135 film vs 10 MP digital

[wattsy]

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Yes - I don't dispute that at all. But in order to make an accurate comparison about resolving power, the resultant images need to be the same size. Otherwise it's an impossible test. By all means scan the negative at the highest practicable resolution; just downsize it afterwards.

 

I still don't understand why the comparison has to be with files the same size - what's impossible about it? The comparison is surely about resolving power full stop and not about resolving power at a certain file size. The two media are different - why the need to try and equalise them?

[AlanG]

Yes - I don't dispute that at all. But in order to make an accurate comparison about resolving power, the resultant images need to be the same size. Otherwise it's an impossible test. By all means scan the negative at the highest practicable resolution; just downsize it afterwards. This won't affect detail. If anything it may improve it, as scanner noise will be reduced.

 

I think your methodology is backwards.

 

So if you scanned a 4x5 at hi res to about a 400 meg file and then reduced it to around 30 megs, it wouldn't lose detail? Likewise, if you printed a 400 meg file and a 30 meg file to an 8x10 inkjet print, they probably would be indistinguishable in detail.

 

If you are comparing film to digital then why not look at the detail produced from the highest res scan from the film and then res up the digital image to be equal in size? Or just examine them in their original size (maximum quality) and look at the detail.

[guywalder]

oh dear, oh dear, what a load of hot air!

for those of you who have been living in a cave for the last x number of years, here is a news flash:

 

the introduction of digital has Decimated film sales. And thats medium format film, let alone 35mm, and even more in the professional arena that the hobby...

 

If you are getting better results out of 35mm film, that is because you havnt learnt digital yet, like it or not.

 

If you like film, then use it and be happy, but these comparisons are about as useful as cmparing my sofa to my bicycle, I sit on both, just for different reasons....

[frc]

Very, very true, I'm still learning..... and yes have had a lot to learn and learned a lot, digital is a different language, the digi community is becoming less and less foreign to me.

Stop making sence and stop the pointless comparison, the film M and the digital M share a lot, the gorgious viewfinder, the shape, the use of some of the most trouble free lenses around, but until used the heart is not revealed, it turnes out to be a completely different beast..........

It's a digital camera, with the steep and long learing curve.

Enjoy both, film and digi, but don't mix them up!

[hankg]

I went from medium format color transparencies to 35mm digital for paying work. There is no way those clients would have accepted 35mm film from a quality standpoint (I am speaking only for color work not B&W) but they readily accept the output from 35mm DSLR's and the M8.

 

I still have a $16,000. Scitex scanner and scanned everything (35 and MF film) wet mounted in scanning fluid. For high density low key transparencies I sent out for drum scans. For color work it's no contest -digital is the IQ choice. Unless you are after some special look that depends on very apparent grain. Of course you have to know what you are doing just like you did with film so you don't wind up with brittle over-sharpened files with smeary watercolor looking fine details but these are all artifacts of an inexperienced hand.

 

B&W is an entirely different animal and the high accutance grain of silver based emulsions is not as easily simulated in digital. There I could see the case being made for shooting film (although I shoot B&W digital as well).

[frc]

A special look, the look, film is beautiful and soft.

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[ndjambrose]

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I still don't understand why the comparison has to be with files the same size - what's impossible about it? The comparison is surely about resolving power full stop and not about resolving power at a certain file size. The two media are different - why the need to try and equalise them?

 

Because its a comparison. You want to be able to determine that for a given subject to camera distance, and for a given enlargement factor, which medium resolves more detail. You can't do that unless you ensure all factors are equivalent. Hence a test.

[frc]

A lesser scanner, that is less than the neg carries will not revail the full potential of the film, digital becomes an unwanted high pass filter.

Testing is a job, amateurs are doing the job here. ( did I just say this!?, I ment IMHO )

[Guest stnami]

Those scientific mumbo jumbo comparisons only apply if everyone operators in the same manner.....that ain't gonna happen. The so called "non- accurate comparisons" are probably more realistic with what happens in real life situations with human interest at heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...........my car evidently is extremely stable at 200kms an hour, the cross wind stuffs that up .......

[ndjambrose]

I think your methodology is backwards.

