Film photos that digital can't make

[Orio]

I think all of you have some photos made with film, that you think digital is not able to make. For whatever reason.
I have some of mine and I would like if we could use this thread to gather those images that "digital simply can not make".

I begin with a photo I took in Budapest in 2007.
It was taken with an Agfa 100 colour slide, and there is something to it, I really don't know what, or can define what, that I have never gotten in similar situations out of digital:



P.S: the camera was the Bessaflex TM and the lens was... I can not remember

[no-X]

Yeah, I feel like I'm standing there

[patrickh]

Orio

I think it may be that digital still cannot make the luminance/colour transitions that film can - it is more subtle and smooth on film IMHO. The kind of subtle lighting in this shot caused by hazy sunset would evoke more contrast on a digital sensor as the edge transitions would be greater. I think that the foveon sensor is the most film-like in this respect because of the inherently more accurate colour/luminance rendition of each individual cell. It is only really noticeable in scenes with this kind of lighting.


patrickh

[Laurence]

Well...when I look at the shirts, particularly the green one with the
black patch on it, it just seems to exude more "richness" even in
the pleated areas. I may be all wrong here, but I think that the
film image puts more "thick" color into the image, and that
sometimes you can pick out a digital image because it's sort
of "plastic".

I hope you see what I mean, I'm not sure if I'm able to
explain it properly.

Here is a deep forest image taken with a previous Rolleiflex 6006
and Planar 80/2.8 HFT T* lens.

The image is nothing to crow about, but the FEEL of film is there,
at least to me, even though it is technically "digitized" from scanning.

[rawhead]

The first thing I notice with a shot like this is DR. You can see details on the shirts, faces, even the dar greenery, then the river, bridges, white buildings, the mountains, and you can still see some detail of the clouds. It would be very difficult to emulate the DR of this shot with digital. Perhaps if you shot RAW and really tweaked it.

[Orio]

it's really difficult for me to say why I feel my image would not be possible with digital. It's something about the colours. Something about the shade. Something about the OOF transition. I don't know. Also something about the DR as Rawhead says. Maybe a mix of all things. Something that makes the scene feel "organic".

[LucisPictor]

I agree, there seems to be a certain "feeling" of film shots. (I don't agree about the dynamic range, though. A high DR on film needs perfect exposure and if you put as much effort in setting the right exposure on digital, it will provide you with as high a DR as film.)

But I never know if it is only because I KNOW I have taken this shot on film, perhaps with an "old" camera and a lot of thinking. And thus I am more satisfied because I got a good result than with the relatively "easy" DSLR.
But then again, film looks different, mostly because of the grain. This changes the image and this also influences the way sharpness, contrast and even colours are rendered.

To put it into a nutshell: in my opinion it's a mixture of psychology and the effects of film grain.