Poor scans - May explain why some switch to Digital

mauro_franic · March 19, 2009

If it looks soft, then sharpen it . And print again.

Please use bigger sections so you can appreciate the problems with a 10MP DSLr vs 35 film.

You should see shortcomings on the DSLR.

swilson · March 19, 2009

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=3995956">Mauro Franic</a> <a href="http://www.photo.net/member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 19, 2009; 05:49 p.m.

If it looks soft, then sharpen it . And print again. Please use bigger sections so you can appreciate the problems with a 10MP DSLr vs 35 film.

You should see shortcomings on the DSLR.

</blockquote>

I am running out of ink, which is why the small prints.

Tell you what, if you post a landscape photo taken with 35mm color film I will make 8x10 inch test prints, scaled to whatever size you wish. This is as soon as I get more ink.

swilson · March 19, 2009

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=3995956">Mauro Franic</a> <a href="http://www.photo.net/member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 19, 2009; 04:59 p.m.

Apostolos, thans for the praise.

Rishi, I agree 35mm Velvia should match/beat any DSLR I tested. Furthermore, pack 35mm Velvia in a pocket film and shoot and compare it to pocket digitals... You can have a 40 megapixel Velvia camera in your pocket for $50.

</blockquote>

Let's see, a frame of 35mm being the same as having a 40 MP camera? So you should be able to show some 5400 ppi scans that are as sharp as the pixels level as my DSLR?

marc_bergman1 · March 19, 2009

By not using a test chart we cannot tell whether the cameras used were performing optimally.

These map or brick wall tests are too subject to interpretation.

mauro_franic · March 19, 2009

I agree with Marc Scott.

Try the 40D landscape first. Upsize to 16x20 - and your printers native resolution. Sharpen. Print.

http://www.shutterclick.smugmug.com/gallery/3639504_X4XUj#279008132_rwc3m-O-LB

Try the 35mm color negative next. Upsize to 16x20 - and your printers native resolution. Sharpen. Print.

http://www.shutterclick.smugmug.com/gallery/6499685_dJwsh#412832226_BhGTs-O-LB

mauro_franic · March 19, 2009

Scott, then share you impressions based on prints.

In my experience day in day out, "and specially for landscape - more so than target objects", 35mm film has a significant quality advantage over a 10MP DSLR (or 12MP for the same case). A 5DII - waiting to do side by side landscape test- should come closer to my 35mm results.

But I'm interested in your conclusion since you are taking the effort to run prints and comparisons.

mauro_franic · March 19, 2009

6x7 film is obviously a quantum leap in quality over 35mm film/5DII.

Landrum Kelly · March 19, 2009

Mauro, et al ., thanks for another fun and educational thread.

--Lannie

swilson · March 19, 2009

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=3995956">Mauro Franic</a> <a href="http://www.photo.net/member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 19, 2009; 05:02 p.m.

All, Going back to the main point of the thread,

Many people believe a flatbed scanner does justice to their film and later decide to move to a DSLR for image quality. They do not realize it was the digital portion of their workflow that needed to be fixed.

</blockquote>

This may be true for people trying to scan MF on a flatbed, I have tried this and it is not good. But the number of people shooting MF is very small and has always been very small. At one point any good wedding photography would use MF, DLSR are now good enough that they can use them for shooting weddings. Keep in mind that for many people MF and LF for not so much about resolution but tonality. And like it or not what limits tonality in 35mm film is grain. So when DSLR came by and gave great tonality the need to shoot in MF was pretty much gone in the wedding business.

For 35mm film there are decent film scanners that don't cost and arm and a leg. Anyone trying to scan 35mm film on a flatbed is likely shooting with iso 800 print film and so all is lost anyway. Anyone I know who was the least bit into photography was scanning with a film scanner. Nothing will move you over to digital faster then spending hours scanning film, well there are also the times that the mini-lab messes up your negatives.

dan_south · March 19, 2009

1/5000th, really?

</blockquote>

Sorry, I meant 1/500th.

80k JPEG / 40M TIFF = 1/500

mauro_franic · March 19, 2009

I think scanned 35mm film (at least the ones I use) have better tonality than a 10MP DSLR. Roughly 20 million full RGB samples vs 10 million with just a 1/3 of a full RGB sample.

