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Film vs digital: is digital as good as film

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Cheers,

Sander Meurs
------------------------------------------------------------------



artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
 
Ed Leys20479 said:
To my eye, digitally originated photography tends to flatten depth,
curved surfaces get flattened against the screen; in contrast, film
originated images tend to show more modeling and
"three-dimensionality". If I cannot precisely explain why this
happens, happens it does. Film photographs look like they were
taken of real physical objects and surfaces in front of the
camera--they have a palpability. Too often digital camera
photographs look like they were taken of something flat...like a
photograph of a poster or of wall paper--if they have substance, it
is a thin substance.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I've heard others comment on something similar but in my experience I tend to think it's images from digital that look more realistic (btw, I'm comparing 35mm film to DSLR - 4x5" film of course would blow the doors off DSLR at this point in time). But that more realistic look I acquaint to having a clearer view through to the subject... there's more directness, like your dining room window has been replaced with optical class and cleaned. But then I thought about your point some more and thought back to some of my work with the DSLR, and I think you are seeing something, but I don't believe it's particularly born just because the capture is digital. My thought is that most people, when they photograph digitally and post process their images aren't really taking into account trying to GET that dimensionality through the post process. A few years ago I spent a lot of time poring through Dan Margulis' great (and complicated) book "Photoshop 6, the classic guide to color correction" and paid a lot of attention to his curve work and channel blending tended to bring a lot of life into pictures that were otherwise "decent", but not spectacular. I went back to one of my scanned film images which was "decent" but a little "2D" looking, and applied a lot of his ideas... keep in mind that this print was already portfolio grade by many accounts and wasn't weak technically. I can't remember everything I did (it was 2 years ago), but I remember making a move in CMYK on a duplicate image for a certain part of the image and then doing a convert to RGB and blending the part I enhanced with the CMYK move into the original "all RGB" image (w/ a layer mask of course) and then did further curve tweaks and the end result blew away my original print. The dimensionality was back, and the print 'snapped'. Okay, so this was with scanned film (on a Coolscan 4000, a reasonably decent but not drum-grade scanner) -- Then I started thinking a while back when I did some portfolio printing for myself from work shot mostly with a D100 and also with my more recent D70, and I remember that a lot of the time, once I got the basic corrections down, I spent doing curve and 'selective color' work as well as local contrast enhancement with USM to 'shape' the image - I was essentially doing post process to get that dimensionality, but until you mentioned this in your post I didn't put the two together.

Am I right? Who knows. With good post process, I do believe digital is at least as good in most every respect as 35mm film, better in a lot of ways except fine highlight detail, and can be very dimensional and real looking. I think to the work I see from Bjorn Roslett, taken with digital gear, and it's some of the nicest nature work I've ever seen and to my eyes, is most certainly realistic and 3D looking.

I don't write this at all to challenge or "flame" your post process skills or your opinion at all - I'm just passing along what I've seen in my own work (which is mostly people, but occasionally some landscape) and how I've had to work in the post process to get that dimensionality back into the image. And you're right - as shot, the images from the camera often do have a 'flatness' to them that you speak of. I'm just curious if the issue maybe isn't "because" it's digital, but rather, how it's handled by the photographer.

Just my long winded nickels worth of thoughts... comments welcome.

-m
 
Ed,

Fabulous work in your galleries. Hard to pick a favorite, but this one I think is outstanding: cls62b.jpg. Having grown up in Northern Cal, it was all the more satisfying walking thru each of your images. Congratulations!

Tom Marshall
 
my local photo lab now scans and digitally prints the images. The optical proceesing is gone.

From reading the posts, the "film effect" may be lost anyway.

However, for the $275 price, I may buy yhe N75 film camera and do some of my own comparison.

Thanks so much for the feed back.

PS In the smokies, rockies, CA & WI, I shot film and coolpix digital. I just do not want to spend $$ on travel and not be satisfied with DSLR results.
 
My feeling is that 6 MP DSLR matches 35 mm film for most applications and 12 MP significantly outperforms it.

I agree, 35 mm scanned by good technician using 4000 DPI drum scanner will give 24 MP file - I made few comparison shots. Technicallly this is real resolution - I did see line pattern on distant building which had nearly 2000 LPI frequency on the film.

HOWEVER - grain pattern dilutes minute details and even though similar shot with 6 MP D70 does not show that test line pattern, it LOOKS sharper. When you zoom in so that resolution of digital camera becomes sufficient for that line pattern it jumps at you clear and clean - instead of murky "may be it is here" of the film. Much better signal to noise ratio of the digital just shows.

