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Author Topic: enlargements - digital vs film  (Read 45142 times)

luong

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enlargements - digital vs film
« Reply #20 on: October 09, 2007, 07:58:49 pm »

Quote
I was recently told by a photographer friend of mine that  film cameras are recommended when you would like your prints in large size ; for ex 24" x 30" or more. Compared to film, digital files appear grainy when it is enlarged even though  you print at the maximum resolution in a 10 mp camera. The pictures from 35mm cameras can be enlarged and still retain the sharpness of the image.

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No, that the opposite.  The over-enlargements from film  appear grainy, not those from digital. But the grain has the advantage of creating a texture that somehow can distract from the lack of resolution. Of course, there are various ways to add grain to a digital image.
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Ken R

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« Reply #21 on: October 09, 2007, 08:20:07 pm »

Quote
I was recently told by a photographer friend of mine that  film cameras are recommended when you would like your prints in large size ; for ex 24" x 30" or more. Compared to film, digital files appear grainy when it is enlarged even though  you print at the maximum resolution in a 10 mp camera. The pictures from 35mm cameras can be enlarged and still retain the sharpness of the image.

I'd appreciate if anyone convince me or throw more light on this belief. I own a 10mp digital SLR.
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Film is basically as good as the film/equipment used obviously and technique but all that is only as good as the scan you make. Only drum scanners get the optimal quality from 35mm film. With medium format and large format you can get away with using virtual drum scanners like Imacons.

With digital post processing is key. But you are working with a first generation original which means its going to be a lot cleaner than film right off the bat. I have worked with files from Canon 10d, 1Dmk2, 1Ds mk2 and 5D (before that with Fuji S2's) and the Canon 5D offers extremely clean images that enlarge very well and have a minimal "digital" look to them. The 1Ds mk2 is also very good as long as the ISO is kept low. Up from that would be the Medium Format Digital solutions of which I know very little compared to other folks around here.
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RobertJ

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« Reply #22 on: October 10, 2007, 12:00:38 am »

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The flip side is that at 24x30 you won't see film grain from a good 10MP camera, but if you get close enough to it you'll see pixels.

You can see pixels after enlarging a digital file?  Nah.

A file from a 5D, or even a 20D will enlarge FOREVER, without ever seeing any pixels if you use PhotoZoom Pro, or maybe even PS bicubic, though I'm not a big fan of interpolating with PS.  

You will NEVER see pixels.  Detail will become smoother and smudgy, but still, no pixels to be seen.  

So yeah, I'm not going to print a 100inch wide print at 300dpi from a 5D and expect micro detail, but I also won't ever see pixels, I can assure you of that.

Quote
Take a look at the two images below and tell me which one you think is digital and which one is film.

http://superhyperreal.com/MerA640.jpg
http://superhyperreal.com/MerB640.jpg

This is (seemingly) incredibly easy.  The first one is film, and the second one is digital.  Am I right? Probably not, but it looks so obvious to me.
« Last Edit: October 10, 2007, 12:02:10 am by T-1000 »
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jing q

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« Reply #23 on: October 10, 2007, 01:14:26 am »

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Fidelity vs accuracy is a distinction without a difference. Please explain to me how the averaging of random clumps of dye (what film grain is actually made of) is any better than the Bayer interpolation process. When you enlarge enough that individual clumps of grain are visible, the "color fidelity" of a single clump of grain is no better than that of a bayer-interpolated pixel from a decent RAW converter. Sure with digital you "add noise" to reduce pixelization after upsizing, but with film the noise is already built in, it's the grain. You can scan at higher resolution, but that does NOT mean you are capturing any more actual image detail. In neither case are you printing additional image detail; the digital image has more actual image detail than film of the same format, it's just a matter of spreading that information out without introducing visually displeasing pixelization artifacts. If you upres properly, you aren't adding banding, either. Where are you getting that idea from? Your comment about switching films is hogwash also. Switching RAW converters has very much the same effect as using a different film in the digital world.

I've printed up to 24x36 inch prints, and the digital SLR files beat 35mm film every time, even at 12x18 inches. Period. In every respect. The bigger the print, the more obvious the difference is, and film doesn't beat digital unless the film is a significantly larger format than the digital.
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Can you show me an example of digital noise that's been added to an image that looks like film grain?

