Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: button on July 24, 2009, 11:36:40 am
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Since this pertains to pritnts, I thought I'd post this link (taken from kenrockwell.com):
http://www.imx.nl/photo/technique/page153/page153.html (http://www.imx.nl/photo/technique/page153/page153.html)
I wanted to read the responses of those who have made large prints with both digital and film media, using both completely chemical as well as electronic workflows, as I have used very little film, and have never made a print in a darkroom. The shootout thread below discussed the results of scanned film, but not prints made on an enlarger:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/back-testing.shtml (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/back-testing.shtml)
Please note that I realize this topic might create anxiety or tension, and that I have no desire whatsoever to start any kind of fight. I simply would like to learn something from those who would be so kind as to share their observations.
Thanks,
John
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Of course it is referenced from Ken Rockwell's site, he's the epitome of why the internet is NOT a good place for reference material since 99% of it is false, you have to look for accurate information. Regarding these "tests" and the use of test charts and camera A vs. camera B, they are just silly nonsense. I'm assuming most people started using digital as I did, shooting the identical scene with film and their new digital camera and was wondering why the digital file produced a better print. When the Canon D30 came out and people (including MR) were claiming it to be as good as 35mm film, I balked at such a silly notion, "Just do the math, it will take 40mp to equal 35mm film" so I said. But then I started doing my own tests and the resolution numbers kept growing and I kept testing (Always against a Nikon F5) and I came to the conclusion many cameras ago that not only was a digital print better (resolution, color, dr, noise etc.) it was exponentially faster and easier to produce a better print. I truly believe that this is old news and probably not even worth discussing anymore. And as always, the bottom line is whatever works best for you and whichever method you prefer, that's what you should use.
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Oh jeez...
Please don't feed the trolls.
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Using various digital techniques I can capture and attractively represent scenes (as prints) that were impossible with film.
The range of possible subjects using digital far exceeds that of film. That's the metric of overwhelming importance to me.
Comparing film & digital while imposing the limited envelope of film misses the point of what digital has to offer beyond film's capabilities. Don't compare digital and film by asking how well digital apes the film lock. Compare them by asking what digital offers beyond film. There's a lot of explore in those uncharted waters.
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I still think tests such as these are misleading. For real-world images, especially color, digital just makes better prints than 35mm film, even at 10-12mp.
And it's not just about resolution. Digital has significant advantages in color accuracy and dynamic range when compared to color film (BW film is still DR champ, but digital has narrowed that gap considerably).
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Oh jeez...
Please don't feed the trolls.
I don't troll, and your comment does nothing to help anyone. If you have something to contribute, then I'd love to read it. Otherwise, let's leave the discussion to the adults, shall we?
John
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I don't troll...
Actually, you do. Even if you don't realize it. This and many thousands of other film vs. digital threads are all over the 'net. And have been for years. All you have to do is search for 'em. This horse has been beaten well beyond simple death. It's such a religious topic that the mere mention of it is considered trolling, regardless of intent. Welcome to the 'net.
Nonetheless, I'm a film user who loves what films does for me. Then again, I shoot 5x4 negative films. It's difficult for digital to play on the level of 5x4 film, and where it does (e.g. Phase One P65+) it costs well more than my car! So it's just not an option for what I'm doing. But when it finally does become an option I'll certainly give it a good look.
What I always try to say in the few of these discussions I'm willing to enter is that there's a hell of a lot more to photography than simple resolution. Tonality and smooth tonal transitions are important. Color accuracy is important (even capturing correctly the luminosity for B&W). Dynamic range is important. Grain / noise is important. Etc., etc., etc.
None of the systems on either side of the aisle is perfect. Each has it's own strengths and weaknesses. One should use the system with which one is most comfortable. So one can basically ignore the equipment and concentrate on the art. Which is what it's really all about IMHO.
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Actually, you do. Even if you don't realize it.
Fair enough. However, this isn't dpreview. After having spent a fair amount of time here over the past 2 years or so, I believe that this site attracts many knowlegable and experienced photographers who have offered a veritable cornucopia of knowledge to anyone merely willing to ask for it. I would guess that the average age of the typical poster here lies somewhere in the 40's or even 50's. If these assumptions don't stray too far from reality, then I don't think that my post asks too much.
Actually, I don't have an emotional attachment to either modality, and I spend most of my time here in the critique forum, where we seldom even mention gear. Because I haven't seen a comparison of 35mm film to digital results on print, I thought that this link might generate some interest. To me, the results of the test imply that a film negative can be enlarged quite a bit more than I thought reasonable.
John
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I simply would like to learn something from those who would be so kind as to share their observations.
I would suggest you don't waste your time reading Ken Rockwell.
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To me, the results of the test imply that a film negative can be enlarged quite a bit more than I thought reasonable.
They enlarge differently. Film tends to become softer and more grainy as you enlarge, but in a smooth and predictable way. Digital capture seems to me to have an enlargement threshold. Below the threshold it looks fine, sharp, clean, smooth. Above the threshold it becomes rough -- more jagged, sort of "jangly" if you know what I mean. I'm not sure how to explain it other than it doesn't seem to degrade as gracefully as analog does when enlarged.
As long as you stay below digital capture's enlargement threshold, what I find for same size prints is that digital capture seems to be cleaner, smoother, and "feels" more color accurate (whether it is or isn't). Film capture seems to have better dynamic range (negatives, not trannies), have a bigger range of tones, often better shadow detail, and can "feel" sharper (whether it is or isn't) depending on the image.
Part of what I like about film is part of what digital capture strives to eliminate. That is the toe and to a lesser extent the shoulder of film (the characteristic curve). I like that little bit of compression in the shadows and the gradual rolloff that I get from film. Digital tends to be nice and linear to a point, then boom -- black (similar thing with tranny film, which is why I don't use it). If it had more dynamic range than film this would be OK -- just give it a bit more exposure to capture all the shadow detail you want. But it doesn't, so for some scenes you have to trade off some shadow detail to preserve highlight detail.
But the biggie for me is weight. I put my entire 5x4 kit on my back and hike into the woods and up the mountains. Film is light. Something like a Better Light scanning back (and all the kit required to run it effectively) (http://www.betterlight.com/mcphoto.html)would add another 9 or 10 Kg to my pack. To be blunt: ain't no happ'nins.
This is just my take on it. I don't pretend to be an expert, and don't expect anyone to pay much attention to what I'm saying. My advice -- do the experiments to show the strengths and weaknesses for the different media yourself. Put some prints on the wall and live with them for a while. Decide which you like better. Decide which workflow you like better. Then go off and master one. Or the other. But unless you are amazingly good (with a high tolerance for climbing learning curves), it's difficult to master both.
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Hi,
The author of one of those articles is Erwin Putt, one of the leading experts on Leica lenses. I have great respect for Mr Putt and his articles. Some observations:
The article is about B&W film. B&W films have much higher resolution than color film. I don't know about the Ilford Delta 100, but Kodak's T-MAX 100 is a film of remarkably high resolving power. Slide film would not come even close.
The other issue that I'd point out that we see quite a lot of aliasing in the digital samples presented by Mr Putts, and that is partly a consequence of the M8 sensor having a low resolution, no low pass filter and used in connection with Leica lenses of very high resolving power, and not least, very accurate focusing.
A lot of very knowledgeable authors on this forum have found MFDBs equivalent to 4x5 by film, that's another point of view. The persons I think about are Charlie Cramer and Joseph Holmes. These persons comments are about color photography under field conditions.
Whatever medium we use it is always hard to achieve maximum quality many recent articles indicate that alignment issues can readily be seen on MFDBs (again referring to excellent articles by Joseph Holmes on this issue).
Finally, both film and digital are limited by laws physics. Diffraction limits and Airy rings do apply to analogue as much as to digital. Neither digital or analogue can see photons that ain't there.
One of the interesting issues is that much of the discussion is about at which level digital sensors start to be seriously limited by diffraction and there may be some kind of consensus about 25 or so MPixel's to be practical. On the other hand point and shoots or mobile phone cameras easily go into the 2 micron range corresponding more to perhaps 150 MPixels on full frame but those lenses are diffraction limited at large apertures.
The two main reasons that FX-sensors now stay about about 25 MPixels is that the main focus is not on resolution alone but on high resolution in combination with good picture quality at high ISO and long dynamic range, both of these latter quantities decided by the number of available photons. Small pixels see few photons...
Finally, there is a generic tendency to use the most convenient lenses, not the best ones. We normally use zooms not fixed focals and few of us put our carefully calibrated Leicas on super solid tripods.
Best regards
Erik Kaffehr
Since this pertains to pritnts, I thought I'd post this link (taken from kenrockwell.com):
http://www.imx.nl/photo/technique/page153/page153.html (http://www.imx.nl/photo/technique/page153/page153.html)
I wanted to read the responses of those who have made large prints with both digital and film media, using both completely chemical as well as electronic workflows, as I have used very little film, and have never made a print in a darkroom. The shootout thread below discussed the results of scanned film, but not prints made on an enlarger:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/back-testing.shtml (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/back-testing.shtml)
Please note that I realize this topic might create anxiety or tension, and that I have no desire whatsoever to start any kind of fight. I simply would like to learn something from those who would be so kind as to share their observations.
Thanks,
John
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Hi,
Lot of good points! Thanks a lot for good input to this forum!
Best regards
Erik
They enlarge differently. Film tends to become softer and more grainy as you enlarge, but in a smooth and predictable way. Digital capture seems to me to have an enlargement threshold. Below the threshold it looks fine, sharp, clean, smooth. Above the threshold it becomes rough -- more jagged, sort of "jangly" if you know what I mean. I'm not sure how to explain it other than it doesn't seem to degrade as gracefully as analog does when enlarged.
As long as you stay below digital capture's enlargement threshold, what I find for same size prints is that digital capture seems to be cleaner, smoother, and "feels" more color accurate (whether it is or isn't). Film capture seems to have better dynamic range (negatives, not trannies), have a bigger range of tones, often better shadow detail, and can "feel" sharper (whether it is or isn't) depending on the image.
