Digital vs. Film - comparison of final prints

[dean_erger]

Sorry, Les, I'm just reporting what I read. I don't vouch for the authors and their opinions, but the authors do have a good reputation and an impressive photography/computer background.

[robert_clark]

Michael,

 

I was very interested to hear what you had to say regarding your digiprints from an 8mp camera (a 20D?). Are you comparing colour or B&W? Your comment on silver leads me to think B&W.

 

If that is so this interests me, since this is the first time I've heard a serious B&W darkroom exponent favour digital. Could you please say more about your new digital workflow to print?

[michael_darnton1]

Robert, the particular reason that digital quality jumped out at me is a job I've been doing for 20 years now. I probably told this before. . . it's the photography of violins for archival purposes--I've shot about 4000 of them (they're in a number of books, on the web.. all over the place)

 

I've used 4X5, 6X6, and 6X7 for this at various times, in black and white and color, with a number of different films, and moved through digital conversion of all of these, and now my successor at one place I worked is using a Kodak back on a Hassy, printing on a Pictrography printer. I messed around with 35mm for this work, but in spite of being able to write my own specs for film, etc., it was always just a bit short of doing the job. In retrospect, it was about even with my Oly E-10 (of which below).

 

Most recently, I was using an Olympus E-10, which was inadequate for me, but OK for the current client, and then a couple of weeks ago I bought a Canon Powershot Pro1. Not because it's a great camera, but because it offered me the specific manual features I needed with what looked like, in the dpreview.com site, the second best results (next to the Oly 8080, and better than the 6mp DSLRs), IF I stayed at ISO 50, which I can easily do in my studio. I bought it, as I imply above, thinking that in two years I could cycle it out for a 15mp DSLR, but knowing that the bump up in quality would be enough to keep me happy for now.

 

However, I'm just blown away by the results, which caused me to dig out my old pix and compare with a lot of stuff I've done in the past. The conclusion was unavoidable--the digital stuff is great. I called the guy who now has my old job, and discovered that he's zoned in on slightly less resolution than the Pro1 has as being adequate to the job, which I found encouraging.

 

I'm just now starting to mess around with B&W digital (you're right--a lot of my previous life revolved around B&W) for the first time in a while (I used Piezography for a couple of years, but chucked it two or three years ago) because I think the B&W playing I'm doing with the Pro1 may be so definitely good that I'm going to give it another try. The current jag is printing straight black ink only with my inkjet--I'm pretty open to anything, IF it works, and this is a look that I'm getting attached to.

 

I'm going to speculate and say that I think the place where digital is blasting film is edge sharpness--digital is, in a way, all about edge sharpness, something that you can't manipulate with film in any meaningful way. So the film may or may not have more theoretical resolving power, but the local contrast is so low you can't really see it... so it's not there. My new Pro 1 is the first digital setup I've had where I didn't feel that the perception of sharpness was less than the pixel count, which I can't account for, but it sure makes a difference in presence in the photos. For example, here's a link to two cropped pix of full violins. The one on the left is the E-10, blown up to 150% to match the image size of the Pro1 photo next to it. I hadn't expected this bump from the Pro1 at all. There's no denying that it's a big difference.

 

http://www.darntonviolins.com/images2/test.jpg

 

Gary, that's pathetic.

[james_b_cooper]