Somehow I've never been able to recreate that film grain texture in my images through digital means.
It just looks like flat digital noise most of the time.
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pfigen

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« Reply #24 on: October 10, 2007, 02:08:48 am »

Well, anyone who claims 35mm slide film has only 6mp worth of information in it either doesn't know what they're talking about or they are using a really shitty scanner. I've made some damned nice 44 inch wide prints from 1DsMKII files, but there is something that happens when you scan Kodachrome or Velvia at a true 8000 dpi on a great drum scanner (no Imacons's here)and make a 36 X 54 inch or larger print. First of all, when you have sharp film and a really sharp image, there is a visible difference between 4000 and 8000 ppi both on screen and in print. Secondly, no matter what you think about film vs. digital (and I'm a huge fan of both) there is something that happens when you make huge prints form film that is palpably more pleasing to the eye than the digital prints. Below a certain size, and it seems to be about 24 X 36, the digital does look better, even rivalling medium format, but above that, I and many people I know are preferring the look of film.
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Diapositivo

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« Reply #25 on: October 10, 2007, 05:08:02 am »

In order to make this discussion (ah, good old religion wars! :-) ) more interesting and more informed, I warmly advice the reading of Tim Vitale's "Film Grain, Resolutions and Fundamental Film Particles".

http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/emg/library/pdf..._resolution.pdf

There are some common misconceptions that the document clarifies, which would be too many to list here, I will make a very short resumé:

Grain and ability to resolve details are different properties;

Silver halide crystals are 0,2 - 2,0 microns and color dye clouds are 10 - 15 microns (in a film you have particles of different size, to obtain the "foot" and "shoulder" in the response curve, incidentally Fuji is doing the same with their sensors, they use two cells (with different sensitivity) for one pixel in order to obtain a "shoulder" at highlights);

Digital microscopes arrive to 254,000 ppi and they see details on film!

When the film is exposed to light it forms filaments, very small compared to the silver particle

[attachment=3530:attachment]

These filaments form clouds which are not internally uniform. In a modern film there are at least 9 layers of these. The resulting color is formed by the light passing through the clouds and so, at the "pixel" level on the film, you still have variations which are practically "continuous".

[attachment=3531:attachment]

Graininess is a subjective sensation, a creation of the mind. When humans see a <B>regular</B> pattern (such as a dithered color) from near and, going further, the moment arrives  when the minds discards the uniform pattern and only sees the color.

When humans see an <B>irregular</B> pattern, going further the minds still interprets the differences as "graininess" (same point dimensions, same distance of observation).

So instead of measuring graininess (which is subjective) film producers measures RMS granularity which is the real "noise" of the film at the densitometer (you shoot a uniform subject and you measure density variations at very adiacent locations, noise is the variation around the mean).

Vitale considers 18 slide films: RMS Granularity ranges from 7 to 13, and resolution (lp/mm at 30% I suppose the percentage indicates contrast) ranges from 35 to 80 (values in PPI range from 1780 to 4064).

(We should consider here that these values can vary with a different contrast or with a different film treatment).  

Film like Kodak Panatomic X arrive to 170 lp/mm (8636 PPI). Exceptional lenses such as Leica or Zeiss on 35mm arrive to 140 lp/mm (at optimal diaphragm, with tripod etc.).

He arrives to a table with the combined resolving power of film and lens for many lens-film combinations. The resolving power of film is wasted with modern do-it-all zooms anyway, and only the very-very best lenses can approach the resolution limits of high resolution films. On the other hand, low resolution film can easily be "outresolved" by very good lenses. It is all old stuff but you have nice numbers here.
Very interesting reading.
 
The picture below shows that what appears as we would call "digital" grain at 400x magnification, actually appears as not digital at all at the electronic microscope. Please note that the "e" image is a SINGLE grain particle enlarged.

 [attachment=3532:attachment]

The essay goes on with some notes on scanning: drum scanners only read luminance and are not as limited by optical factors as flatbeds. The 4000 - 5000 ppi "limit" does not apply to drum scanners. Drum scanners scan with profit at much higher resolutions.

I would like to make this post because of the "digital grain" and the "vortex shedding"  stuff, you know ;-). Bumblebees fly, but that's not vortex shedding at all ;-)

So, as far as the question "has film more <B>resolution</B> than digital" the answer is that film has more resolution than any digital 35mm on Earth.

