I've tried MF digital and MF film still rules.

[Plekto]

The numbers are fake. You can have a completely out of focus image and scan it at 8000DPI on a drum scanner for 100 megapixels. But it still won't beat a digital p&s for detail. Unless you are comparing resolved detail you cannot compare, especially using the extremely worn and false argument of 'I can scan to X megapixels'.

I was talking about black and white MF/LF film.  Color you can go on and on about - it's a completely different animal.

2000 dpi scanned for 4x5 nets 80MP.  Even Dlabs scan at 2400dpi for 35mm film, so don't tell me that a super conservative 2000DPI scan isn't relevant.  Also, if your image is out of focus, then the shooter is a rube since the image is right there in a 4x5 camera for you to physically see before you even expose anything.   Complaining about it being out of focus and not sharp is just a straw man.

If both are good clean pictures with good lenses, well, yes - larger formats do have a huge amount of data just because it's a huge piece of film.  Huge film beats a DSLR? Well, duh.

Note - when this is brought up, you invariably start spouting off insane figures (8000dpi?) when I'm purposely talking perfectly reasonable and industry standard scanning resolutions.  And yes, I admit that most everything you scan at over 2000DPI is noise on film, but good b/w film can easily scan to 2400DPI. So comparing numbers isn't completely wrong, either, as long as we stick to a reasonable ones.

But that aside... back to the original topic...

Now, as for the look and how the film handles light, well, there's also that.  The Ilford b/w slide film looks better than anything digital that I've seen.  No contest.  It looks more realistic and is very forgiving.  And black is black.  You can't do stuff like long nighttime shots with digital, for instance, that you can with film.  Because as you boost the ISO or raise the levels in processing, black isn't black.  The lack of digital noise is my #1 reason I like film.

[Rob C]

Ah, you wish me to use my interpretative loupe and peek for your message.  I think I can do that.

Did I get it right?

Nope: guess the loupe´s beyond you - try a pixel peep instead.

Rob C

[feppe]

Now, as for the look and how the film handles light, well, there's also that.  The Ilford b/w slide film looks better than anything digital that I've seen.  No contest.  It looks more realistic and is very forgiving.  And black is black.  You can't do stuff like long nighttime shots with digital, for instance, that you can with film.  Because as you boost the ISO or raise the levels in processing, black isn't black.  The lack of digital noise is my #1 reason I like film.

I don't know what your definition of "long" exposures is, but I've done quite a few nighttime cityscapes with 35mm and 6x6 film 10-240 second exposures, as well as DSLRs, and digital wins in every respect and is far superior.

I don't understand how black is not black in digital - 0 is black, period. If you do judicious bracketing and blending with digital, you can avoid noise altogether, even in deep shadows. And there's no reciprocity failure in digital.

With film you'll end up guessing a lot. No live histogram, no liveview to get focusing right in the dark, no preview to see your exposure is even in the right ballpark. So you bracket like crazy. Even then, nighttime cityscapes contain so much dynamic range that Velvia or Provia can't contain it in a single frame, so you end up blending the bracketed shots anyway.

As much as I miss shooting film, nighttime cityscapes is one area where I'd never go back to film.

[Plekto]

You should try shooting black and white film sometime.  It handles light differently and does just fine for nighttime shots.  Color film as I have often stated, has "issues" like digital color has, and it's a huge set to trade offs with one versus the other.  I like Velvia and a few other color films.  But most, like the higher speed Kodak films just look like rubbish compared to an A900.  

Yes, what you say is mostly true for color.  It's also why I specifically leave black and white to film.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jillgood/303674851/
Click on "all sizes" for the full image.  I found this (fairly average, IMO) online but it shows what I mean - nighttime shot that does things with light that a DSLR just won't do quite the same.  Bridges and towers and so on also look amazing in black and white at night.   That person's site has a few other ones linked.  

[Anders_HK]

With film you'll end up guessing a lot. No live histogram, no liveview to get focusing right in the dark, no preview to see your exposure is even in the right ballpark. So you bracket like crazy. Even then, nighttime cityscapes contain so much dynamic range that Velvia or Provia can't contain it in a single frame, so you end up blending the bracketed shots anyway.

