Yesterday, I posted an image and posed the question: Film or Digital?
To those of you who submitted a guess, thank you. I know it’s difficult to go out on a limb like that, especially when you have the option of safely viewing the proceedings from a distance.
For what it’s worth, the final tally of guesses was:
___________
Digital: 10
Film: 8
___________
An almost even split! Moreover, some who chose digital stated that the image looks like film, and vice versa. This confirms what I suspected: this was a difficult image to identify.
So, without further delay, the answer is:
Digital
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↑Leica M9, ISO 400, and Leica 35mm Summilux FLE @ f/1.4.
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The above screen shot is of the original M9 file, opened in Aperture.
To stack the odds towards conveying a film look, I chose a scene in which the subject matter had a retro vibe about it. Then I post-processed the image to B&W. The “grain” seen in the finished image (to the right, in the shadows) is actually digital noise that has emerged from selective lightening, and that has been post-processed to look like film grain. More or less.
Some of you were impressed by it. Some of you commented that it did not “feel” like film grain, and so guessed digital. I believe it’s in fact the quality of film grain, among a few other things, that usually identifies the medium… but I have occasionally been fooled.
Once again, I thought the simulation in this example was pretty good.
As an aside, a few of you remarked that you were viewing yesterday’s post on a phone screen, which means that the process of evaluating for any nuances in image quality would have been difficult, if not impossible.
I guess many of our photos are being viewed on smartphones or tablets these days, so it’s something I should keep in mind when posting such comparative-type evaluations.
—Peter.
Prosophos 