There were posts on PRO DIGITAL forum of this site that were insisting that resolution requirements for high quality print using digital capture are nearly twice less strict then those for the film. That is, with some careful postprocessing you can print with enlargements wich correspond to 100 DPI of original digital image versus 200 DPI of the scanned film.

I won't be surprised that for many applications 11-16 MP DSLR cameras match medium format - and I did give Hasselblad some significant try...

So - I would consider 35 film only for:

1) Some specific artistic merits like B&W (or like Velvia versus Portra) - though can be acieved in PP

2) 3 month hiking in Tanzania (lions hate spitting silicon chips).

3) May be handling of rangefinders like Leika - nor yet available in digital...
Markbk said:
I have gone all digital and now I am wondering, is digital as good
as film? I know I have gotten some stunning photos in film. I
have used digital in as much variety yet.

Will the digital yield the high quality that film does?

This is an honesty question as I am considering getting an N75 and
a 28-105 lens to shot film along side of digital. IS this a waste
of money? Digital is so much easier and there is no film to deal
with.
Click to expand...
--
Sergey
 
I suspect this is why you see a difference. Don't expect the image quality of a Coolpix to match a DSLR.

Can you tell which images in my gallery are from film and which from a D100?

Robin
http://www.robincasady.com
Markbk said:
PS In the smokies, rockies, CA & WI, I shot film and coolpix
digital. I just do not want to spend $$ on travel and not be
satisfied with DSLR results.
Click to expand...
 
Compared to the EOS 1D -II series cameras and the recent D2X, 35mm film (slide or print) is gone. As simple as that.

Speak of the D2X, in another thread ( http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=12755001 ) I merely questioned its worth of $5000 for oridinary mortals such as myself, for the extra benefits over the D1X and D70. The overwhelming number of responses was so amusing, I didn't wan't to interrupt with any responses of my own. One poster from Florida , whose last name is similar to that of a Democratic Congressman from Missouri who ran for President in '04, kept insinuating over and over again that $5000 to him was like $100 to most people, and that I must be "full with JealousLy". Clearly he didn't read clause # 2 of my post.

Anyway back to F vs D, IMO and IMO alone, any of the above three cameras , and also probably the 20D will easily trounce 35mm film. However Large Format film is another matter..its simply in a different league. Its so far ahead that digital won't be able to touch it for say another 5 - 10 years.

I print LF scans made on a cheapo flatbed (Canon 9950F)

with my Epson 1280 @ 480dpi . Thats a res and quality that no $10,000 or $20,000 digital camera can touch. Ignore me, read why such a famous publication like Arizona Highways won't accept digital images (images from digital cameras)

http://www.arizonahighways.com/page.cfm?name=Photo_Talk803
Markbk said:
I have gone all digital and now I am wondering, is digital as good
as film? I know I have gotten some stunning photos in film. I
have used digital in as much variety yet.

Will the digital yield the high quality that film does?

This is an honesty question as I am considering getting an N75 and
a 28-105 lens to shot film along side of digital. IS this a waste
of money? Digital is so much easier and there is no film to deal
with.
Click to expand...
 
http://www.arizonahighways.com/page.cfm?name=Photo_Talk803&page=2

Quoting page 2 :

"One last thought on the film vs. digital debate: If you’re planning to switch to a digital camera soon, don’t give up on film just yet. Remember always to back up your digital photographs on film. Even if you have already made the move to digital, consider that today’s best cameras record digital files at a little more than 11 megapixels. But what if, in the near future, the standard moves up to 20 megapixels or higher? If you have backup on film, you can scan your images at a higher resolution. But will your old 11-megapixel files be convertible? We don’t know for sure."

Huh? He is implying that by placing your 11mp image on film, you can scan them later at a higher resolution. Now, I have read about guys going from digital to film to make contact prints, but I don't see the logic to the above.
 
Markbk said:
I have gone all digital and now I am wondering, is digital as good
as film? I know I have gotten some stunning photos in film. I
have used digital in as much variety yet.

Will the digital yield the high quality that film does?

This is an honesty question as I am considering getting an N75 and
a 28-105 lens to shot film along side of digital. IS this a waste
of money? Digital is so much easier and there is no film to deal
with.
Click to expand...
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/d30/d30_vs_film.shtml

= Dan =
 
SeanU wrote:
[snip]
SeanU said:
Huh? He is implying that by placing your 11mp image on film, you
can scan them later at a higher resolution. Now, I have read about
guys going from digital to film to make contact prints, but I don't
see the logic to the above.
Click to expand...
Sean,

That is because you do not understand what he is saying. In the world of photography, for a long time "to back up a photograph" has meant to take more than a single photograph. Only when the world of computers stepped in did it mean to make another digital copy of an original.