Hi

Above is not true. By using a spot meter the exposure is right on before pressing the shutter, hence the zone system to exact control the tones/zones in a film image. Actually, I have also used spot meter also with my Aptus and I appreciate the control of the image it brings   .

Review of histogram and reshoot is more guessing because it does not lend you to control the individual tones or zones within an image, not even with live histogram and liveview...

I like my Aptus, but Fuji slides are still very beautiful to put even my Aptus to shame (I given up on DSLRs). I should say that digital and film are simply different, depends on subject and various conditions. Also of ones preference. Actually, personally my aim is to use more slides   . Simply the look of Fuji slides... Velvia 50, Provia 100/400...

Regards
Anders

[BernardLanguillier]

I like my Aptus, but Fuji slides are still very beautiful to put even my Aptus to shame (I given up on DSLRs). I should say that digital and film are simply different, depends on subject and various conditions. Also of ones preference. Actually, personally my aim is to use more slides   . Simply the look of Fuji slides... Velvia 50, Provia 100/400...

Anders,

Sure, slides to many things very well... but I don't remember night cityscape being one of them. You end up having either fully black shadows or fully blown highlights and that is not aesthetically pleasing nor any close to what the scene really looked like.

If I were to shoot such a scene with film, I would use a negative film like Ektar every time.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Anders_HK]

Anders,

Sure, slides to many things very well... but I don't remember night cityscape being one of them. You end up having either fully black shadows or fully blown highlights and that is not aesthetically pleasing nor any close to what the scene really looked like.

If I were to shoot such a scene with film, I would use a negative film like Ektar every time.

Cheers,
Bernard

Bernard,

Of course, night cityscapes was not my meaning. Right tool for every job, thus when using film and one desire more than around 5 stops DR one should use negs - color or B&W. Yet even with 5 stops only it is amazing how much can be rendered well with slides, because the cut off at black and highlight is unlinear, unlike digital.

Regards
Anders

[Ben Rubinstein]

I was talking about black and white MF/LF film.  Color you can go on and on about - it's a completely different animal.

2000 dpi scanned for 4x5 nets 80MP.  Even Dlabs scan at 2400dpi for 35mm film, so don't tell me that a super conservative 2000DPI scan isn't relevant.  Also, if your image is out of focus, then the shooter is a rube since the image is right there in a 4x5 camera for you to physically see before you even expose anything.   Complaining about it being out of focus and not sharp is just a straw man.

If both are good clean pictures with good lenses, well, yes - larger formats do have a huge amount of data just because it's a huge piece of film.  Huge film beats a DSLR? Well, duh.

Note - when this is brought up, you invariably start spouting off insane figures (8000dpi?) when I'm purposely talking perfectly reasonable and industry standard scanning resolutions.  And yes, I admit that most everything you scan at over 2000DPI is noise on film, but good b/w film can easily scan to 2400DPI. So comparing numbers isn't completely wrong, either, as long as we stick to a reasonable ones.

But that aside... back to the original topic...

Now, as for the look and how the film handles light, well, there's also that.  The Ilford b/w slide film looks better than anything digital that I've seen.  No contest.  It looks more realistic and is very forgiving.  And black is black.  You can't do stuff like long nighttime shots with digital, for instance, that you can with film.  Because as you boost the ISO or raise the levels in processing, black isn't black.  The lack of digital noise is my #1 reason I like film.

You avoided my entire point, on purpose. Either that or you don't begin to get it. The numbers mean NOTHING! If you can prove that a scan to 80 megapixels gives 80 megapixels worth of resolution then you have a point. It doesn't and you cannot. Therefore comparing scans to digital based on the amount of pixels produced alone is and always has been a rather pathetic approach to beating the chest over film superiority.

[Plekto]

I don't know about you, but I sure see a big difference in detail between 4x5 and MF.  Some of it is the lens, some of it is the much bigger piece of film that you can get good details out of.  Even at 1200DPI, which is kind of a silly low resolution to scan something as large as 4x5, it nets about 25MP.  And I know for a fact that the optics aren't *that* poor.  Not by a long shot.  Because I can scan higher than 1200DPI on almost any film and pull in loads of information.

