Update Debate on Scanned Film versus DSLR

[lobalobo]

As a hobbyist who contemplates purchasing my first pro-level DSLR, it occurs to

me that a Canon 5D with a good starter "kit" lens costs about $500 more than a

Mamiya RZ67 Pro IID (with a film back) and a good starter "kit" lens (at least

I think the lenses are good from what I can find). In the long run, I'd love to

have a medium format digital back, but won't spend the money for that now. Even

if I eventually go in this direction, I won't until I learn to use a medium

format camera such as the Mamiya, which needless to say is quite a ways from a

point-and-shoot style SLR. So it occurs to me that one way to go would be not

to get a DSLR at all right now, to get the Mamiya instead and spend $1,800 on a

Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED (and perhaps more on software and certainly more on

Provia film).

 

Obviously, this a more expensive way to go, but I will be learning in the

format I hope to stay (for landscapes, architecture, portraits) when and if I

can afford to spring for a digital back, and if I do I'll have an option to

continue to shoot film if I want. A question I have is whether this makes sense

to anyone? What little I've found *recently* about the scan versus shoot debate

is that a good digital camera such as the Canon 5D simply produces better image

quality: color, resolution, dynamic range. I'm not sure this is right, though,

because most of what I found on the debate--and of course there is a lot--is

years old. What is the current view? And even if the 5D would produce a better

image, would the scanner be close enough to make this approach plausible? (The

answer may be no, of course, for a reason I hadn't contemplated until writing

this post, that the medium format digital back such as Mamiya's--with

Hassleblad permanently out of my price range--may not be enough/any better

than say the Canon 1D full-frame sensor, which while expensive is still

significantly less than a medium format digital setup. Views on that welcome

too.)

 

Thanks in advance.

[denisgermain]

DSLRs have been "as good" as 35mm since the 6MP mark according to most... the 1Ds MII as good as medium format.

 

The noise of digital beats digital easily above 200ISO...

 

Wanna wait? sure.

Still think winyl sounds better than CDs? keep on waiting.

 

Scanning? NO way!

[User_503771]

I've spent scores of hours looking at test shots and specs, etc., for all kinds of digital cameras, and in my humble opinion, digital just doesn't match up yet -- by a long shot -- in terms of overall image quality. (Including my own extensive shooting with a few different good digital cameras.)

 

In terms of *print quality*, I think that digital comes close in terms of sharpness etc., at smaller print sizes, but I don't like the color limitations as compared to film.

 

I think there's a big difference when you take film at medium format sizes and scan and print from them.

 

I think the basic situation is that film records data at atomic and molecular levels, which can't yet be matched with photo sensor sites.

 

Digital equipment is closing the gap -- especially, again, starting at medium format sizes.

 

But I just don't see any contest between digital and film printed on good printing paper.

 

And when it comes to black and white, there really isn't any substitute for good old dodging and burning.

 

The thing you have to debate for yourself, though, is the question: "How good does it have to be?"

 

If you're going for the ultimate in artistic craftsmanship, then I'd stick with film, if that's a medium you're comfortable using and can dedicate yourself to.

 

But really, digital also produces beautiful results!

 

This may seem contradictory, but please consider this: IMHO both are valid, but different, media.

 

If you're working in publishing, digital is just fantastic, and there's really no reason to use anything else, in terms of the job that needs to be done and the convenience factors.

 

For the artist -- to be sure, there's no reason not to work in both, or one or the other. But please do realize that the two different media require different approaches. Each has its own set of tools.

 

Anyway, my answer to your question is, yes, I think your approach (film with scanning equipment) makes sense (with the proviso that you should thoroughly test out the differences between digital prints and "traditional" prints from your film, if you can, to see for yourself).

 

Oh, and one more thing: I would ignore the usual comments about viewing distance being the determiner in answering this question. Looking at the prints side-by-side -- digital camera vs film camera -- will tell the tale in terms of subtleties beyond image resolution.

 

Hope this helps, and that I didn't go on too long....

[howard_owen]

Your proposed route is an expensive one, but your're the one paying the freight. If it appeals to you, go for it.

 

There are a few digital cameras that can produce files which can be printed successfully at large sizes. For some, this means a 35mm full frame digital is superior to film 35mm and closing in on MF, never mind the loss of dynamic range and other shortcomings of digital

 

I shoot both film and digital and I have no intention of giving up on film anytime soon. By the time you are ready to buy your MF digital back, there may well be no reason to shoot film any longer. That day has not yet arrived.

