Bacon and ham: what's the difference

[paul t]

Fang, I've seen output from large format digital backs that matches film,

whatever. But explain to me how you can transcend the laws of phyics and

get a 6MP DLSR give equivalent quality to a 300dpi scan, over a spread. I'm

open minded, just tell me. I can understand how, if the image is great, it will

work well enough. I've blown imagea up 50 per cent beyond what you'd

ideally need to print at 300dpi, and got away with it. But I'd like you to explain

how you can double the info you ideally need, and transcend the sampling

theory that underlies the design of the machines you're using.

[donald_brewster]

"Porkchops and bacon, my two favorite animals." Homer Simpson

[terry_rory]

Paul, forgive my limited knowledge of these things. Before I got the D70 I simply assumed the max print size of a 3000 x 2000 pixel file at 300 dpi was 10" x 7" or thereabouts (300 dpi x 10" = 3000 pixels was how I reasoned it) so I stuck to 9"x6" prints just to give (what I thought would be) a small quality 'margin.'

 

 

When I first had a 12"x8" D70 image pro lab printed, I was very suprised at the quality. This encouraged me to be rash and try a 15"x10" of the same photo. It contained even more detail than the 12"x8". I do not know enough about any sizing/print density algorithms going on in the Fuji Frontier (or Noritsu) to explain it.

[el_fang]

Paul, here's what I do: I prep from the RAW file (which I have the camera to save in conjunction with JPEG-fine). I use local contrast enhancement in Photoshop, adjust color balance and levels, burn and dodge, then unsharp mask. Then I resample (bicubic) to whatever output size and resolution I need. For pre-press, the only additional step I need to do is CMYK conversion. That's it. Admittedly I don't have any experience with Genuine Fractals, QImage or other upsampling programs, but PS has worked very well for me.

<p>As I understand it, Photoshop doesn't "transcend the laws of physics." There are just some very good algorithms out there, as Trevor discovered, for plugging additional information into a picture file. Although these algorithms also work for film scans, they work far better on a clean digitally-captured file.

<p>Look, I know photographers who are anti-digital because they like to have a piece of tangible film in their hands, they don't like computers, they like the wide contrast range of Tri-X, etc all of which I can't argue against and have to respect. But to diss digital because "the quality is that poor and appalling to look at" is, well, just ignorant.

[brunom]

Maybe digital capture will become the great 'technical leveller' and photographers will be forced to judge images on their content and aesthetics, rather than technical perceptions.Apart from the quality of manufacture, longevity and reliability of very expensive cameras, it could be threatening to know that a much cheaper camera can equal the technical quality of a much dearer one, and therefore raises the question 'why did I buy it[the dearer camera]'? much too often for comfort.

 

I'm just glad that we still[and will] have a choice of capture medium.

 

Bruno

[brambor]

El Fang, that was a great post of yours. Good Job. You've been pretty good lately but this one was really constructive.

 

FWIW I got skunked last week with Canon 1V. I got so used to my D30's Automatic White Balance balanced with 81B filter that I neglected to take the filter off when shooting under hockey rink lights. The result was a strong green cast on all my images. Gotta love the digital's adjustment for indoor lighting.

[summitar]

To my ancient and red-green color blind eyes, there is not enough difference in intrinsic photo quality between quality digital output(D70, for instance), and quality 35 mm photos to overcome the substantial advantages of digital, namely rapid gratification, ready for computer manipulation without scanning, computer archiving, and transmission. I keep on using the old mechanical cameras because they are of my vintage, are fun to use, are objects of beauty in themselves, and occasionally surprise me by producing outstanding images, despite me being the limiting factor.

[terry_rory]

Time for a picture....

 

<center><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3188486-lg.jpg"></center><div></div>

[tom_halfhill]

Hey, folks, we aren't helping Roger with his article. He asked the question about film quality vs. digital only as one example of "I don't understand it when...." He needs more:

 

- I don't understand it when people say "the camera doesn't matter." Oh, yeah? Can you imagine HCB using a Linhof? Or Ansel Adams shooting Half Dome with a Minox? Those are extreme examples, but even on a lower plane, the feel of a 35mm rangefinder camera is different than the feel of a 35mm SLR, and the difference can certainly influence the pictures you take. Although it's true that a good photographer can take good photographs with virtually any working camera, it's important to match the type of camera to your photographic style, and to use a camera you're comfortable with. Visit a music shop someday and watch how guitarists pick out a new guitar. That's how choosy we should be about our cameras.

 

- I don't understand it when people say you need an inkjet printer with pigmented inks to get long-lasting ("archival") prints. Independent testing shows that some dye-based inks and papers deliver as much or more longevity that some pigmented inks and papers.

 

- I don't understand it when people say digital photography can't be truthful because it's so easily manipulated. Photographers have been manipulating photographs almost since photography was invented. In the 1850s, photographers like Oscar Rejlander and Henry Robinson carefully masked and combined a dozen or more negatives to make a single print depicting a fictional scene -- a feat that few of today's digital photographers could duplicate, even with Adobe Photoshop. More recently, Newsweek composited the head of Martha Stewart on a model's body for a cover illustration. Photographs have always lied. Truth is a virtue of the photographer, not of the photograph.