The problem with digital is that so many photographers keep buying $1500+ DSLR's and then try to justify their investment by bending their tastes and making unjust comparisons to film. Yes, I would agree that digital looks contrastier, cleaner but there are not so subtle nuances that do not immediately meet the eye that are missing with digital capture. For one, film and especially some chrome films have visibly better color saturation that clearly shows in remote scenic details where digital image becomes monochromatic grey mass. Just pay attention to marine scenes with strong reflectance. Digital glazes over color and detail in these scenes, film gives better illusion of color complexity and detail. Ok ditial is better for wedding photos, giving creamier and cleaner look with lots of mist and fog. On the other hand weding photography is a rather bland and banal practice that is standardised and repetitious ( Ideal for digital mass production ). Any of you glamour photographers ? Digital is inferior to film and at this I will hold my ground. Skin color is better with film, I have seen best of digital and it is just an oversimlification when it comes to skin. Color film has more variance of color tones and shades that are deeper and with better surface texture feel then digital. Digital is just to sterile, tonality is extremely predictable and boring. Yes you can exagerate colors, bring up saturation, etc. in digital but it is just too lithographic ( better suited for magazine advertizing). Digital perhaps is best suited for Playboy photography then tastefull glamour. Playboy always strived for slick, grain free images that they manipulated with air brushing and other interventions before digital was a norm ( now with photoshop Playboy met its dream, its sooo easy to make your women look the way you want them and with just the press of the button). However, Playboy photography is considered junk by all means when it comes to real glamour photography. Just take a look at French edition of "Photo". Take a look at the glamour photography presented there and its mostly done with film, plain film. Remember film cameras give you get a better sharpness fall-off and with better background softness then digital with not so "sexy" infinite depth of field (excluding the $8000 full frame Canon). And of course the grain is nice to have in portrait or glamour photography, its a long established value and an aesthetic for this subject. Of coursce, we are all talking here about a well scanned 35mm image of 4000dpi or more with quality scanner. I am not so sure about the final printed image. Having been to the latest Photography Expo Show in NYC much has been devoted to hyping digital. When digital seen in mass and compared to quality analogue prints they look quite grey and lackluster. Prints from digital cameras looked more like quality lithography then real photographic works. Few of the photographers that presented well scanned images including from 35mm slide film looked better. Color was better in scanned 35 altough edge sharpness was better with digital, but it is kind of deceiving sharpness and it looks like the clever digial algorithm grabs into contrastier subject matter and puts emphasis on the subject borders, but in scenes with diminished detail digital has problems and sort of

lumps it or glazes over (clearly seen in remote scenic detail). At the show few cameras were interesting. Especially the new Epson, Leica look-alike digital. Images were interesting initialy, with clean, contrasty look emphasized with good Leica glass. After seeing few prints it started to become clear. Initial illusion of quality but no "cigar". Images are same from one to the next. Color is rather rudimentary, clean but with no subtlety (spectrally dead). Green is sort of assembled by "hand". Saturation was kind of dead compared to decent film camera images.Salesmen was hyping it up to a "color blind" crowd that was Oh Ah about it. Worsth prints at digital show were made

by Nikon D70 by one of their sales people. Arrogant fellow made scenic shots of a leafless forest. Great subject ! to make digital look bad. Massed branches looked hopelessly disjointed with anti-aliasing algorithms strugling to keep pace, highlights were dizziyingly unatural and colors were sort of like "my first video shoot". No wonder Canon supplied their own photos for display. Hope D70 is not that bad. Altough sharp and clean most ditital shots were really crapy. The show had so many digital wedding products promotions it is realy vomiting to see it. There was NO differentiation between these weding photos and paraphenelia (albums, frames, etc.)

[chiswick_john]

"The problem with digital is that so many photographers keep buying $1500+ DSLR's and then try to justify their investment by bending their tastes and making unjust comparisons to film" - quite wrong infact - If you are a pro like me you are only interested in the final result - if the equipment delivers the goods that's all there is to it. I don't care what the latest fashion is or what the salesmen are saying - I look at the images and make careful comparisons and make my choice. OK rendition of fine diminishing detail is slightly superior if you have drum scans done on 35mm - BUT as a pro there is no way I would photograph a scene like this using 35mm - it's a totaly and utterly false comparison. Any subject like this and I'm using a 22mp digital back on my hassleblad and I can say without reservation that film dooes not even come close in any area when compared to this method of digital capture. Sure there are oversharpened and badly post processed digital prints out there - just as there are many bad film captured images. 35mm film is history for me -it simply can't compete with DSLR. Medium format film and to a large extent 5x4 is history as well now I have 22mp to hand.

[dean_erger]

Les, the book is about using Photoshop. Out of the books 478 pages, just a few pages are devoted to digital vs. film. Accordingly, I don't view this book as an exhaustive study of digital vs. film. I should point out, however, that neither I nor the book used the term "macro". Perhaps the distinction the authors were making was between photos with and without very fine detail. In any event, the book and its authors can speak for themselves, and I caution everyone to not rely solely on my very brief summary.

[dean_erger]

Martin, now that you have the Canon 20D, how do you think it compares to film when making your large prints?

[cham_saranasuriya]

and the winner is??????

[dean_erger]

Les, I look forward to reading about you comparisons. Most of the comarisons that I've read so far compare the Canon 10D to film. I expect that the 20D will be a little better than the 10D. It will be interesting. Personally, the comparison that I'd be most interested in seeing is a comparison of similar prints at 12x18, 16x24 and 20x30, with one set made with the 20D and another made with a the same lens or one very close in quality, Fuji Velvia and scanned with a home scanner like a 4,000 dpi Nikon or the Minolta 5400. Of course, each print should be optimized for the respective camera, including use of a tripod, mirror lock up and processing in Photoshop CS and, to the extent useful, a noise/grain reduction program like Neat Image. Also, a variety of subject matter would be useful, such as a detailed landscape and photos of people. I don't know what film equipment you have to make your comparisons, but I'm sure they will be interesting in any event.