Part of what I like about film is part of what digital capture strives to eliminate. That is the toe and to a lesser extent the shoulder of film (the characteristic curve). I like that little bit of compression in the shadows and the gradual rolloff that I get from film. Digital tends to be nice and linear to a point, then boom -- black (similar thing with tranny film, which is why I don't use it). If it had more dynamic range than film this would be OK -- just give it a bit more exposure to capture all the shadow detail you want. But it doesn't, so for some scenes you have to trade off some shadow detail to preserve highlight detail.
But the biggie for me is weight. I put my entire 5x4 kit on my back and hike into the woods and up the mountains. Film is light. Something like a Better Light scanning back (and all the kit required to run it effectively) (http://www.betterlight.com/mcphoto.html)would add another 9 or 10 Kg to my pack. To be blunt: ain't no happ'nins.
This is just my take on it. I don't pretend to be an expert, and don't expect anyone to pay much attention to what I'm saying. My advice -- do the experiments to show the strengths and weaknesses for the different media yourself. Put some prints on the wall and live with them for a while. Decide which you like better. Decide which workflow you like better. Then go off and master one. Or the other. But unless you are amazingly good (with a high tolerance for climbing learning curves), it's difficult to master both.
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Hi,
Although I tend to agree with your view of information on Ken Rockwell's site I'd point out that the article referred to is by the highly respected Erwin Putts, who is one of the leading lenses on Leica Lenses.
In my view digital has been better "for the rest of us" for quite some time. Achieving ultimate resolution is not the only aim of digital technology, among other things we also want to have high ISOs. Canon or Sony could produce a 200 MPixel DSLR limited to 50 ISO with ease (using the same technology as in their point and shoots). Processing times would be eight times longer. Maximum sharpness would only be achievable with LiveView, MLU, cable release super heavy tripod and lenses not yet built.
Best regards
Erik
Ps.
I much appreciate all your generous inputs to this forum!
I would suggest you don't waste your time reading Ken Rockwell.
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There is not clear mention of how the files were prepared for print other than what raw program was used. No mention of dpi. print sharpening uprezing or interpolation.
For the above average printer there is a big difference between pressing print and preparing a file for print properly. Let alone say press print and have a professional like Jeff Schewe prepare and print you digital file. I'm not saying the authors option or results would change but there is a whole art to getting clean sharp large print from digital file much more so than making sure the enlarger is focused properly to print a test pattern.
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[quote name='Bruce Watson' date='Jul 24 2009, 03:05 PM' post='299837']
Then again, I shoot 5x4 negative films. It's difficult for digital to play on the level of 5x4 film, and where it does (e.g. Phase One P65+) it costs well more than my car! So it's just not an option for what I'm doing. But when it finally does become an option I'll certainly give it a good look.[/quote
I still shoot some 4x5 film for the same reason and I like to do some large prints (32x40, 40x50 inches) that my digital files just can't accomplish. Large format film still provides a lot of bang for the buck. I can purchase and process tens of thousands of sheets of 4x5 for the price of a comparable 4x5 digital back. And, I won't feel near as bad when I drop a 4x5 holder on a rock or in a stream as I would dropping a $30,000 digital back! Also nice to not have to have need any battery or source of electricity.
Each to his own though. I have friends who still shoot some 35mm film. I remember seeing a story some years ago in PDN on an official White House photographer who shot film due to the historic nature of his photographs and the need to have a hard copy right from the exposure so as to be relatively certain there was no digital manipulation and to not have his images unreadable in 150 years due to digital incompatibilities or failures. Made sense to me then. Makes sense to me now. Especially in his line of work.
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There is not clear mention of how the files were prepared for print other than what raw program was used. No mention of dpi. print sharpening uprezing or interpolation.
For the above average printer there is a big difference between pressing print and preparing a file for print properly. Let alone say press print and have a professional like Jeff Schewe prepare and print you digital file. I'm not saying the authors option or results would change but there is a whole art to getting clean sharp large print from digital file much more so than making sure the enlarger is focused properly to print a test pattern.
Thanks to everyone for your insightful posts. I had not considered the issue of uprez, which at least to my eye, wasn't handled properly for the digital file.
John
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Thanks to everyone for your insightful posts. I had not considered the issue of uprez, which at least to my eye, wasn't handled properly for the digital file.
John
Add to it that the M8 isn't really a killer in "35mm" digital cameras, comparing a color sensor to B&W film not a test on equal terms and using a Leica with 100 ISO film not that practical. Like the replies here suggest the obvious choice for landscape photography would be to use an MF or LF film camera to get even more detail of the scene and use a 20-25 MP digital camera where more action is required and light sensitivity has to be adapted to the circumstances. Erwin Puts wrote enough essays that are worth reading and some of his recent ones are like notes for the burial speech of the Leica rangefinder camera. This one could be seen as a last inbreed report for the Leica crowd.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/ (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/)
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Compared to Velvia 100, here are my experiences with a range of digital cameras I have known. All the film was scanned using Nikon scanners (Super Coolscan 8000 and 9000), except for the 4x5 transparencies, which are scanned on an Epson V700 (definitely a disadvantage). Digital uprezzing was done using either a stepped technique in Photoshop (bicubic in 10% increments), or more recently, Genuine Fractals. The printer driver was never permitted to uprez - files always sent at 360 (Epson) or 600 (Canon iPF) DPI at print size. Digital always at base ISO (100 (Canons, D3x) or 200 in the case of Nikons other than the D3x)
Canon EOS D30 - yes, the OLD 3 mp model, NOT the 30D... - Lower resolution than 35mm scanned Velvia, noise is less than film grain, so can sometimes look as good overall. Don't try to print past 8x12!
Nikon D70 - Equivalent resolution to scanned 35mm Velvia - lower noise means that image is marginally better. Prints in the 11x16 range at most, makes a really GOOD 8x12.
Nikon D200 - Significantly higher resolution than scanned 35mm Velvia, lower resolution than scanned 6x6 cm (Hasselblad) Velvia. Prints 12x18 much more comfortably than 35mm (color) ever did.
Canon EOS 1DsmkII - medium format film quality - resolution close to scanned 6x6 cm Velvia, although the different aspect ratio makes it difficult to compare. Distinctly higher resolution than a 6x6 cm chrome cropped to 3x2 aspect ratio. Dynamic range exceeds Velvia by a substantial margin. Prints 16x24 quite reasonably, although I wouldn't push much past that.
Nikon D3x - well above conventional medium format film quality, but not large format - resolution easily comparable to or better than scanned 6x9 cm Velvia. Prints 24x36 very easily (I'm more comfortable with the D3x at 24x36 than I am with the 1DsII at 16x24). Extra dynamic range is very noticeable over any film.
4x5 film still exceeds any of these cameras for raw resolution (some of the high-end Phase backs may be in 4x5 territory), although 4x5 resolution versus D3x dynamic range would be an interesting choice. The higher camera resolution gets, the more near-perfect technique becomes important. The D3x produces 6x9 cm results, but ONLY if it is handled as a 6x9 (sturdy tripod, remote release, extremely careful focus). It is tempting to use as a 35mm camera, because it looks like one, and it will produce better than 35mm results used this way, but it isn't a 6x9 unless it is handled as a 6x9! This will be at least as true, if not more so, for any future DSLR with even higher resolution.
The other limit we are reaching is the size printer we're willing to live with. The best current DSLRs are already producing gallery quality 24 inch prints. The next step up requires a 44 inch printer and oversize mat board (a 24x36 inch print barely mats with a standard 32x40 inch board).
Is the next step really a higher resolution DSLR, or is it more choices at the resolutions we have? There is no reason why a 24.6 mp Leica M9 can't exist, or a 24.6 mp Nikon FM3d. If we have a wide range of cameras that can print 24x36 or larger, from models with 4 inch LCDs and tilt/shift sensors (technically possible if you get rid of the mirror) to a classic rangefinder that may even lack the image review LCD, and including SLRs with a wide range of features, is that not ultimately a more satisfying choice of tools than a few SLRs with even higher resolutions that require heavy tripods and 44-inch printers.
How about this range of cameras - all between 20 and 30 mp, optimized for prints up to 24x36 inches? All except the X1 are expected in the next year or two in some form or another.
Nikon D3xs (D3x with sensor cleaning, integrated GPS, integrated WiFi, integrated wireless flash transmitter) - everything anyone can fit into a big, heavy DSLR.
Nikon D700x (D700 body with a D3x inside - includes sensor cleaning and flash transmitter (less sophisticated than D3xs), but not GPS, WiFi)
Canon 1Ds mkIV (Canon's 29.3 mp answer to the D3x - lacks flash transmitter and GPS, but has HD video, which the D3xs lacks)
Canon 1D mkIV (20.1 mp, not quite full frame, but 12 FPS, with a 1080p60 video mode having FULL auto and manual control)
Canon EOS-3D (29.3 mp, no video, but 1D-level autofocus in a weatherproof body only slightly larger than a 5D)
Nikon S5 (Nikon's answer to all the rangefinder clamor - same old 24.6 mp sensor in a rangefinder body - unlike Leica, has AF if you want it)
Leica M9 (Ubiquitous 24.6 MP Sony sensor, although with 16-bit readout, custom Leica filter pack in an M body)
Sony Alpha 925 (Alpha 900 with 14 bit readout, improvements in AA filter and electronics to catch D3x image quality)
Sony Alpha 1000 (A true hybrid with as much attention paid to beyond-HD video quality as to stills - makes Jim Jannard see red)
RED Scarlet (Similar to the Alpha 1000, but started life as a movie camera, so optimized silghtly differently)
Nikon X1 (D3xs sensor in an EVF only camera with a 4 - inch XGA LCD on the back - sensor has 8 degrees of tilt capability and 18 mm of shift in any direction). The X1 uses its own line of lenses with increased image circle, although a F Mount adapter is available, which, of course, locks the shift.
This is (at least mostly) realistic based on what everybody's been known to do in the past (notice that the four Nikons ALL reuse the same sensor).
-Dan
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Since this pertains to pritnts, I thought I'd post this link (taken from kenrockwell.com):
Anything "taken" from Ken Rockwell should be immediately returned.
Tom
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Can anyone explain the reaction to Ken Rockwell?
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Can anyone explain the reaction to Ken Rockwell?