Your argument seems to be mostly that the lenses are the limiting factor, so why bother...  I guess it depends on the lens.  A lot of consumer stuff is pretty poor to be honest.  We used to notice this years ago with film as film got better and it seems everyone forgot with digital until we started to hit the limits again.  Some lenses are just not in the same league as others.

As for film, it has its place still.  Black and white slide film fills a specific place and need that digital currently can't touch.  As for color, there's a reason I have a DSLR.  When I'm shooting color, I'm shooting memories and life around me and not art.

[Rob C]

I have a gut feeling that one cannot really make any fundamental rulings in this film/digital comparison that has sprung into life here.

Take Velvia 35mm, for example: I have just spent time scanning on a CanoScan FS-4000US in order to try to turn a not particularly wonderful colour image of some old olive trees, shot through a piece of non-optical quality glass that was lightly smeared with vaseline, into a black and white version that seems to offer greater scope. The scanner claims 4000dpi resolution - why should it lie? - and the main surprise I have with the b/w version is that foliage has taken on what seems a bit like an infra-red look. Totally a surprise. Further, since the original was shot as it was to make it look fuzzy, I have not sharpened the b/w either, mainly because on looking at a test with the unsharp mask employed, it lost much of the streaky effect - pointless. That´s one kind of result with fine-grain colour transparency.

Using the same scanner on Kodachrome Pro 64, people/skin shots, the detail from the scans is just amazing, far better than I ever saw from the same series when printed four colour litho for the original calendars. Water droplets on the skin simply stand out as if they were real. I scan using none of the dust removal devices or anything at all that I fear could interfere with the basic detail that´s there, and these shots too are now printed b/w.

So the point I might have made is that two different fine-grain films can look totally different when scanned, depending on many inputs other than just the scanning.

On the other hand, scanning fast 35mm b/w film can produce prints that look a little more crude, and slower ones can look pretty close to wet printing but with some micro control that would have been pd difficult to do in the wet! I have never scanned any 120, b/w nor colour, for the simple reason that I haven´t that size a scanner. Would have loved to have had the opportunity, though; Santa?

What about digital, then? I have only a modest D200, but the impression I get is that there is a gain in sharpness (using the same lenses) that could well have a lot to do with flatness of the sensor plane as compared with film. Trouble is, to come to any sure conclusion becomes difficult if only because of the unsharp mask step in the production of a print. With film you always had a loupe if you wanted to check edges against centre of a slide (and even with a loupe you could see the differences); with digital you don´t have that choice and looking at 100% doesn´t feel the same either. Such a subjective business.

Rob C

[jtorral]

And what is the point of medium format film if the end result requires it to be scanned and thus converted to a digital medium?  Quentin

Quentin,

I would disagree with your comment to a certain degree. Many people who shoot B&W film still print in a dark room. Thus, scanning would be irrelevant at this point. The dynamic range of B&W film can only be reproduced on photographic paper in the traditional way. However, if you want to show you pictures on the web or have them published in a magazine, that is a different story.

JT

[DonWeston]

Kirk - could you comment on the differences you find with your digital slr's, the D700 and D300. I own the same and find that the D300 in some instances comes closer to the film like quality [slightly grainier images] compared to the noiseless D700. I know this is not real "film" grain, but just wondering what your views were on this. I too shot film in a 500CM for decades and can not match that portraiture quality. I have a shot of my girls at about age 6, with a combo similar to what you mention, and have tried to reshoot the same images at different times over the yrs of my girls with a variety of dslrs, S2,3, 20D, 40D and D300. So far the D300 seems the closest but still not in any way would I confuse the image no matter how nice it is with the older 500CM shot...here is the D300 shot...

[Fritzer]

To be frank, I don't get the analog 'hype' .