[robert_k1]

Michael, a couple of questions for you (and others).

 

"I'm finding, just as Daniel says, that in the work I do my 8mp digital is delivering better quality than ever I got printing silver 35mm. I didn't realize it until I was going through my portfolio the other day and realized how much higher my standards have become since I started using digital. I'm comparing Leica gear run through Componon-S lenses, and I was a professional [silver] printer at one point, so it's definitely not equipment/operator failure on the 35mm end. I used to believe, because I'd done the calculations, that I

wasn't going to be satisfied until I got a 15mp camera, but turns out it ain't so in real life."

 

The thread started out with comparing (12x16, 16x20) prints from DSLR vs prints from film scans. Are you making the same kind of comparisons, or are you comparing DSLR prints vs traditional prints?

 

What kind of calculations did you make to arrive at a conclusion that you need a 15mp camera? My readings so far seem to suggest that there are significant "quality" differences between digital camera pixels and film scanner pixels. The print quality comparison therefore cannot be based on pixel counts alone. What makes the comparisons and discussions interesting is that no one can quantify what these "quality" differences are.

 

"I'm going to speculate and say that I think the place where digital is blasting film is edge sharpness--digital is, in a way, all about edge sharpness, something that you can't manipulate with film in any meaningful way."

 

A digital print's edge sharpness can be improved with sharpening software either in a camera or in PS. Are you referring to this kind of sharpness, or are you referring to the sharpness right after an image is captured and before any software sharpening?

[martin_patek_strutsky]

Just received the very first light jet prints (12x16) taken with my new 20D. Please take the following comments with a grain of salt as the camera is very new to me and the comments are not at all the result of a structured test:

 

Regarding resolution my overall impression is very positive. Not as good as 6x7 but better than 35mm. Never used 6x4.5 but I guess in film this format would be the closest equivalent to the 20D. (with a high end scanner for xx.xxx $ or with optical printing you could of course get a different rating)

 

All prints have a typical fingerprint compared to 35mm film. Very clean, almost noise free. In a way the pics look like virtual reality and not like a real photograph. Followers would call this flawless, critics could say it's sterile.

 

Altogether for me this is a great camera that will to a large extent replace 35mm film and even do some tasks reserved for 6x7 in the past. Still I will keep my good old Nikon F2 for situations when I am tired of immaculate and too perfect pictures...

 

P.S.: Shots taken with ISO 1600 are breathtakingly good. If you often shoot at low light this alone is already a good reason for switching to digital.

[charles_miller]

"Using a decent 4000dpi scanner 35mm delivers already 50% more information. "

 

In my peronal opinion, most 4000 and 5000 dpi desk top scanners are not decent. Yes, I bought one, used it a few months, and sold it.

 

Getting the beauty of a slide transferred into a digital file requires about 30 minutes of intense corrections, grain removal, and sharpening. If your scanner, monitor, and printer are professionally calibrated, then figure maybe 15 minutes per image instead. This is in addition to the actual scan time. Then, a scanned image can compare well to a dSLR image that took only three minutes for sharpening!

 

Most desktop scanners just don't scan negatives very well at all, and color correction for negatives can be really, really tough.

 

The advantage of print film is that it handles shadows and highlights better than digital, but negatives are really hard to scan on most desktop scanners. And while slides are usually easier to scan, they don't handle shadows and highlights much better than digital sensors. So that leaves digital capture looking pretty good, but of course not perfect.

 

I think you own an optimum mix of equipment at the moment, and I suggest you postpone or even skip the personal scanner experience. It will probably consume hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars before you produce even one print which compares with a Fuji Frontier enlargement from a 35mm Reala negative.

[james_b_cooper]

Hassy backs great stuff but are they practical ? Knowing that the backs has a much smaller image sensor then 6x6, how do you plan to use wide angles ? A 40mm Distagon is almost a normal lens with this digital back.