Here are just a few of his tidbits of "wisdom". There are PLENTY of other examples.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/how-to-spot-an-amateur.htm (http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/how-to-spot-an-amateur.htm)
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/7.htm (http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/7.htm)
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/2-kinds-of-photographers.htm (http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/2-kinds-of-photographers.htm)
Tom
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Can anyone explain the reaction to Ken Rockwell?
Because Ken Rockwell is arguably one of the dumbest people posting drivel on the internet. He usually makes absolutely no sense, just read some of his garbage. Equipment doesn't matter is great, he can take a better photograph with a Kodak 110 than you can with a Nikon D3X. All computers are junk except for Apples, everything and anything made by Apple is the best. He even does car "reviews" http://www.kenrockwell.com/cars/index.htm (http://www.kenrockwell.com/cars/index.htm) And I have to wonder if equipment doesn't matter with photography why does it matter with anything? Cars? http://www.kenrockwell.com/porsche/cayenne-turbo-s/index.htm (http://www.kenrockwell.com/porsche/cayenne-turbo-s/index.htm) Ken is a oxymoron, everything he writes contradicts something else.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/porsche/cayenne-turbo-s/index.htm (http://www.kenrockwell.com/porsche/cayenne-turbo-s/index.htm) He writes "(note: this is my wife's car. I can't aford this stuff; I haven't bought a new car since I got a new Ford back in 1986.)" Yet he wants you to donate to his website "because He supports his family doing this" He says he can't afford his wife's car but then he writes "Sure, I make good money doing this, but I also pay more taxes than I ever have in my life." I can get from point A to point B faster in a Jeep Cherokee SRT 8, so does the equipment matter? Why buy a $100,000.00+ SUV when you can buy a $40K SUV that will trash it. Again a contradiction The 2006 Cayenne Turbo S was only available for part of 2006. It is already a modern classic. We love ours, especially because we got it, brand new, for almost $30,000 below sticker price! Why Did we Get This?
The man has no clue how to write a sentence, he is delusional and has visions of grandeur.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/why-pros-use-mac.htm (http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/why-pros-use-mac.htm)
This article is about the dumbest I've ever read, it's filled with more idiotic statements than I could ever care to count. Ken got bamboozled by the Apple marketing machine like many others, the facts are rather simple, Apples generally look better (not always) and usually they work and are more expensive. Well, I guess I wont go there, just telling you why KR is an idiot.
Anyhow, just spend 5 minutes reading his website and it will become quite clear.
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A lot of interesting posts in this thread.
I was more interested in film to digital comparisons before and during I had my drum scanner. Now , I know Joseph has contacts with Heidelberg in Kiel and I know them as well, but I am going to be cruel and say the Tango is only a good scanner. So for those of you scanning on CCD scanners the quality of your capture are not at their best. Advantage in this case will always be digital as you haven't handicapped the capture. Well then you say wait this is film comparison to digital. Good why not just take a good B&W neg and print it correctly. Compare that to digital. Uh huh now you've got it. What is all that horrible grain blah blocked up shadows in your print blah, > either you get it or you don't. Film is film. It has it's qualities, it has it's beauty, and good luck trying to make digital look the same with all that awful grain etc. Well surprise, that ugly grain is not only character building , but also fetches a lot of money in galleries.
So technically the newer digital cameras are indeed way over powered, but better or worse in image quality is just not a subject that is easy to put in the same box.
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First, I'd like to address all my sincere condolences to Erwin Puts, for being linked by Ken Rockwell...
Interesting thread though - I'm doing only color images since years, and didn't thought the B&W chemical workflow could yield so much resolution.
I did some B&W chemical prints back in the film era, when it was the only affordable solution for home printing - and used Delta100 much, but remember it was a bit grainier though! probably a matter of processing and developer.
I too felt on par with color slides (ekta) with my 6MP 300d.
One remark about the article: in the same time needed for such a fine wet print, the digital side can reach even higher resolution : grab a pano head and a tele lens, and stitch until death (or boredom)...
That's a big advantage of photographing resolution targets, they don't move at all and are a very good subject for stitching!
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First, I'd like to address all my sincere condolences to Erwin Puts, for being linked by Ken Rockwell...
Interesting thread though - I'm doing only color images since years, and didn't thought the B&W chemical workflow could yield so much resolution.
I did some B&W chemical prints back in the film era, when it was the only affordable solution for home printing - and used Delta100 much, but remember it was a bit grainier though! probably a matter of processing and developer.
I too felt on par with color slides (ekta) with my 6MP 300d.
One remark about the article: in the same time needed for such a fine wet print, the digital side can reach even higher resolution : grab a pano head and a tele lens, and stitch until death (or boredom)...
That's a big advantage of photographing resolution targets, they don't move at all and are a very good subject for stitching!
Don't worry about it, the original article / test isn't very well done or written. Anybody who comes to a conclusion using one camera / lens / printer isn't a very good scientist. He even used a consumer grade printer in the Canon 9500. It's just not something that is good for reference.
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In my days of 'wet' photography I regularly used 35 mm Tri-X at 200 ASA with my Nikon. It gave nice negatives that printed well. Tri-X has moderate grain and one is limited in terms of how large one can print. I've scanned a number of negatives with a Nikon Coolscan 5000. I'm quite careful in optimizing the scan but still cannot get digital prints beyond 8x10 because the grain shows through worse than from a difusion enlarger. I don't know if a drum scanner would get me much further (but that is academic as I don't want to spend that kind of money). With my Nikon D300 I get digital images that easily print on 13x19 paper with great clarity. For me this is no contest. I do recognize that medium format and large format negatives are a totally different story and one that I can't write as I only have experince with 35mm. I have not tried any of the new fine grain 35mm B&W films as the inconvenience of developing them is outweighed by the ease of digital capture.
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Not only one camera, but one relaively low resolution camera...
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Hi,
I'd guess that Mr. Putts is a much better scientist than me. Would you reed his other articles you would know that he is really careful about testing. You may also ask what's wrong with the Canon printer? It' shows all the aliasing we need, so it does clearly not lack in resolution. I know very little about Mr. Putts, but he is the author of the Leica Lens Compendium and it's my impression that he is an optics expert.
If you look at the test images it is very clear that the digital capture is significantly aliased, indicating that the lens is resolving higher than the sensor. The film based image does not have this characteristics. Regarding the camera it is true that it's not a very high resolution sensor but it being an APS-H (1.3 factor) sensor at about 10 MPixels it's essentially in the same league as the Canon 1DsIII with regard to pixel size. In a sense it would be interesting to use a higher resolution sensor like Canon 50D, but that sensor has a AA-filter reducing sharpness. The 50D has larger pixel density than the Canon 1DsIII and would have about 38.4 MPixels on full frame.
Best regards
Erik Kaffehr
Don't worry about it, the original article / test isn't very well done or written. Anybody who comes to a conclusion using one camera / lens / printer isn't a very good scientist. He even used a consumer grade printer in the Canon 9500. It's just not something that is good for reference.
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Compared to Velvia 100, here are my experiences with a range of digital cameras I have known. All the film was scanned using Nikon scanners (Super Coolscan 8000 and 9000), except for the 4x5 transparencies, which are scanned on an Epson V700 (definitely a disadvantage). Digital uprezzing was done using either a stepped technique in Photoshop (bicubic in 10% increments), or more recently, Genuine Fractals. The printer driver was never permitted to uprez - files always sent at 360 (Epson) or 600 (Canon iPF) DPI at print size. Digital always at base ISO (100 (Canons, D3x) or 200 in the case of Nikons other than the D3x)
Canon EOS D30 - yes, the OLD 3 mp model, NOT the 30D... - Lower resolution than 35mm scanned Velvia, noise is less than film grain, so can sometimes look as good overall. Don't try to print past 8x12!
Nikon D70 - Equivalent resolution to scanned 35mm Velvia - lower noise means that image is marginally better. Prints in the 11x16 range at most, makes a really GOOD 8x12.
Nikon D200 - Significantly higher resolution than scanned 35mm Velvia, lower resolution than scanned 6x6 cm (Hasselblad) Velvia. Prints 12x18 much more comfortably than 35mm (color) ever did.
Canon EOS 1DsmkII - medium format film quality - resolution close to scanned 6x6 cm Velvia, although the different aspect ratio makes it difficult to compare. Distinctly higher resolution than a 6x6 cm chrome cropped to 3x2 aspect ratio. Dynamic range exceeds Velvia by a substantial margin. Prints 16x24 quite reasonably, although I wouldn't push much past that.
Nikon D3x - well above conventional medium format film quality, but not large format - resolution easily comparable to or better than scanned 6x9 cm Velvia. Prints 24x36 very easily (I'm more comfortable with the D3x at 24x36 than I am with the 1DsII at 16x24). Extra dynamic range is very noticeable over any film.
4x5 film still exceeds any of these cameras for raw resolution (some of the high-end Phase backs may be in 4x5 territory), although 4x5 resolution versus D3x dynamic range would be an interesting choice. The higher camera resolution gets, the more near-perfect technique becomes important. The D3x produces 6x9 cm results, but ONLY if it is handled as a 6x9 (sturdy tripod, remote release, extremely careful focus). It is tempting to use as a 35mm camera, because it looks like one, and it will produce better than 35mm results used this way, but it isn't a 6x9 unless it is handled as a 6x9! This will be at least as true, if not more so, for any future DSLR with even higher resolution.
The other limit we are reaching is the size printer we're willing to live with. The best current DSLRs are already producing gallery quality 24 inch prints. The next step up requires a 44 inch printer and oversize mat board (a 24x36 inch print barely mats with a standard 32x40 inch board).
Is the next step really a higher resolution DSLR, or is it more choices at the resolutions we have? There is no reason why a 24.6 mp Leica M9 can't exist, or a 24.6 mp Nikon FM3d. If we have a wide range of cameras that can print 24x36 or larger, from models with 4 inch LCDs and tilt/shift sensors (technically possible if you get rid of the mirror) to a classic rangefinder that may even lack the image review LCD, and including SLRs with a wide range of features, is that not ultimately a more satisfying choice of tools than a few SLRs with even higher resolutions that require heavy tripods and 44-inch printers.