(This does not means resolution is all you want in life, and does not mean film is better. But film resolution is higher, and film grain is not "digital").

I will come back to the main subject in a moment...

Fabrizio
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Rob C

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« Reply #26 on: October 10, 2007, 05:30:06 am »

This is one of those situations where there are going to be as many arguments as there are writers!

I believe that there are not really any hard and fast rules to this thing; I have scanned a variety of film with differing results, and so far, the best seems to be from Kodachrome 64. I speak here of people shots.

Somebody mentioned that a ´badly´exposed transparency will not scan well - this is true as far as it goes, but you have to decide what badly means. I have spent a great deal of time (last night) working on a Kodachrome which is of a girl sitting on a doorstep in an old Spainish farm building, in direct, late afternoon light. She is dressed in gypsy-style clothes and her head is tilted back with lots of added perspiration on her face. As colour, it works very well, the hightened contrast spelling out the idea of heat. And, as a calendar picture, it printed dramatically and well.

Now, I´m trying to turn this into a good black and white and having damn all luck!

The contrast just looks awful and the missing detail in her shadows screams at me. No, I didn´t use a reflector, didn´t think it helped the mood at the time.

Other shots on Kodachrome, converted to b/w, are turning out more interesting (to me) than they were in their original guise! The skin detail on A3 is just so much more crisp (drops of water on skin) than it ever was when printed in colour on the original calendar run, and that was via drum-scanning whereas I´m using a CanoScan at 4000.

Black and white film also shows more crispness, printed digitally, than when I printed the same negs via a Durst with a 50mm Componon.

Digital capture. So far, and I have to state that I´ve only had one such camera, a D200, I think that on landscape/town shots, the on-monitor colour of the files looks far better than anything I ever got from any scanned film. This might be as a result of my admittedly limited experience of scanning, but I think it´s something more to do with the digital way of producing colour.

What I find, though, is that when converting those digital files to b/w, there is sometimes a feeling of emptiness about them, not so much in missing detail as in a sense of missing tonality. At least, that´s what I find with the non-people shots. I have yet to do any of the latter digitally in a serious way, but I´m not holding my breath.

All in all, I think that the contest between film and digital has already been won by digital, if only because of the trouble that outside processing seems to include in its package, not to mention the cost factor which Hank pointed out.

I also think that from a pro point of view, digital has created a stack of new problems. I was always a one-man operation, with my wife helping out as stylist etc. but maily as a pourer of oil on possibly disruptive waters! So, all the photographic bits were mine to do, which in today´s world, would mean that I´d never have got the time to go out and do the shoot! As it is, in my dotage, I still find myself spending many reluctant hours at the computer when all I really want is to have some prints in the portfolio. This really enforces my belief that, were I faced in the 60s with the pro choices that have to be made today, I might well have dismissed photography as a viable career. I think I would have found it simply too expensive to float, that it would have meant hiring staff, or taking in a partner and losing independence, and that would have meant me missing the times of my life.

God alone knows how today´s young turks get off the ground!

Rob C
« Last Edit: October 16, 2007, 06:13:19 am by Rob C »
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Diapositivo

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« Reply #27 on: October 10, 2007, 05:40:23 am »

I wrote the previous post not just for the sake of scientific interest but also because I am puzzled to explain how many photographers relate that they print much better with digital than with film, which I do believe as they say it.

I think there can be a "general" explanation and a more particular one which I will put very imprudently forwared.

The very general explanation is that oftentimes a comparison is made in a way which is not true to film quality: scans are not optimal, scan results are maybe scaled down to bring them to the resolution of the digital to be compared, and so on.

Noise reduction and sharpening are of paramount importance with scans (your DSLR processor, or your RAW converter, or both, always apply some sort of edge search, noise reduction and sharpening also as a necessity of the demosaicing process, so if apple are to be compared with apples, scans have to have NR and sharpening applied).

This very general explanation is not satisfaying. People who has many years of experience in printing and participates in this forum still relates better results with digital. Some of these people has a previous experience with analogic tecniques, so this cannot be all (though it explains certain fast conclusions about film being better than digital).