Distagon 40 also weighs a "ton". So, do you plan to use it for portraits only ? From images I have seen, they are very sharp and enlargements that can be made from them are huge. However, I am not convinced about the color intensity or their superiority over 120 film in terms of ultimate image quality. Yes, the workflow might be simplified and for "pro" work there is savings in lack of spending on wet chemistry/film. I would like to add that the image has improved greatly with digital backs but there are same digital pitfalls that I described previously when compared to good medium format not even large format. The image is still sterile altough with more detail. Color is fine when comparing to other digital. I might be a minority on this sight but 35mm color intensity and surface presence can hold its own even against a 22meg (maybe not, if you are a detail freak, and like to see hair follicles and count wrinkle lines on someones face). I had an impression that prints from digital backs looked somewhat what one sees on billboards. There is lack of pleasant transition between borders. In your face sharpness with lackluster colors. Physiologicaly there is a somewhat different reaction from what one experiences when viewing large format film prints. In large format film, there is an initial sensory experience of "pleasant relaxation and quitness" with detailed information coming with delayed perception. Sort of wow ! "I can see that now". With digital, it is more like Wow ! this is sharp with initial perception with secondary perception wave of stuggering dissapointment for lack of real detail. Sort of "Hey ! there is really nothing much here its just a reprocessed info of a small format. Start looking at real 4x5, 8x10 and see what I mean. What digital does, it mathematically assigns hierarchial values to different parts of an image through clever algorithms to "improve" the basic look. In an analogue image the values are on the molecular level equivalently divided creating a more uniform, fluid image. With repeated viewing and subconcious perception there is a risk that digitaly captured images may become unpleasant to viewer without him even conciously knowing it. That is a problem that has been haunting digital sound . It was not known in the begining of the CD era but later its psychological implications and negative perception was brought out by specialists ( That is why analogue recordings and tube audio are undergoing a revival in knowledgeable circles).

[chiswick_john]

James - 22mp digital backs are full frame 645 format - no need to change lenses - my 40mm is a wide lens. All this theorising about digital imaging - have you actualy used a digital camera - even a DSLR? because what you are saying all sounds wooly and theoretical. Good digital capture and post processing does not have any artefacts that give it a digital look - only bad practice will do this. "I might be a minority on this sight but 35mm color intensity and surface presence can hold its own even against a 22meg" - if you like the fuzziness and grain and call that important in an image so be it -I can add plenty of these 'artefacts' in Photoshop if I need to. The best digital practice captures a scene with much more accuracy than film in every way in my experience - it may not look like film - but that is not the point of photography to me.

[james_b_cooper]

John, I did not go into the the detail or had interest inquiring about current D backs for Hassy due to the not so practical price of $10,000++ As my memory serves me, the last time I checked them they were somewhere the size of 35mm or slightly larger. Still, I was comparing medium format film vs. 22mpg. Not 35mm vs. 22mpg. As I mentioned already, I had visited the Hassy booth at the Photo Expo 2004 where they had multitude of prints on display. Hasselblad somehow never indicated which ones were digital or analogue ? The display representative had pointed to some that he knew were digital. Again, they were good. Strong up-front image detail, clean, overall excellent

but not something that is much better then the other high end digital capture devices. Very predictable images that do not translate into gallery art prints that medium or larger format can do. Overall creative photography sucked at the show, most prints had no differentiation. Altough digital balance is more precise and I would not dissagree with that. In quality digital print relative position of colors, brightness differences and tonality are more in check no question about it. However, these parameters are boxed in, there is some sort of mutness or sterility about them. There is some interesting discussion about film vs. digital resolution at

http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/scandetail.htm

There is visibly less spontaneous variance of color gradation in digital. Dynamically they are smaller, although they seem to fool onlookers when digital prints show large patches of same color with clean surfaces they look impressive. Too many photographers get a kick out of it. Show was full of car exterior paint jobs ! photography at its "creative" best ? There were few 35mm photographers including Meisel that displayed Velvia based shots that were marginally less sharp but made it-up with intense color pallete and brightness not seen in digital shots that stood out on top even when compared to top-line Digital Canons. I would like to add that film is better in translating mood then digital reality. Reality and beauty are not exactly same thing especially when you are trying to produce art.

[martin_patek_strutsky]

James, agree with your observations, but don't see its relevance in this context. For 95% of all purposes digital is already at least on par with film (if you can afford it, a 22MP back is not in my price range yet).

 

For the remaining 5% you have to choose your tool carefully. Sometimes it is 35mm Tri-X in Rodinal, sometimes it is Velvia 8x10 and sometimes it is just a Canon 20D.

 

I really don't understand why this discussions always ends up in a pissing contest between disciples of film and digital.