The portrait in the first posting, sure you can do that with a digital camera , and better (judging by the low-res image shown).
Looks to me like the film wasn't processed right, the tonal changes are a bit harsh, in particular in the highlights, and the grain too heavy.
Or maybe just a bad print/ scan .

And indeed I used to develop and print B/W film by myself, using my own recipes for the chemicals etc. ; TXP and PXP have been my favourites.
Only recently did I sell my darkroom equipment, I printed B/W and colour up to 4x5" .

Digital is providing so much more control and quality, at a fraction of cost and effort, it's mind-boggling.
Of course, one needs to develop the skills to handle it (I'm not quite there yet...), because easy it is not, as said before.

[kirktuck]

To be frank, I don't get the analog 'hype' .

The portrait in the first posting, sure you can do that with a digital camera , and better (judging by the low-res image shown).
Looks to me like the film wasn't processed right, the tonal changes are a bit harsh, in particular in the highlights, and the grain too heavy.
Or maybe just a bad print/ scan .

And indeed I used to develop and print B/W film by myself, using my own recipes for the chemicals etc. ; TXP and PXP have been my favourites.
Only recently did I sell my darkroom equipment, I printed B/W and colour up to 4x5" .

Digital is providing so much more control and quality, at a fraction of cost and effort, it's mind-boggling.
Of course, one needs to develop the skills to handle it (I'm not quite there yet...), because easy it is not, as said before.

Fritzer,  There's no right way or wrong way to develop film.  Problem with photography is that too many left brained people got into it around the ascendency of digital  and they think they can devolve any parameter based on numbers and quantification.  If I hear another person say they can duplicate anything in photoshop I think I'll throw up.  The grain in the photo is wonderful and delicious.  The scan is crappy and inviting.  The tonal changes make some other photographers who've written about the image (the one's with souls instead of calculators) envious.  Control is the enemy.  Unthinking pursuit of "quality" leaves one aesthetically hamstrung.  Do you ever "feel" art instead of "evaluating" it with a check list?  Do you ever have an emotional reaction to art instead of measuring grain with a micrometer and judging its relative merits.  Is jug wine the same as good wine.  After all, it is just as red, much more consistent and the flavor is equally bland.

If you don't get it you won't get it but it seems like lots of other people understand that not everything in art is measurable nor is there one standard check list for good.  I wish the grain were bigger and the transitions were more loopy.  It doesn't take skills to handle digital, just an autopilot response to by the numbers decision making.  In another art form we used to call that "painting by numbers."

Do you ever get the feeling that on some subconscious level your tools are driving your aesthetic decisions?  In the case of the D3x my friends who own them now only do images which somehow show off how sharp the files are or how much they resolve.  Their work has suffered in their subjugation to the camera.  The same thing happened when the D3 came out.  The photos were no longer subject oriented as much as they were, "look how high I can set the ISO" oriented.  And when I shoot with a MF digital camera (I reviewed three for magazines last year) the subliminal push is to show how things look blown up large.  No matter that the artist usually printed 11x14 or so.  Now all the prints have to be 20 by 30 or more to show off the capability of the camera.  The truth is that the subject matter is then secondary.    Very unintended.  

There is no hype.  You might not be a candidate for that kind of seeing.  But remember that the savored part of advertising, art and even existence is diversification.  And even if you could do things easier and better in digital does that make it right?  Shouldn't we consider the effect of the tools on the art.  You can get better colors in photoshop than you could in an actual painting but isn't the process of painting with physical brushes part of the creative process?  When you cut that out do you affect the art?  Of course.  Just my random thoughts.

[Peter McConvill]

Why is it that the moment somebody articulates a liking for something, the instant reaction from some quarters is to try and knock that person´s position into the sand?

Rob C

Rob, in answer to your question, my guess is because the people usually expressing the opinion in the first place are looking for the fight.  They do this by stating their preferences in such a way that   expressly or surreptitiously it denigrates the work and preferences of others.  I think this is what Bobtrips was hinting at in his reply that stressed that nothing that kirktuck wrote was wrong FOR HIM but that expressing that preference as a universal rule of truth (along with a clear implication that those using digital were settling for “good enough”)   was incorrect.