So I will imprudently put forward the possible cause:

We all know that inkjet printers have the problem of printing a pixel that can assume 16 millions different colours, but they only have 4 inks available.

So for every pixel they will trace not a dot but a pattern of dots (7, 11, 17, whatever), which i will call "rosette" though I don't know what the exact English term is.

The rosette for a middle gray will have half dots black and half "white".

Also, printer drivers are smart guys: they don't print always the same rosette for every exact grey. They observe the colour of the adiacent pixels and, if the pixel B on the right of pixel A is let's say darker, then pixel A will be rendered by a rosette with a distribution of black dots "skewed" toward pixel B. Some sort of antialiasing at dot level. In a sense, this would give a printer a "perceived resolution" which is "higher" than the nominal one (the one the printer would have without smart algorithm for the composition of the rosettes).

Now what I suspect - and would elicit your observation on - is that this kind of smart behaviour of dot printers actually performs better with digital images, who tends to have less noise and more defined edges than scanned film.

What I also suspect is that this kind of behaviour will <B>increase</B> graininess of scanned film in comparison to continuous tone printers. Less suspicious on that, though.

What I also suspect is that if you print with a sublimation printer or with a laser beam on chemical paper or with any kind of continuous tone printing including traditional photographic typographic metods (so you have no rosette, and no smart algorithm) you don't have the advantages of the smart algorithm when you print digital, but also you don't have this disadvantage when you print scans.

Below a certain print size, most people would print with dot printers. I suspect all those who have better results with digital, print with dot printers.

Over a certain size (such as prints as high as a human being or more) you don't print  with dot printers, do you? You make a traditional enlargment, or use Durst Lambda or so.

Just my 2 eurocents...

Fabrizio
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Rob C

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« Reply #28 on: October 10, 2007, 07:47:33 am »

Fabrizio, you have lost me.

Tell me, is the Via Veneto still what it was in the 50s and 60s? Is there anyone to replace Fellini, Antonioni, La Lollo, La Loren or anyone else of those days and of that stature?

You are damn lucky to live in Rome; I´ve been there for a couple of very short trips - my mother lived there for quite a while - and I remember standing somewhere on the Vittoriano looking out to the city and thinking of how magical the light looked; it gave me a feeling that Rome was a place where all dreams could be realised, anything could be done.

Then years later, when I had the choice of moving to any place in Europe, I decided to live in Spain. Why I didn´t choose Rome I shall never know - perhaps it was just some trivial business connection that made me make the choice that I did, but that´s all history now..

Enjoy where you are!

Ciao - Rob C

Edit: I forgot to mention Sergio Leone, the only man able to make me sit through a Western without my mind wandering off somewhere else.
« Last Edit: October 10, 2007, 11:12:41 am by Rob C »
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Jonathan Wienke

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enlargements - digital vs film
« Reply #29 on: October 10, 2007, 08:14:33 am »

Quote
Over a certain size (such as prints as high as a human being or more) you don't print  with dot printers, do you? You make a traditional enlargment, or use Durst Lambda or so.

Just my 2 eurocents...

Nope. The bigger the print, the less practical traditional optical enlargement becomes. It's much harder to make a decent 2x3-meter enlargement than a 20x30cm; enlarger lens aberrations start getting ugly (barrel/pincushion CA, etc), vignetting becomes an issue, etc. And Lambdas don't do optical enlargement; they print on tratitional chemical papers, but they use either colored laser beams or LEDs to expose patterns of pixels on the papers. At smaller sizes, this can result in sharper prints as the individual pixels are not dithered like an inkjet, but with the large prints, dithering is not relevant to print resolution.

Just about any print the size you mention or larger is going to be made with some kind of inkjet printer, with really large prints (like billboard sized) printed in strips and then assembled when mounted.
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Hank

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« Reply #30 on: October 10, 2007, 10:37:53 am »

Jonathan smacked the ball over the fence.  

In days of yore (film and no scanning) there was very good reason to use MF rather than 35mm.  It produced better large prints.  We shot wedding formals with either MF or 4x5 because those were the shots most likely to be purchased in very large size, for which we make the most money.  35mm simply could not hold up with the larger formats.  We used it only for casual or "walk-around" shots during receptions for convenience and because those specific images were usually only purchased in smaller sizes, compared to the formals.  Occassionally the casual shooting produced real gems, and we paid for our "sin" of using 35mm.  The images simply would not enlarge to the point that clients wanted, and it really cost us money.  

