Analogue V Digital. Quantisation and robots.

[Peter Connell]

Analogue versus Digital. I have been thinking a lot about this recently and want to learn more and perhaps change my mind on what is an irreconcilable debate. I am particularly interested in hearing from anyone with a deep scientific understanding of point 1 and perhaps some arm chair philosophers can chime in on point 2. I realise these topics can be perceived as pretentious, divisive or irrelevant. However I'm exploring it in good faith and if you do leave a comment please be constructive, thank you.

I want to preface this by saying the method of image capture only forms a small proportion of what makes good art. A good movie on digital is better than a bad movie on film. Nonetheless I think it is a debate worth having.

1. Why I prefer film/analogue.
The analogue process captures and reproduces continuous signals without discrete quantisation. Whilst digital can capture more photons, it will lose the true nature (information) by quantising the analogue charge into a discrete digital value. For this reason I believe film is a more natural process of image capture, even if not technically superior in some regards, which is preferable for me.

2. Why the methodology and creator matters.
The method of creation matters even if the products are atomically identical. If presented with atomically identical versions of the Mona Lisa with no knowledge of the creator I would feel similarly about each piece. If I later discovered one was made by Da Vinci and the other by a robot (or even worse, Hitler!) this would impact how I feel about the art. Therefore presenting art without the methodology and creator is actually not a true presentation of the art.

3. Who cares!?
Don't let the tail wag the dog. Does the average cinema goer care!? There are more important factors that make a "good" film.

Thoughts?

[David Mullen ASC]

In theory, you could call storing an image made up of photons on discrete film grains a form of physical quantization... 

With film, you rarely view the original -- in fact, most cinematography was based on the fact that the image would be copied and color-corrected from negative to positive. And now we rarely view film on projected prints, so we see a digitized version even if it was shot on film.

Also, a movie is not the artistic creation of a single individual so judging it based on the personal character of the creator is difficult, you don't know if the director was noble but the screenwriter was a wife-beater and the cinematographer had a conviction for drunk driving. And this gets harder to know the older the movie is. When a movie is presented in a movie theater, there isn't a program guide telling you the moral failings of everyone who worked on it, there is just the movie to be viewed and judged.

I think that rating the value of an image based on its origination format rather than its use of color, composition, light, mood, dramatic power (i.e. content) is a bit prejudicial and short-sighted. Sure, we can say that the technical process contributed to the visual effect, just as that oil paints have a different look than acrylic paints, or a wall fresco is different than a canvas painting, but we cannot dismiss a work for merely using one process over another, it would be like saying the only paintings of value are done with oils.

[Peter Connell]

According to quantum mechanics, everything is quantasised. I believe silver halide ions in their lattice are thousands of times smaller than the pixel and experience significantly less quantisation as a consequence. It is the loss of the pure, and what I perceive to be more natural, information that bothers me. When I visited the Fox Talbot museum at Lacock I saw my first camera obscura and it had a lasting effect on me. I can't explain why but since that day I have been obsessed with traditional/natural image capture techniques. It is a romantic viewpoint and I see similar tendencies in some directors who prefer film.

You have slightly straw-manned my argument here. I don't think we should dismiss a movie for using one methodology over the other but rather weight it among other factors as a very small but nonetheless significant factor. 

Also, I would say that a sizeable minority of people are aware of who directed a movie before they watch it and their knowledge of the director would influence how they feel about the work. Again, not entirely, but to some degree.

I have also found that due to the relative limit and cost of film I'm more precious with it. I'm not sure how this has an impact on set however. Perhaps others could offer their opinions on it.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[David Mullen ASC]

I’m not sure why photons causing silver halides to be developable into metallic silver is a more “pure” form of information about the original subject compared to photons causing a charge to be built up on a photosite so that an electrical signal can be generated. I mean, in the some ways the second method is closer to how our own eyes see the world.

It’s OK to prefer how film captures and transforms the real world as opposed to an electronic method, that’s just personal aesthetic taste, and certainly the chemical reaction to light with film generates a different set of artifacts especially at the extreme ends of exposure than does an electronic method. 

[Peter Connell]

Pure is perhaps a loaded term. My understanding is that the electrical signal in digital is quantised by an analog to digital converter. If film is projected, there is no such quantisation or loss of information.
Your point about the human eye is interesting. I have read that the brain does not quantise the electrical signal from the eye like a digital camera would but rather treats it like a continuous analog signal. Though the photoreceptor cells of the eye are more comparable in mechanism to a digital sensor than the silver halide ions it seems.

As you say it does come down to preference and an endless pit of "but why"
 

[David Mullen ASC]

So you’ll only watch film if it’s photochemically printed and projected? Do you only listen to audio if it’s never been through a digital step, using analog mics, analog tape storage and then onto LPs?

The storing of analog information in a digital form doesn’t necessarily mean a loss of information has taken place — if a digital scan of a piece of film is done at a high enough resolution that every grain a reproduced then there is no practical loss of information.

Although of course there are many degrees of loss — and film goes through analog loss being duplicated onto the next piece of film — I tend to subscribe to the adage that “a difference that makes no difference is no difference.” 

[Peter Connell]

I'll watch anything if its good. The methodology is a small part of the overall package, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered, especially if its a movie. It's a nice to have not a need to have.

Regarding the digital scanner, it would presumably have to assign a discrete value to the grain to the nearest X and this would result in a loss of its truest value. Like rounding up fractions (analogue) to the nearest integer (digital). A 0.8, 0.6 and 0.9 all become 1.

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I like thinking about these things, too. I am always learning and I really love the process.

But, ever since the Red Dragon sensor was released, digital beat out film in DR and colour information. V-Raptor, Venice II, and the Alexa 35 are even better.

The problem is that most DPs (no offence!) don't always expose digital in the best way. They are more concerned with pixel hygiene than a film-like image.

Same with photographers, BTW. They are obsessed with noise to the point that their images look terrible due to the excessive NR they apply. You can't cheat on detail, folks.

There is also the concept of fill area, which few people talk about. Fill area is the amount of surface area that the photosite takes in its allotted space. If your sensor is 4K, but has a very small fill area, then forget about capturing 4K worth of detail.

Film does look better, but not by a lot compared to modern digital cameras. And productions which are shot on film are much more interesting to read about.

Film is a much more interesting medium. But it costs too much, and photographers are never going to get good scans, no matter how much they talk up their labs. At least cine labs give you proper file formats, like DPX. 

If nothing changes, particularly in terms of cost, film will absolutely go extinct. Don't like it? I don't like it either. But that is what is called reality.

[Peter Connell]

Yeah digital can offer better dynamic range and I'm sure will eventually surpass 70mm in "resolution". I've also seen digitally shot movies with a film grain applied which looks pretty cool. I wonder if in 100 years from now whether AI will be capable of producing entire movies just based off prompts we feed it? I would imagine so based on what it is already capable of. Furthermore, we may be able to experience those movies in the flesh with VR or some kind of neuralink device. A new art form will emerge and the lines between reality and fiction will blur. I don't know if thats a good thing or not. Gosh it's Monday morning.