Any Reasons to Shoot 35mm over a 10 MP DSLR ?

[timcorridan]

there is sooo much more to a photo than extreme sharpness

[timcorridan]

there is sooo much more to a photo than extreme sharpness

[craig_shearman1]

Film is archival. Digital is not. How many of us have color slides our fathers or grandfathers shot going back to the 1930s that are still perfectly viewable if not perfect? How many of us have B&W family photos going back to the early 1900s? How many of us have seen Mathew Brady's photos from the Civil War or Daguerre's original photo? Now how many of us are still able to open a file on the 5 1/4 floppies that were bleeding edge technology only 20 years ago? And how many have bothered to copy the important files off those disks onto more modern media over the years? I shoot digital and save on CD. But my grandkids won't have any idea what those shiny discs are let alone know how to retrieve a photo from one. The only digital images likely to survive as long as our grandparents' pictures are the photos we print out. But the slides or negs you shoot with your film camera will be there for decades for someone to hold up to the light and realize what they have.

[gale]

Edward wrote to me: " don't knock it until you've tried it"

 

As an officer in a local photo club, I'd say I have tried every digital camera from a 20D to a 1D and Nikon D70's to D2X's and damn near everything inbetween at one time or another. The 5 D inpressed me the most though not to the extent of spending 2500 bucks for one. The Nikon's are not full frame sensors hence I see no reason to spend more money on less camera as I shoot so much landscape.

 

If I have the time and money to spend on more camera gear outside of my 35mm film cameras, I beleive I will dive into large format. Like I said before, I am a hobbiest photographer. I have a good job that pays the grocery bill. If I made my living with a camera, I would likely shoot digital too as an option to customers.

 

Dave

[jay_huse]

Thanks for the replies. Now, I would like to say that I have a ton of film equipment and DSLR gear. I bought the film gear on the cheap online at ebay.

 

Systems include Canon E7, 645 Mamiya, 6X6 MF yashica, LF View Camera.

 

I been playing around with all the formats lately experimenting and trying to find the true Capabilites and strengths of these systems using film.

 

To say the least it was a journey and still is. I have learned alot about film and still have alot more to learn. I first put in and shot NPS 160 film in my house shootin my dog, wife and other things. I forgot to switch my film and went out shooting landscape shots and was shocked when I copmared my shots with my digital comparison. The colors of the Film went away vanish gone sunsets went BLUE or white. What was the problem, You quessed it, the FILM, not great for Landscape work.

 

As most of you Know I am still learning tricks to scanning, I seen a switch yesterday on my scanner that was set to medium compression jpeg burried in the software. I was like hey I wonder if this will help my noise be less on my images. So i Set the quality to high and MAN oh MAN talk about a differnce in NOISE values. It reduced my noise by almost Half !

 

Now my V700 has had great reviews for an All around scanner at 35mm, MF, LF scanner. They have compared it against the Coolscan V about and the results showed about 3/4 to 90% of what the Dedicated film scanner can do. That said I can still do MF & LF scans.

 

Which leads me to my conclusion after all the posts. I really need more experience in using my scanner, film, to make a solid judement on these systems. As you noted some folks say 35mm is equal to a 6MP digital other say no more like a 16MP camera. Opinions vary so much.

 

I think alot of this comes down to the variances in workflow vs digital. Film varies alot more.

 

Any additional input ?

 

Thanks

 

Jay

[25asa]

Roger I was thinking of doing a test- as you said I have both SLRs. But I was hoping someone else would save me the time and have done one already. But being curious as I am, I'll end up doing one anyway. Problem is I'll have to use different lenses on each camera to get the same frame of view. That could swing the difference. My thoughts were to use the XTi with my 17-40L set at around 30mm, and then the other film camera with my 50 1.8 lens. Set them both around f8. Shoot the apartment building close by here. Maybe some scenery shots. Use Reala film. Maybe I'll post what I get. It would be interesting to see what comes out of it.

[pbass_wil]

People keep saying "not another film vs.digital debate". But you know what? I think there's a great, widespread desire to argue this never-ending subject! Folks just LOVE to advocate their favorite method, and point out the drawbacks of the other. I sure do!