[steve_dawson1]

"I think the basic situation is that film records data at atomic and molecular levels, which can't yet be matched with photo sensor sites"

 

This is like those adverts for expensive hair care products which claim they work on a 'molecular level'. Vaguely technical term; must be impressive.

 

You could say that both CCDs and film work by the interaction of photons with electrons. You could say that film works by chemical processes and digital by atomic.

 

What it comes down to is that a general all-embracing allegiance to either digital or film is usually an emotional rather than a rational position.

[lobalobo]

Thanks to all for answering, and so quickly. I'll consider the responses and then decide whether I am truly willing to spend five thousand dollars on the film camera/scanner combination. The information will truly help.

[jay_bees]

"I think the basic situation is that film records data at atomic and molecular levels, which can't yet be matched with photo sensor sites"

 

Well, unfortunately the film grain is at a much more macro level.

 

Even with a top quality drum scan of 35mm film compares poorly to full frame digital such as a 5D and there is no comparison with a 1Ds Mk II. The full frame Canon simply produces a cleaner sharper image than 35mm film. As for MF film vs. full frame digital... Well using top quality drum scans it will be roughly comparable, but the debate will be over small differences. Your images will be much more accessible using the 5D. Have you considered a good used 1DsMk II?

 

Perhaps elaborate on why you want MF. Also, factor in the time spent scanning, learning to scan, rescanning after you are better at it, etc.

[patricklavoie]

with the right knowledge, equipment, experience you can get the same result with both digital or film. Those who say they cant match or be compare are lost in a strange world. Its all depend of the way you work and experimented your medium, i have seen from many if not all professional top fashion , product, advertising photographer superb result, in fact i dont know much photographer in the biseness anymore that use film.

 

Look at Greg Gorman work as a example, pretty much all digital, shoot, process and print, still he get the quality, color or BW has i use to get from film..strange no? So someone must be doing a good job to put is digital looking as good as he use to get with film no?

 

I think this debate is a non sense, like i said in a previous post it was the same thing when painter use to bash on photography saying that capturing a moment with film was a mere copy, that nothing could beat painting for reproduction...replace painting by film and you get the same stupidity.

 

Stop trying to find THE problem between the 2 medium; start taking picture and enjoy your life

[patricklavoie]

oh i forgot! I own a 5D and the result is amazing. Good choice. I have a second kit (body, grip, battery etc...) that im planning to sell pretty soon for way less then the regular price...email me for details if you want.

[ronald_moravec1]

Having had a RB67 Pro S a few decades back, I can tell you the images are beautiful. I used 90, 180, and my favorite, the 150 soft focus.

 

The problem is it is far too heavy to take most placs I go. I sold it in favor of Leicas. If you are not traveling far, get a 4x5 instead and the images will be even better. At this point I have a 4x5 and 6 lenses plus the Leicas.

 

Now along comes digital. Start with a P&S Canon. Nice pics, but really dark shadows. After a year I moved up to a Nikon D200.

 

Turn the contrast to portrait mode and compare to pro portrait film. No loss of shadow detail. After two months I bought a second lens.

As far as I can tell, it matches film to 8x10. Scan film to go bigger. But I don`t go bigger often so I am no expert.

 

Forgot to tell, I scanned film for three years, KM 5400.

 

Having done all this, to get best quality at reasonable price, a full frame sensor Canon is the digital way to go for digital.

 

Scanning film in med format requires a big investment in an Imacon scanner if you want large prints. Flat bed scans are ok for small prints. You would be better off buying a digi back for the RB than the Imacon scanner.

 

Now with the large files, you will NEED a decent MAC computer. Putting all this together will not be cheap, and it will be heavy and bulky which does not matter for studio work.

 

Rent some equipment, see what works for you. Have the film scanned commercially to PROFESIONAL level.

 

Then there is the learning curve for digital manipulation. This will bog you down for some time to get the aesthetics right as there is an art to it. Previous color darkroom work is a plus.

 

Try and find some pro stores that have digi prins on display. Calumet is one in Chicago. They sold me on digi. Large QUALITY files start getting expodentially expensive.

 

If I knew what kind of pics you would be making, I could advise better. Consider making some pics and sending the files for commercial prints and make your own decisions.