What he is saying is that if you take a digital photograph you like, take a film photograph at the same time. That way you can better expoit the film version in the future when better technology comes to pass. The digital camera photograph is frozen in time.

My best,

Ed

--
http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/
California Light and Structure

http://www.blackmallard.com/o_barn/
One Barn
 
This question was discussed to death for example here:

( http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=8131738 ).

The consensus was that ARIZONA HIGHWAYS (by the way this regional journal does not pay contributing photographers) just tries to preserve it's workflow and save existing jobs (or job :). For such quality as thay have it is absolutely possible to make double spreads from 11-16 MP files.

However if you print huge you might need large format anyway. I have seen approximately 4 by 5 feet print in PHOTOCRAFT in Boulder made from 8 x 10 inches - spectacular!

But I guess by the time I master photography enough to need such prints I will simply buy 120 MP Nikon D5x (that is if I won't switch for 160 MP 1Ds Mark V before :)
DoubleGauss said:
Speak of the D2X, in another thread

( http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=12755001 ) I merely questioned its worth of $5000 for oridinary mortals such as myself, for the extra benefits over the D1X and D70. The overwhelming number of responses was so amusing, I didn't wan't to interrupt with any responses of my own. One poster from Florida , whose last name is similar to that of a Democratic Congressman from Missouri who ran for President in '04, kept insinuating over and over again that $5000 to him was like $100 to most people, and that I must be "full with JealousLy". Clearly he didn't read clause # 2 of my post.

Anyway back to F vs D, IMO and IMO alone, any of the above three
cameras , and also probably the 20D will easily trounce 35mm film.
However Large Format film is another matter..its simply in a
different league. Its so far ahead that digital won't be able to
touch it for say another 5 - 10 years.

I print LF scans made on a cheapo flatbed (Canon 9950F)
with my Epson 1280 @ 480dpi . Thats a res and quality that no
$10,000 or $20,000 digital camera can touch. Ignore me, read why
such a famous publication like Arizona Highways won't accept
digital images (images from digital cameras)

http://www.arizonahighways.com/page.cfm?name=Photo_Talk803
Markbk said:
I have gone all digital and now I am wondering, is digital as good
as film? I know I have gotten some stunning photos in film. I
have used digital in as much variety yet.

Will the digital yield the high quality that film does?

This is an honesty question as I am considering getting an N75 and
a 28-105 lens to shot film along side of digital. IS this a waste
of money? Digital is so much easier and there is no film to deal
with.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Sergey
 
Michael Worley said:
. . . I've always enjoyed that gallery and I've read other people's
speculation about why your images "felt" different. This is a good
insight. And interesting to know that it survived transferring to
the web.

One of my favorite images in that series is probably the least
pretty or illustrative of what you're talking about here. But it's
the historic site plaque on the busy street. I've wondered often
if anything else could have possibly been included in the image to
juxtapose it with the now-gone historic place memorialized by this
solitary palque. A priceless image.

Mike
Click to expand...
Mike,

Very cool. That particular photograph is one I like quite a bit, but you are the first person other than myself to surface an appreciation for it. Thank you.

Though it doesn't seem to get the respect I think it should, it did nothing wrong and deserves to be let out of the corner! ...And it is very much a California landscape.

Best regards,

Ed

--
http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/
California Light and Structure

http://www.blackmallard.com/o_barn/
One Barn
 
Paul, I haven't seen your skin shots, but a client and I processed one heck of a lot of pretty spectacular skin yesterday (a fair amount of it where the sun doesn't normally shine) and I have to tell you the D2x did a spectacular job. All you have to do is have a reasonable idea as to what you are doing in the processing department...

No offense intended. Believe me.

Ron
Paul_U said:
Thom Hogan said:
Paul_U said:
Frankly I would pause with comments about S3 colors.
Click to expand...
Fujifilm rarely produces "neutral" color; not in their films (Astia
notwithstanding), not in the DSLRs. You either like the color
saturation shifts or you don't. Most people do because they
increase apparent contrast and tend towards the warmth and punch
that most people respond to.
Click to expand...
Well, to some degree saturation of most common emulsions is a thing
in itself and frankly if digital companies would listen to
photographers we probably would have settings for Provia, Astia,
Velvia as well as Kodak and Agfa emulsions long time ago.