How about this range of cameras - all between 20 and 30 mp, optimized for prints up to 24x36 inches? All except the X1 are expected in the next year or two in some form or another.
Nikon D3xs (D3x with sensor cleaning, integrated GPS, integrated WiFi, integrated wireless flash transmitter) - everything anyone can fit into a big, heavy DSLR.
Nikon D700x (D700 body with a D3x inside - includes sensor cleaning and flash transmitter (less sophisticated than D3xs), but not GPS, WiFi)
Canon 1Ds mkIV (Canon's 29.3 mp answer to the D3x - lacks flash transmitter and GPS, but has HD video, which the D3xs lacks)
Canon 1D mkIV (20.1 mp, not quite full frame, but 12 FPS, with a 1080p60 video mode having FULL auto and manual control)
Canon EOS-3D (29.3 mp, no video, but 1D-level autofocus in a weatherproof body only slightly larger than a 5D)
Nikon S5 (Nikon's answer to all the rangefinder clamor - same old 24.6 mp sensor in a rangefinder body - unlike Leica, has AF if you want it)
Leica M9 (Ubiquitous 24.6 MP Sony sensor, although with 16-bit readout, custom Leica filter pack in an M body)
Sony Alpha 925 (Alpha 900 with 14 bit readout, improvements in AA filter and electronics to catch D3x image quality)
Sony Alpha 1000 (A true hybrid with as much attention paid to beyond-HD video quality as to stills - makes Jim Jannard see red)
RED Scarlet (Similar to the Alpha 1000, but started life as a movie camera, so optimized silghtly differently)
Nikon X1 (D3xs sensor in an EVF only camera with a 4 - inch XGA LCD on the back - sensor has 8 degrees of tilt capability and 18 mm of shift in any direction). The X1 uses its own line of lenses with increased image circle, although a F Mount adapter is available, which, of course, locks the shift.
This is (at least mostly) realistic based on what everybody's been known to do in the past (notice that the four Nikons ALL reuse the same sensor).
-Dan
Hi,
I am of different opinion. Some of you may remember this one http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=20970 (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=20970). Or please take a peek at it... and do look at the drum scans posted....
Post #64 concur with my observation of prints; "While looking at these last 100% crops, I find that I'm really drawn to them and the ZD images that looked so great before look lifeless in comparison."
The ZD has been stated by others to be capable of higher image quality than Canon's 20MP dslrs. I believe it, because I find difficult to see how the many photos I have seen posted from those measure up to the capabilities of MFDBs. I now use Leaf Aptus 65 and it eats the ZD in image qualities. That said, I simply cannot give up on film. Even Velvia 50 in Mamiya 7 result in image with an entire different dimension and detail than my Aptus. Not to mention the COLORS and how slide film renders the extreme towards white and black, while digital cuts it... or even with my Aptus although great DR is plain linear.
Now some of you will say that Mamiya 7 was not fair comparison because it has such sharp lenses, but... those 20MP dslrs require very sharp lenses also.
What scanners did you use for film? Obvious a drum scan is the only way to go to get the max out of film, until - hopefully - Epson announce a V850! Or, perhaps add a soft filter to the dslr for fairness...
D3x exceeding medium format? Absolutely no chance in my opinion, not when scanned proper. Now as always it is likely that some post by someone with a D3x will state that of course it does, because many wish to compare by mine is better than yours...
Lets face it; digital is digital, film is film. They are different medias. Both have pros and cons. I use both.
I am current new to large format 4x5 and use Velvia 50 - aint nothing like Velvia 50 for landscape. It feels such breeze to use 4x5 because so very BASIC, SIMPLE and PHOTOGRAPHIC - and FULL CONTROL. And the results of Velvia 50 in 4x5 slides very much impress me.
Now for last, I am also of different opinion regarding Ken Rockwell. I do enjoy his site, as do many others. He is one who speaks out, and many times rightfully so, although he also speaks of his opinion which I not always agree with. One need to think carefully and judge to ones own opinion. That is fine. As compared to other sites that constant push new and latest gear for advertising, he is someone who do speak sincere of his opinion about gear and photography. That is great! Thanks Ken!!! He has given me very much good info through his site for years. Now, imagine if I would have placed this first in this post..., ah yah, but you all read him, confess!!!
Regards
Anders
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Can anyone explain the reaction to Ken Rockwell?
The guy is kind of nuts. If you read just his opinion of color spaces and sRGB, its clear he's more interested in gathering attention by being controversial rather than correct. Its like the "birthers" or any lunatic fringe mentally we see these days where getting hits on a web page due solely for being outrageous, controversial while being technically wrong is the norm.
I would suggest you don't waste your time reading Ken Rockwell.
Of course it is referenced from Ken Rockwell's site, he's the epitome of why the internet is NOT a good place for reference material since 99% of it is false, you have to look for accurate information.
I couldn't agree more!
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"Now for last, I am also of different opinion regarding Ken Rockwell. I do enjoy his site, as do many others."
I agree, I enjoy his site. Without Ken Rockwell's site we would probably never realize just how good this site is. I've read a lot of the "information" on Ken's site and have never found anything of use, YMMV. Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one, even KR. I can't imagine that you learned anything useful at his site. His site reminds me of Donald Trump, everything is the best and his wife is the prettiest, the smartest, top woman in her position at her HUGE companty. His great-grandfather invented selling apples in NYC, his grandmother worked for Steinway, his son attends MIT at the age of 2 and will have his Ph.D in Astro Physics and Applied Mathematics blah blah blah blah. Ken is a coholder of a patent, he invented digital photography, oh no, that's right, all his friends are the Ph.Ds who invented everything to do with Digital imaging. KR has been working with Digital Imaging for 30+ years, actually since he was 5 years old and even at the hospital when he was born all the nurses knew he was a photographer because he lifted his head up and was looking around, he saw the world clearly the day he was born! "Real men shoot raw" "This page generates controversy because fact doesn't always agree with old wives' tales circulated by newcomers to digital photography in chat rooms. I'm sharing what works for me gathered across three decades of continuous full-time paid professional experience in digital imaging. In addition I was studying digital imaging for ten years before I got my engineering degree and started as a professional working with the guys with Ph.Ds in mathematics who invented all this."
Ken always speaks in absolutes, "Every pro I know uses a MAC" How's that possible? I know a lot of professional photographers and it seems 1/2 use MACs, the total market share for MAC is around 7%. Maybe he doesn't know that many Pros? I think Michael Reichman stated that on his last trip approximately 60% of the photographers used MACs, obviously not everybody. KR will tell you owning Camera A and using Lens B is a waste and shouldn't be done, but he's only looking at situations C-M and not AB & N-Z. IOW he just doesn't get it; get what? He doesn't understand other people's needs or wants. He states shooting RAW is a total waste and it's a blanket statement. Welllllllllllll, for some maybe it is a waste, but what if, what if the day comes and you develop your skills and now want that old JPEG to be a RAW file (COUGH, ME). Best analogy, you always shot with a Polaroid and now you want the negative, SOL. "Film is much better than digital" If that were true wouldn't all the best photographers still use film? He just recently posted a workshop for the "Great" photographer Jay Maisel, he has been shooting digital (except maybe 5-6 rolls) since 2001, why? Yes, KR has opinions, but when people are so insistent that their way is the only possible solution it makes them seem not too bright. Maybe KR thinks he's a lot smarter than he is and knows everything there is to know about photography, whatever works for him should work for everybody. Generally speaking there aren't many absolutes in life, and opinions mean nothing, a group of experiences might enable you to solve a problem.
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Regarding the camera it is true that it's not a very high resolution sensor but it being an APS-H (1.3 factor) sensor at about 10 MPixels it's essentially in the same league as the Canon 1DsIII with regard to pixel size. In a sense it would be interesting to use a higher resolution sensor like Canon 50D, but that sensor has a AA-filter reducing sharpness. The 50D has larger pixel density than the Canon 1DsIII and would have about 38.4 MPixels on full frame.
Best regards
Erik Kaffehr
Just when you thought the Kodak Pro SLR/C was pointless :-)
(I need to dust that thing off and give it another spin.....Last I looked at it, I have bad memories of strong magenta in the highlights)..
but it is 14MP, no filter, fullframe :-)
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Ken is fun to hate, which is why he gets so much attention. Even when there's a grain of truth to what he says it's mixed with so much hyperbole that it's bound to get a rise out of someone.
The problem is that he spreads a lot of confusion and misinformation to folks who take everything he says seriously. He writes just enough common sense tidbits to give himself some credibility, and his everyman attitude and writing style make him an enjoyable read for some, especially since he's often telling users what they want to hear (eg "Real photographers shoot JPEG", "All you need is a D5000 and a kit lens.", "Tripods are not needed for daytime shooting", etc). But less experienced users who are just starting out with photography or digital photography cannot always separate the truth from the fiction, and parrot everything he says as fact, which only annoys other folks who have been around a bit longer and have grown tired of Ken's antics.
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In my comparison of the D3x to medium format, I made clear that I was using a Super Coolscan 9000 to scan the Velvia (I was also using Velvia 100, not 50). A megabuck drum scanner might extract more detail from the film (although the Super Coolscan is already scanning grain), and would certainly bring the film closer to the D3x's dynamic range. Remember that a drum scanner costs substantially more than a D3x, and is a royal pain to use (often run by an operator who has received manufacturer training). Of course, you could have someone else make your drum scans, at 50-100 dollars per scan. With comparable equipment investments, I stand by my statement that the D3x is roughly equivalent to 6x9 cm Velvia 100 scanned on a Super Coolscan 9000. A D3x, a Nikkor 24-70 f2.8 and a couple of flash cards cost about $9000.