Grain can always be removed and if you even downsample a 20MP 35mm scan to just 10MP no print would be able to show grain.

Let me know what you whink of the results printing the links above at 16x20. The danger of knowing though.... is that once you know..... side by side.... you may go back to film (not your quick workflow work but the things you may consider placing on the wall at some point).

rishij · March 19, 2009

Sorry, I meant 1/500th.

80k JPEG / 40M TIFF = 1/500

</blockquote>

Dan South, you're missing the point... I provided links to >12MB 10/12MP JPEGs.

-Rishi

swilson · March 19, 2009

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=426229">Marc Bergman</a> <a href="http://www.photo.net/member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub8.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 19, 2009; 06:16 p.m.

By not using a test chart we cannot tell whether the cameras used were performing optimally.

These map or brick wall tests are too subject to interpretation.

</blockquote>

I am really not into test charts as a way to tell how good a camera is going to produce photographs. I am going to share a very ugly photo of mine (not my fault, I think the lab was using about month old cemicals.

The photo is a scan of a slide, when I first saw this scan I thought the photo looked way out of focus, but looking at the name on the side of the tent trailer you can see that the detail is not bad, not great but not bad.

So here is the thing, that fact that I can read the text in teh photo means very little to me, the photo looks soft. What is more to get the photo to look sharp at the pixel level I have to down sample so much it won't even film my screen. Even my old 3MP digital makes prints sharper then that image.

The point is not that this is typical of 35mm film, thank god it is not, the point is that if this was a photo of a test chart it would have come out looking like it should have smashed a 3MP digital, which at the time I was scanning these photos was the whole point.

If anyone wants a real challenge try and make that photo look good and still have Sequoia legible.

Again this is not a bitch about how the film looks, I know something got screwed up big time on this slide, it is to point out that detail does not equal a sharp print.

rishij · March 19, 2009

For the record, I do not agree with Mauro's statement of a 40MP Velvia in your pocket... Mauro you must have been using hyperbole :)

Under a light microscope, Mauro's own resolution test charts shot on Velvia give ~25MP resolution for a 35mm frame. Scanned on an Imacon 848, I get ~24-25 of those megapixels. On a Minolta DSE 5400 when film flatness is perfect & focus is nailed, I get ~18-19MP... more near the 19MP end. With a Nikon LS-4000/5000 I get ~11MP.

So your 'pocket camera' would give you more 'round 20MP, using a scanner that doesn't cost as much as a new car.

Remember, just b/c a scanner advertises 20-22MP resolution, doesn't mean it has a 100% MTF at that resolution... most likely it does not. Hence my 44MP Minolta DSE 5400, in my eyes, does not extract even all the 25MP worth of information on Velvia... only 19MP of it. The Nikons much worse... 11MP. Seems like they actually perform at 50% their rated optical value.

Or, my judgement criteria for what is acceptable is just much higher. Regardless, in side-by-side comparisons the Minolta clearly outdoes the Nikon... by a lot. The Imacon outdoes both considerably.

Anyway, just rambling at this point.

-Rishi

jeff_z. · March 19, 2009

One also wonders how many persons are inclined to buy a new Nikon F5 or Canon 1V. I wonder if there are any numbers being published about how many are being sold new.

</blockquote>

--Lannie

Hello Lannie, Not exactly sure what you mean... I would think that sales of these top-of-the-line models to people who need to actually use the cameras would be hard to draw conclusions from, just because so few film cameras are being made, so any Canon or Nikon user that needs a new body has few choices... But most people do not need the many features they offer.... Sure, personally, I'd like to have an F6 because of its superior metering capability and for its quietness, but I don't need it for my purposes. My F3, F2, or one of my automatic bodies from the '90s are always up to the task. This is a big part of why the camera manufacturers have adopted the model I mentioned, imho.