In fact in his reply to Bobtrips, kirktuck switches into full attack mode and comes out with the bald faced assertion that digital sucks and the real purpose of the original post is revealed.
So simply put – if you are really stating a personnel preference, fine, recognize it as such and be prepared for the post to sink like a stone without being recognised.  If on the other hand you want to make a universal statement of fact be prepared to have to argue that one – but the good news is your thread will get a lot of coverage and your blog will get a lot of traffic.

On the topic - I'm a digital guy.  In the pre-digi days the hassle of using film was such that I didnt take photos, the medium separated me from the artform completely.  Digital photography brought me back by doing the one thing a great camera should do - it got out of the way.  But I will also admit that now, with the knowledge I've got a DSLR to capture my important shots and all the pressure off film I enjoy using it as a complement to my digital rig, as a fun way to experiment and play.  As for IQ - basically except for a few specific issues I reckon its virtually identical if we allow each medium the same flexibility and learning curve.  I must admit I find it amusing that apparently having to spend some time and money working with software to get your processing down pat is held up by some as a sign of the problems of digital while the months and/or years of toiling with film to gain the knowledge required to extract the best from it are held up as a sign of its superiority.

[Peter McConvill]

It doesn't take skills to handle digital, just an autopilot response to by the numbers decision making.  In another art form we used to call that "painting by numbers."

kirktuck - if thats how you look at digital then its no surprise you find it unsatisfying.   I would too.  Reading your blog and your posts on this thread I'm reminded of many many many similar thoughts from old film guys that all revolve around the same question - when will digital give me exactly what I have with film?  You know what, it wont, ever.  Worse, in desperately trying to get digital to merely recreate what you are already doing precisely what you accuse others of - turning the art of photography into a tedious craft.

If you are happy with producing the art that you do with film, great, keep doing it.

If you want to challenge yourself and find a new artistic direction, try doing things in digital you would or could never do with film.  

[kirktuck]

kirktuck - if thats how you look at digital then its no surprise you find it unsatisfying.   I would too.  Reading your blog and your posts on this thread I'm reminded of many many many similar thoughts from old film guys that all revolve around the same question - when will digital give me exactly what I have with film?  You know what, it wont, ever.  Worse, in desperately trying to get digital to merely recreate what you are already doing precisely what you accuse others of - turning the art of photography into a tedious craft.

If you are happy with producing the art that you do with film, great, keep doing it.

If you want to challenge yourself and find a new artistic direction, try doing things in digital you would or could never do with film.

Fair enough. Kirk

[Jonathan Wienke]

If you are happy with producing the art that you do with film, great, keep doing it.

If you want to challenge yourself and find a new artistic direction, try doing things in digital you would or could never do with film.

Bravo! Digital is not film. It can closely emulate all of the characteristics of film (idiosyncratic color palettes, grain, etc), and and is able to do so with increasing accuracy (with "film look" profiles, scanned grain textures, etc.). But aping a given film's characteristics isn't the point. Contrary to what some film die-hards seem to believe, the flaws and idiosyncracies of film do NOT define photographic nirvana. There's nothing "wrong" with the "look" of film; it's simply a small subset of what is possible with photography. Why limit yourself to one small niche in the great ocean of possibilities out there?

If you are unable to achieve satisfactory results using digital capture, look in the mirror to see the main cause. Digital is not the same as film, and the paradigms for setting optimal exposure for digital are different than those for film. Best workflow practices for processing a captured image all the way to the final print are different also. If you insist upon using a film-based paradigm to dictate the way you expose digital captures, you are going to get inferior results every time. But that does not mean digital capture is inferior or has inherently less DR, it simply means you haven't yet grasped how to use it to best advantage.

The same principle is true of workflow. With film, the film manufacturer is responsible for creating the color palette--the way the film interprets the colors of the subject. You have two choices: like it or not. Your only real choices are which film stock, developer, and print paper to use. With digital, you have complete control over how the colors of the subject are interpreted via profiles and RAW conversion settings, but with that also comes the responsibility of learning the rudiments of color management--monitor calibration, printer profiling, rendering intents, white balancing, and all of the other arcana associated thereto. If you handle this task poorly and are unsatisfied with the results, it is not an inherent inferiority of digital capture, it is your failure to master the skills necessary to create a satisfactory print using digital workflow.