I couldn't find a comparable 6x9 cm film camera, but a Mamiya 7 II outfit with three lenses that cover the range of the Nikkor zoom is about $4000 used (closer to $7000 new), plus a $2000 Super Coolscan 9000. The $3000 left over (assuming you buy the Mamiya outfit used) covers approximately 200 rolls of Velvia with processing. They're pretty comparable in price and performance (with the edge to the D3x over 6x7 if you like wider aspect ratios), with the D3x never needing a further investment in film after the first couple thousand shots (after the Mamiya's included hundred rolls, it's $1.50 per frame). Replace the Super Coolscan with a drum scanner (high resolution models are over $10,000 even used) or even an Imacon and the prices are very different. Remove the scanner from the package and have someone do $2000 worth of drum scans at $50 each, and you only get 40 final images out of the Mamiya. I certainly won't argue with someone who's printing 24 inches wide off their Mamiya - it's a REALLY nice system too. I'm just saying that the 20+MP DSLRs provide another choice that is at least comparable in price and performance, without ongoing film costs. For people who don't do many frames per year (and are willing to ALWAYS use a tripod and perfect technique), 4x5 is another viable choice, with resolution on the film so high that even a cheap Epson scanner can scan it to D3x resolutions or better. A used 4x5 outfit can be assembled quite reasonably, allowing for a $4000 used professional flatbed scanner that will provide outstanding (well beyond D3x resolution) scans from large format transparencies. The drawback to large format (apart from the inflexibility - while you need to shoot a D3x like large format for MAXIMUM quality, you can also handhold it - try that with a Wista!) is, of course, the very high per frame cost ($5.00 or more).
I completely agree with the point that the 20+MP DSLRs need very sharp lenses (and there are a substantial number of Nikkors that are very sharp, including the 24-70 I used in the example above - I own that lens, have over 5000 frames on it, and would call it sharper than anything I've ever used, including Zeiss glass for Hasselblad V) - using a D3x (or, I'm sure, a 1Ds mkIII or an Alpha 900) with a $200 consumer zoom would lose a LOT of detail!
-Dan
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A megabuck drum scanner might extract more detail from the film (although the Super Coolscan is already scanning grain), and would certainly bring the film closer to the D3x's dynamic range.
There's far more to the quality of a scan from a good drum scanner than just this. You gel mount film on a good PMT drum with good software, you control both properly, you're going to get a much better data set. The Cooscan is OK, its no match for say an Imacon at the same resolution and for that matter, a good drum (prior to using an Imacon, I ran a Scanmate 5000 and Howtek) is again producing a vastly superior file compared to the Imacon. Its like expecting the same 22mp camera with a wide range of lens quality is going to produce the same quality data. It will not. So in terms of this discussion, one can make a good digital capture look a lot better than a scan depending on how and who scanned the film. IF (and when) I did film versus tests in the old days, I drum scanned them.
Someone could argue a desktop drum isn't as good as a high end prepress drum (some could argue, if you're not scanning for CMYK, that's a good thing).
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Drum scanners now are being given away, including the prepress ones. The bigger the scanner the more it costs to get rid of. They are rather inexpensive, but finding supplies is becoming a problem. Scanning is over, no one cares, film is going the way history sets forth. Scanning film is only going to resolve dye or silver clumps as the grain itself is beyond any scanner.
No need to take it one way or another. The good drum scanners like I had, ICG, Aztek/Howtek, SG 8060MKII, 6250 Fuji all were able to provide for superior quality images, a lot of which has to do with fluid mount. The Nikon with fluid mount is pretty good as are the Scitex Supreme flatbeds.
When I see comparisons of film vs digital unless the film is very carefully scanned as well as the digital capture well done it doesn't say much. Joseph Holmes is one sure bet, a nice Tango, and a photographer who knows everything there is to know about maximising capture.
Joe went digital, Stephen Johnson has been since pioneering with Betterlight, etc, etc etc. I sold my drum as I just like digital for reasons of versatility, environmental issues, speed etc. No regrets, but I can tell you when I see scanned 6x6 pos film it still has a sparkle that my Canon does not. Perhaps with a MF back no AA filter it would look closer. Yet it doesn't matter as I will not be shooting film again outside the very rare 4x5 as I don't have a MF back for the Sinar.
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I believe we will need scanners for many years to come. I still rescan film and slides from years back because scanners are better today than they were 10 years ago.
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No regrets, but I can tell you when I see scanned 6x6 pos film it still has a sparkle that my Canon does not. Perhaps with a MF back no AA filter it would look closer.
I have not any regrets either, but that's just not the same in many aspects.
Recently, I joined the efforts of more experienced guys to emulate the look (color and tonality, grossly said) of a color negative film with digital, for another photographer who was quite attached to that look (his work (http://vereeck.romandie.com/) is remarkable indeed).
We just couldn't! (Discussion in french (http://www.chassimages.com/forum/index.php?topic=36412.0) if it's of any interest)
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In my comparison of the D3x to medium format, I made clear that I was using a Super Coolscan 9000 to scan the Velvia (I was also using Velvia 100, not 50). A megabuck drum scanner might extract more detail from the film (although the Super Coolscan is already scanning grain), and would certainly bring the film closer to the D3x's dynamic range. Remember that a drum scanner costs substantially more than a D3x, and is a royal pain to use (often run by an operator who has received manufacturer training). Of course, you could have someone else make your drum scans, at 50-100 dollars per scan. With comparable equipment investments, I stand by my statement that the D3x is roughly equivalent to 6x9 cm Velvia 100 scanned on a Super Coolscan 9000. A D3x, a Nikkor 24-70 f2.8 and a couple of flash cards cost about $9000.
I was going to stay out of this fight. But there's just too much misinformation about drum scanning here. I do a lot of drum scanning for people, I hope I've got a clue about my market.
First, anyone who would pay $9000 USD for a drum scanner these days is a nut case; please introduce me. I would gladly part with one of my scanners for $9000 USD. There are excellent used scanners on the market, full turn-key systems including mounting stations, computers, and software for way less money. As in less than $2000 USD. Used working Howtek 4000/4500s routinely go in this range. I've seen better scanners like Optronics ColorGetters go for less than $1000 USD. I'd explain why but I doubt anyone actually cares.
The only people who say that drum scanners are "a royal pain to use" are people who have never run one. Drum scanning has it's own set of learning curves, just like both film and digital photography have theirs. It's not insurmountably difficult. It does not require factory training. If I can do it anyone can. What it takes is care, precision, and patience. Anyone who's tried to get the most out of their cameras knows about this; it's not unlike doing the tripod, mirror lockup, precision focusing, picking the right taking aperture to maximize sharpness level of care, precision, and patience that most of the participants here know all too well.
While I'm here I might as well dispel another myth about drum scanners that's bound to come up if it hasn't already. That myth is about how wonderful a Tango is. Heidelberg designed the Tangos for advertising work and optimized the hell out of them for big pre-press houses. At this they excel. But unless you only shoot trannies and expect they'll never be printed larger than a magazine page using an offset press, you'll likely do better with another scanner.
There are two main problems that keep the Tangos out of the running for excellent fine art scanners. First, they have large minimum apertures (10 or 11 micros depending on who you talk to). This limits the optical resolution you can obtain with it. The theoretical maximum you'll get from about 10 microns is around 2500 spi. That's all. The "lowly" Howtek 4000 has a smaller aperture (around 6 microns, or around 4000 spi) and is noticeably sharper than a Tango. The Howtek 8000 and Premiers have a minimum aperture of around 3 microns, as do the later model ICGs, all of which can give you a real optical resolution in the range of 7000 spi, and crush Tangos for real optical resolution. Not that you'll produce a lot of film that has that much image information on it.
The second problem is that Heidelberg optimized the hell out of their scanners for tranny work. Operators have told me that working with negatives (color or B&W) is a royal PITA because the Linocolor/Newcolor software makes working with negatives operator-hostile. Heidelberg did this for good reason -- their market was nearly 100% trannies. Think art directors. Think time-is-money, and WYSIWYG, art director making decisions on the light table. Has to be trannies.
I'm not saying that Tangos are bad; they are excellent at what they were designed for. But there are considerably better scanners for fine art work. Especially negatives. So if you are comparing digital capture with Tango scans, don't be surprised when the digital capture comes up with more sharpness. If you want to know what film will really do, go up against an Aztek Premier with DPL software. That's probably the current state of the art in scanning any film. And a Premier almost certainly will cost you more than $9000 USD.
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Can anybody with experience explain or better yet, show the difference between a Nikon 9000 and a drum scanner? I've never personally used a drum scanner, so I'm curious what the difference will be using 35mm film? Anybody?
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Bruce, Could you please comment Imacon 949 or Hasselblad X5 scanner?
Is it good for film scanning? What is the micron for this one?
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I couldn't find a comparable 6x9 cm film camera, but a Mamiya 7 II outfit with three lenses that cover the range of the Nikkor zoom is about $4000 used (closer to $7000 new),-Dan
Lets dispel two more myths;
Myth #1 - Price of Camera
Yes, if live in USA a Mamiya 7 is exepensive both new and used, simply because Mamiya USA traditionally have priced 2x the price it has been sold here in Asia! (although Mamiya also here increased prices last year... perhaps due pressure from Mamiya USA, although the excuse I was told was more expensive materials ...).
A few years ago I was looking for a used Mamiya 6 on Ebay, but due to USA new pricing also used are sold for high. Thus I ended buying a NEW Mamiya 7ii here in Hong Kong with a 43mm and 80mm for not much more than used Mamiya 6 sold for on Ebay with 50mm + 80mm.
Look aside the Mamiya 7 and... there... there is a multitude of used very high level gear for sale for near nothing! - both medium and large format!
Myth #2 - Film expensive. Yes, if you are a professional who shoot large volume, but not as an amateur who shoots selective. And with medium format and large format one is more pushed to shoot selective and to with each press of shutter capture what is a good image. With a DSLR one is instead encouraged to press the shutter... and sort through a large volume on computer... plus the time of digital adjustments of course....
Wait, D3X?? 8,000 usd? Medium format film camera will keep you going for years, or... if only need 10MP, look at Leica M8 which is very excellent and requires little processing in computer.
Problem - Film and digital are different medias. Using both means carrying and owning more gear.
Regards
Anders
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There's far more to the quality of a scan from a good drum scanner than just this. You gel mount film on a good PMT drum with good software, you control both properly, you're going to get a much better data set. The Cooscan is OK, its no match for say an Imacon at the same resolution and for that matter, a good drum (prior to using an Imacon, I ran a Scanmate 5000 and Howtek) is again producing a vastly superior file compared to the Imacon. Its like expecting the same 22mp camera with a wide range of lens quality is going to produce the same quality data. It will not. So in terms of this discussion, one can make a good digital capture look a lot better than a scan depending on how and who scanned the film. IF (and when) I did film versus tests in the old days, I drum scanned them.