But from what I saw in reviews S3 saturation doe snot match S2
saturation.
It would be nice to test it somehow later when this camera will be
readily available in most retail photo stores.
Paul_U said:
Paul_U said:
I think the real dilemma will come next year between (if it's gonna
happen) S4 and D200. Or may be D2x if something will clear out
about its skin tones.
Click to expand...
I have no idea what you're talking about here. I think you need to
weed out the photographer's choices from the camera's abilities if
you're going by posted pictures.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately at the current moment of time posted pictures are the
only source of information. I got a feeling that most of posted
D2x skin tones had a tendency to bring a bit more cyan than I like,
somewhat like 1Ds way. At least it looks different from 1Ds2 I had
a chance to try. May be as soon as I will have a chance to get my
hands on D2x and try it in a studio under my strobes and custom WB
set properly on a camera I will change my opinion but so long so
far the only shots I saw were ones posted here.

--
Best regards from UPVStudio Photography
Click to expand...
--
Ron Reznick
http://digital-images.net
http://trapagon.com
 
Dioni said:
Hi Ed,

First, let me say I like your gallery. I like the pictures, many
of them. But I do not understand your reasons to like film over
digital because it looses depth, shape, volume. You're saying that
when an image of a 3D object is taken with a digital camera it
"flattens". But then you show a (great) gallery of images digitized
from "flat" film to show how they keep the volume, how they look
more like taken from real objects than those taken with a digital
camera.

My point is that in the end, everything we show here is digitized,
either from real objects through a sensor or from film "impressed"
from real objects through a scanner. I do not think your point can
be defenced through this "digital" medium, although I think it
could watching real prints.

Best,
Dioni
Click to expand...
Dioni,

I read your correction, and placed it in the text above.

And thank you for the comment on my gallery.

No, it is not quite the act of digitizing alone that flattens photographs, even though it might be argued that digitizing does diminish whatever it touches...grin.

The thing is that scanning film does reduce resolution, increases the effect of grain (through "grain aliasing"), and will reduce the color space of the film original, but it can still leave intact much of the film's translation from reality. I really believe a digital camera should be able to do that also, but the digital camera engineers seem to be going in a different direction. The Fuji S3 is in some senses a step in the right direction (not because of its improved dynamic range, but because of how that range is mapped onto a file), but even it suffers miserably at times. Currently, there is a black and white photograph in the Fuji DSLR forum, a snow scene of a dog in front of some foggy trees, that is quite nice, but at the same time it is the flattest looking image I may ever have seen! It looks to me like the dog is a cardboard cutout and should be throwing a sharp-edged shadow on a nearby painted tree backdrop. Yes, the lighting is flat, but that is not suffiicient to explain the effect.

I won't argue that an optical print is better than an inkjet printed scan. I used to print my own Cibachromes, but I have also had my matted and framed Epson 2200 prints of scans in gallery exhibition. The Epson pirnts cannot touch the Cibas in many ways, but the Epson printed scans still have a much more dimensional feel than Epson prints made from DSLR images. (Yes, I have done both.)

Best regards,

Ed

--
http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/
California Light and Structure

http://www.blackmallard.com/o_barn/
One Barn
 
Tom Marshall said:
Ed,

Fabulous work in your galleries. Hard to pick a favorite, but this
one I think is outstanding: cls62b.jpg. Having grown up in
Northern Cal, it was all the more satisfying walking thru each of
your images. Congratulations!

Tom Marshall
Click to expand...
Tom,

Before I duck on out of here, let me offer my thanks.

I always appreciate comments on my photography...especially favorable ones!

The particular photograph you selected is one Petteri likes quite a bit as well. If you haven't already done so, find the link to his "pontifications" and read his essay on "Why (most) landscapes suck". It is well worth reading...and eventually you will stumble across a certain photograph of mine. :^)

Best regards,

Ed

--
http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/
California Light and Structure

http://www.blackmallard.com/o_barn/
One Barn
 
Go to a forum that is not so 'digital biased', but 'camera / image' BALANCED to get a fair answer. This is a heavy duty digital forum with some of us that shoot and enjoy film. To me, there is no depth (front to back) in digital. DOF is percieved in digital. I could go on and on about why I prefer film, but this has been hashed out here many times. I say get the N75.
--
Knox
http://www.avatarphotoart.com
http://alleycatphotos.com
http://www.pbase.com/streetkid
 
Ron Reznick said:
Paul, I haven't seen your skin shots, but a client and I processed
one heck of a lot of pretty spectacular skin yesterday (a fair
amount of it where the sun doesn't normally shine) and I have to
tell you the D2x did a spectacular job. All you have to do is have
a reasonable idea as to what you are doing in the processing
department...

No offense intended. Believe me.
Click to expand...
The point of correct color rendition is not to have to do any postprocessing other than basic sharpening and noise removal.

Anyway, I get a feeling that this thread is like a conversation between blind one and death one so I better stop.

--
Best regards from UPVStudio Photography
 
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