Kwento #3: Throwbacks, Flashbacks, and the signature kick of "film"

Photography began in the Age of Analog, long before all the digital thingamajigs were invented, the medium was made up of something only chemists probably understand the most: film. But the surprising thing about it is that digital has only gone mainstream recently, in fact, it's probably only a little beyond a decade.

Not dead yet. So far.

The look and feel of a photograph shot on film is still strong (like it was the force...) in people's tastes today that aside from keeping the medium alive, many digital-only applications and even camera manufacturers employ software to make images give that classic "film look." We even have a new tradition for it (sort of): Throwback Thursdays (and for the late posters, Flashback Fridays)

Unbelievable? Read on and find out :)



If you've never heard of mobile apps like Instagram and Camera360, then guess what, even Batman is probably more updated than you despite living alone (almost) in a cave and a cavernous mansion. These apps are so popular at what they do, which is technically... "creatively ruin" photos.

And that does not exempt Canon, Nikon, Sony, and yes, even Pentax, Fuji and other camera makers - despite all their drive to make the most perfect-est digital system to deliver the best image quality (in translation: closest to what the human eye can perceive), almost everyone likes the rough, imperfect look. Many of their cameras, especially at the entry and enthusiast levels, have "art filters" that give roughly the equivalent of good and bad film from before.

The demand is there, and this can be evidenced with a quick Google search:

Keywords used: "beautiful wedding photos"

Looking at the example above, more than half of the samples in the first page (in other words, most popular or advertised) featured one or more commonly-regarded "filters" such as artificial vignettes, grain, altered colors shifted to warm or neutral, or a combination of others to get that "nostalgic feel."

This kind of demand gave birth to image editing programs and cheat sheets for getting that film look through plug-ins and various other techniques and shortcuts to give that impressive effect everyone's somewhat raving about (and say it makes them and things look prettier). Popular ones from big productivity software companies like Adobe and Corel feature various apps and filters in their flagship programs like Photoshop (Adobe), Lightroom (Adobe), Paint Shop Pro (Corel).

Another third-party image editing tool, DxO Optics, touted as one of the most trusted RAW converters out there by camera makers, came out with their own plug-in dubbed "FilmPack" which can be used in the more popular ones mentioned above.

I'm not entirely into the bandwagon, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to join and hope it's not too late, lol.

For this entry, I used Adobe Lightroom 4.3 and DxO Optics' FilmPack 3. The program contains a plethora of pre-selected film types and brands used by many casual and professional shooters alike. Thanks to my subscription to Digital Photography Review.com (simply known as DPReview), I got a free license for the plug-in pack.

Using photos from an old batch of portraits I shot two years ago, I gave them a special treatment to see if applying the "film touch" on them can give the photos a significant change in look and feel.

I'll start off with the monochromatic/achromatic approach:

Agfa APX 25

Fuji Neopan Acros 100

Polaroid 672

Ilford Pan F Plus 50

The original files are in color. Putting the filters on them, as expected, gave them a natural "aged" feeling; that sort of "days gone by" touch even though one could obviously see that the clothes on the models are modern. It puts portraits on a restricted perspective of appreciation: without the vibrance of color for the eyes to appreciate, one tends to put value on the flow of intensity from light to dark, and of course, composition. I have to admit I've poorly composed these practice shots, but they do look and feel better with the filters added.

And here are some using colored filters:

Fuji Provia 400X

Fuji Provia 100 G

Fuji Velvia 50

Kodak Portra 160 NC

Agfa Vista 200

Kodak Ektachrome 100 VS

Kodak Elite Chrome 200

Kodak Kodachrome 64

You might say, "are you sure you used filters on these?" Yes I did. I only chose film profiles that didn't fly far from their original captures on digital, so as to preserve tones, shades, and hues. Why, one might ask: Well because I'm not entirely seeking to give it that flushed-out, monotonous look one might get out of a Lomo app. Color is a value that many photographers either take for granted or abuse; I've done either many times and still do from time to time, so I make sure I move carefully (more so than when doing B&W) when editing colored images. For this entry, I wanted to match the original file with something that came close to it in terms of film, to somewhat see how things would've looked like if I shot it using that particular film roll. Or slide.

To be honest, many of the filters I've tested in this blog entry, I never even SAW in real life. The brands are familiar-- Fuji, Agfa, Kodak, but I've never seen a roll, nor a box, of many of the filters included in FilmPack 3. With the exception of the Fuji Velvia and Kodak Portra 160 (first photo in this entry... a rare sample I ordered over the internet, fresh!), almost everything I used here I only saw on Google or history books. Others like the Kodachrome are completely extinct, the last roll manufactured in 2009 and the last roll processed in 2010. Film is much more expensive now, also.

Because of that, I am thankful to the film fans who came up with the idea to "digitize" these film effects for the modern age of photography; while there are cheaper alternatives out there for mobile and the mainstream PC platform, plug-ins like Dxo FilmPack 3 maintain that conservative approach to transforming the look and feel of photos - such that they translate more into creative rebuilding than a transmutation of the image.

Just for the feelz. Haha. Long live silver halide!!

For high-res images please click this link to see it in my Flickr albums:
Experiments: The Film Look

Authors note:
*All photos were shot with either a Pentax K-5 IIs and a Pentax K-x, with either of three lenses: the Pentax smc M 50 f1.4, Pentax smc DA55-300 f4-5.8 ED and Pentax smc FA 77 f1.8 Limited
*All shots were done at the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Center (NAPAW/PAWB) in Quezon City.
*Not included in this entry is film motion picture, which is another topic (though of the same nature) altogether... which I may not do because I'm not very much into making movies anyway.

Many thanks to DPReview and DxO for releasing FilmPack! It's such an awesome cheat sheet plug-in for lazy bones like me.
Thanks to Google for bringing up search results so fast.