can digital produce superb quality large prints

[rick barrow]

im in my final year of school and when finished will be working to

buy ncessary equipment to live my dream as a photographer. i have to

choose between digital & film. i would prefer digital but have heard

even with a top quality camera they can only produce superb quality

up to A4. i want to print large photos for fine art and want to know

if digital cameras can do this. the photos in my gallery are digital

and i think they would look much better if they were on film.(but i

cant expect too much from a point-and-shoot camera). if you have

time check them out and tell me what you think. its a big decision

that i have to stick to.advice will be much appreciated. thanx

[awindsor]

Digital capture is far lower in noise than film capture. The 11MP full frame Canon digital SLR is every bit the equal of a 35mm body with Provia but their 6MP models do not capture as much detail as 35mm slow slide film. You can enlarge digital images more than their film equivalents becuase noise is not a problem however I find lack of fine detail objectionable for some photographs. The 6MP camers can certainly produce prints larger than A4. How large depends on the subject matter.

 

It is important to realize that this is not a limitation of digital capture but rather a limitation of the particular sensor employed. Large sensors are still extremely expensive because the yields are low. Thus the price of a full frame dSLR or MF digital back.

 

Film most certainly does not look better than digital. Sometimes it does look different but digital is subject to a wider degree of manipulation. I still shoot film but the rest of my workflow is digital.

 

Digital is definitely the most economic choice. My suggestion would be to choose one of the two major manufacturers (Canon or Nikon) and buy one of their less expensive dSLRs (D70 or 10D) and spend the remainder on lenses. Even in this day of $4000 bodies the biggest investment is in the lenses.

[beauh44]

Hi Rick, This question gets asked a lot here. Unfortunately there are no absolutes and it's rather subjective. I can tell you that I print up to 13"X19" all the time with images I made using my Canon 10D (6mp) on my Epson 2200 and they look very good to me. Much has to do with good exposure, shooting at low ISO (for noise) etc. Technique is important. It's much easier for me to use a good digital camera than it is to shoot slide film and scan it, but again everyone's different. You can download sample 10D images from the Canon website and print them out for a test if you like. Also, IMHO, there are some types of images that lend themselves to digital better than others. For example, portraits do really well, landscapes certainly don't have the detail of a 4X5 chrome though. Best wishes . . .

[johnb]

Rick with a Canon 10D and a Canon i9900 printer you can print photo at top photo quality up to 13" x 19" or down to 4" x 6" that will equal film.

 

The camera is only half (of that half you have to include lens) the other half is the printer, but at least to my eyes the 6mg picture will print perfect edge to edge 13" x 19" with the i9900 with Canon glossy photo paper. It prints fast too (a bonus).

 

Good luck with your decision

[b_b13]

I have a friend who has made 16x20 prints from a 3 megapixel digicam, and he feels they're fine. He used to be a professional photographer, so his standards are pretty high. Not all the shots he takes are fit to be blown up that large, but enough of them are so that I'm beginning to wonder about what I could do with my 6 megapixels.

[lkv]

Digital is as good as film now ! And you can get as huge prints as you want.<br>

Digital does have lower noise than film and can be enlarged to considerable size. Now,

your ISO setting and the SIZE of the sensor will play a huge role ; exactly like with

film.<br>

An 11 Mpixels from a Canon EOS 1Ds will print a 1 meter large print with no big

problem... And you have medium format 22 Mpx cameras...<br>

Good luck,<br>

Lenny<br><a href="http://afimage.com">AFimage.com</a>

[gaius1]

As a general rule, a 300 DPI image will stand up to close inspection. If you are working digitally, this is the output of a Frontier machine. Larger format (say over 12"x8") printers might be 254 DPI (they are at the lab I use). But, if you images aren't going to be inspected closely (perhaps they are mounted on a wall and viewed at a distance of a metre or two away) then you can drop the DPI and still have a good print. Ultimately this is a matter of personal taste. I find 240 DPI and 180 DPI output sufficient, but YMMV.

 

Also note that human eyes respond better to contrast than resolution. That is the real advantage of DSLRs, better quality sensors and lenses, not necessarily higher pixel counts. Still, there is no DSLR, even the mighty Canon 1Ds, that can touch a medium format camera loaded with the finest B&W films.

[dean_g]

I use a Canon i9100 printer, the predecessor of the i9900, and they are selling at bargain prices since the i9900 is out. I use a Canon 10D and get wonderful 13X19 prints with this combination. I also print 12X16 from images taken with my 5.1 meg Ricoh GX and the results are excellent. I don't think you can go wrong with the combination of a DSLR, and either an Epson 2200, or Canon i9100 or i9900 printer.

[rick barrow]

thankyou for all your answers. it is good to hear from people who actually use digital cameras. the people who were telling me digital is no good were strictly film photographers, so this is good to hear. i much prefer digital but was worried about quality, this has cleared it up and made my choice much easier. thank you very much. i was hoping that if any of you had some spare time you could rate some of my pictures in my gallery. i want to be the best photographer i can be so i would appreciate any advice and take it all onboard. thankyou.

[mark u]

One area where film still reigns is for very long exposures, where it is not true that digital is lower noise than film (a component of digital noise increases with exposure time). To some extent you can get around this by taking multiple exposures and combining them. Medium format (and larger) film does offer significantly higher resolution and enlargeability over 35mm or smaller digital sensors. However, if you have a spare $25,000 or so, you can get a digital back for a MF camera that will compete. You can also use panorama stitching techniques to get around this with DSLRs - provided that your subject will allow multiple exposures. No good for shooting sports, where the action moves on, but fine for detailed shots of Bryce Canyon - see http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm

 

The primary limitation of digital at present (at least if you aren't using digital MF backs) is dynamic range, where film can offer a better performance. Digital limits dynamic range as a strategy to bury noise. To some extent, you can surmount this by combining exposures (or double processing the same exposure) at the image processing stage.