With close to $1000 difference in our price between 8x10 prints and 24x32 canvases and more for larger that really, really hurt.  And with contemporary DSLRs and printing methods able to blow away film not only 35mm but also MF, the situation is even better when we can sell better large prints from the formal shooting.  We simply don't know beforehand how large prints will be ordered, so we need the greatest latitude possible while shooting- everything.  DSLRs deliver big time over film in either format.  We can easily print to 30x40 with the DSLRs, while that was a sincere push with film, even in MF.

Replacing our MF with DSLR has allowed us to shoot both the formals (all but the large crowd scenes, anyway) and the casual shots with the same gear while producing better files in both circumstances for very large printing.  Those rare casual gems no longer suffer from the size limitations of 35mm film, yet we have the convenience of using the same gear for virtually all of our shooting.  With location shooting it is a real boon to eliminate schlepping extra sets of shooting gear for two photographers while making more money for our effort!
« Last Edit: October 10, 2007, 10:40:21 am by Hank »
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Diapositivo

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« Reply #31 on: October 10, 2007, 11:47:00 am »

Off-topic.

Via Veneto is an expensive place for wealthy tourists nowadays.
To replace Fellini, Antonioni, Leone, etc. we have had the Taviani brothers (La notte di San Giovanni, Fiorile), and Tornatore (Nuovo cinema Paradiso) which I think will make history just as well. There are certainly many more modern and interesting film directors, but those two are real giants.

You now meet famous people (be they film directors or politicians or whatever) a bit everywhere, in very normal restaurants and bars of the center, or just walking in the roads.

Like Sofia Loren (beatiful woman but also decent actress) I think we have only Giovanna Mezzogiorno nowadays (much better actress and totally echanting in her simple beauty).

Like Gina Lollobrigida (beatiful woman, awful actress) we have some, may I suggest Valeria Marini, Manuela Arcuri...

I am very much in love with Rome, I often do tourist tours in Rome (guided visits in places which are closed to the public), I know it better than most romans and any tourist, and Rome is basically what I shoot. Ancient, Renaissance, Baroque, Modern, everything. Michelangelo etc. but also Coppedé, Piacentini, Passarelli, Basile, Nervi etc (those are XX century architects).

Frankly, not because I am roman, I think there is no greatness on Earth than the greatness of Rome.

If you love history, if when you go on the Curia and you see that room, the Senate, and you see the seats, and you know it was there, on those very seats, on those very stones, that wars were decided, that history was made, that Cicero denonciated Catilina or Silla attacked Marius, that Cato asked for a war to destroy Carthago and that the De bello gallico was read to the senators, you have a shiver deep inside your backbone and you close your eyes and you understand it was here, it was here where you are, then you have understood Rome. It is your mental reconstruction that is fascinating. Rome is something that you visit with your eyes closed.

Venice can be more beautiful, the pyramids can be more monumental and ancient, London and Paris can have a more fashionly glamour surrounding them, New York might be seen as a modern center of the world, but for people like you and me, Rome is the town without equals, the shiver that simple things like the Aurelian walls can give you, no walls on earth will give you.

Sorry for the OT

Quote
Fabrizio, you have lost me.

Tell me, is the Via Veneto still what it was in the 50s and 60s? Is there anyone to replace Fellini, Antonioni, La Lollo, La Loren or anyone else of those days and of that stature?

You are damn lucky to live in Rome; I´ve been there for a couple of very short trips - my mother lived there for quite a while - and I remember standing somewhere on the Vittoriano looking out to the city and thinking of how magical the light looked; it gave me a feeling that Rome was a place where all dreams could be realised, anything could be done.

Then years later, when I had the choice of moving to any place in Europe, I decided to live in Spain. Why I didn´t choose Rome I shall never know - perhaps it was just some trivial business connection that made me make the choice that I did, but that´s all history now..

Enjoy where you are!