And because of the herd going so largely to digital for serious amateurs and for many professionals, too, this has of course flooded the used market in recent years, making 35mm film equipment very affordable. It seems this phenomenon is showing signs of leveling off, at least for the high quality gear, which I suppose is to be expected.

mauro_franic · March 19, 2009

Rishi,

I had meant 35mm equivalent to a 40MP DSLR. Remember a 10MP DSLR only resolves 6MP of detail. A 40MP DSLR would resolve 24MP of detail (just shy of Velvia 35mm)

On a separate note, how many megapixels of actual resolution my TMX 100 measured?

mauro_franic · March 19, 2009

Scott, what scanner did you use for the slide you posted?

rishij · March 19, 2009

Fine, Mauro... TMX 100: 35MP , as assayed under a light microscope. Show-off :)

My problem with your statement, though, is that someone scanning with a reasonably priced scanner would only get 18MP out of that Velvia frame, using a Minolta DSE 5400 with perfect film flatness. And even then, as much as I love my Minolta, the signal (MTF) at that 'extinction resolution' is quite low... i.e. the test chart lines are barely distinguishable. Somewhere between the 10MP-14MP range the signal is quite good from my Minolta (not so good with the Nikon, save for along the stepping motor axis), but really after 10MP the response starts dropping... dropping... dropping... as we hit the 18-19MP mark.

This probably explains why, in terms of 'pixel sharpness', 35mm scans scaled down to a 5D file size (12MP) look about on par with a 9.3MP measured-resolution (e.g. 5D) digital capture, with the 35mm having more real detail. The 5D Mark II's measured resolution of 12.6MP (I just checked with my own eyes with a 5D Mark II resolution test chart shot on dpreview.com, then did the calculation) probably comes pretty darn close to what 35mm Velvia + scanner can resolve with a decent MTF response value . But given the cleanliness of the signal, I bet more aggressive sharpening will be applied even in the RAW converter or in-camera, thereby most likely resulting in an image that'll look better & sharper than a 35mm scan.

That's my prediction. Mauro, I'm pretty sure you'll disagree with me, but, that being said, you or I still need to a run a side-by-side test :)

-Rishi

graybrick · March 19, 2009

"Poor scans"

No kidding. Are we still debating whether film outresolves modern digital cameras? Still debating whether drum scans or scans from a dedicated film scanner which costs about as much as a new digital camera body can give better detail than the digital camera? Seriously? Do you people ever do anything fun or interesting?

I think what's probably missing from the argument (no, I haven't even bothered reading this posting) is that there's a cost to film, processing, and a scanner, not to mention the time involved scanning all those expensive little frames. I'd say people mayrealize that they're trading ultra resolution which they never really took much advantage of (as the vast majority of people don't print huge, ever) for the convenience and comparable quality (at normal pint sizes) of digital imaging. Some would still evenargue that at realistic sizes, digital makes better looking images. But that's another silly, poorly crafted argument for another inane, pointless and ridiculousy long-winded thread.

mauro_franic · March 19, 2009

Rishi, there is no disagreeing, just sharing results.

I wish I had a scanner that could scan my TMX 35mm not bad (3 times the resolution of the 5DII in just 35mm).

I'm just dreaming now but maybe 20 years from now -if a new 8000 dpi desktop scanner comes along - I will be able to re-scan all the pictures I'm taking today with 6x7 and still get nicer results than a with a digital camera of that time.

rishij · March 19, 2009

True, Mauro. And, like I said, in our free time we should build an 8000ppi MF/35mm desktop scanner :) I certainly have a couple ideas of how, and seeing how the new $100-$200 'digitize your memories!' film scanners these days flooding the market scan at some pathetic resolution of 1-2MP, I don't have any confidence that any company is working on releasing such an 8000ppi scanner in the future :(

For those interested in judging 'pixel sharpness' of film scanners in comparison to dSLR, here's a link to a full 20MP version of the Fairy Falls scan (originally 80MP straight out of the Imacon 848). It's only 17.1MP because I cropped it quite a bit (the damn shot wasn't straight, argh); trust me, it's equivalent to a 20MP scan, just cropped.

<a href="http://staff.washington.edu/rjsanyal/Photography/FairyFalls_20MP.jpg">http://staff.washington.edu/rjsanyal/Photography/FairyFalls_20MP.jpg</a>

I'd say that parts of it do look as 'pixel-sharp' as what a 20MP dSLR might put out (i.e. 5D Mark II, 12.6MP true resolution), but, then again, parts of it don't. Certainly, if you resize properly to 12MP, it looks 'pixel-sharp' as a dSLR across the frame (save for motion & lens effects). My guess is that it looks somewhere in between an equivalent 5D & 5D Mark II capture...