Someone could argue a desktop drum isn't as good as a high end prepress drum (some could argue, if you're not scanning for CMYK, that's a good thing).
While I will not argue the qualities of a good drum scanner used by a skilled and caring operator I do not see the price difference between an Imacon and a Nikon 9000 reflected in the scan qualities. That said I customised my Nikon 8000 with wet mounting film holders, tweaked the overall focusing and use Vuescan as the driver. However the Nikon MF range may no longer be in production according to more sources. So the choices that remain are an Epson V750, the Imacon models or a used drum scanner. I think ICG still makes new drum scanners of a high quality. The step in image quality between an Epson V750 and a good drum scanner is huge but will also be wiser pricewise than buying an Imacon.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
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Just when you thought the Kodak Pro SLR/C was pointless :-)
(I need to dust that thing off and give it another spin.....Last I looked at it, I have bad memories of strong magenta in the highlights)..
but it is 14MP, no filter, fullframe :-)
Funny you should say that. I revisited some old SLR/n files the other day and was struck by how much sharper and cleaner the D3x pixels where... then I recalled that I had in fact already seen this gap between the SLR/n and the D2x.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Can anybody with experience explain or better yet, show the difference between a Nikon 9000 and a drum scanner? I've never personally used a drum scanner, so I'm curious what the difference will be using 35mm film? Anybody?
Difficult to compare because they use two very different scanning techniques. The Nikon is a CCD scanner. It moves a bar of CCD elements across the film -- scanning a line at a time.
Drum scanners use PMTs. PMTs are large and expensive so they only use three (or four). The PMTs are held stationary and the film is rotated past an optical pickup. IOW, the film is scanned one pixel at a time.
A large part of the difference in the scans is due to lighting. CCD scanners have to light at least the line across the film if not the entire film during scanning. This contributes a fair amount of light scatter to the scan resulting in a little more softness. Drum scanners light just the pixel in question when they take their measurement of the film so light scatter is minimized, and sharpness is higher as a result.
There's all kinds of theory about how to scan film. The reality is that none of us are likely going to be building scanners to scan film ourselves, so the theory devolves down to what can we buy. And in that case for most 35mm film applications a film scanner like the Nikon mentioned will usually do fine for most applications. In my personal estimation (not an industry standard by a long shot) the Nikon's and Minolta's are pretty good. If you fluid mount and put in the effort you can get results that compare well with drum scanning up to around 7-8x enlargement.
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Bruce, Could you please comment Imacon 949 or Hasselblad X5 scanner?
Is it good for film scanning? What is the micron for this one?
The Imacon scanners are flatbed scanners with a twist. They are CCD scanners that scan the film a line at a time just like flatbed scanners. The twist is that they eliminate the flat bed. Instead they hold the film in a known position by bowing it. Since they aren't drum scanners they don't have an aperture to look through. I have no data with which to make predictions about performance of the Imacon/Hasselblad scanners. Sorry.
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While I will not argue the qualities of a good drum scanner used by a skilled and caring operator I do not see the price difference between an Imacon and a Nikon 9000 reflected in the scan qualities. That said I customised my Nikon 8000 with wet mounting film holders, tweaked the overall focusing and use Vuescan as the driver. However the Nikon MF range may no longer be in production according to more sources. So the choices that remain are an Epson V750, the Imacon models or a used drum scanner. I think ICG still makes new drum scanners of a high quality. The step in image quality between an Epson V750 and a good drum scanner is huge but will also be wiser pricewise than buying an Imacon.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
Files from Imacon is much sharper than Nikon 9000. IMHO.
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The Imacon scanners are flatbed scanners with a twist. They are CCD scanners that scan the film a line at a time just like flatbed scanners. The twist is that they eliminate the flat bed. Instead they hold the film in a known position by bowing it. Since they aren't drum scanners they don't have an aperture to look through. I have no data with which to make predictions about performance of the Imacon/Hasselblad scanners. Sorry.
Thanks Bruce. At least you say only what you know. I like that.
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I would suggest you don't waste your time reading Ken Rockwell.
This made me smile
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Instead they hold the film in a known position by bowing it. Since they aren't drum scanners they don't have an aperture to look through. I have no data with which to make predictions about performance of the Imacon/Hasselblad scanners. Sorry.
Not to be too nickpicky, I'd say an Imacon IS a drum scanner as the film is handled this way, its just not a PMT drum scanner (which is a major distinction). The cool thing about drum scanners (CCD in the case of the Imacon, PMT for others) is as pointed out, the fact that one small area is in sharp focus for whatever sensor is used to scan the film.
I've worked with Howtek and Scanmate drums and several older Imacon's (and prior to that Leaf's which were slow but very good units). Nothing approaches the quality of a PMT drum IMHO. The Imacon's were however very good. If I were doing a lot of scans today, needed a scanner, it would be a hard choice which route to go. For quality, PMT drum no question. Problem is, can you drive them on your current hardware and will the software run? With Imacon, at least you've got something that can be driven FireWire and the software runs under modern OS.
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Files from Imacon is much sharper than Nikon 9000. IMHO.
Not if you take out the default sharpening in the Imacon driver. For that you have to enter a negative number.
Many users are not aware of that "feature". On the Nikon compatible drivers sharpening is an optional choice, not a default one.
The fact that the film is curved during the scan doesn't make it a drum scanner. The reason it is curved in the Imacon is that the film will not pop/deform while mounting and during the scan and the mechanical/optical construction will scan the film along the radius for that curve. The focus should in theory be more consistent that way than in a glassless filmcarrier on a flatbed CCD scanner. A nice solution but not more than that, it still is a CCD scanner. Film wetmounted to glass in a Nikon 8000-9000 and the focusing adjusted for the 4 corners of the frame gives a very sharp scan all over. The wet mounting makes the light transmission uniform, reduces the effect of matte emulsion surfaces and heals damaged film. The drivers for the Nikon, Silverfast, NikonScan and Vuescan, are compatible with the extra Infrared illumination so ICE or ICE alike program features for dust and scratch removal are usable, even with wet mounting. As far as I know wet mounting isn't possible on an Imacon and ICE + hardware infrared wasn't available in older models, but I'm not sure whether the latest versions have it aboard or still not.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
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The cost of the fine lens in an Imacon probably is as much as the cost of the Nikon! Not that a lens is all that important here (not).
You get what you pay for.
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Hi,
According to Mr. Rockwell this is (all) what you need:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/minolta/mp.htm (http://www.kenrockwell.com/minolta/mp.htm)
I happen to have it, too. Not having experience with other scanners I have no comment ;-)
Best regards
Erik
The cost of the fine lens in an Imacon probably is as much as the cost of the Nikon! Not that a lens is all that important here (not).
You get what you pay for.
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Someone on here quoted really good 7x-8x enlargements from scanning on the Coolscans. I have pushed a little bit beyond that comfortably - about 10x (so 10x15 inches from 35mm, and 20 inches from the 6cm dimension on 120 - 16x20 from 645, 20x20 from 6x6, as much as 20x30 from 6x9). How much beyond that (for a really good print of a high detail subject) will an Imacon go? A drum scanner? I can't imagine getting 20x, because that was widely considered impossible in the chemical darkroom (that would be a 20x30 from 35mm, and any print that size from 35mm I've ever seen was a grainy mess, no matter how it was produced). Is 15x realistic? A good darkroom worker could ALMOST do that, IF they started with a really good negative or chrome - that's where the special developers like Acufine and Microdol came in - people trying to make detailed 16x24 prints from 35mm. Of course there are low-detail subjects (or places where grain is acceptable) that print significantly larger, but that's true of digital as well.
The best digital sensors today will go something like 25x on the physical size of the sensor (I use the D3x as an example, because it's what I use, but I'm sure that there are other sensors that are in the same range). That gives us 24x36 from full-frame 35 (I do that all the time, and it looks great), 33x44 inches from the smaller medium-format systems and 36x48 from the P45+ size sensor. A P65+ with its oversize sensor SHOULD print right around 40x50, which is, coincidentally, also a 10x enlargement from 4x5.
There are a couple of problems with this... First is depth of field - I find myself REALLY thinking hard about DOF on big prints (using a bigger camera, one often has tilt to help deal with that - of course this is a problem with non-tilting medium format as well). My next lens purchase will certainly be a PC-E Nikkor (I'm trying to decide on focal length now). The second issue is when do you not actually need any more resolution for a bigger print, because of viewing distance? Ansel Adams raised this question in The Print in his chapter on very large prints. My 24x36's look good from a foot away - could I make a 40x60 that held up at 3 or 4 feet? If so, who'd ever look at a print that size from any closer than that? Prints that big are often displayed in ways where you can't GET closer than that...
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Hi,
I made a very impressive image in size 70x100 cm from 6x7 that's about 15 times on the long side. That picture was absolutely sharp but it was a lot of work with enhancing, removing grain and so on. Also, the zone of sharpness was very thin but with a nice "bokeh" so the result was very good and still looked pretty sharp overall.
Pity we cannot share prints on the net!
Best regards
Erik
Someone on here quoted really good 7x-8x enlargements from scanning on the Coolscans. I have pushed a little bit beyond that comfortably - about 10x (so 10x15 inches from 35mm, and 20 inches from the 6cm dimension on 120 - 16x20 from 645, 20x20 from 6x6, as much as 20x30 from 6x9). How much beyond that (for a really good print of a high detail subject) will an Imacon go? A drum scanner? I can't imagine getting 20x, because that was widely considered impossible in the chemical darkroom (that would be a 20x30 from 35mm, and any print that size from 35mm I've ever seen was a grainy mess, no matter how it was produced). Is 15x realistic? A good darkroom worker could ALMOST do that, IF they started with a really good negative or chrome - that's where the special developers like Acufine and Microdol came in - people trying to make detailed 16x24 prints from 35mm. Of course there are low-detail subjects (or places where grain is acceptable) that print significantly larger, but that's true of digital as well.
