Can you spot the difference between film and DSLR with an old lens?
Sep 29, 2024
David Prochnow
Our resident “how-to” project editor, David Prochnow, lives on the Gulf Coast of the United States in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. He brings his expertise at making our photography projects accessible to everyone, from a lengthy stint acting as the Contributing How-To Editor with Popular Science magazine. While you don’t have to actually build each of his projects, reading about these adventures will contribute to your continued overall appreciation of do-it-yourself photography. A collection of David’s best Popular Science projects can be found in the book, “The Big Book of Hacks,” Edited by Doug Cantor.
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YouTube photography personality Mikel Sigler suggested that the qualities of film photography can be mimicked in digital photography by using vintage, manual focus lenses on DSLR and mirrorless cameras. This technique is irrespective of whether in-camera film grain, streaks, and emulsion simulations are used. Rather, it is solely the subtle, inherent “look and feel” of the older 35mm lenses that lend the “real” true film look.
As an exercise to explore this claim, I took the following four photographs with a vintage Nikon Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 lens equipped with a Tiffen Yellow 6 filter. The first two exposures were taken on Kodak Tri-X 35mm film, while the second two exposures were taken with a DSLR.
Finally, as a test of your “film” eye, the next two photographs were taken on either film or with a DSLR. Can you spot the difference? No cheating, now! Write a comment with the answer before you scroll to find the answer.
The answer is at the end of this article.
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Answer: Photo #1 is from a film camera. And Photo #2 is from a DSLR.
David Prochnow
Our resident “how-to” project editor, David Prochnow, lives on the Gulf Coast of the United States in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. He brings his expertise at making our photography projects accessible to everyone, from a lengthy stint acting as the Contributing How-To Editor with Popular Science magazine. While you don’t have to actually build each of his projects, reading about these adventures will contribute to your continued overall appreciation of do-it-yourself photography. A collection of David’s best Popular Science projects can be found in the book, “The Big Book of Hacks,” Edited by Doug Cantor.
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One response to “Can you spot the difference between film and DSLR with an old lens?”
Photo 1 is underexposed. Hard to do comparisons properly.