Do digital SLRs cheat?

[job k joseph]

Using the same lens, at same ISO, etc etc, how come the output of a

DSLR is much sharper than the output of the film camera.

 

Please explain this.

[lachaine]

It's not sharper. It's smoother in appearance because there's no grain, and it has been smoothed over with the firmware in the camera.

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

I was in Venice in September and caught a D-70 next to me looking over my shoulder at my custom profile settings. Your d*** straight they cheat :-)

[scott_eaton]

Actually, uncorrected dSLR capture (6-8mp) can be quite a bit softer looking than high quality scans from slow speed films. I've yet to hear anybody claime their uncorrected 20D images were as perceptually 'sharp' as their high rez film scans from Reala or Provia.

 

Resolution and sharpness though aren't the same thing, and due to the cleaner resolution of dSLR capture images can often be sharpened more than film scans.

[vivek iyer]

Couple of mundane aspects:

 

Film flatness during an exposure can vary enough to affect the sharpness.

 

DSLR sensor lays flat all the time.

 

Resolution of some special fims can/are actually much higher than DSLR sensors. But the grain present in film and the restriction of scanner can offset this. In the days when an enlarger was used to make prints from film, only very few special labs actually used high enough quality enlargers with matching enlarging lenses to bring out the image clarity recorded in a film.

 

I use (very sparingly) Ektar 25ASA film (not available any longer) which, when exposed properly, produces much sharper images.

 

Like Paul mentions (though I have not experienced it myself) some may cheat! :-)

[sjmurray]

Curiously, I have been experimenting with adding a little "grain" in PS to some of my D70 images that were converted to black and white. They are just too smooth and grainless, looking less sharp than, say, Tri-X scanned. I'm adding a small amount of grain before applying some local sharpening. Haven't printed any yet, but I think some black and white prints will look "sharper" with some grain added. I wonder if anybody else is doing this?

[ed_leys]

If you are given to "pixel peeping", either by using a good quality film scanner, or sufficient (and probably very high care) optical enlargement, and comparing with an 6 to 8 megapixel DSLR at Photoshop "actual pixels" resolution, you will probably see that in fact the film image is a tad or two sharper at base. The digital image will soften even more when uprezzed to match the number of pixels in a 4000 ppi scan of a 35mm full frame. However, when correctly printed the issue is less clear. Correct printing of a DSLR image requires quite a high level of "sharpening"--which is really an increase in acutance. Think of increased acutance as increased "crispness" of edges. Digital can stand, and *needs*, a lot of it to make a print work. At the same time, increasing acutance can make film images appear more grainy, so they may not stand as much sharpening (though there are black and white developers that are frequently used just for their acutance increasing abilities). Increasing acutance also starts to remove true detail from a photograph--this might be most apparent in regions of "high frequency" visual content, like grasses. But the eye loves to seize on edges, and it cannot notice what has been eliminated if there is nothing to compare with. So what most are responding to in digital prints as sharpness are really the enhanced edges. ...And people don't often look at the grass under their feet.

[vivek iyer]

Excellent explanation, Ed. Thanks.

[godfrey]

Thus far I haven't caught my DSLR out wining and dining my boyfriend or blackmailing the

landlord for free power, so far as I can tell it's not cheating.

 

Godfrey

[scott_eaton]

<I>Film flatness during an exposure can vary enough to affect the sharpness.</i><P>It's also a problem with film scanning and optical printing. Roughly 30-40% of all slide scans I see are soft because the frame of film wasn't held well enough during scanning.

[job k joseph]

Thanks to all, for the responses.

 

As you said it may be due to mostly film flatness during exposure & scanning.

 

Job

[henry_minsky1]

There are some photoshop plugins to add film grain, I found that it works quite well in some cases. Adding film grain can make a 20D image appear sharper.

[jsbc]

Yes They Cheat.

 

I have a Nikon D70, and using the settings on my Sekonic incident meter, the photos are always a little bit darker. ie I basically have to add +0.5 EV to get a proper exposure. OK, this is easy to do since all my printed photos go through photoshop anyway.

 

I think this is motivated by (1) the desire to avoid blown highlights, (2) the pissing contest on noise levels at high ISO.

 

This is NOT related to what you are claiming though.