I watched a program on PBS where digital scientist were working to restore 1920s silent film and they were saying they were glad they had the celluloid to digitally extract the information from the old film because there was much more information on the old film than could be recorded at that time--around 2004--with the best digital video recorders. They concluded that when a digital image is recorded at X resoilution, it's fixed at that resolution., no matter how far technology goes. Whereas when you extrac the detail from film, it's head room continues to surpass the best digital imagning hardware in the world, so as scanners get better, you continue to see more detail from the film. You just have to "extract it."
So if that is wrong, please--show evidence. I'm interested in understanding why scientist in the above program are wrong about their position.
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I cannot comment on that film as I have not seen it. I will though add that I worked as a research scientist for many years and published in leading journals. One thing to note is that just because a 'scientist' has a PhD and publications to his name means not a lot if he/she is commenting on something outside of their narrow field of research. They can be just as prone as anyone else to talk nonsense when straying outside their field of expertise. That is just a gentle warning. As I say, I cannot comment on a film I have not seen, and I do not know the field of expertise of the scientists concerned. But note that it would have been B&W film, and that generally has more detail than colour. That MIGHT explain their comment. In other words, they might have been right, given a caveat.
But the sad truth is that there is so much nonsense talked about digital versus film, and some people get very animated on the subject.
That said, numerous people will tell you that in there experience, a 10-12 MP DSLR will beat 35mm colour slide film as far as resolution and DR are concerned. That is my position. I know that a D200 beats 100 ISO colour slide film as far as detail goes, and beats it in terms of DR. But there are far more respected and experienced people out there who say the same thing. Huge numbers of well known pros will agree with that statement, or one like it.
Okay, so if you do not accept the word of me (I don't blame you), or experienced pros (that is harder to figure out), what about proof. Well, I think I gave you some corroboration earlier. But here it is again:
[a href=\"http://www.janrik.net/MiscSubj/2007/FilmVsDSLRTests20070528/A_Comparison_of_Film_and_DSLR_Images.html]http://www.janrik.net/MiscSubj/2007/FilmVs...SLR_Images.html[/url]
This is only an ISO 200 film, but then again the DSLR against which it is compared is only 6MP. This test has the advantage of not using a desktop scanner, hence you cannot argue that the desktop scanner is getting in the way. The fact that he uses a lab microscope to image the film indicates that he is getting all of the detail from the film.
Now here is the Clark view:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/fil...l.summary1.htmlNotice how he gives a D70 as having the same spatial resolution as an ISO 200 film. And yet the earlier test shows the D70 to be much better. So maybe we can conclude that Clark's chart is biased against the DSLR, and that in fact a DSLR will perform better than he indicates/
Here is another view:
http://www.vildaphoto.net/nikond2x/The above tests suffer from using a desktop scanner, but FWIW my tests using a lab microscope indicate that a good scanner (Minolta 5400 in my case) does get all the detail from a Fuji Provia 100F slide.
What we really need is a careful test using Velvia 50, 'scanned' using a low power lab microscope, compared with a ~12MP DSLR image, using the same subject and FOV.