Film has been used to capture many great photographs, but so has digital. Using film as the capture medium does not guarantee that the resulting image will be great; nor does the use of a digital sensor. If you prefer to use film for your work, that's wonderful. But that does not mean that the photographer who uses digital capture is inferior for doing so. Both film and digital capture are sufficiently mature technologies that the creativity and skill of the photographer has a much greater impact on the final image than the choice of capture medium.

[Rob C]

That film on 120 would still need to be scanned, should one wish to work with it in a non-wet manner, is hardly a probem if you can afford the quality scanner.

Frankly, I would love to have both files and transparencies/negatives; what a wonderful sense of relief about the future!

That control in either wet or digital print-making depends on skill is obviously the common denominator in making any such discussion valid. Unless one has the experience in both, there is only position-taking and not discussion. There´s probably enough of that already...

I suppose that one of the reasons that digital is going to win in the end - if it has not already - is that people want instant gratification. If you don´t believe me, then ask yourself why, prior to digital, there was always enough time between commission, shooting and delivering transparencies or prints for life to move sweetly ahead at an acceptable pace. Now, the only reason that there has been an acceleration in production times is because it is possible. That is NOT to say that it is essential. I wonder how many photographers work themselves to death to get out finished files only to find that they lie about in an office for days after the delivery? It just seems to me that as with the payment of invoices, photographers are ever the bottom of the average food chain. You can push them? So why not drive the mothers mad, makes you look powerful.

Rob C

[Plekto]

Bravo! Digital is not film. It can closely emulate all of the characteristics of film (idiosyncratic color palettes, grain, etc), and and is able to do so with increasing accuracy (with "film look" profiles, scanned grain textures, etc.). But aping a given film's characteristics isn't the point. Contrary to what some film die-hards seem to believe, the flaws and idiosyncrasies of film do NOT define photographic nirvana. There's nothing "wrong" with the "look" of film; it's simply a small subset of what is possible with photography. Why limit yourself to one small niche in the great ocean of possibilities out there?

Isn't digital just as limiting in many ways?

One of the things that I can gain, for instance, with black and white film, is printing on paper with an enlarger.  It has advantages over most consumer grade printers, mostly because the weak link in digital currently is the printing.  As long as I'm not enlarging to bigger than a couple of feet, paper and film wins for absolute quality.  Larger than that and digital wins, mostly because large format photo enlarging requires tools and a setup that are essentially identical in cost to large format digital printers.(usually have to dedicate an entire room in your home to fit the enlarger for instance, as well)

http://www.adorama.com/ILMG4810250P.html
I usually stick to something like this, though.  250 sheets of 8x10 for $130?  That's quite reasonable if you have the time to do it(about 50 cents a print   )  20x24 is about $4 a sheet.

Film gives me a different set of options.  Not more or less... just different ones.  I personally love slide film, for instance, because it also projects very well.  That's something that is impossible to do with digital, really.  1080p is barely 2MP, so digital projectors fail completely here.  I don't know of any non-commercial digital projectors, for instance, that are close to even 35mm slides in resolution yet.   People seem to forget that 120 slide film well, also works as a slide.  heh.  Nobody seems to complain about slide shows, any more.

Then there's the software.  Adobe's programs are cumbersome to learn and expensive, to be honest.  The amount of information that you need to learn to do digital post-processing and printing is quite a lot.  It's not really "better" - just different.  

If you are unable to achieve satisfactory results using digital capture, look in the mirror to see the main cause. Digital is not the same as film, and the paradigms for setting optimal exposure for digital are different than those for film.

And film is not the same as digital.  Don't forget that digital also is a massive series of compromises and kludges.  I know a lot of people assume that new is better, but honestly, it's not always so.  Witness the advent of digital watches versus analog ones.  For a while it was all digital, now it's a solidly mixed market as each has better uses than the other for certain things.