The best digital sensors today will go something like 25x on the physical size of the sensor (I use the D3x as an example, because it's what I use, but I'm sure that there are other sensors that are in the same range). That gives us 24x36 from full-frame 35 (I do that all the time, and it looks great), 33x44 inches from the smaller medium-format systems and 36x48 from the P45+ size sensor. A P65+ with its oversize sensor SHOULD print right around 40x50, which is, coincidentally, also a 10x enlargement from 4x5.
There are a couple of problems with this... First is depth of field - I find myself REALLY thinking hard about DOF on big prints (using a bigger camera, one often has tilt to help deal with that - of course this is a problem with non-tilting medium format as well). My next lens purchase will certainly be a PC-E Nikkor (I'm trying to decide on focal length now). The second issue is when do you not actually need any more resolution for a bigger print, because of viewing distance? Ansel Adams raised this question in The Print in his chapter on very large prints. My 24x36's look good from a foot away - could I make a 40x60 that held up at 3 or 4 feet? If so, who'd ever look at a print that size from any closer than that? Prints that big are often displayed in ways where you can't GET closer than that...
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The comments bashing Mr. Rockwell are humorous, but the immediate dismissal of his site seems unnecessary.
If I recall, there was a bit of a spat between Michael & Ken awhile back. I don't recall the details other than (I believe) Rockwell took a couple stabs at Michael. The posts which appeared thereafter on the LL Forum were heated, and of course, Michael's loyal followers hopped on the bandwagon, much as they are now in this thread.
Personally, I like Rockwell's site for his insight on film cameras (remember those?), but his digital camera reviews seem pretty cookie cutter - the reviews here are way more in-depth and useful, plus there's the whole forum component, which is like an additional treasure chest of useful information, on all things photographic, albeit with a bit of a digital slant nowadays.
I guess it's like anything on the Internet; you can't believe everything you read. But, if you're willing to dig a bit deeper, there's some great stuff you can glean from the site.
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How much enlargement is too much enlargement is just a very difficult question to answer. I can give some observations from a "fine art perspective" that might be somewhat illuminating. Or not. IDK.
A few years ago I helped hang an exhibition of prints from George Eastman House. The exhibit was of old Vietnam war photographs. Just about all of the B&W was 35mm Tri-X, most of it developed in the field under very primitive conditions. Needless to say it was all hand held -- no tripods, no mirror lockup, etc. The photographers had more important things to do than optimize for sharpness -- like trying to stay alive in a fire fight. Literally.
There were several prints in the group that GEH had printed 40 x 50 inches. They were soft, grainy, and very sadly beautiful. One image in particular continues to haunt me, so I'd have to say it was quite effective at that size. People at the exhibit would look at it from across the room, from the "proper viewing distance" and they'd walk right up to it. And come back to it over and over. It seemed to work for a lot of people, not just me.
So under some conditions, some images can easily handle 35x enlargement.
That said, very very few images can do that. Very few.
On the other end of the spectrum I've got a few 4x5 negatives, Tri-X, that I pushed a couple of stops. After about 4x they flat out start coming apart. Nice images, but I can't really print them above 16 x 20 inches because the graininess doesn't serve the image well at all.
I've also got a nice image on 4x5 400PortraNC. The lab did a fine job on film processing, and I did a reasonably good job of capture in a strong wind (snow storm). It's nicely detailed, but I can't take it much above 8x because again, the graininess becomes intrusive and draws the viewers' attention away from the image and the detail in the image. It's just the way this particular image works.
So... how much enlargement seems to be one of those things best done on a case-by-case basis. It's just a huge multi-variable equation involving everything from image capture on down the processing line to final print. I wish there were simple rules of thumb that really worked. But if there are I have yet to find them.
Someone on here quoted really good 7x-8x enlargements from scanning on the Coolscans. I have pushed a little bit beyond that comfortably - about 10x (so 10x15 inches from 35mm, and 20 inches from the 6cm dimension on 120 - 16x20 from 645, 20x20 from 6x6, as much as 20x30 from 6x9). How much beyond that (for a really good print of a high detail subject) will an Imacon go? A drum scanner? I can't imagine getting 20x, because that was widely considered impossible in the chemical darkroom (that would be a 20x30 from 35mm, and any print that size from 35mm I've ever seen was a grainy mess, no matter how it was produced). Is 15x realistic? A good darkroom worker could ALMOST do that, IF they started with a really good negative or chrome - that's where the special developers like Acufine and Microdol came in - people trying to make detailed 16x24 prints from 35mm. Of course there are low-detail subjects (or places where grain is acceptable) that print significantly larger, but that's true of digital as well.
The best digital sensors today will go something like 25x on the physical size of the sensor (I use the D3x as an example, because it's what I use, but I'm sure that there are other sensors that are in the same range). That gives us 24x36 from full-frame 35 (I do that all the time, and it looks great), 33x44 inches from the smaller medium-format systems and 36x48 from the P45+ size sensor. A P65+ with its oversize sensor SHOULD print right around 40x50, which is, coincidentally, also a 10x enlargement from 4x5.
There are a couple of problems with this... First is depth of field - I find myself REALLY thinking hard about DOF on big prints (using a bigger camera, one often has tilt to help deal with that - of course this is a problem with non-tilting medium format as well). My next lens purchase will certainly be a PC-E Nikkor (I'm trying to decide on focal length now). The second issue is when do you not actually need any more resolution for a bigger print, because of viewing distance? Ansel Adams raised this question in The Print in his chapter on very large prints. My 24x36's look good from a foot away - could I make a 40x60 that held up at 3 or 4 feet? If so, who'd ever look at a print that size from any closer than that? Prints that big are often displayed in ways where you can't GET closer than that...
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Funny you should say that. I revisited some old SLR/n files the other day and was struck by how much sharper and cleaner the D3x pixels where... then I recalled that I had in fact already seen this gap between the SLR/n and the D2x.
Cheers,
Bernard
Kinda surprised to hear that Bernard...As much as I had highlight(lighting in the camera's direction) issues with the Kodak SLR/c, It is clearly sharper than my 1Ds, using the same 100macro R lens.
(of course this is raw vs raw file unprocessed). After processing the 1Ds file was the one I ended up with using.
After processing, I put the SLR/c aside and used the 1Ds as the magenta shift was too much to post edit, besides needing to use Kodak's processor (which actually is very strong in the overall way it handles files), add in the tether shooting, and processing with AdobeRaw, it was just easier to work with the 1Ds.
Also, the difference after processing.
When you approach to process the Kodak file, it "bleeds" rather fast, the threshhold at which the pixels get muddy was drastic. Hard to explain. I don't know if the magenta in highlights was just my copy, but I had the new firmware, and the later version, and at the time I couldn't afford to trouble shoot some tool I needed to work with.
If they had cooked that camera's development for maybe another 6months...It had so much to offer as a studio camera.
I would like to go over the SLR/c again, but with a MF back, and the magenta in the highlight issues, I just feel I am wasting time. But I would like to take a 1Ds II, or I vs D2xorD3x, and use a universal mount with a leica and see the difference in res. It would be a interesting test. perhaps we will see no difference? but with both having AA filters, I wonder which one makes a less "blurring" filter? I would think this is already been tested, but?
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The comments bashing Mr. Rockwell are humorous, but the immediate dismissal of his site seems unnecessary.
If I recall, there was a bit of a spat between Michael & Ken awhile back. I don't recall the details other than (I believe) Rockwell took a couple stabs at Michael. The posts which appeared thereafter on the LL Forum were heated, and of course, Michael's loyal followers hopped on the bandwagon, much as they are now in this thread.
Personally, I like Rockwell's site for his insight on film cameras (remember those?), but his digital camera reviews seem pretty cookie cutter - the reviews here are way more in-depth and useful, plus there's the whole forum component, which is like an additional treasure chest of useful information, on all things photographic, albeit with a bit of a digital slant nowadays.
I guess it's like anything on the Internet; you can't believe everything you read. But, if you're willing to dig a bit deeper, there's some great stuff you can glean from the site.
I believe you are correct regarding the pot shot KR took at MR and if I remember Michael was 100% right and KR as usual was 100% wrong. I hate the term "Loyal Followers" because I don't believe most here are "Sheeple" I know I'm certainly not. This site is filled with very knowledgeable people / photographers and you can learn from the surface on down. I have read a lot (read; wasted a lot of time) of Ken Rockwell's site and it's 99% garbage, yes GARBAGE, reading it will just lower your IQ
This site is filled with great information and you can actually learn, Michael doesn't write "Canon cameras are simply the best and there's no alternative" because it would be a foolish statement. Michael's reviews are "Real World" which is what a lot of people prefer.
I believe Ken Rockwell plagiarizes and that bothers me. He's a blowhard who doesn't have much to offer. I could go on and on and on, but that would be wasting even more time
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The point about different images needing different amounts of detail is very important - two famous photographs illustrate this perfectly. Robert Capa's images from D-Day have absoulely no detail - 35mm, fast film, handheld with shaky hand ,lens presumably wet with saltwater, distracting elements like being shot at by Nazi machine-gunners. Ansel Adams' Clearing Winter Storm was made under absolutely perfect conditions in many ways, using an 8x10 camera attached to a fixed mount on top of Adams' car, with nobody shooting at him at the time. Clearing Winter Storm has incredible detail, and it draws the viewer in with its detail. Even if Capa had somehow been able to charge ashore at Normandy with an 8x10 on a fixed stand, would that have represented the tenor of the day anywhere near as well as what he got with his handheld Contax? Conversely, would Clearing Winter Storm have any impact at all out of focus?
Of course, discussions of maximum enlargement apply only to images where detail is important - Capa's war photos can be, and have been enlarged well beyond what would be prudent for another type of image. The golfball sized grain only adds to the gritty impact of the images, and to the mood he captured.
-Dan
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Not if you take out the default sharpening in the Imacon driver. For that you have to enter a negative number.
Many users are not aware of that "feature". On the Nikon compatible drivers sharpening is an optional choice, not a default one.
