Very interesting Digital/Film comparison

[melvin_bramley]

I am not a digital camera user,that said I am quite impressed by the

results shown at www.borutfurlan.com/test_nikon_fuji_en.html

This is a series of tests comparing a D100 & Fuji slide film.The

absolute quality came from drum scanned Fuji film but I cannot

believe the difference between the D100 & film/photo enlarger made

prints.Can anyone with experience offer any comments on this

site/test?? Does it represent what others have found?

[leslie_cheung]

Don't know which is sharper but I like the looks of the

velvia better especially from the fullframe shot on

the "material page." The velvia shots looks smoother,

the hue looks richer and acourse the highlight is not blown.

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

very good made comparison. although the author wrote that no images are sharpened, i think i can see that the drumscanns have had some sharpening in the scanning process, i suppose it happened in the scanning software, which is often the case as the default scanning setting. i own also a drum scanner, the results are clearly superior and sharper than any ccd scanner, but the drumscanns here look sharpened.

anyway- the tendency is clear and good made. but you have to be conscient that this results are for velvia film, for every negative film or for every slide film over iso 100 the results would have been clear in favour of the digital capture.

the velvia drumscanned 35mm slides are the onliest emulsion which can hold up a comparation to my fuji S2. and my kodak 14n blows it away in any case, i suppose the 1ds would do also...... i made exactly the same comparation before i sold (nearly) all my leica 35mm equipement. now i shoot digitally, except if i use 4x5" or 6x17cm cameras.

[scott_eaton]

<I>the hue looks richer and acourse the highlight is not blown.</i><P>The highights are *slaughtered* in the final slide print, so what exactly are you looking at? You could also adjust the hues, saturation and contrast in the digital capture with a quick tweak in Photoshop or the camera controls.<P>There's no surprises here. With a top notch drum scan the Velvia slide captures more information than the 6mp digital sensor. The problem is, you can't do anything with that extra information, and the direct print from slide is nearly worthless. If you want a visual reference as a reason to get digital prints over Ciba/Ilfochromes, here's an exellent example.<P>In defense of the Nikon scanner, I'm guessing he removed the slide from the mount for the drum scan, but not the desktop scanner. The Nikon scan should be better than that.

[leslie_cheung]

>>>The highights are *slaughtered* in the final slide print, so

what exactly are you looking at?<<<

 

fullframe under "material" page. You're right the highlight is

slaughtered but the slide wasn't, only the print. Does that mean

we have a bad printer? I have nothing against digital but in this

referenced test, the velvia looks better to ME.

[scott_eaton]

The final print is the final goal I'd say, most photographers. Who cares how the raw scan of the slide looks then if you can't do anything with it. If you goal is to post images to the web, then slide film makes even less sense. A film scanner *is* a digital camera, but simply one designed to take pictures of film.

 

If you're too lazy to adjust the hue/saturation of a digital image and then complaing about it, you need to take up another hobby.

[melvin_bramley]

SCOTT, I appreciate the differnece in dynamic range;but the difference in detail is what impressed me & prompted my original question.Also the comment that digital has something that even a Schneider Companon does not!!

[mesasone]

People are intent on beating this issue into the ground.

 

These are very inconclusive resaults, I must say. Using just one image does not really tell you much, other than how digital and film perform in those specific conditions. While his conclusion has been proven(by countless others), he by no means proved it himself using one image.

[kwan_cheung1]

I wonder if such comparison is valid, given that D100 has this 1.5x copping factor. I feel the comparison is more appropriately labelled as a pixel to pixel comparison.

 

Clearly, given that with films, image has to be recorded on film first, and each film has its characteristics. Then being scanned. A certain amount of fidelity is lost, compared to the direct recording onto CCD. Therefore, I'll not surprised of that D100 yields higher fidelity pixels.

 

However, F100 can record the entire frame, while D100 has the 1.5x factor. So, this factor should be considered in the comparison. Here is what I will do, have F100 mounted a particular lens, and D100 a lens with focal length equals to that mounted on F100 divided by 1.5. A 2x zoom lens will fit this requirement.

 

And is that what people are practically doing now? Crying loud to manufacturers to yield products such as 12-24mm zoom (after 1.5x, 18-36mm) as the cropping factor hinders the wide angle coverage. In that end, we are talking further $ to invest.

 

Before full-frame DSLR are becoming affordable to average consumers, most will still rely on scanners to scan full frame films instead of buying expensive 12-24mm zoom try to fit what a 20mm wide angle view to a 1.5x CCD's.

[franklin_li]

I wonder what we are comparing here. If all we want is viewing the photo from our monitor, DSLR is the way to go. Drum Scan yield better result but way too expensive for average consumer. And Comparing to the image from enlarger made print (scanned with flatbed scanner) is not really a fair comparision, since flatbed scanner has much lower dynamic range and resolution. Most of us will probably print a few of those "WOW" pictures once in a while. Then I don't think print from DSLR can beat the enlarger made print from Valvia, at lease not yet.

[steve_bingham]

Simply put, inconclusive reaults. The DSLR produced noticably better prints using the Epson 9600 than Velvia with an enlarger. The drum scanned had some sharpening, however the DSLR was in GREAT need of optomization - a very necessary step with DSLR images. Something a LOT of testers neglect. We are also missing DSLR information. Was this shot in raw? What software was used for conversion to tiff.

 

My Fuji S2 produces superior images over my Velvia every time - using raw and Fuji EX conversion.