[chiswick_john]

James - I think your beef is with creative quality of images at trade shows rather than any digital vs film argument. Also "Still, I was comparing medium format film vs. 22mpg. Not 35mm vs. 22mpg" - no you stated that 35mm could hold it's own aginst 22mp in your last post. For the record the 22mp digital capture is way ahead of med format film - it betters 5x4 in most areas as well. The rest of your post is drifting into contradiction and away from any real evaluation of digital vs film.

[jreades]

Jeezu -- has *anyone* in this thread has read "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"? Assuming that the answer is 'no', let me summarise the bits that I remember that are remotely relevant to this discussion: prior to the introduction of photography, painting's primary role was representational. Painting is expected to depict the world in a *relatively* realistic way because there aren't any other ways (aside from drawing) for me to show you what I saw last Friday on the way to work.

 

Along comes photography and suddenly we have a way that seems much more 'real' and much more 'truthful' (these are, of course, problematic terms as all of you should know). But it's a lot easier to take a picture of a train crash (you know, the one with the locomotive coming out of the second story of the station) that it is to have Monet come on down and paint his impressions of it so we switch to photography for showing the 'real' world because it's easier. Not, however, because it's better. Van Gogh anyone?

 

Consequence: painting is now free to go off an explore the realms of perception (i.e. Impressionism, Expressionism, etc.). Which it does for a while, but then there are artists (Chuck Close, others) who decide to have to some fun with painting and make hyper-realist works on massive scales using grid lines for guidance. It's hard *not* to see a digital influence in Closes' grided work, but I don't think anyone is looking at his paintings and saying "I could have done better with my 22Mp digital camera".

 

Although Benjamin (as a good socialist) regrets the loss of craftsmanship in mechanical reproduction, I also don't recall him being so short-sighted as to suggest that the introduction of photography is bad for painting. Painting simply goes off in new directions freed of traditional expectations that have weighed it down for the previous few hundred years. Photography takes on some of painting's previous roles, but others remain largely the preserve of the painter.

 

So this never-ending argument about digital vs. print seems, to me, much like a rehash of that same, tired old debate. Which is better? Which is more accurate? Who, frankly, gives a s**t? They're tools! Tools to capture the world around you. To show others how you see it. A 22Mp picture of my butt is just as crap (if you'll pardon the pun) as a 35mm slide of the same part of my anatomy.

 

So let's review:

 

1. Film has grain, digital does not. Some people like grain, some people do not. I'm reminded of the hifi arguments -- there are people willing to spend huge amounts of money to buy amps with vacuum tubes and who will only listen to vinyl. Most people, of course, buy CDs and listen to Japanese amps and don't notice the difference. Is either of them right? Of course not, they've simply decided where along a line between purist of one type and purist of another they want to be. They've made some strategic decisions about cost, storage space, ease of use, and sound quality.

 

2. Film has one spectral range, digital has another. Most people do digital prints using Adobe 1998 colour space, but do web production using sRGB. I don't hear people arguing about one or the other being more accurate, because there's consensus that one colour space is right for one type of output, the other for another. Maybe, just maybe, the same is true for film vs. digital.

 

3. Film media vs. digital media -- when I went to Africa a few years back (before digital was even an option) I took 30 rolls of film with me and shot about 26. 26 x 36 x 100Mb (taking a ballpark figure for a high-resolution file) is 93.6Gb. That's not fitting on any digital card that I know of, so you'd better carry around a portable hard drive (as some have already done with great success). There's an old saying in the computer industry that goes "never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of backup tapes". Never underestimate the resolution and storage capacity of a suitcase full of 35mm film. It's bloody awkward to carry around, but it's pretty damned impressive on both measures. So tradeoffs again.

 

4. Prints from film vs. prints from digital. I knew a medium-format photographer from New York who was completely anal/dedicated to his art. He'd spend a day getting a print just right from his enlarger. Dodging here, burning there. And the effects that he got were very, very subtle because he would build custom-shaped tools to dodge a particular part of a particular picture... you would get an almost subliminally indistinct gradation from the centre to the edges because of the way he moved his hands and the inevitable imprecisions that went in to that process. These were great prints from great material, but I wouldn't say that they were *better* than what someone spending the same amount of time in Photoshop from a digital capture would have produced. They were just *different* because there is no real imprecision in digital.

 

5. 22Mp cameras cost about $10,000 (ballpark, based on reading this thread), 35mm SLRs start around $300 and run up to about $2,000 (ballpark). What kind of comparison is this? If I've just spent 10 grand on a camera it bloody *better* do a lot better than my $300 Elan 7 or I'll be royally pissed off.