 

Rather than suppressing this ground-swell, I think there should be a permanent forum devoted to the battle of the media! I know I would get a kick out of going there intermittently and duking it out.

 

And it would mitigate our collective tendency to hijack posts that weren't really intended as confrontations between the 2 methods. (Although, BTW, I do totally realize that there are also many good and topically relevant responses on this thread.)

 

Whadya say Photo.net? A 24hr a day digital/film debate would be a blast!

[kelly_flanigan1]

In building a house one might have many different types of saws, hammers, nails , screw drivers and drills and not really be so confused. In the heat of battle one might use the "wrong tool" just becuase you have one tool in your hand, the other is out in the truck. Here I just tend to buy alot of my Photo and Building tools used, often in mint condition when folks do the buy and sell game searching for the perfect answer.

[gale]

Jay, when you say "Film, not great for landscape", you need to be careful. Remember, each film has it's place. Now go shoot a landscape or sunset with Velvia slide film through good prime glass. I may not shoot Velvia much but for capturing delicate colors, it has no peer. Even with 35mm, shooting through prime glass, I would say the resolution is comparible to any DSLR out there yet with so much more depth and emotion.

 

Dave

[jay_huse]

Dave, I know what you mean, I am just getting to understand that each film is a diffferent sensor. I thought NPS 160 would have near close to a Velvia 100 but noo way. NPS portrait seems good to me anyway as a good wedding film. Unlike my DSLR it all seems to be the say as far as dynamic range VIVID shooting to Natural. I mean to say that they are much closer and you can swap those in an out even after you shoot in one mode. Where Film is different.

 

I am thinking of purchasing or trading my ELAN 7 for a Nikon N80, I have more lenses for my Nikon systems And would love to comopare a 20mm landscape shot 1 at ISO 100 Velvia VS 10MP on my D80.

 

Anybody want to trade ???

thank

 

jay

[ellis_vener_photography]

<I>This is a legit question, I'm not being confrontational. I've been using the 6.1 MP,

D70s, shooting in RAW, for about six months. For people images, no problem. But for

intricate patterns, such as forests, waterfalls, and the such, I am not getting the detail I get

when shot along side good film (FE2, primes, Reala and/or F100). In particular, the images

seem to lack the 3D punch of the film. My scanner is the Coolscan V, and, admidtedly I put

in quite a bit of time.</I>Yes the D200 will have better native resolution than a D70s.

Whaty are you doign when you process the iamge however? If you are so inclined, take a

look at Brudce Fraser's trrrific last book "Real World Image Sharpening with

AdobePhotoshop CS2". Your subject detail may be getting obscured by imprecise

sharpening methods , but yes upgrading to a 10mp camera over a 6mp camera for high

frequency subject matter will definitely help. If you can find one, and can work in it's

operational " sweet spots", a Kodak DCS Pro/n may offer even better quality.

[stan_belyaev]

Difficult question. I think that from a technical point of view 10-12mp DSLR is eqval ti 35mm film.

In order to answer this question one should read two books: Ray Bradbury's -Fahrenheit 451- and Games Gunn's -Child of the sun-. After that he/she should ask her-/himself a question: "Do I want to see/capture the world through the eyes of software/firmware engineers or not?"

The choice between 35mm and digital depends upon one's answer to it.

[ellis_vener_photography]

<B>After that he/she should ask her-/himself a question: "Do I want to see/capture the

world through the eyes of chemists / Kodak & Fuji company executives / and underpayed

lab techs or not?" The choice between 35mm and digital depends upon one's answer to it.

</B>

[dave_cheng1]

I was in Hawaii for one week of vacation plus a cousin's wedding. Met about half a dozen youger generation of relatives during the week. All of them are in the late twenties or early thirties. Each one of them pretty much had one point and shoot digital camer on hand. Well, there was one who had a 35mm film camera. I asked why he shot 35mm film, instead of digital. His answer was very interesting.

 

He said it's ok to shoot digital any time any where. But you can't redo a wedding so you must shoot with film to get the best out of it.

 

I thought our younger generation population is the one who does not give films a damn. But I guess you never know what they know and what they think. I felt that films may be staging for a come back.

[stan_belyaev]

Correct, but to some extent.

 

When have the labs become like that? Why people who care about film don't support labs that do a good job? (some of them do...)