Mauro, you've looked at quite a bit of scanned 35mm & MF, using exquisite technique far as I can tell, so I'm particularly curious about your evaluation of the sharpness when viewed at 20MP size 1:1...

Cheers, Rishi

P.S. I'm quite confident the file linked above would print pretty well at 16x20... if anyone wants to try, be my guest, and let us know :)

roman_p · March 19, 2009

Digital for their purposes is "good enough."

Well, but seems to me they just don’t have another choice…

This will change if we can evolve intelligently to a more sustainable, and healthy economy, and lifestyle;

That’s true, Jeff. I think that the intelligence it’s what completely missed in our economy and unfortunately in someone’s lifestyle…

Rishi:

1s and 0s can be infinitely powerful if you increase the sampling dimension to infinity. Therefore, 1s and 0s are just as powerful as analog in the limit of infinite samples.

That’s exactly what I don’t like in binary digit theory. to store each analog signal you have to create infinity series of digital values which is nothing but combination of 1s and 0s. If my brain has stored all my knowledge, experience, pictures and music this way it would explode already. Such way of representing analog signals required enormous amount storage and processing. the film delivers data much more natural way – it’s just changing the properties of substances and represent analog signal (i.e. color) the way it naturally exists, without sampling it. That’s why we’re designing with our brain and use computers only for calculations. And I dont think it’s good for anything else. Obviously you might have different opinion.

With all respect to you, Rishi, but I’m going to stay where I am and not ashamed of what I said.

Now I have a question to you. I never used Velvia 50 to shot waterfall. I use Velvia 100F for this purpose. Is it old Velvia 50 or the “new” one?

rishij · March 19, 2009

Well I guess I think the infinite series is 'good enough'... :) Well, not in all cases. For example I wouldn't sample music at a rate of 22kHz... if we hear up to 20kHz, you sample at least twice that frequency, and as you go to higher and higher sampling frequencies, it becomes hard to distinguish the analog signal from the digital representation of it. Digital cameras essentially are tryina do the same thing. That's all I was saying.

If you accept CDs, you should accept that digital image capture is or will get there just fine.

Apologies if I sounded offensive.

Re: the waterfall shot -- it's the new Velvia 50. I don't like 100F at all, for anything. Too bland. If I wanted blanded I'd shoot digital RAW :)

That being said, some color shifts with Velvia 50 and 100 (not 100F) can be annoying. Long exposures tend to show green shifts... perhaps the blue of the waterfall is also due to such a color shift? I don't really know. The scan is a pretty accurate representation of the slide, since I used a Hutch-color-target generated profile. Minus the slight diffuse glow I added, of course.

-Rishi

rishij · March 19, 2009

Hmmm... I think Mauro may be right & I've been short-selling myself here.

Take a look at these full-size JPEG crops from a 5D Mark II... at 1:1 viewing, their 'pixel sharpness', to my eyes, looks on par with the 'pixel sharpness' of my Fairy Falls 20MP scan also at 1:1 viewing, don't you think?

<a href="http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos5dm2/downloads/3_nightscene.jpg">http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos5dm2/downloads/3_nightscene.jpg</a>

<a href="http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos5dm2/downloads/2_landscape.jpg">http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos5dm2/downloads/2_landscape.jpg</a>

Perhaps the latter 5D Mark II file looking somewhat sharper. Now I'm thinking that in an objective test, 35mm may compete quite well with a 5D Mark II... man I'd really like to find out!

-Rishi

swilson · March 20, 2009

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=3995956">Mauro Franic</a> <a href="http://www.photo.net/member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 19, 2009; 09:14 p.m.

Scott, what scanner did you use for the slide you posted?

</blockquote>

That was a Minolta DiMAGE SCAN Dual III, or perhaps my older HP Smart Scanner (long gong now).

In either case the scanner was not stellar but it could get much better looking scans then that, if the film was in good shape. The odd thing about that slide is there is likely more detail there then the scanner can capture, but the grain is so high I can even make a decent screen size image from it. Even downsizing to 1200 pixels wide this image looks like crap.

This is an extreme case where a photo can have a good amount of detail, but still look very soft. I the attached photo I have resized a photo from my old Nikon 995 to match the height of the scanned image and put a crop from each side by side. It is pretty clear to my eye that the film scan has captured way more detail, which it should have since the digital is only 3.2 MP But the film photo can make a sharp looking 4x6 in print whereas the digital makes a beautiful 4x6 inch print.

