Talking about film is particularly complicated, as film does not have an entirely linear response to light. This is called reciprocity failure and means that you often need to expose way longer than 2x the time to have the effect of 2x the light.<p>For digital, the data directly from camera sensors almost always needs some correction, de-mosaicing or massaging to generate an image viewable on a screen. This requires the camera to make what ends up being an aesthetic decision on what the photo looks like. Detail isn’t just how bright or how dark, but also the available gradients in between. This means there are cases where the dynamic range is automatically expanded (instead of clipped) and contrast unnaturally increased in order to have a photo that isn’t just mud.<p>Ultimately, this means that technical considerations map directly to artistic ones, and there is no objectively correct image from sensor data. The idea that a ‘no filter’ picture conveys some kind of divine truth is a myth.
Quite a topical article, considering the controversy around how they made a potentially great Batman movie unwatchable by turning large parts of it into a radio drama where you can't see anything and have to figure out what's happening with nothing but your ears.
The tone of the article stands out to me; not much in the way of exaggeration or opinions on “the best” way to do a certain thing, but an almost dispassionate tour of some of the different ways we’ve thought about light and dark artistically, over time. Thoroughly enjoyed the read!
I'm surprised article claims that photography and film are no longer 'racist'. Most of my photos are underexposing dark complexions. It might be to do with limited dynamic range though, but still exists.
It seems to me there must be some kind of error in color calibration of most cameras. They make shadows much darker than they are, and bright areas much brighter than they are. It's not from a lack of dynamic range.