Film vs Digital: How much cleaner is it ?

[doug_williams4]

<p>I think the most important thing is to find the right combination of camera, scanner and printer. You should think about just how large you want to print or how much you want or need to crop. I just got a new CanoScan 8800F and Canon MP 990 printer. They were reasonably priced and I am able to make excellent 8 1/2 X 11 prints. I tested the scanner to see just how large I could go and found out that with 120 film I could make good quality prints to about 30" X 30". The negative was not that well exposed (but that was part of the test) and I just used Photoshop Elements 6 to process. There was some noise and it was not as sharp as other prints I made with an enlarger. For me this works well as I don't need to print really large prints all the time. When considering the cost and my 4/3 size sensor the results are excellent and the Canon equipment works well together. </p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p><em>but I can shoot my Hasselblad 500CM with Kodak Ektar 100 loaded in an A-16 back, scan the negatives at 4000 ppi in my Nikon Super Coolscan LS-800 ED and absolutely <strong>blow the doors off </strong>anything digital has to offer...</em></p>

<p>That's a mighty bold statement, Pilgrim. The comparison I posted was between Ektar 100 shot with an Hasselblad and a Nikon D2x, with a modest edge in favor of the digital camera. I didn't have my D3 at the time, or the doors would be "blowing" in the opposite direction.</p>

<p>What can be said is that you can plunk down $500 for an Hasselblad 500cm and $2000 for a Nikon scanner and do about as well as you could with a $5000 dslr, with money left over. You trade off consistency and a lot of time spent scanning. When you're young with few commitments, time doesn't mean as much and you place little value on consistency.</p>

[dan_south]

<blockquote>

<p>But really, who in their right mind cares if your latest, greatest digital wonders are somehow, someway, <em>superior</em> or not? ...What in the world are you doing with the <em>end results</em> that anyone but some kind of fanatic would ever notice?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The photographer might care and might have different requirements than you do.</p>

<p>The client might care, e.g. a clothing manufacturer that needs to make large blow-ups of models wearing their outfits for display in department stores. That's hardly "fanatical" or not in one's "right mind." Photographers get paid to make these kinds of images all the time.</p>

[jens_g.r._benthien]

<p>Back to the original question. IMHO digital is too clean, and the clean, 'ironed and filtered' images skip many details. Digital lacks soul, emotion. The human eye is analog and made to resolve the chaotic structures in nature, that means when it will be confronted with mathematically defined sources/images it can't resolve the fine details.</p>

<p>Before I repeat myself here, just check this for a reading:</p>

<p><a href="http://toyotadesigner.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/resolution-resolving-power-of-film/">part 1</a><br>

<a href="http://toyotadesigner.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/resolution-resolving-power-of-film-part-ii/">part 2</a><br>

<a href="http://toyotadesigner.wordpress.com/category/photography/color-farbe/">part 3</a><br>

(comparing digital and analog color depth, English version at the bottom)</p>

<p>Besides all theory it depends - as some others already noted - on your personal experience, your feelings, etc. Just clearly define your goal, rent the systems that might deliver the results you want, conduct a test run and decide yourself if you want film or digital. Anything else is the 'exchange of hot air' which will not serve your individual purpose.</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Take a look in this thread<br>

http://www.photo.net/casual-conversations-forum/00XgR4<br>

at Les' scan of a cat compared to the sony a900 shot. I'm not seeing the digital blowing away the the 35mm like like I would have expected. I would expect medium format to do even better.</p>

<p>I know that alot of people feel that 12mp digital is better than medium format film and many have seen results that suggest that this could be true. For a long time I certainly felt that somewhere between 6-12 mp digital was superior to 35mm film but when I see the some of the 35mm scans the Les and Mauro have posted I am not so sure any more.</p>

<p>With medium format I am just not getting it. I have looked at Edwards results and the D2x looks pretty good but why is it so close to the medium format scan. Could it been that most subjects just don't demand much more than 12mp to record the detail they have to offer or is there something else happening.</p>

[jeff_z.]

<p>My apologies Dan. That was too harsh and I really did not intend to direct my comment to you, personally. I am not involved in commercial photography as you described.</p>

<p>Still, I have to wonder about any perceived quality improvement of digital capture over medium or large format film photography in these mostly very large images that you describe. I lean much more towards finding the overall appearance of film derived images (well scanned, processed, and printed, and very often, even on screen), to be much more to my liking in "normal" sized enlargements. Although I shoot only 35mm for now, it doesn't seem too much a stretch to extrapolate this preference to the commensurate size advantages of the larger formats.</p>

<p> </p>

[jeff_z.]