Ciao - Rob C

Edit: I forgot to mention Sergio Leone, the only man able to make me sit through a Western without my mind wandering off somewhere else.
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SecondFocus

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« Reply #32 on: October 10, 2007, 12:49:26 pm »

Quote
I was recently told by a photographer friend of mine that  film cameras are recommended when you would like your prints in large size ; for ex 24" x 30" or more. Compared to film, digital files appear grainy when it is enlarged even though  you print at the maximum resolution in a 10 mp camera. The pictures from 35mm cameras can be enlarged and still retain the sharpness of the image.

I'd appreciate if anyone convince me or throw more light on this belief. I own a 10mp digital SLR.
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The best response I have seen here to that question is one word...

"Nonsense"
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« Reply #33 on: October 10, 2007, 03:05:05 pm »

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The best response I have seen here to that question is one word...

"Nonsense"
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I have found some interesting images from the following source:

[a href=\"http://www.fototime.com/inv/7FA2D97823BDBD6]http://www.fototime.com/inv/7FA2D97823BDBD6[/url]

Here is his image from a D2x:

http://www.fototime.com/0FCC45B9561E60A/orig.jpg

And his 35mm Velvia slide scanned with a Nikon 4000 DPI scanner:

http://www.fototime.com/30EDF9A886B0B62/orig.jpg

Same but with a Minolta 5400 DPI scanner:

http://www.fototime.com/51B425FAFA2F296/orig.jpg

He concludes that the film scan equals the D2x. Well, I humbly suggest that the resolution might well be similar (though the lack of very fine detail does not help us to decide) but the DSLR walks over the Velvia scans. Look at the subtle tonal gradations representing mountains: clear in the D2x image, mushy in the scans. I find the scans awful.

Now following on from what someone else said (was it Jonathan W.?) try using Photoshop to add some Gaussian noise to the D2x image, and hey presto it looks awfully like the scans.

Some might say that the problem here is the use of home scanners, and that is true. It says nothing about drum scanners, and direct prints.

My experience is that a D200 beats 35mm Provia 100F scanned on a Minolta 5400, which is roughly in agreement with the above results. I also find that a D200 handles highlights better with less tendency to clip, and I find the colours are more true to life, which I happen to prefer, though others might not. I never cared much for Velvia which creates a strange world of livid colours.

I keep meaning to use a D200 with macro lens and tubes to get greater than lifesize images of slides, and see if there really is detail out of the reach of the Minolta 5400 scanner. Not that it matters much to me, since slides are such a hassle.
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jing q

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« Reply #34 on: October 10, 2007, 09:54:52 pm »

Quote
I have found some interesting images from the following source:

http://www.fototime.com/inv/7FA2D97823BDBD6

Here is his image from a D2x:

http://www.fototime.com/0FCC45B9561E60A/orig.jpg

And his 35mm Velvia slide scanned with a Nikon 4000 DPI scanner:

http://www.fototime.com/30EDF9A886B0B62/orig.jpg

Same but with a Minolta 5400 DPI scanner:

http://www.fototime.com/51B425FAFA2F296/orig.jpg

He concludes that the film scan equals the D2x. Well, I humbly suggest that the resolution might well be similar (though the lack of very fine detail does not help us to decide) but the DSLR walks over the Velvia scans. Look at the subtle tonal gradations representing mountains: clear in the D2x image, mushy in the scans. I find the scans awful.

Now following on from what someone else said (was it Jonathan W.?) try using Photoshop to add some Gaussian noise to the D2x image, and hey presto it looks awfully like the scans.

Some might say that the problem here is the use of home scanners, and that is true. It says nothing about drum scanners, and direct prints.

My experience is that a D200 beats 35mm Provia 100F scanned on a Minolta 5400, which is roughly in agreement with the above results. I also find that a D200 handles highlights better with less tendency to clip, and I find the colours are more true to life, which I happen to prefer, though others might not. I never cared much for Velvia which creates a strange world of livid colours.

I keep meaning to use a D200 with macro lens and tubes to get greater than lifesize images of slides, and see if there really is detail out of the reach of the Minolta 5400 scanner. Not that it matters much to me, since slides are such a hassle.
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hi I really wouldn't recommend judging based on a scan of flat art.
what enlarges better (film or digital) depends also alot on what you've shot
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DarkPenguin

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enlargements - digital vs film
« Reply #35 on: October 10, 2007, 10:14:00 pm »

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Can you show me an example of digital noise that's been added to an image that looks like film grain?