This link shows the two photos both sized to a width of 1200 pixels, resized the digital image looks far sharper, this is roughly what you would see on a 4x6 inch print.

<a href="http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/110409845/original">http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/110409845/original</a>

Thankfully the roll of film that slide is from is not the norm, in no way are these image meant to show that a 3MP camera is better then 35mm film What I am showing is that detail is not all there is to what makes an image look sharp, therefore photos of test chart are of limited value.

swilson · March 20, 2009

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=3995956">Mauro Franic</a> <a href="http://www.photo.net/member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 19, 2009; 06:54 p.m.

I think scanned 35mm film (at least the ones I use) have better tonality than a 10MP DSLR. Roughly 20 million full RGB samples vs 10 million with just a 1/3 of a full RGB sample.

Grain can always be removed and if you even downsample a 20MP 35mm scan to just 10MP no print would be able to show grain.

Let me know what you whink of the results printing the links above at 16x20. The danger of knowing though.... is that once you know..... side by side.... you may go back to film (not your quick workflow work but the things you may consider placing on the wall at some point).

</blockquote>

I am not sure when I am going to get more ink, with luck in the next day or two.

Not much chance of me ever going back to 35mm, just does not cut it for large print IMO. This is what I would use for a 20x30 inch print (a nice size for the wall)

<a href="http://sewcon.com/samples/30x20_inches_at_300ppi.jpg">http://sewcon.com/samples/30x20_inches_at_300ppi.jpg</a>

Print out some of your image at 20x30 and some of my and I think you will see why 35mm just does not hold much interest for me.

Assuming you scan the full 36x24mm area of 35mm film at 4000 ppi you would end up printing a 20x30 inch print at 198 ppi, so to match my image yours need to be scale up by 158.75%, I have put a crop in showing the two, print out at 300ppi to see what I mean.

Sure I had to stitch image to get to this point, but to get a good sharp image on film you really should use a tripod, and once the camera is on the tripod it is very easy to get the images needed to stitch.

If I was ever going to do film again it would be LF, but I don't like BW and there is no place I can drive to that will develop sheet film. And I can get whatever resolution I want anyway so I am not sure I would do it even if there was a place here that would develop the film.

As for tonality, it is the grain the limits in for film, which is way MF has such better tonality then 35mm. Like it or not digital has great tonality.

rishij · March 20, 2009

What I am showing is that detail is not all there is to what makes an image look sharp, therefore photos of test chart are of limited value.

</blockquote>

Right, hence we talk of 'accutance'.

Actually, Scott, your examples go to show that a lot of those comparisons that people have done of how a digital SLR clearly beats 35mm, even MF, film are, in fact, invalid.

A cursory glance at these comparisons on the 'net with the film scan simply done by a 'professional lab' or just run through an old film scanner the tester had lying around are not valid . Because, as I've shown with the Fairy Falls picture, with enough care, attention to detail, high-resolution scanning, noise reduction, and selective sharpening, one can make a 20MP scan from 35mm that has quite sharp pixels that look 'digital SLR-like' at 1:1 viewing (as voted 5:2, so this is not just my opinion).

So, I think you just helped prove Mauro's point :)

-Rishi

rishij · March 20, 2009

Scott-- what the heck? That's not a 1:1 crop of the leaf from the Fairy Falls photo! It's almost a 2:1 view of it. I certainly never claimed that Velvia 50 35mm is 40MP. It's entirely unfair to have that blow-up next to a 1:1 crop of your stitched image .

Not only are you not comparing apples to apples, you're more comparing apples to... I dunno, elephants?

Your stitched images are amazing, I admit. My super-resolution images with PhotoAcute blow me away too. Both are irrelevant to one film scan of one image. Especially when you show your digital image at 1:1 and then my film scan at 2:1, just to make the comparison look worse.

If you wanna do a fair comparison, take one of your 40MP images and stack it up 1:1 against Mauro's MF scan. My guess is that Mauro's MF scan will hold up. Certainly not my 35mm film scan. That's ludicrous to even have placed the two side-by-side. Not sure what you were trying to get at there.