[lobalobo]

Let me again thank everyone. Though I realize you are writing in part or mostly for the general reader and for each other, as someone about to spend at least several thousand dollars, there is no substitute for hearing these differing opinions. (There's a limit to how much testing one can do before buying.) On the hope that others reading might share my dilemma, let me respond to some of the points raised (though in no particular order), mainly with other questions:

 

First, I do appreciate the advantages of large format. Currently I shoot 4"x5" Efke 25 B&W film in a pinhole camera and will start shooting it in a 1940's press camera I just bought. I develop this myself; it's fun and even without a lens I can see the advantages of large format. I considered buying a 4 x 5 view camera and having that be my primary tool when out shooting (as opposed to taking pictures of the kids at birthday parties and Halloween, where my Kodak V570 point-and-shoot gives me what I need). A problem there is that I ultimately want to manipulate the images digitally then make prints on my own (using an Epson R2400 once I can confirm that the nozzle clogging problem with my current, cheap Epson printer won't repeat on this higher-end unit).And a high-end 4 x 5 scanner is way out of my price range even in my fantasies and, at $10 per negative, which is what a local shop charges for a drum-scanned 4 x 5 image, again too much money. Moreover, my hope is eventually to purchase a digital back, and although my wife may well kill or divorce me for spending even $10,000 on a digital camera setup, certain death would follow if I ever spent what it would cost to buy a 4 x5 back (if one even exists). Thus, my speculation about learning to use a MF camera and a scanner in the hope of later buying a digital back for it, perhaps if they become cheaper.

 

Second, and this relates to the first point, I don't read anyone here suggesting that one can't get similar results (though not identical ones) with digital and film capture. The question is, in part, at what price, and with what effort. My guess from what you all say is that for the additional price of a $2,000 scanner and additional effort (including carrying around the camera)one can get similarly excellent results from a MF film camera and a mid-pro DSLR such as a Canon 5D. (Although no one has mentioned it, there is, I take it, another advantage of a DSLR, which is that in shooting RAW there is greater latitude for errors at the time of capture than one has wehn shooting film to be scanned to TIFF. Do I have this right?) What seems to recommend the MF film camera and scanner (in addition to having an option to create analog prints and the possible taste for the look of film images, about which more below) is the chance to learn on an MF system and build on that knowledge once and if the day comes when an MF digital back is within price range (becasue I'm confident that if money were no object, I would prefer to shoot MF). Whether this is worth $2,000 at the moment is hard to decide.

 

Third, and finally, the posts that say shooting digital is superior seem to be focusing on resolution (again, no pun intdended). But there are dynamic range and color questions too, and at least some like the look of scanned negative film over even high-quality full-sensor 35mm digital images, just as some like the look of negative film over slide film, yes? (At least one post above made this point.)

 

Thanks again.

[erik_h]

You can of course get a digital hasselblad with a 36.7mmx49mm sensor. It is 39 megapixels; the RAW files are 50MB and the *EIGHT BIT* TIFFs are over 100MB. (how big would a 16 bit tiff be?)

 

That will probably meet the resolution of most MF cameras, I think. At least, it would come close. How big, exactly, do you plan to blow things up?

 

(of course, it costs $32,000. But money's no object for artistic perfection.)

[roger_smith4]

"(of course, it costs $32,000. But money's no object for artistic perfection.)"

 

Or for mere technical superiority without artistic interest.

[lobalobo]

Thanks, Erik and Roger. At least for me, as I said in a post above, a Hassleblad is permanently out of my price range, and as a hobbyist, likely permanently out of my capacity fully to exploit as well. That said, even I can tell a sharp image from a soft one (and sometimes sharp is desired), one with detail in the shadows from one without, one with pleasing colors to one without, and my thought was that even (especially) under $10,000 for the equipment, there are advantages to MF. The need for more expensive computer equipment, though, is one that for some reason I neglected (assuming foolishly that my current computer, fast at everything I've given it so far would be fast enough at this, too).

[erik_h]

Film is, and will continue to be for a long time, superior vis a vis quality for the initial price. There's nothing in the digital world that can beat a used 8x10, for example. And--as you correctly note--there aren't many things that can meet good medium format quality. Heck, my F3 can produce better images than most digitals near it in price, merely by using 25 slide film and good nikon primes.

 

However, it's not fair to judge only on a single picture. Instead, you need to judge *including workflow.*

 

That is to say: with a digital, you have instant review (so you can be reasonably sure you get a shot before you leave the park). You have better ability to trap errors. You have "free" film, so you can put the laws of averages to use.

 

I may not be an outstanding photographer. But if I take 200 pictures of a tree from varying angles, with varying exposure and varying lenses, one of them is going to be good. In fact, it'll be a lot BETTER than I could take with an 8x10, because I"d only be able to afford to take 1 shot.

 

IMO, top level photos can get great results from film. They're good enough to make doing so affordable. photo.net "how to do Portraits" section references a portrait shooter who shoots only 2 shots per sitting.