Somehow I've never been able to recreate that film grain texture in my images through digital means.
It just looks like flat digital noise most of the time.
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I like this technique for B+W ...

[a href=\"http://www.prime-junta.net/pont/How_to/n_Digital_BW/a_Digital_Black_and_White.html?page=5]http://www.prime-junta.net/pont/How_to/n_D...ite.html?page=5[/url]
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Slough

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enlargements - digital vs film
« Reply #36 on: October 11, 2007, 08:04:42 am »

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hi I really wouldn't recommend judging based on a scan of flat art.
what enlarges better (film or digital) depends also alot on what you've shot
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145234\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I gave those links as they are online and hence accessible. But they match my own experience using film and digital and hence I consider them 'kosher'.
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Rob C

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enlargements - digital vs film
« Reply #37 on: October 12, 2007, 12:01:51 pm »

Fabrizio

Thanks very much for your Off Topic reply - it was one of the things that happens here sometimes and makes the site that much more interesting. Cameras, films, sensors, lenses, printers and papers are all very well, but there is a greater life all around us and it´s nice, sometimes, to explore it.

By the way -I still like Monica Bellucci, the most beautiful woman in the 1997 Pirelli Calendar. I have not had the opportunity of seeing any of her films, but if she still looks as good, and can act as well, then there is still hope for the world. Or at least for Italy!

Ciao - Rob C

Bob Casner

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enlargements - digital vs film
« Reply #38 on: October 14, 2007, 04:49:58 am »

Here are some eye opening comparisons:
from Michael Clark Photo(Nikon D2X vs. scanned 35mm Provia and Hasselblad with scanned Provia)
Also from Michael Clark Photo (D2X vs. D200 vs. 1DS Mk II)Also From Norman Koren's sitewww.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF7.html (digital vs. film part 1) and
Part 2 from Norman's site Be sure to follow the links there, too.

I have personally seen Jay Maisel show prints (12X18 Epson on 13X19 sheets) from his 2.74MP D1 in the Summer of 2001 that made me question (at the time!) why one would need more pixels. In the Summer of 2004 at the Open Shutter Gallery in Durango, Colorado, I saw a show of Pete Turner's work, all Epson prints, with an absolutely amazing 20X30" print that by all accounts was also taken with a D1 and a 14mm lens. And a year or so ago I saw at a Nikon dealer demo day a 24X36" ( I measured!) Lightjet print of a photo that's in the last Nikon full line catalog I've seen taken with a 6MP D50 (RAW mode) and an 85mm f1.4 lens, a head and shoulders portrait of a boy lying on his side that was just gorgeous by any standard. They had a 4X6 FOOT print of a car there, too, shot with a cheaper zoom that looked great too, as long as you didn't "bury your nose" in it!

And for those that feel that digital can't "do" black and white, have a look at Lenswork magazine - the current issue has a layout with beautiful shots taken with a Canon 5D and apparently reproduced from Epson prints. In tha last year or so they printed equally nice portfolios shot with a Nikon D70 and another from a Canon Digital Rebel.
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jjj

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enlargements - digital vs film
« Reply #39 on: October 14, 2007, 03:09:06 pm »

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No, that the opposite.  The over-enlargements from film  appear grainy, not those from digital. But the grain has the advantage of creating a texture that somehow can distract from the lack of resolution. Of course, there are various ways to add grain to a digital image.
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Which normally aren't as good as film grain.
I used to use Kodak recording film pushed in Acuspeed to 3200ISO. Why? Because it produced beautifully grainy prints. Digital images often look awful due to the awful lack of texture/grain. The real world has texture which digital can seem to remove at times.

A big grainey enlargement can look fine. A big digital enlargement where you see the pixels/digital artifacting always looks yucky. To my mind.

I shoot digitally, but I shoot and process to make it look like film, as I loathe the look of digital images, just like I loathe the lok of video cameras. Seeing as all a digital camera is, is a video camera doing stills, it's not surprising.
Flaws with film tend to look nice/interesting, digital flaws look like, well flaws. Though at high ISOs, digital is way better for colour work. High speed colour film was usually a bit poor, though I loved Agfa 1000RS.
« Last Edit: October 15, 2007, 03:41:24 pm by jjj »
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