Ten years ago back in russia i was able to print absolutely beautiful pictures in a supermarket. I tried to use my local pharmacy to develop and print some films in 2006. I'll not use it ever again.

 

Each advance in technology brings less personal freedom to end-users.

Digital photography is not an exception. It might be slightly more convenient (sometimes), but it greatly limits our choices. Sensors are the same, color spaces are the same, editing software have limited options, .... It is like a giant food chain - at one place you get a round hamburger, in another a square one, but essentially it is all the same.

At the end we have nothing other than a computer code, which could or could not be read in several years from now. Is digil photography free? Don't think so. There is a law of conservation of energy. There should be a law of conservation of time and money. The main point of that law is - NOTHING IS FREE.

 

I would understand and accept these limitations if the digital technology were way superior to film. But it is not...

 

On the other hand every time someone looks at the film pictures that I receive from A&I he/she asks me:"how did you do them?". Film development and printing costs me $12 and 0 minutes of my time. This comment alone keeps me using film more often than digital.

 

Today i wanted to buy a very small digicam for my wife. I checked cameras in our local store. Nice cameras, but they were so similar that I had an impression that all of them were made at the same factory, just at the last stage someone put different names on them.

 

Read the books, feel them and then make a decision.

[sourdoughsteve]

Check out Russell Hart`s article on Popular Photography`s website where he states " For

most purposes , digital will do. But unless you`re shooting with an ultra high-resolution

digital back or top pro level DSLR, film still produces the sharpest possible images. A 35mm

frame converted to a digital file by today`s desktop scanners simply clobbers the sharpness

of a typical consumer DSLR. This article is titled " 5 Reasons to Shoot Film " .

[ilkka_nissila]

Oh come on. Virtually all film is scanned today and conventional printing is very rare. Thus film is subjected to the same controls that digital is. The starting point is different and is affected by Kodak/Fuji/Ilford chemists' decisions, but so is the starting point in digital capture affected by the software you use. By comparing the results of simple raw conversion and e.g. curves adjustment by cheap software and e.g. Photoshop you can easily see that what you do with digital is very much the result of programmers. Do you want the results you generate be affected by programmers? What's the difference, chemists or programmers? Very little difference.

 

And sometimes fewer controls and options is better than more.

[christiaan_phleger___honol]

I have more fun with film.

[gale]

Since the Bronc is now bucking and it has been months since I was in a good Film/Digital debate, I am laughing all the way through this mess.

 

It is my opinion that sometimes, the digital image really becomes something special and hard to tell from film, even MF/LF film. It is my opinion (again) that such images are shot through the best glass and highest end digital cameras available. Lots of money tied up in such equipment.

 

On the other end, I see some of the worse images I've ever seen also shot through digital cameras, sometimes even high end digital cameras.

 

The thing I see and don't like about digital cameras, even with good glass and lots of MP's, is when shooting something wet. I swear, digital camera sensors make water and wet subjects look plastic. A soaking wet Elk standing in a river in the rain looks like a plastic carving standing in a polyethylene pool of grob. Waterfalls look like plastic strings of goo. Wet skin shot though a digital camera makes the HOT Babe in the Bikini look like a plastic Barbie Doll. Maybe it is me but that's what digital images look like to me, especially wet subjects. So the perfectly sharp image and awesome resolution still don't make up for ugly fake looking gob and goo for subjects in your photograph. Stepped on some toes for sure and pissed off the masses, but that is how I see most digital images.

 

True film nowadays is reduced to digital images. I pull my hair out even with a Nikon Coolscan 5000 trying to get the image on the computer screen to be as wonderful as the slide image on the light box. I see images on the light box and I fall in love. I feel there is substancial loss getting that image into a computer then back out a printer. Sucks but I do it as I haven't the gear and time for a darkroom. I still feel that I see better images out of my scanner provided a good image goes into the scanner, than I see in far too many digital camera images. But, like I said before, now and then I am stunned by a digital camera image.

 

No more than I shoot in a year (50 rolls or less), I just can't justify the money I would have to spend for enough of a digital camera and glass to go with it.

 

Dave

[g-man1]

I use film over digital when:

When I need to use a SMALLER camera at HIGHER ISO. My contax T loaded with provia 400 pushed 1 stop to 800 is worlds better than my Sony DSC V1 or T5 at ISO 400.