-Rishi

swilson · March 20, 2009

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2381463">Rishi Sanyal</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/2rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 20, 2009; 02:07 a.m.

What I am showing is that detail is not all there is to what makes an image look sharp, therefore photos of test chart are of limited value.

</blockquote>

Right, hence we talk of 'accutance'.

Actually, Scott, your examples go to show that a lot of those comparisons that people have done of how a digital SLR clearly beats 35mm, even MF, film are, in fact, invalid.

A cursory glance at these comparisons on the 'net with the film scan simply done by a 'professional lab' or just run through an old film scanner the tester had lying around are not valid . Because, as I've shown with the Fairy Falls picture, with enough care, attention to detail, high-resolution scanning, noise reduction, and selective sharpening, one can make a 20MP scan from 35mm that has quite sharp pixels that look 'digital SLR-like' at 1:1 viewing (as voted 5:2, so this is not just my opinion).

So, I think you just helped prove Mauro's point :) -Rishi

</blockquote>

My point is that simply quoting line pair/mm or the smallest text that can be read does not tell the whole story on how sharp a print is going to look. Some on this thread seem to believe that is all you need to know.

As for your Fairy Falls photo, there is enough odd stuff going on that it is hard for me to really judge it. I looks like some of this might have been from leafs moving during the exposure, but hard to know.

The detail in the moss looks pretty good, not 20MP worth but not at all bad.

I have always figured that for a well done scan 35mm and digital are a pretty close match, and the line between them is fuzzy enough and subjective enough that there will be disagreements.

Within the digital comunity that are disagrments as to how large you can print with a given camera, in the film comunity there are disagreements as to how large you can print with 35mm before you should switch to MF. I tend to be on the side of wanting really good images for large print, which means either MF or stitched digital.

I am holding off judment on how large the New Sony or 5D II can print untill I see some more photos from them. I would not think either could go to 20x30 without starting to look soft, but I know 35mm film is going to look way soft at 20x30.

I really don't understand why dedicated film shooters who care about making large prints would mess around with 35mm.

swilson · March 20, 2009

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=2381463">Rishi Sanyal</a> <a href="http://www.photo.net/member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/2rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 20, 2009; 02:19 a.m.

Scott-- what the heck? That's not a 1:1 crop of the leaf from the Fairy Falls photo! It's almost a 2:1 view of it. I certainly never claimed that Velvia 50 35mm is 40MP. It's entirely unfair to have that blow-up next to a 1:1 crop of your stitched image .

Not only are you not comparing apples to apples, you're more comparing apples to... I dunno, elephants?

Your stitched images are amazing, I admit. My super-resolution images with PhotoAcute blow me away too. Both are irrelevant to one film scan of one image. Especially when you show your digital image at 1:1 and then my film scan at 2:1, just to make the comparison look worse.

If you wanna do a fair comparison, take one of your 40MP images and stack it up 1:1 against Mauro's MF scan. My guess is that Mauro's MF scan will hold up. Certainly not my 35mm film scan. That's ludicrous to even have placed the two side-by-side. Not sure what you were trying to get at there. -Rishi

</blockquote>

I was giving an answer to your statment that I might decide to shoot 35mm, for photos that I plan to make large prints of and hang on the wall. I was just showing that I have no need for anything past what I already have. For me to shoot 35mm for large prints it would have to do way better then it does.

If you dont' mind all the scanning film can produce great lookint 8x12 inch prints, but that is about as far as I would use it, I also don't like to go past 8x12 with my digital. These sizes are pretty subjective, but once you get to something like an 20x30 print the lack of sharpness in either a 35mm print or digital becomes pretty clear.

rishij · March 20, 2009

Scott-- here's a more fair, yet still unfair, comparison of your stitched shot vs. my film scan:

Still, unfair because any multiple-imaging method typically averages pixel data to generate even cleaner images... your image is much much cleaner than a 1:1 viewing of a RAW file out of my Panasonic LX3... so, something's going on there... either multi-image sampling or your actual resultant image was bigger and you downscaled it to give us the crop you show here... which, I might add, would be really unfair to place next to an upsampled film scan.

Actually, now I'm curious: is that really a 1:1 of the final stitched image, or is it downsampled from the final stitch?

