We've come a long way, baby.

[Redcrown]

Was house cleaning last week and found an old CD of digital images, made in 2000 from 35mm negs by a local  commercial lab. Best I can recall the lab was offering a "new" service - scanning the negs to disc.

Has to be from my very first experience with digital processing, before I bought a digital camera. The camera would have been a Canon AE2, which was a mid-range SLR with above average glass. At the time, my main camera was a Pentax 645 medium format, always loaded with B&W film. I carried the Canon for color. I remember that back then it cost $1 per frame to shoot color in the Pentax MF. That was the cost of film, processing, and a contact proof sheet. $16 for the 16 frames on a roll of medium format color film.

I remember spending a few months and countless hours studying film scanning, buying an Epson scanner, then giving up on scanning (as a super PITA) and buying digital cameras.

So this first Bryce Canyon image is from the scanned Canon negs in 2000. The second image is from 2013, a Canon 5D2 and Photoshop CS6.

I think they demo how far we've come.

[Jan K.]

... I think they demo how far we've come.

I don't know... the old one is the one, I find most pleasing and interesting... 


Light rules over sharpness...

[Alan Klein]

The first is a poor scan and/or a poorly exposed picture with hot spots. What's those color streams at the top border.  I'm sure you could get a better scan with a newer scanner.   The second is a detailed but boring shot taken in flat light.  

But the main point is that are you saying that all photography taken with film in the 150 years before digital were worthless?  That photographer's didn't and still don't do extremely beautiful and meaningful work with film?  What exactly is your point?

[chez]

It just seems the two images had two totally different lighting conditions with the first having very dramatic lighting and the second very flat lighting. I feel this proves nothing about the quality of film versus digital. I'd also hope your skills at both composition and exposure have improved in the 12 years that separates the two images.

I shoot both digital and medium and large format film and produce great results with each.

[D Fosse]

I'm with Redcrown. I also tried to scan 35mm transparencies and color negatives and could never get anywhere near the same quality - even back then with the first DSLRs, and even later using first rate Epson scanners. Flatbed, not drum, but still.

This has nothing to do with the "lighting" - the first image is simply cr*p compared to the second. It's about information content.

This reminds me very much of vinyl vs digital audio. All sentimentality and nostalgia aside, the information is just not there in the old media.

[chez]

I'm with Redcrown. I also tried to scan 35mm transparencies and color negatives and could never get anywhere near the same quality - even back then with the first DSLRs, and even later using first rate Epson scanners. Flatbed, not drum, but still.

This has nothing to do with the "lighting" - the first image is simply cr*p compared to the second. It's about information content.

This reminds me very much of vinyl vs digital audio. All sentimentality and nostalgia aside, the information is just not there in the old media.

I agree with you the 1st image is really crap and would have been crap if shot with digital as well. It's just a harsh light image. In fact I find colour film handle harsh lighting conditions better than digital. Scanning film also takes talent, so if you don't have the patience or desire to learn how to get the most out of film, then I'd say film is not for you.

I shoot a lot of B&W film and what I really like is the flexibility film gives me by allowing me to make an analog print or to scan the film and make a digital print. They both have different looks and feel to them.

[D Fosse]

Scanning film also takes talent

Absolutely, and you wouldn't believe the amount of hours and effort I put into it - because they were very important images. I'd try anything to get them right. But there was just a brick wall I couldn't get past. And that brick wall is perfectly illustrated by Redcrown's example, couldn't do it better myself.

Now, I must stress that I'm firmly in the "straight photography" tradition. I want to be able to see through the image and into a credible representation of reality. I'm not interested in creative effects or "altering" reality. But from that standpoint, I always found digital superior.

[Alan Klein]

I'm with Redcrown. I also tried to scan 35mm transparencies and color negatives and could never get anywhere near the same quality - even back then with the first DSLRs, and even later using first rate Epson scanners. Flatbed, not drum, but still.

This has nothing to do with the "lighting" - the first image is simply cr*p compared to the second. It's about information content.

This reminds me very much of vinyl vs digital audio. All sentimentality and nostalgia aside, the information is just not there in the old media.

Photography isn't about information and quantity of pixels.  It's about vision, aesthetics, feeling, and emotion.

[Alan Klein]

Without these things, the photo "fails" whether its digital or on film.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I was also shooting MF, on Pentax 67 and mostly Velvia. In general I felt that working with film was cumbersome, I really didn't enjoy darkroom work, so I was very interested in digital printing and scanning early on. Spent something like 10000€ on MF-stuff like a 6x7 projector and two different 120 scanners. Once I was happy with 120 scanning, digital was here. I started shooting with a Minolta Dynax 7000i (5 MP superzoom) and the Pentax kit just collected dust.