The fact that the film is curved during the scan doesn't make it a drum scanner. The reason it is curved in the Imacon is that the film will not pop/deform while mounting and during the scan and the mechanical/optical construction will scan the film along the radius for that curve. The focus should in theory be more consistent that way than in a glassless filmcarrier on a flatbed CCD scanner. A nice solution but not more than that, it still is a CCD scanner. Film wetmounted to glass in a Nikon 8000-9000 and the focusing adjusted for the 4 corners of the frame gives a very sharp scan all over. The wet mounting makes the light transmission uniform, reduces the effect of matte emulsion surfaces and heals damaged film. The drivers for the Nikon, Silverfast, NikonScan and Vuescan, are compatible with the extra Infrared illumination so ICE or ICE alike program features for dust and scratch removal are usable, even with wet mounting. As far as I know wet mounting isn't possible on an Imacon and ICE + hardware infrared wasn't available in older models, but I'm not sure whether the latest versions have it aboard or still not.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
Try scan old photos with texture surface with Imacon. You won't see much reflected texture on paper.
Virtual drum on Imacon did it. There is less reflect with the curve or virtual drum.
I always turn off sharpening when scan.
I think virtual drum also has some effect with film scan too.
I think the big different between direct print from film and scanning and inkjet print is when your negative is overexposure.
You won't see much grain on direct print. The printing tone graduate is still smooth.
While film scan start to see more grain and noise.
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duplicated message deleted
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Hi,
I made 70x100 print from my Sony Alpha 100, APS-C 10 MPixels. This was really intended as an experiment. The image was actually not optimal, because I needed to rotate it and crop. It also went trough some intensive sharpening. The print was than printed on a Lambda at 200 PPI (this is what the lab recommends for large sizes). The outcome was interesting. The image is obviously lacking in detail when looking at short distance, when I back off to about 80-100 cm the image turns pretty sharp and I see no further improvement backing off.
I don't have 20/20 eyesight and need correction glasses, so my findings would probably not apply to person thirty years younger, with 20/20 vision.
Another way to see it is that I often look at pictures as slide shows in 1080P (1920x1080) which is about two Megapixels (2MP!) on a screen 1.5 m wide, I need to sit like 2.5 or 3 meter from the screen, but it seems pretty good at that distance.
On the other hand, I also have a 100x50 cm panoramic stitch on my wall. This was made with the camera in vertical position and it was stitched from seven or nine pictures (with big overlap). Normally you see it at a couple of meters, because thinks standing in the way. If I walk up to that picture and look at very short range it is still critically sharp, but it is a mighty experience because I feel immersed into the picture. The picture essentially covers perhaps 150 degrees of view, so when I look at the picture at normal distance I have a false perspective, looking at the picture close by the perspective is much more real.
There used to be a rule of thumb that correct viewing distance would be focal length times magnification, in the panorama case correct viewing distance would be 50 cm.
A final observation is that sharpening can mask lack of detail as long as we don't have obvious halos. When looking at distance you cannot see detail anyway, but the brain says that because the edges are well defined the picture must be sharp.
So my conclusion is:
1) If you pixel peep all megapixels are needed
2) In many contexts you can do with much less especially if you can keep your viewers from pixel peeping
An observation on the side is that a lot of people I respect would say that it is easy to tell MFDBs apart from DSLR images also in small sizes. I would much like this phenomenon investigated and explained.
Best regards
Erik
Someone on here quoted really good 7x-8x enlargements from scanning on the Coolscans. I have pushed a little bit beyond that comfortably - about 10x (so 10x15 inches from 35mm, and 20 inches from the 6cm dimension on 120 - 16x20 from 645, 20x20 from 6x6, as much as 20x30 from 6x9). How much beyond that (for a really good print of a high detail subject) will an Imacon go? A drum scanner? I can't imagine getting 20x, because that was widely considered impossible in the chemical darkroom (that would be a 20x30 from 35mm, and any print that size from 35mm I've ever seen was a grainy mess, no matter how it was produced). Is 15x realistic? A good darkroom worker could ALMOST do that, IF they started with a really good negative or chrome - that's where the special developers like Acufine and Microdol came in - people trying to make detailed 16x24 prints from 35mm. Of course there are low-detail subjects (or places where grain is acceptable) that print significantly larger, but that's true of digital as well.
The best digital sensors today will go something like 25x on the physical size of the sensor (I use the D3x as an example, because it's what I use, but I'm sure that there are other sensors that are in the same range). That gives us 24x36 from full-frame 35 (I do that all the time, and it looks great), 33x44 inches from the smaller medium-format systems and 36x48 from the P45+ size sensor. A P65+ with its oversize sensor SHOULD print right around 40x50, which is, coincidentally, also a 10x enlargement from 4x5.
There are a couple of problems with this... First is depth of field - I find myself REALLY thinking hard about DOF on big prints (using a bigger camera, one often has tilt to help deal with that - of course this is a problem with non-tilting medium format as well). My next lens purchase will certainly be a PC-E Nikkor (I'm trying to decide on focal length now). The second issue is when do you not actually need any more resolution for a bigger print, because of viewing distance? Ansel Adams raised this question in The Print in his chapter on very large prints. My 24x36's look good from a foot away - could I make a 40x60 that held up at 3 or 4 feet? If so, who'd ever look at a print that size from any closer than that? Prints that big are often displayed in ways where you can't GET closer than that...
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Hi,
When digital came around I also made the math and it was like this:
Normal lenses and technology produces about 50 lp/mm. This was essentially based on Modern Photography tests. There were plenty of lenses resolving higher but 50 lp/mm is quite respectable if we don't have focus bracketing and so on.
You need two pixels to resolve a line pair that is 3600x2400 that's about 8.5 MPixels. Based on this I guessed that break even would be about 6 MP, this was about when the Mavica came out.
To this we need add that the photographic process essentially looses "sharpness" in each step. In digital photography we can improve sharpness at each step essentially compensating for the loss of edge contrast. The image on film is seldom the final result, you can look at a slide trough a loupe or even a low power microscope but it is not a very pleasant experience. If we enlarge we loose sharpness due to the enlarging lens (that is not infinitely sharp) and also the photographic paper has some MTF characteristic.
A small remark on the side. I have a projector for 6x7 slides made by Götschman, it has a quite good Schneider lens. Even with my slides carefully mounted in glass (GP-slide mounts) the slide is not flat enough to achive perfect focus on screen. When I scan my 6x7 slides I see detail (and color fringing) that neither a 15x loupe or my Götschman projector can resolve.
Best regards
Erik
Of course it is referenced from Ken Rockwell's site, he's the epitome of why the internet is NOT a good place for reference material since 99% of it is false, you have to look for accurate information. Regarding these "tests" and the use of test charts and camera A vs. camera B, they are just silly nonsense. I'm assuming most people started using digital as I did, shooting the identical scene with film and their new digital camera and was wondering why the digital file produced a better print. When the Canon D30 came out and people (including MR) were claiming it to be as good as 35mm film, I balked at such a silly notion, "Just do the math, it will take 40mp to equal 35mm film" so I said. But then I started doing my own tests and the resolution numbers kept growing and I kept testing (Always against a Nikon F5) and I came to the conclusion many cameras ago that not only was a digital print better (resolution, color, dr, noise etc.) it was exponentially faster and easier to produce a better print. I truly believe that this is old news and probably not even worth discussing anymore. And as always, the bottom line is whatever works best for you and whichever method you prefer, that's what you should use.
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Try scan old photos with texture surface with Imacon. You won't see much reflected texture on paper.
Virtual drum on Imacon did it. There is less reflect with the curve or virtual drum.
I always turn off sharpening when scan.
I think virtual drum also has some effect with film scan too.
I think the big different between direct print from film and scanning and inkjet print is when your negative is overexposure.
You won't see much grain on direct print. The printing tone graduate is still smooth.
While film scan start to see more grain and noise.
I thought we discussed film scanning here.
On flatbeds the usual lamp arrangements are one lamp or two lamps along the optical path/slit, both versions have advantages depending on whether you want texture or no texture. The reason I kept my Epson 3200 next to the V700. Both very able to scan A4 reflective originals.
In the Imacon software turning sharpening off is setting a number like -120 in that menu entry, zero isn't turning it off.
I think the curved mounting was meant for film in the first place.
???
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html (http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html)
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A final observation is that sharpening can mask lack of detail as long as we don't have obvious halos.
IMHO, this is just the point where the "image content" variable comes in the equation.
Take an image with not much useful detail past a certain resolution, eg a portrait or a proxyphoto with shallow depth of field and where all image information stays at relatively low frequency : all you need is a good interpolation/sharpening workflow to keep the lines fine and straight without halos, and you can stretch it really big. The viewer doesn't really expect to see details past a given frequency.
On the other hand, an image like a classic landscape, where there should be more and more details when you get closer (the ants on the trunks in the distance...), will clearly show a lack of detail when pixels are enlarged too far, even with the best upsizing method.
Of course the above examples are much exaggerated, eg there are many portraits that need fine details (at least in the hair) and simple landscapes that enlarge very well - I think it's just a matter of how much detail the viewer expects with a given subject.
And there are other content-related factors, as said the cobblestone-grain and out of focus blur of some images just saying "this is very hot news" in many minds is another good example.
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IMHO, this is just the point where the "image content" variable comes in the equation.
Take an image with not much useful detail past a certain resolution, eg a portrait or a proxyphoto with shallow depth of field and where all image information stays at relatively low frequency : all you need is a good interpolation/sharpening workflow to keep the lines fine and straight without halos, and you can stretch it really big. The viewer doesn't really expect to see details past a given frequency.
On the other hand, an image like a classic landscape, where there should be more and more details when you get closer (the ants on the trunks in the distance...), will clearly show a lack of detail when pixels are enlarged too far, even with the best upsizing method.
Of course the above examples are much exaggerated, eg there are many portraits that need fine details (at least in the hair) and simple landscapes that enlarge very well - I think it's just a matter of how much detail the viewer expects with a given subject.
And there are other content-related factors, as said the cobblestone-grain and out of focus blur of some images just saying "this is very hot news" in many minds is another good example.
Excellent points, Nicolas. Holds true for color and tone reproduction as well. Image-specific content is a huge influencer on the viewer's impression of overall image quality.
Kind regards,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com (http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com)