Furthermore, digital camera have better accutance partially, aside from the fact they have lower noise, because they have increased microcontrast. Film is much more 'leaky' from one area of grain to another. This is fixed by proper sharpening methods. Digital still retains better microcontrast in small details b/c its MTF falloff is much more sharp than film's gradual MTF drop-off as you near extinction resolutions (in my understanding).

The detail in the moss looks pretty good, not 20MP worth but not at all bad.

</blockquote>

OK, thanks for the opinion. I would also agree that it doesn't quite look like 20MP throughout the frame; however, some parts, like the rocks+moss, do look about as pixel-sharp as the 5D Mark II images I linked to. So it's up in the air. Your opinion is registered though :)

I really don't understand why dedicated film shooters who care about making large prints would mess around with 35mm.

</blockquote>

Because:

<ul>

<li>I've been shooting with it since I was kid... for the past 12 years. I have a lot of precious shots. I want them scanned, and some of 'em enlarged. Back in the day, 35mm was still state-of-the-art for what was affordable to me & my family at the time!</li>

<li>I don't really print larger than 13x19, on my Epson R2400. For a well scanned, cleaned, and sharpened 35mm frame, it really is quite impressive.</li>

<li>The versatility of Canon L-series lenses & 35mm bodies is unparalleled, save for by the same L-series lenses and their full-frame digital bodies. I have a 17mm-280mm zoom range, with graduated neutral density adapters, polarizer, etc. that all fit in a small backpack that I can whip out and place on my Gitzo tripod in a matter of seconds. And it all doesn't weight my small 130 pound frame down all too much, so I can hike with other gear or just actually enjoy my hike. You can't get that versatility with MF (of course, you could crop instead of zoom, but that's another story).</li>

<li>Investing in 35mm equipment, e.g. lenses and all, will allow me to step up to full-frame digital very easily. Which I plan to do very soon :)</li>

</ul>

-Rishi

rishij · March 20, 2009

Also, as you can see, with the long exposure required to get the water-blur effect, I already have tons of leaves/branches blurred. Imagine taking a bunch of 30 second shots to stitch together, with those blurred elements. Stitching software would be hella confused, not to mention the time for all those shots at 30 seconds each. And, like I said before, sometimes nature (on the verge of changing light) doesn't give you all that time in the world :)

That being said, sure, I wish I'd invested in MF a long time ago!

-Rishi

debejyo · March 20, 2009

From the amount of cropping I have done from medium format, a 6x6 exposure can give somewhere close to 50MP resolution straight. In the current technology, you would need a 150MP sensor to do that. As far as larger formats are concerned, do the maths. I admit some films may have higher grains and all that stuff, but common... get the point here? Good luck fighting...

swilson · March 20, 2009

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2381463">Rishi Sanyal</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/2rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 20, 2009; 02:42 a.m.

That being said, sure, I wish I'd invested in MF a long time ago!

</blockquote>

You and me both. When I was shooting film, for many years, I mainly shot slides since I could not affort large prints ( it seems they cost a lot more 30 years ago)

There was no way I could afford a good MF slide projector, so I stuck with 35mm, or went too 35mm I should say since the camera I had as a kid was a cheap TLR 645.

For most of my film shooting days there was no thought of scanning, what could you do with 20-40 mbytes of image data when a 5 mbyte harddrive was running around $5,000.

But now I have all these photo from 35mm that I know could have looked far better if I had used MF. For me it is not some much about the extra detail in MF as it is the out clean of an image MF can deliver compared to MF.

Oh and if I had it to do over I would not have shot anything by kodachrome.

swilson · March 20, 2009

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=2399881">Debejyo Chakraborty</a> <a href="http://www.photo.net/member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub3.gif" alt="" /></a>, Mar 20, 2009; 02:45 a.m.

From the amount of cropping I have done from medium format, a 6x6 exposure can give somewhere close to 50MP resolution straight. In the current technology, you would need a 150MP sensor to do that. As far as larger formats are concerned, do the maths. I admit some films may have higher grains and all that stuff, but common... get the point here? Good luck fighting...

</blockquote>

I see 50MP for 6x6 and the alarm bells go off, sounds like you are scanning at 3200ppi, which sure sounds like a flatbed scanner to me. Go luck getting those 50MP to be sharp.

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Poor scans - May explain why some switch to Digital

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