Let’s talk about grain
What is the first thing you see when you look at an image taken on film? Hopefully, it’s the amazing subject, or the vibrant colour, or the beautiful contrast. Or maybe it is the characteristics of the film stock.
Quite likely though, it will be the grain.
Taken on Kodak Portra 400 with a Pentax K2
As more and more developments are made with digital photography, modern day digital cameras are getting better at keeping a ‘clean’ image at higher ISO. That is, they look ‘less grainy’ at higher sensitivity levels. There is a big difference though, between the grain of analogue film, and the ‘grain’ of a digital image.
Digital ‘grain’ is actually what we call noise, and it is completely undesirable. Digital noise is made up of random imperfections in the image, usually shown as small black and white (Luminance noise), or colour dots (Colour noise). There are different reasons why you get this, and though they usually happen in low light situations, can still appear anytime. This can be extremely distracting and can ruin what would have been a great image.
Taken on Fomapan 400 with a Pentax K2
There are many options to try and reduce this effect, either with the settings used to take the image in the first place, or with de-noise software afterwards, and although these have become better and better, it still usually changes the image in some other way.
Now, analogue grain is completely different; in very basic terms, the emulsion on a film negative contains silver crystals. These crystals are light sensitive and turn into pure metallic silver when exposed to light. The grain on a film negative, is exactly what creates the image; without the grain, there would be no image.
Depending on the ISO (speed), and type of film, the crystals will either be bigger or smaller. A higher ISO film will have generally bigger crystals than a lower ISO film. And it’s much the same with black and white compared to colour. Also, the structure and shape of the grain can be different across various film stocks.
Analogue is very linear, and there is a lot more scope around a ‘correct’ exposure compared to digital. The level of grain will vary depending on the previously mentioned items, as well as the exposure (among other things), but it is a lot more organic, and therefore a lot more pleasing to the eye. Digital, however, is generally non-linear. It tends to be ‘off or on’ and ‘right or wrong’. If the exposure isn’t right it will not look at all pleasing to the eye (I am generalising, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and rules are made to be broken). Modern cameras have the ability to automatically correct poor exposure, and the power of post image processing is continually improving, making it a lot easier to avoid or correct noise in a digital image. This is not usually necessary in an analogue image. You can spend more time focussed on the image itself rather than thinking about what you are going to ‘fix’ later.
Taken on Kodak Portra 400 with a Leica M6
The biggest thing when it comes to grain, is that we are continually pushing high definition. New TV’s, new computers, new cameras, we are constantly improving the fidelity of everything. If we can’t see the nose hairs of the person on screen, we feel that we are looking at a low quality image. Someone recently showed me a picture that was taken at a wedding, and he was genuinely impressed that you could see makeup smeared on the shoulder of one of the guests’ suit!
I believe there is a time and a place for both analogue and digital, and both are beautiful in their own ways. Ultimately, photography is art, and you should find whatever it is you love in each image.