 

Let's do the math for things in comparable price ranges -- a $300 digital camera (which I'll allow might run up to 5Mp, but which is right at this moment more likely to be 3-4Mp) will not capture the world in the way that I want as well as a $300 film SLR. Ah, but wait, because the answer isn't that simple -- because if I have a film SLR then I have to buy film for it, and then there's processing costs (or chemical costs if you do your own processing), and if I want to have a digital version then I'll need to buy a scanner too. So that's not fair to the digital camera, because if I add all of that up then I could well end up around $900 for the equipment and another $700/year on consumables.

 

So maybe, the real question is: what type of photography do I do? how much of it do I do? how much does it cost me to do it? can I afford the digital camera now or should I wait and continue to pay in small weekly installments for film? and how much do all of those factors matter to me when I look at the final output?

 

I can't believe that I got sucked in to this thread but I just get so frustrated by seeing the same arguments rehashed from week to week. Let's argue about which paintbrushes have more detail in them! Or which chisels can tell me more about the world!

[robert_g]

Of course, the whole analogue-digital debate has already happened in other areas such as the transition from analogue to digital synths in the early eighties. It's just that some people in photographic circles haven't experienced it yet.

 

The interesting thing is that those crappy old analogue synths that could only play one note at a time, never stayed in tune and never produced as clean sounds as digital weren't available for love nor money a few years down the line, in the face of general resentment of 'sterile' digital sounds. Even today you'll probably find music producers paying a fortune for valve compressors because they sound 'better' than the digital equivalents.

 

Digital photographs may have less noise and enlarge better but as to whether they're actually 'better' - well that's a very subjective thing. I'm not convinced the debate is over just because digital surpasses film at producing an accurate rendition of a scene.

[almagnus]

Can't someone just take the same subject with the same lenses at same aperture using a DSLR and a silver negative, print out at 10*15, scan on flatbed at much higher resolution and publish on this thread. Then we can stop all this discussion, and get down to taking pics.

Thanks in advance for the volunteer.

[james_b_cooper]

http://www.photo.net/photo/2777760

 

This is a scan of a 35mm print by photographer from Easthern Europe in photo.net gallery.

Poor scan of a print! But still much more pleasant then digital for this subject matter. Aestheticaly betters most off-the-shelf digital glamour shots seen in pedestrian publications. Skin tone is just right, color pallete is more spontaneous and has more complexity, blacks are deeper enhancing mystery. Grain is there but definetely not intrusive and even enhances the athmosphere. Sharpness is not harsh or artificialy subdued, with very gentle roll-off.

Well, many of you will say that you can do same or better with photoshop. Yes but ?

[daniel_taylor]

"When I state there is no grain, even though there are huge areas that are darker, there is no grain even at 400X"

 

Attached to this post is a clip from one of *your* sample scans online. That's GRAIN Les. If you think it's JPEG artifacting, you don't have a clue what you're looking at. (I'll grant that scanning can emphasize grain and change its look a bit due to grain aliasing, but it's still grain and *not* a purely digital artifact as you claim.)

 

If you need me to post more samples of grain from your images "with no grain", let me know.<div></div>

[daniel_taylor]

"Since you looked, you should now understand the misrepresentation you made and can now see that others, pros and non-pros, can show "their side" in better light just by showing a bad example."

 

I made no misrepresentation, nor did I post a "bad example". Attached are two clips, the left from one of your online scans, the right from one of my scans, similar subject matter. If my scans are "misrepresentations" and "bad examples", then so are yours. And if that's the case, where are the "good examples" for 35mm film?<div></div>

[daniel_taylor]

"Also, keep in mind that these full res scans are unprocessed so a tiny bit of grain surgery goes a long way while interpolation OTOH, cannot add missing information."

 

I agree Les. No amount of interpolation will bring the level of information in a film scan (left, one of yours btw) up to the level of information in a direct digital capture (right). You just can't create crisp fine detail from a mottled, grainy mess.<div></div>

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

Uhh, guys, the 400X clips are all very intersting, but who prints at 400X? I've seen nice prints from both film and digital, but I, myself, have stayed with film because I like my rangefinder and the look of my Zeiss lenses.

 

Why do we always end up in these debates? Different tools can produce nice results. I'm staying with my old tools, and adding a few new ones, such as a film scanner, and waiting until digital fully matures aso the upgrade cycle slows.