<p>jens, Thank you for the very interesting post!</p>

[scott_murphy_photography]

<blockquote>

<p>Scott, I admire your passion, but we don't need to turn this discussion into another film versus digital frenzy.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Did I miss something here? The very title of this post is <em>"<strong>Film vs. Digital</strong>: How much cleaner is it?" </em>and the gist of the post is a comparison between the two. This is <em>precisely</em> a film vs. digital discussion. As for the frenzy part, well that's all in the interpretation.</p>

[doug_williams4]

<p>Edward,<br>

That also works when you are old and doing this just for yourself.<br>

Doug</p>

<p> </p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>It's still quite strange though why medium format is not doing very well for some people yet for others as with Les' cat example 35mm seems to be comparing very well to a Sony a900. There has to be a little more to this.</p>

[johnw63]

<p>Hang on there, Guys. Since I am the OP, I would like to not have the thread become JUST a film vs digital debate.</p>

<p>As I have tried to explain, is that I needed to points of reference to understand the noise levels , from 100% zoomed close-ups, from digital cameras. In a nut shell, if I see a given amount of noise on one of these zoomed in shots, how will that show up in enlargements ?</p>

<p>Here is the original link which spawned my questions:</p>

<p>http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos60d/page19.asp</p>

<p>If you're like me, and you haven't been pixel peeping since DSLRs came out, it's hard to tell how good or bad these noise shots are. Going back to enlargements as a reference point was what I needed.</p>

<p>The reason the topic is as simple ( and controversial, I guess ) is that I originally posted in the Wedding forum, since I thought they do a lot of printing and enlargements and would have a good feel for the improvements over the years. It got moved to here, and now it comes off like the age old debate.</p>

<p> </p>

[museebfoto]

<p dir="ltr">Indeed, few years go the problem is with the dynamic rage of the digital sensors. The nonlinear characteristic of the films due to the presence of toe and shoulder make the dynamic rage of films more superior compared to the digital sensors. Now, this problem has been largely overcame.</p>

<p dir="ltr">So in case of availability of a good technical level of lab. processing and printing for the films, and the time is not critical, then don’t worry, I think digital and films are the same just like Pepsi Cola and Coca Cola. Otherwise, digital is the salvation.</p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>Hang on there, Guys. Since I am the OP, I would like to not have the thread become JUST a film vs digital debate.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Unfortunately it's not in your control. All threads eventually turn into film vs. digital debates!</p>

<p>Also, you did include the words 'film vs digital' in the title.</p>

[dan_south]

> Also, you did include the words 'film vs digital' in the title.

 

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who enjoyed this tiny bit of irony. ;-)

 

Perhaps "Questions about noise in digital photos" might have been more accurate and less inflammatory.

[dan_south]

>I thought they do a lot of printing and enlargements

 

John, this is a salient point. What we used to call enlargements (8x10, 11x14) are now reductions for most digital

cameras.

[dan_south]

Scott, if you "missed something" it was that the OP asked about the impact of digital noise on prints and enlargements,

not a comparison of ability to capture detail, which is another matter entirely.

 

Jens, cameras and other machines don't have souls. Nor do computers or darkrooms. It's up to the photographer to add

that ingredient.

[Ed_Ingold]

<p><em>In a nut shell, if I see a given amount of noise on one of these zoomed in shots, how will that show up in enlargements ?</em></p>

<p>If you want to see the results in print, take any of the examples with a 100% crop panel and print it at 300 ppi. You will be pleasantly surprised. These examples are exceedingly picky, like looking at a print with a loupe.</p>

<p>I have attached full-sized image which is about as bad as it gets with regard to noise. It was shot with a D2h at ISO 200, at f/11 for 30 seconds. There is a lot of polluted night sky, which tends to show noise at its worst (medium luminance, large, flat area). There are also deep shadows. The D2h gets really ugly at ISO 400 and above, which I was loathe to use, so I don't have any examples close at hand. Do some pixel peeping on this and try printing it.</p><div></div>

[doug_williams4]

<p>Just one question, if we have to reduce the size of our files to place them on photo.net how does this effect a print taken from this file? Is this an accurate way to judge eventual print quality if you are printing such a small file? The example I referred to above was a 30X30 print taken from a 52mb file. If I printed the same picture from the reduced file needed to post the result would also be different, correct?</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>If a 6000000x4000000 (24mp) whole image file is reduce to 600x400 pixels whole image for web upload then you won't really really be able to print it at any sensible size becasue the image is just too small.</p>

<p>If someone had instead cropped the center 600x400 pixels from the 24mp file then you could print that section of the file on a printer at 300ppi and get an idea of the print quality but you would only have a tiny piece of the whole image and it may be difficult to judge how the finished print may look as you would be viewing the tiny piece out of context.</p>

<p>The image the Edward has uploaded above (Navy Pier Chicago) could be printed as it is the whole full size image from a D2h (4mp).</p>

<p>How big could we print Edwards image and still get a nice looking print. I would guess around 8x10. What do think Edward.</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>With Edwards picture if we print it at 8x10 (8x12) inches we would have 200ppi and that would make a nice print to put in a frame and hang on the wall.</p>

[marc_bergman1]

<blockquote>If a 6000000x4000000 (24mp) whole image file</blockquote>

<p>Isn't a 24mp file 6000x4000.</p>

<p>They way some people sling around figures makes me unsure of myself sometimes. ;<)</p>

<p> </p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Yeah it is Mark I was thinking 24 million pixels and ended up typing 6 million x 4 million. Funny I thought something didn't look right while I was typing it.</p>

[dan_south]

> 6000000x4000000 (24mp)

 

Wow! That's 24 TRILLION pixels. (Trillion with a T). Imagine a 24 TERA pixel camera! ;-)

 

Good luck finding a lens to resolve that level of detail or a computer with enough RAM to open the file.

 

:-D

[johnw63]

<p>Edward,<br>

What ISO could I use to get that level of noise, on a current camera ? Now that I know what A DX2 at ISO 200 looks like.</p>

<p> </p>

[johnw63]

<p>And ... how much does having a really good lens, like that 17-35mm f2.8 factor in ?</p>

<p> </p>