just check the histogram:
Lightroom histogram of shot above.
Of course, as with any B&W photographer, how I imagined the final print to be from the shot was something entirely different. The setup of this shot was rather simple: I found a model with massive black hands, and then found a variety of small white flowers for him to gently hold. I had him lay his hands over a black velvet tabletop, and uses a single overhead parabolic reflector with mylar diffusion for the lighting. Armed with my Hasselbald 500 CM, Planar 100mm f/3.5 CF, and Kodak Plus-X film, I proceeded to take a series of shots all metered with the flower placed on Zone 8, and let everything else fall along the curve. The result was an image that printed like this:
Same Scitex CT scan processed in LR via RGB for selenium tone effect.
And, let’s see just what happened to that Lightroom histogram:
Lightroom histogram of shot after processing.
Notice that not only do we achieve the full range of the negative, but we can even detect the red-blue shift (purple) that emerged after I applied a digital selenium tone effect. I would say in fact that this digital version not only matches what I was able to produce on Ilford Gallerie FB paper years ago, but surpasses it. So, do I miss the B&W darkroom? Hardly – especially now that I have a Lightroom. ;-)