Is film really superior?

<p>Before posting this, I apologize for this being so long.<br>

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But here is a short history of where I am coming from with this, and why/what I am really asking. I haven't been shooting film for many years. I started shooting film in the 1980's, but I stopped around 1998. After a few years, I got a 4 megapixel point-and-shoot digital camera. Eventually I got an 8 megapixel Canon 20 D and shot with that for a while, then a 10 megapixel Sony R1, and then a 12 megapixel Canon 5 D. But I always wondered whether film was as good as high-end digital, like the full-frame DSLR cameras (like my 5 D). I now have a Nikon F3 with a 28mm f2 AIS lens, so I can find out for myself. I just went out and shot a roll of Kodak Gold 200. (I couldn't find any ISO 100 locally.) I plan to get a few rolls of Kodak Portra 100 to do my testing with, because from what I've read, it seems that Portra is very high quality and good for scanning. I also shoot photos of people often (though I shoot sunrises and the local scenery too). I shoot outdoors mostly, and it seems like Portra will work fine for that too. Anyone with a preference, please let me know what you think of this choice, vs. the Kodak Gold 200 and Kodak Gold 400 and Kodak UltraMax 400 that I can find locally.<br>

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I've had many film people tell me that film is capable of superior quality to digital (still . . . after all these years). I have a friend who refuses to even try shooting digital, because he wholeheartedly believes in film. He says when they have a 24 megapixel full-frame Nikon for the price of the D700, then he will try digital. At one time, after reading about the Canon 1Ds Mark II at Luminous Landscape, I thought that digital was better. Since then though, I've come to realize that there are megapixels and there are MEGAPIXELS, and that scanning technology has come a long way, and now it seems that a good quality film scan just might get me super high resolution results, without me having to buy a $7,000 Sigma SD1 camera. I also don't want to have to shoot with my 4x5 to get high quality images. I am trying to test my theory, but the ridiculously low resolution scans from Walgreens don't cut it. In fact, I don't know how anyone can think film is any good, when they get those stupid little 2 megapixel scans from there. Here are a couple of the scans I just got:<br>

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http://ffphotos.zenfolio.com/walgreens<br>

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Yes, those are the original scans (though you will have to download them to see them at full size).<br>

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Since the quality of those scans is so bad, I plan to send some of my film out to North Coast Photo: http://www.northcoastphoto.com/film_developing_scans.html<br>

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I wish I didn't have to send the film out. I wish there was a place in south Florida, where I could get decent scans with my processing. If anyone has a recommendation, I'd love to hear it.<br>

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So my question about whether film really is superior is not all I would like an answer to. I want to know if I should get a flat-bed scanner, like the $175 Canon 9000F, or use some other solution (like the scans at North Coast Photo). The problem is resolution. North Coast Photo and other companies don't seem to scan at very high resolution. The Canon 9000F gets an optical resolution of 9,800x9,800 dpi, so my scans would be more than 100 megapixels. That sounds pretty good to me! (even if they look like they have Bayer blur) The dedicated film scanners don't seem to scan at high resolutions. I looked at the Wolverine F2D300, which sells for only $90, but while it is very fast, it only scans at about 7 megapixels (and that is interpolated). The Plustek scanners only scan at 7,200 dpi, and they cost even more than the Canon flat-bed. I'm considering the Wolverine for my initial scanning, and then I can send out the negatives to North Coast Photo or some other scanning place, where I can have just one or two really good scans made each month, at a much reduced cost (compared to getting all the film scanned when it is developed). Would the Canon 9000F be a better way to go?<br>

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Does anyone know of a better way to get really good, really high resolution scans? (I fear that people are just going to say that I'm doing the right thing with the Wolverine or the Canon 9000F. Hopefully I don't already have the best solutions figured out. If you have an opinion, even if it is to just recommend one or the other, please let me know. An answer to whether film offers better ultimate resolution in a 35mm SLR would be interesting too. Opinions definitely count, even though I am testing my theory.)</p>

<p>Portra 100? Did you mean the new Portra 160? I can't comment on much about color as I am mostly a B&W photographer and as for scanners I do my own scanning but I use a low quality flatbed called the V700 because I shoot 16mm through 4x5 and it was the best one in that price range to do what I needed. I can tell you drug store scanning looks good on paper if the operator is qualified to run it properly but that is not the case. The V700 looks good on Paper also but it is what I have and I can use it properly to get the most out of it even with 35mm.</p>

<p> You must understand photo processing and printing... CD scanning has gon down hill since you left film. Has digital caught up with 35mm? Yes in many ways it has but 35mm is not the only film format. I am a film user and I also process all of my own B&W and from time to time C-41 and E6 and find that a full part of my hobby as much as shooting so I may be Biased on this.</p>