 

So if you scanned a 4x5 at hi res to about a 400 meg file and then reduced it to around 30 megs, it wouldn't lose detail? Likewise, if you printed a 400 meg file and a 30 meg file to an 8x10 inkjet print, they probably would be indistinguishable in detail.

 

If you are comparing film to digital then why not look at the detail produced from the highest res scan from the film and then res up the digital image to be equal in size? Or just examine them in their original size (maximum quality) and look at the detail.

 

I think I chose my words more carefully than that. You'll note that I refer to downsizing only in terms of making the image "a little smaller". Reducing a 4000 dpi scan to a 3500 dpi image (i.e. comparing a quality scan of a 35 negative to an image from the M8) won't affect discernible quality. And in real terms you can't get a quality scan at higher resolution than this because the underlying substrate of the film begins to intrude into the picture: you capture flecks and scratches in the emulsion, not detail in the image.

 

It's possible to perform a moderate downsize of any scanned image without reducing discernible quality. (And within certain parameters the quality actually improves because the signal to noise ratio is improved; there's more detail and less scanner noise and emulsion defects). But the same doesn't hold if you upsize an image because at that point the computer is filling in the gaps between pixels with guess work.

 

There's no doubt that there's incredible resolving power in a 4x5 film - or better yet, in an 8x10. But these examples would only be valid if it were compared to a capture from an ultra high end digital back of equivalent size. Clearly it's out of context in this discussion, where the starting premise was that 135 film resolves more detail than the M8.

[guywalder]

Because its a comparison. You can't do that unless you ensure all factors are equivalent. Hence a test.

 

Niel, with respect you are missing a fundamental point. They are different mediums, so you are never going to have 'all the factors' equivalent, not least because They Have Different Factors!!

 

Hank, agree up to a point, but I am now getting (via actions and plug-ins) digital files that look 'film like' enough for me to be happy, ie contrast, grain size and distribution etc. With the caveat that I am only ever ink jet printing, and never silver halide printing

[ndjambrose]

Niel, with respect you are missing a fundamental point. They are different mediums, so you are never going to have 'all the factors' equivalent, not least because They Have Different Factors!!

 

Hank, agree up to a point, but I am now getting (via actions and plug-ins) digital files that look 'film like' enough for me to be happy, ie contrast, grain size and distribution etc. With the caveat that I am only ever ink jet printing, and never silver halide printing

 

Can't argue with that Guy. Of course they're different, and that's one of the beauties of having choices. Use what you like, when you like, etc.

 

But the point I'm not missing is that the original poster opened with the assertion that scanned film resolves more detail than a digital image of the same size. This conclusion drawn on the basis of a test where shots were handheld, made with different lenses, made with different apertures, and made with different ISOs, and comparing images of different resolutions.

 

I'm not arguing against film. Only against bad science.

[hankg]

 

Hank, agree up to a point, but I am now getting (via actions and plug-ins) digital files that look 'film like' enough for me to be happy, ie contrast, grain size and distribution etc. With the caveat that I am only ever ink jet printing, and never silver halide printing

 

As I said I'm shooting B&W in digital if I thought it was a compromise I would not be doing it.

 

This issue has been resolved by the market place and not by making a backyard test for an internet forum but by thousands of agencies and buyers voting with billions of dollars in photo buys. At the high end of the ad business their jobs depend on buying the absolute best for their clients, one day's shoot can have a budget that approaches 6 figures. Their survival in business depends on making the right choice and digital is today the overwhelming choice.

[Mark Antony]

oh dear, oh dear, what a load of hot air!

for those of you who have been living in a cave for the last x number of years, here is a news flash:

 

the introduction of digital has Decimated film sales. And thats medium format film, let alone 35mm, and even more in the professional arena that the hobby...

 

If you are getting better results out of 35mm film, that is because you havnt learnt digital yet, like it or not.

 

If you like film, then use it and be happy, but these comparisons are about as useful as cmparing my sofa to my bicycle, I sit on both, just for different reasons....