With time I got to 24 MP 135 on digital and compared with my 120 film images. Resolution was similar but image quality was better on digital. Developing raw images is much easier than scanning film. So I decided film is history for me.

I would be pretty sure the high resolution drum scans from MF film can have higher resolution than modern digital, but I don't think it is worth the effort.

Best regards
Erik

Was house cleaning last week and found an old CD of digital images, made in 2000 from 35mm negs by a local  commercial lab. Best I can recall the lab was offering a "new" service - scanning the negs to disc.

Has to be from my very first experience with digital processing, before I bought a digital camera. The camera would have been a Canon AE2, which was a mid-range SLR with above average glass. At the time, my main camera was a Pentax 645 medium format, always loaded with B&W film. I carried the Canon for color. I remember that back then it cost $1 per frame to shoot color in the Pentax MF. That was the cost of film, processing, and a contact proof sheet. $16 for the 16 frames on a roll of medium format color film.

I remember spending a few months and countless hours studying film scanning, buying an Epson scanner, then giving up on scanning (as a super PITA) and buying digital cameras.

So this first Bryce Canyon image is from the scanned Canon negs in 2000. The second image is from 2013, a Canon 5D2 and Photoshop CS6.

I think they demo how far we've come.

[Simon Garrett]

Photography isn't about information and quantity of pixels.  It's about vision, aesthetics, feeling, and emotion.

It's about all those things.  For many people and for many types of photography it is not just about vision etc, it's also about recreating the original scene to a reasonable accuracy.  Information and quantity of pixels come into that. 

In your later post you say "Without these things [vision etc], the photo "fails" whether its digital or on film."  Quite so, but without reasonable technical quality it also fails for many purposes. 

I've had to spend a lot of time over the last few years reading books on "Art Photography", where among some there is almost a disdain for technical quality of images.  There was an interesting book published last year by Jackie Higgins entitled "Why it does NOT have to be in focus".  I agee - for some photography - but for many types of photography those techincal issues matter very much. 

[Alan Klein]

I didn't mean to say that resolution isn't important.  It is. That,s why I shoot MF rather than 35mm.  My point is that too many people get hung up on the technical like resolution and high ISO for example.  This it's nothing new.  When film was the only option, the endless discussions were on grain and film speed.  Nothing much has changed in that respect.  But the truth is most viewers don't care about those things.  Content, meaning, and aesthetics are more important.  Certainly you can create those things with film as well as digital. 

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I guess we can all agree on that…

My take is a bit that if an image is good enough, technically speaking, further improvements are not so very significant. On the other hand, if image quality is so poor that it distracts from the subject, that is a bad thing.

It is nice to look at a large print and check out tiny details.

My prints are normally in A2-size. That size is practical for me, it fits nicely in a 50x70 frame, I can easily make passepartouts to fit. Sometimes I also print 70x100 cm, or something like that. That case I just fill the frame.

Generally, I have been quite happy with 12-16 MP images in A2. Higher resolution is always nice to have.

I have made an absolutely gorgeous print from scanned 67 Velvia at 70x100 cm, but it took a lot of processing.

Best regards
Erik

I didn't mean to say that resolution isn't important.  It is. That,s why I shoot MF rather than 35mm.  My point is that too many people get hung up on the technical like resolution and high ISO for example.  This it's nothing new.  When film was the only option, the endless discussions were on grain and film speed.  Nothing much has changed in that respect.  But the truth is most viewers don't care about those things.  Content, meaning, and aesthetics are more important.  Certainly you can create those things with film as well as digital. 

[Simon Garrett]

I didn't mean to say that resolution isn't important.  It is. That,s why I shoot MF rather than 35mm.  My point is that too many people get hung up on the technical like resolution and high ISO for example. 

Yes, I completely agree - sorry if I took your remarks too literally!

[Alan Klein]

Erik.  I shoot a lot of Velvia 50 in 6x7.  I woulda love to see that print you did.  Have you the scan on the web?

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I think this was the image I sent to my lab, not really sure:

http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/Shoots/VelviaScans/20080727-print_20071202-AnnSofiePierre_1+Scan-071202-0004_2.tif

It was printed on Durst Lambda on high gloss paper at 200 LPI.

I have some other scans of other images, including a 6000 PPI drum scan I can also post.

Best regards
Erik