<p>yes and no.</p>

<p>The Epson V700 is still considered a good scanner Larry. It has a high D-max, and it scans at very high quality, for a 4,800 dpi scanner. Apparently the resolution numbers are a bunch of malarkey. They are an indication that the scanner is a higher resolution scanner, but they don't really indicate what quality the image will be. The Nikon 9000 film scanner, for example, scans at only 4,000 dpi, but it captures a far superior scan, when compared to the Canon 9000F flat-bed scanner. Of course, it costs many times more too. Even your Epson V700 captures a superior quality image to the new Canon 9000F, surprisingly. I didn't realize all this stuff years ago, when I bought an HP flatbed scanner that only cost $200, but supposedly scanned at 4,800 dpi. It did indeed make great quality images from my 4x5 film (and after I downsized from those huge files, I had very high quality, 200 megapixel JPEG images). I never did try to scan 35mm film at that time though, because all I had were old slides and negatives from the 1990's, before I knew what a quality lens was. I would have kept with scanning 4x5 film, except for the fact that is was taking many hours to scan one photo at full resolution (4,800 dpi optical). Then manipulating the photo was a nightmare on my 2 Ghz AMD Athlon computer, which had only 1 GB of RAM.<br>

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I think you must be right about the CD scanning. I thought the Kodak CD that people were getting years ago (I never did get any of those) would have decent quality TIFF images on it (like 20 or 30 megabytes each). Maybe I was mistaken.<br>

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The more I look into it, the more I think the flat-bed route is not for me. The extra cost, the extra space needed, and the extra time I will spend scanning my negatives, just to get a little better image . . . that all just turns me off. I think I will probably get the Wolverine F2D300, because it only costs $90 and gives a decent JPEG image in just 5 or 10 seconds. (I think it just has a CCD sensor and shoots a digital photo of the negative/slide.) Then, when I have picked out an image I really like, I'll just send the negative out to someone like North Coast Photo or maybe take it to someone local with a Nikon 8000 or 9000. Maybe I can even get a used Nikon 8000 from someone in a few months, and keep all my scanning in-house. That would be nice. (I don't think that will happen though, because those things are REALLY expensive!)</p>

<p>I was being sarcastic about my V700....<br>

If you want higher quality scans than you're going to get with a modern, high IQ digital camera and have them done by a service, the price per image is going to be very high. For me, way too high.

 

Scanning yourself is cheaper, if you have the volume, but you're going to need a very high quality scanner to beat the best digital.

 

In my tests, scanning with my Epson V700 probably beats my m4/3 camera (Olympus E-P1), but not my Nikon D700. (Very informal tests.)

 

I doubt very much that any 35mm film, no matter how it's scanned, can beat a Nikon D3x (or whatever Canon's equivalent is). Unless the film/scanning technique is perfect, I doubt that it can beat a D700, either.

<p>Well My friend just got a Digital back for his Blad this week I want to check it out.. But I feel I can most likely do better with freezer film in my ARAX....</p>

<p>Well, digital has in many ways caught up with film. I find I can get as much detail out of a raw file from my D7000 as I can out of anything but the best 35mm film scan I can manage - and I have a very good scanner, a Minolta 5400. But film treats the highlights and shadows differently, gives me (what I consider to be) better skin tones, and there's a certain satisfaction in the physical object of the negative or slide that's not there with digital - and I have some old cameras I enjoy shooting. So, not "better" but different.</p>

<p>WRT the scanners - the cheap Wolverine scanner and similarly priced and shaped models are not very good - they're basically a crappy digital camera in a light box. Flatbed scanners are usually better, but the resolution numbers lie. They can spit out a file with that many pixels, but the optics and focus are not good enough to resolve detail in each pixel. On filmscanner.info they have tests where they scan test slides with details of different sizes and see what resolves, from which they can say what the "real" resolution of the scan is, and flatbeds come in between 1600 and 2300 (the high end being the expensive Epsons), and you might get some improvement over that with aftermarket adjustable or wet mount holders but nowhere near the advertised resolution. I reserve the flatbed for scanning medium format film, scan at high res then downsize to 2,000 PPI, which I find gets me the best results.</p>

<p>Dedicated film scanners of the more expensive types are better - even my previous scanner, which was a 3,200 PPI Minolta Dual IV, beats a high end flatbed at detail on 35mm scans. A 4,000 PPI Nikon or the 5,400 PPI Minolta, the good Canon model, the good Reflecta models (which are sold in the US under some other brand name) and even the Plusteks will also resolve much more detail a flatbed.</p>

<p>But a flatbed for 35mm still gets you the equivalent of 6 real megapixels, which is pretty good, really. You can print an 8x10 and not be disappointed at all.</p>

<p>Don't go there.. Large prints are not to look at close. OHH wait printing is another idea..... :-) Remember many billboards are shot at less than 35mm Tri-X.... :-)</p>