 

- I don't understand it when people criticize the onrush of digital. We are living in the most exciting transition in photography since the late 1800s, when the inventions of flexible film and fast emulsions liberated cameras from tripods and made hand-held, life-on-the-fly photography possible. Go for it!

[paul t]

Fang, I understand why Trevor's output looks fine - it's not screened, so he

can print greyscale at 150dpi and it will look fine. I'm intrigued by the notion

that output from a digital camera is better suited to interpolation than output

from a scanner. But I concede that MP3 files can sound just as good as CD,

even though they contain a fraction of the information.<p>

Did you ever hear about an early demonstration technique for vinyl (or

shellac) records? THey conducted tests with a 78 record played on a

phonograph behind one curtain, and a string quartet behind the other.

Listeners couldn't tell the difference. Really. They hadn't learned to recognise

the limitations of recorded sound, as it was then.

[ronald_moravec1]

Wow, some can get film quality so they say. But does anybody do better than film which whould make me change?

 

a relative just showed me a digi print of her child at school by the school photographers. YUCK YUCK It looked worse than the drugstore prints. I carefully explained again it was processing just like film, but the person just didn`t know what he was doing. Digi is not the answer.

[paul t]

Ronald, that might be true - in one of London's biggest department stores the

other day, they were selling an expensive package of a small printer and a

Nikon digital P&S where the quality was truly laughable. But that doesn't

mean anything. People here have proved you can shoot lousy images with

expensive film cameras. And over at other forums, there are lousy images

shot with $8k digital cameras. Personally, I;ve seen several people here

maintain you can rez up or resample digital pix to sizes I wouldn't have

thought possible, and I'm intrigued, and would like to see more information

about it.

[monkey]

I can't believe it's not butter...

[stevierose]

Hi Roger! One of my favorite examples of your "bacon/ham" situation is that every time an

American talks about a "fanny pack" the Englishmen around him get the giggles. To us

"fanny" means the same thing as "bum". I believe that in English English it refers to a

woman's genitalia?

[david_kieltyka]

El Fang, you do realize Roger has posed a question for discussion rather than a dogmatic position, yes? He has stated in print (Amateur Photographer) that he owns & uses a Nikon D70. He's even had nice things to say about it.

 

My response would be that 35mm format photographers tend to overrate resolution and underrate grain/noise. All you need is enough resolution to yield a snappy-looking print at your intended size(s). Beyond that with apps like Photoshop you can control contrast at the micro and macro levels to provide the precise amount of snap you want. And with digital your enlargement potential isn't noise-limited, at least not at lower ISOs. With greater enlargements your photos will eventually fall apart detail-wise rather than be overwhelmed by noise. But with 35mm film, Tech Pan perhaps excluded (but now out of production anyway), you have the opposite situation: grain takes over the image before you run out of detail. Of course if you like to exploit grain for mood and effect, as I sometimes do, you can ignore the whole discussion.

 

Subjectively speaking I'd say my low-ISO 8x12" prints from my Canon 20D & Epson R-D1 have a higher quality look to them than my low-ISO 35mm film 8x12s due to lack of grain/noise. The digi prints look smoother tonally and I know how to make good use of the resolution on tap.

 

-Dave-

[claudia__]

this may not be kosher....and certainly the title analogy isn't...but i am curious about the ratio of film users getting on the Digital Forum and the digitital users who get on the Leica Forum to do missionary work. personally, i don't care what people use to take pix. but it is really boring to see these tirades against film mavens on this forum. the same stuff gets said over and over. why not take it to forums that already exist about digital cameras and digital processing? why does the Leica forum attract the digital versus film threads? as i stated above, the Classic Camera forum is immune to this plague because it deals with cameras made before 1971. please....no personal attacks.

[Spearhead]

Claudia, it wouldn't happen if the original post didn't contain such a ridiculous statement.

[claudia__]

well, actually the question is sort of about digital emulating film. do people who shoot film get on the digital forums and argue that film can look as digital as digital?

[doris_chan]

It can be difficult to tell the difference between bacon and ham. Having said that, I can

state with a degree of certainty that Roger is pure ham, with a big side serving of cheese.

I'd also like to point out that Roger has published over 2000 books, over 3 million

magazine articles, and is president of MENSA. I only do so because Roger is far too self

effacing to bring attention to these matters himself.

[claudia__]

y'know...these sort of personal assessments aren't very useful. how about if we all refrain from personal attacks and assessments of personalities when people make comments. wasn't there a statement from the moderators about this recently? please...no personal attacks.

[doris_chan]

I hear you Claudia, but aren't you the one always wrestling in the mud with Z? It's also not

very useful when people like Roger (knowingly?) put out misinformation regarding digital,

film

or anything else.

[Spearhead]

Claudia -

 

Are you coming to the show with Brad and my pix in it tomorrow?

 

Just wondering.

[vic_.]

Unlit<div></div>

[vic_.]

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[vic_.]

Somehow the above pictures are not so dark when I am in Photoshop. Does anyone know why?