 

Yes and sales of camera phones are higher than DSLRs. I think that just because something sells more doesn't make it better. I think digital is the way forward for loads of reasons speed, ease of use, getting easier manipulation etc But making a trollish "If you get better results from film then your digital skills are bad" is a silly argument.

I'll bet my 20ISO film against a 10mp camera, if you can't get deetail from film maybe your film skills suck?

[hankg]

Yes and sales of camera phones are higher than DSLRs.

 

Photographers are not buying $30,000 digital backs and high end DSLR's because they were unhappy with film. The market demands it.

 

Not just the quick and cheap market which went digital for turnaround and cost - the high end 'will settle for nothing but the best' market as well. These buyers where reluctant to give up film as they are very conservative and earlier iterations of digital did not measure up. They demand the best in IQ and were not inclined to switch to a new medium, yet they are now buying digital far more then film.

[Kent10D]

These discussion always fascinate me. It's clearly a subject about which there will never be agreement, but the fact that it keeps coming up must mean something.

 

I'd love to see a balanced comparison between film and digital, but so far I have never seen one. Anywhere. Including my own. Not only are the physical attributes of the media almost impossible to compare fairly, but the perspectives from which they are viewed and approached by different types of photographer are poles apart. For "business photography" digital is the only way to go, as the many pros on the forum are quick to point out. But from where I'm sitting it looks as though fine art photography is nowhere near finished with film. Amateurs with fine-art leanings fall into the same category. Of course that doesn't mean that fine-art photographers don't or shouldn't use digital. That would be counter-productive. But film has a lot of life left in it yet. It may not be the medium of choice for the corporate money-making machine, as many a struggling fine-art photographer can attest, but it does provide creative options and character that are difficult if not impossible to achieve with digital.

 

As far as I am concerned, choosing film has nothing to do with resolution or accuracy. For that reason I find direct technical comparisons quite useless (although I am interested in comparing film with digital techniques designed to simulate a film-like look in digital images ... so far I have not been particularly impressed ... it's usually more effective to just use film).

[Guest stnami]

If you are getting better results out of 35mm film, that is because you havnt learnt digital yet, like it or not.

 

......... probably the dumbest statement made on the forum for 2007...........

 

.

. nah it is the dumbest.................the again it may be ignorance or just someone who is naive......naivity is forgiven

[Mark Antony]

Photographers are not buying $30,000 digital backs and high end DSLR's because they were unhappy with film. The market demands it.

 

Not just the quick and cheap market which went digital for turnaround and cost - the high end 'will settle for nothing but the best' market as well. These buyers where reluctant to give up film as they are very conservative and earlier iterations of digital did not measure up. They demand the best in IQ and were not inclined to switch to a new medium, yet they are now buying digital far more then film.

 

Yes we use 100% digital, but its not because of quality, its because of speed of turnaround, the whole pro market has changed, labs are going out of business.

 

There are many reasons why we choose digital, quality wasn't always the major concern- deadlines, showing clients results on a 30" monitor in seconds rather than a 4x5" tran 2 hours later.

 

The world has changed and its speed, connivence and control, these for most clients trump ultimate quality.

 

YMMV

[hankg]

But film has a lot of life left in it yet.

 

Film will probably never go away. Manual mechanical cameras and wooden view cameras are still in use and just as there are now small companies manufacturing all sorts of B&W silver emulsions that the big guys no longer make so it will be when Kodak and Fuji eventually abandon color film. It will get picked up by specialist manufacturers.

 

There is almost not a photographic process developed in the last 100 years that is not being used by some photographer somewhere. Chuck Close just did a series of daguerreotypes that have received critical acclaim and are accorded the same respect as his paintings in the art world.

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[hankg]

Yes we use 100% digital, but its not because of quality, its because of speed of turnaround, the whole pro market has changed, labs are going out of business.

 

There are many reasons why we choose digital, quality wasn't always the major concern- deadlines, showing clients results on a 30" monitor in seconds rather than a 4x5" tran 2 hours later.

 

The world has changed and its speed, connivence and control, these for most clients trump ultimate quality.

 

YMMV

 

Yes all of that is in play but there are photographers at the top of the game who can use whatever they want, including film and are using digital and not because they are getting inferior results.