<p>Scott: you really got at something there when you mentioned the cheap Walgreens scans. That's what took me out of film in about 2003 - the inability to find decent, reasonably priced, local high resolution film scans. I also tried the flatbed route with both Epson and HP scanners. The process was time-consuming and the results didn't match my then 5 MP digital camera results. I've reconciled with the fact that for me it's digital from here on out. I do see some hope in the dynamic range of my latest DSLR camera. Using Active D Lighting and customizing of image parameters in-camera, I'm approaching what I remember to have been the quality of visual experience with film (enlarging to no more than A3). We have to come to our own peace at last about whether scanned film or digital. I'm relieved to see that your original question hasn't for the moment brought on the blizzard of flaming attacks from both sides that we used to see here. maybe people have become tired of the battle and moved on. To say once again, each of us must find his/her own satisfaction in regard to your question on the superiority of film. It's not in the end so much about the film itself as of the way it will be digitally processed for transmission - unless you're printing it through an optical path and finishing in the wet darkroom. Rarely is that done anymore in color though it seems B&W still has a strong following. Am I inaccurately portraying that? Others can comment. </p>

<p>For a 24x36mm image, film is probably superior to a 6MP digital image. For 8-10 MP maybe not. For 12MP and up, in my experience (digitizing Kodachrome from ASA 10 to ISO 64 and films like GAF 500) the digital is so much cleaner, there's no comparison, really. Even Ektar, which seems to be the 'gold' standard for color negative, does not match my personal 5D in any number of ways, even using the same lenses and shooting the same subjects.</p>

<p>Here is Ektar 100 on a Canon EOS 3 with an EF 35mm f/2 prime lens on the left and the Canon 5D with the EF 24-105mm f/4 L lens at 65mm on the right. These are 100% full-size crops of both.</p>

<p>On the whole, I'd have expected the prime to have come in ahead, all other things being equal.</p><div></div>

<p>Sigh it is now a film vs digital thread.</p>

<p>No it's not, it's a digital vs. <em>scanned</em> film thread (as usual). i.e. digital vs. digital.</p>

<p>Larry,<br>

The title of the thread is</p>

<h1 >Is film really superior?</h1>

<p>If 'digital' is not the comparison, what was?</p>

<p>Is a 8x10" Kodachrome (wish it were still possible) superior to a 18x22mm digital sensor?<br>

Sure, but so what.</p>

<p>Kodachrome was for projection.... Sigh and it is a Digital vs Digital scan... I can no longer afford Ilford chrome prints I have to make them digital then put them on a nice paper...... Inks sometimes and RA at other times.... Sigh....</p>

<p>But Larry, a high resolution <em>scan</em> of a slide is the only way we can compare. Of course, if you insist on only looking at projected slides, you'll have to take into account all the dust on the slide and the grain of the screen, as well as the crappy lens on the projector.</p>

<p>What, you will only accept the most expensive projection lens, etc? I thought so.</p>

<p>The glow of a good monitor is a pretty good substitute for that click, click, click, phenomenon on a beady screen. I speak as one who has projected a heck of a lot of slides in my time.</p>

<p>BTW this <strong>is</strong> on topic.</p>

<p>The scan above was slightly larger but similar for the whole image than the 5D image, so I think they are fairly comparable.</p>

<p>sigh!</p>

<p>Ohhh And to think I just watched a 1/2 frame projection of 35mm today of a film that was coppied a few times from some film made in the 70s.. Dang me for liking it. :-) Sigh</p>

<p>If you're getting so much pleasure from second- to third-generation copies of slides you are probably gibbering and mistaking it for a sigh. :)<br>

Wait, were they stills from <em>Deep Throat</em>? As I recall, that was pretty grainy in the "original." "Sigh" might still be wrong though.</p>

<p>LOL nope it was a showing of Platoon at a local art house and I think it looked darn good.... </p>

<p>JDM: How did you scan the film? It does not look good and it is not Ektar's fault. Aside from the scan, it also looks completely out of focus.</p>

<p>To the OP: Shooting convenience store film and scanning it with a flatbed is not going to give you much better results than a DSLR.</p>

<p>Digital is a great medium. Like all mediums, it offers infinite creative possibilities. The results are very different from film though.</p>

<p>I just finished a 44"x80" canvas shot with TMax 100 6x7 and it detailed and sharp to the finest features. Although I don't particularly like B&W emulations from digital cameras, an 80MP MF digital camera is probably capable of large productions as well if it fits the intent of the artist.</p>

<p>Print a film negative optically on sensitized paper and print a digital file on an inkjet and then compare the results.</p>

<p>Considering that film scanners have not progressed in 10 years and we're basically running on antique scanning technology a digital-v-digital comparison is unfair.</p>

<p>Compare final products for the true "picture".</p>

<p>Film is superior because it doesn't blow out the highlights and crush the blacks and light is not pixels.</p>

 

<p>This is what a 12MP scan of Ektar looks like:</p><div></div>

<p>Bill What film? Many films blow highlights.... If you ever worked with slide film you know that... I have been able to take many old slides and get much more out of them using scanning.</p>

<p>And a crop:</p>

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<p>JDM, rest assured that the problems you see in your scan are not caused by the film. It is either the picture itself or the scan.</p>