[garethspics]

I have a Leitz slide projector which I bought in 1981 or thereabouts. It will not project a digital image, but a nice Velvia or Kodachrome... That's another story. Total maintenance costs, a few pounds for replacement bulbs.

[James G. Dainis]

I remember back in the old days when one talked of resolution, one meant lp/mm. If one wanted to know which lens was sharper, one would just check the lp/mm. The higher the line pairs per millimeter the greater the resolution.<P>

 

The Nikon D70 is 3008x2000 and has a 23.7 x 15.5mm sensor. The detector rows per mm would be 2000/15.5 = 129. Two rows per mm would be 64.5. Allowing for the sensor array it would probably be about 50 lp/mm. <P>

 

The Nikon D200 is 3372x2592 and has a 23.6x15.8 sensor. 2592/15.8 = 164/2 = 82lp/mm. Allowing for the sensor array it would probably be about 65 lp/mm.<P>

 

If the lens you are using can resolve more than 65 lp/mm then you would be better off with film.

[brooks_lester]

I have a Nikon D50 that does a great job as long as its dynamic range is not exceeded. But, its images look "electronic" to me, like a video camera still frame of exceptional quality and resolution.

 

Fundamentally, film and digital photography are different technologies. Film uses a photochemical emulsion - it's a chemical process.

 

Digital uses light sensitive sensors to generate 1's and 0's. Then a chip interpolates that into an image. This is a photoelectric process.

 

Another by product of the film emulsion process is that it creates a more pleasing look as the dynamic range of the film is approached and exceeded. Highlights are pleasing to look at.

 

When a digital sensor reaches its limit of dynamic range the image just doesn't look at pretty as film.

 

Additionally, negative print film has a significantly greater dynamic range than digital. If you want to shoot landscapes, you'll "hold" your skies more readily with negative print film than digital.

 

Film is like a tube guitar amplifier - as you start to overdrive the circuit you get a warm, smooth sound. Try to overdrive a digital amplifier and you'll get a horrible sound.

 

Remember analog tape? It would gently compress as it approached its limits. If you overdrive a digital recording device by 1 bit you get a nasty unusable sound.

 

Spend some time looking carefully at both film and digital images. I think you see that film as a medium contributes it own character to an image where digital is simply a lifeless reproduction of what was there.

[kelly_flanigan1]

In using a 35 or 50 megapixel Phase One 4x5 scan back, alot of folks think the resulting image work was shot with film. Its really not until the medium of capture is revealed is the ugly head of prejudice preached. When the lighting and lighting ratios are controlled in a studio shot there is less blown highlights and lost shadows than a grab shot by somebody outside in broad daylight with a digital camera. Film has a great robust shoulder region that can fix the evil sins of gross overexposure, which might be all 255's in a digital capture.

[peter_crosby]

I shoot both. Tranny's for macros (flowers bugs butterflys) landscapes, night shots, and a

little wildlife. Digital for most wildlife (need speed), candids of people, airshows etc. I

prefer my 35mm camera (EOS3) much more than my dig 20D; autofocus, viewfinder,

meter, weight, size etc.As to the results, let me say that I've got some very wonderful wall

hangers from my 20D, no doubt about it.But I also have many wonderful shots from my

film. In full disclosure, let me say thay I;m spending the proverbial buck to achieve the

results: namely having my trannys Imacon scanned, Not cheap! I fight this battle all the

time with myself, ever since I got into shooting digitally back when I bought my 20D in '04

Actually, I had bought an Oly E10 before that time, but never considered it a

replacement for my EOS3. I disagree with the poster who siad that a 5or6 mp cam out

resolves film, and I think that there are enougth tests out there by people way smarter

than me that shows fine grain film will out resolve most 35mm type cams.

I've heard on numerous occasions people refer to digital images as "plasticy" looking; I

don't know about this. Nut where I do notice a difference, and another poster mention

this, is that the film shots seem (in my opinion) to have more depth, almost more 3D if

you will. The tonality seems a little more.

Bottom line is I use both, enjoy them, and will continue to do so.

Nest regards to everyone, and happy new year.

Peter