 

If you want to project images, rather than print them, then film has a big advantage, as high resolution digital projectors simply don't exist.

[paul utkin]

Buy a P25 Phase One - and you`ll supersede chromes from 4x5 camera... Buy a 3.2 megapixel compact - and a 35mm SLR will beat you.

 

It all depends of your budget.

[Jochen_S]

I agree with the posting about phase one and their competitors (If there are some left... Heidelberg? Jenoptic? Leaf? Is Sinar still in the digital business?)

There are better digital cameras than those which take Nikon mounted lenses...

I don't know if I should suggest a hybrid approach as I'm doing as a shutterbug, DSLR for web and average LF for the other kind of picture. Sorry, I myself got into photography with a film SLR, so the 1st digital I bought for myself was a DSLR. - I used 2 p&s at work and got frustrated enough to buy the whole LF & darkroomstuff...

What do you mean with "printing"? - Advertisement & Magazine = offset? - Go digital!!!! - Black and white Gallery-stuff? - Try film, but not 35mm.

[qdb]

It all depends on how much you can afford to spend.

 

A 6mp digital SLR will broadly equaly 35mm film in prints up to around A3+. Indeed, Michaal Reichmann of the Luminous landscape undertook a test between a Canon D30 - a 3mp DSLR - and a high quality scan of 35mm Provia, and declared the D30 shot to be superior in A3 prints.

 

Spend a bit more for, say, a Kodak SLR/n, with a near 14mp sensor, or a Canon 1Ds, and you are more or less on a par with 645 medium format film. I use my Kodak 14nx (same senor as the SLR/n) to print at up to 24" X 36" and the prints look superb, and I know about detail as I also shoot 4x5 large format.

 

Spend really serious cash - around US$30k - and buy a Phase One P25 and you'll be up there with 6x7 or possibly 4x5 large format film.

 

And a word about dynmaic range. Digital blows transparency film in to the weeds.

[richard_milner2]

Technically film does not have more noise than digital. Noise is a property of electrical systems, and is caused by interference and so on.

 

Film contains no noise at all. What it does have is grain, which is the equivalent of pixellation -- the physical recording medium's structure is apparent at high levels of magnification.

 

The UK's 'Professional Photographer' magazine did a practical shoot-out between a Canon EOS 1v and a Canon IID -- their conclusion was that the quality from the IId was as good as if not better than the Iv. So if you can do big blow-ups from 35mm film you should be able to do as big blow-ups from good quality D-SLRs. The printer quality of course affects the results.

 

The performance of the IID against medium format was not tested. The IID costs 4X the price of the 1v and considerably more than most medium format cameras. From a cost-benefit perspective you may be better off with medium format.

 

If you are working as an artist I advise you to ignore what everyone says and go with what produces the results you like. Arguing about grain versus pixellation is like arguing about oil paintings on canvas against board.

[gaius1]

But a comparison between the 1v and the 1D is <i>meaningless</i> because the quality of the image produced by the 1v entirely depends on the film its loaded with! Plus, what lens was used? The 1D-II has a 1.3x crop factor, so it's discarding information the 1v records.

<p>

You can compare a 1D-II to a 1v loaded with TRI-X and one loaded with Tech Pan and get <i>totally</i> different results. And if you have them both fitted with a lens that can't deliver lp/mm the film or sensor is capable of, the results will be <i>identical</i>.

<p>

Now me, I shoot both film and digital and I'm happy doing so. But I am annoyed when people use shoddy techniques to skew the results the way they've already decided before even doing a test.

[richard_milner2]

You can read the original article if you want to criticise the techniques used. The purpose was to compare two cameras which were as similar as possible using similar techniques; lens, 100 ISO setting vs 100 ISO slide film and so on... I can't recite it all.

 

I'm making no claims here -- I'm simply indicating a source of information which might be useful.

[matt_schademann]

I can only speak for my own transformation and success and needs, etc.

The Fuji S2 revolutionized my business. I wouls say that this camera, and the 12mp interpolated image I get is so far superior to 35mm, it's not even funny. Since the arrogance on this web-site sickens me, I'll just say that in a comparison test I ran, the S2's image sharpness is somewhere between a 645 and a 6x7.

I don't have the time to scan film, it's a depressing chore I've abandoned for all except my older travel negs.

I did learn that the biggest limitation to sharpness is NOT glass, but grain! In which case for my digital equipment, there is none.

My photojournal B&W wedding style is so clean, I find myself laying down a grain filter in PS, or noise.

 

If you run Mac, get a 2200 Epson. If you get that printer, get the $500 Imageprint (RIP) software. It shaved 90% of my color/contrast correction. If you can afford a bit more, get the Epson 4000. 16x20's for $1800? Awesome.

 

I've heard good things about Canon Ink Jet's too.

 

The only thing that's a bit tough is highlight control. Sometimes you

can get a bit burned, but then I have a Histogram popping up after every image shot in Preview, with the option to save.

 

Did I mention that the S2 can also save natively in B&W? For some reason, the S2 is not acknowledged as a real camera on this site, almost like it's sensored. I got a second one for $1600 gray-market recently, and it is flawless.