 

But if you don't take really good shots, and want to improve by taking a lot of shots, and don't have an ultracheap way of doing so... well, the ultimate quality of the pictures you get in the end may be superior with a full frame 35mm digital than with MF.

 

Because as we all know, "quality" IS NOT all about "resolution."

[ronald_moravec1]

RAW does not mean sloppy. You need to get it as close as possible, then it has more latitude to rework than a JPEG.

[fred_bonnett2]

I scanned Hassy negs for 8 years (last scanner = 8000 ED) before switching to digital 2.5 years ago. The scanned Hassy stuff is better than my Nikon D200 with prints larger than 16x20. For prints smaller than 16x20 the D200 output actually looks better.

 

Note that scanning is a time consuming pain in the...!

[mendel_leisk]

Les, there is no 1DsIII. Did you mean the 1DIII?

 

As far as megapixels, the leader is still the Canon 1DsII (full frame), at 16.6 mp. In the Canon line, the 5D (full frame) 12.8 mp, and then the IDsIII (1.3 crop) at 10.1 mp. The latest 400D digital Rebel (1.6 crop) has the same 10.1 mp. Finally, the 30D's (1.6 crop)have 8.3 mp.

 

Regarding the age old film vs digital debate, I'm just thinking of a print I made from a quite small crop of a Tri-X scan. I used aggressive sharpening to purposely build and accentuate the grain, and really like the result. I wonder if it is possible to replicate this from a dslr capture, through Photoshop. It quite possibly can be done, I've just never tried it myself. Can you remap pixels based on a semi-random grain structure? That would be very nice, on occasion.

[fourfa]

it's a trick, kind of - that test is using a 5D and tele lenses to yield photos equivalent to "simulated 100% crops" of theoretical 21 and 26 mp cameras

[graham_clark]

To those that want to liken this to the vinyl / CD thing, think again.

Nowdays CDs are tweaked so much that they officially cause headaches. Something to do with the record companies wanting "loudness" if I recall. Because of this CD sales are on the decline.

This problem is also showing on downloads as well.

 

Now, about those buggy whips........

 

Sorry if this is off topic.

[lobalobo]

Well once again, I'm grateful. Learned a lot. Not going to buy the scanner. I don't doubt that I might prefer the look of scanned film to DSLR, but probably not by enough to justify the expense and time. May change my tune when I learn someting more about processing digital images. My only decision left is whether to get the Canon 5D or buy something cheaper, say the Fuji S5 (the other pro-level DSLR I tested, which I know has much lower resolution and is not full frame) and a good (not great) zoom then upgrade later to full frame (or even MF) digital once I have some more experience in digital editing, while everything gets cheaper and better as time passes. As an aside, and off thread, anyone know of a comparsion between say the Canon 1DIII and the Hasselblad MF digital back of the same resolution (not the $32,000 one, the $7,000 one). That is, will sensor size matter much holding pixels roughly constant? In theory it should, right: greater DR and less noise? Thanks again.

[Ed_Ingold]

You will find a comparison between the Canon 1dsMkII and various medium-format digital backs at http://www.luminous-landscape.com. The new 1dMkIII is also reviewed on that site.

 

Medium format backs have larger cells than those on small-format DSLRs. The Hasselblad CFV (16MP, 37x37mm) cells are 9.3 microns, compared to 6 microns for a Nikon D2x and about 7 microns for a Canon 1dsMkII. The CFV back is 16 bits/channel compared to 12 bits/channel for the Canon and Nikon, and has a 12 stop dynamic range compared to about 8 stops for the Canon and Nikon.

 

The resolution is comparable - the difference is in image quality, particularly textures and shadow detail. You can see some good examples here (http://www.hasselbladinfo.com/discus/messages/4/26201.html)

[janne]

Technically one could separate three properties of picture quality: (1) gamut; (2) dynamic range; (3) MTF curve.

 

I believe the gamut of at least Canon DSLRs is good, and dynamic range of DSLR sensors is said to be close to slide film. MTF of digital sensors vs. film is more interesting, however. Digital responds perfectly to frequencies up to a certain scale of detail, then suddenly drops to zero. Film, on the other hand, gives up very gradually: When you go to finer details, there is no abrupt changes but a slow fadeoff.

 

Therefore comparing resolutions is a bit apples and oranges. Take a good 35mm film and a 6-10MP sensor. The sensor gives better microcontrast at a certain level, but in detecting very fine detail the film goes beyond digital, although with a poor contrast.

 

Of course, in reality things are not exactly decomposable to MTF, gamut, and dynamic range. Also, some people are used to the response of the film and find it therefore more pleasing. Or maybe they are able to express themselves better within the constraints of the film.