How about ISO(ASA) noise in the analogue days?

High ISO noise has a lot of attention today regarding DSLR cameras. This can especially be seen in all the debates around the 50D. But - what about high ISO on analogue 35mm film? This is a completely unknown territory to me since I've never been into analogue SLR shooting before. How does 800/1600/3200+ (if exist) films compete with similar DSLR ISO settings?

AmateurX said:

High ISO noise has a lot of attention today regarding DSLR cameras.
This can especially be seen in all the debates around the 50D. But -
what about high ISO on analogue 35mm film? This is a completely
unknown territory to me since I've never been into analogue SLR
shooting before. How does 800/1600/3200+ (if exist) films compete
with similar DSLR ISO settings?

Click to expand...

--The only ISO 3200 colour film I know of was Konika & it was real garbage compared to even the worst DSLR available today. (starts with an O). 800 film (Fuji superia was good & fuji 1600 was usable but none can compare to digital.
Brian Schneider

ASA-400 was pretty bad from the standpoint of grain, much worse than the most noisy P&S you can find today at ISO-200. My old Minolta 7i, which was a pretty good P&S in its day was noticeably better than any ASA-400 film I shot.

Note, I had a darkroom and made a lot of 8x10 prints; my comments above are based this print size.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT

Yeah, I know what you mean...In the 90's, I used to shoot Extapress 800 pushed/processed @ ISO 3200. Yeah, the grain was pretty intense, but the 11x14 printed images produced were very good. Although I LOVE digital, I think pixel peeping has been a detriment to photography.

Omar
--
I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now - Bob Dylan

pixel peeping didn't exist it's hard to imagine DSLRs would be where they are today (i.e. way ahead of film).

In general, most of the heavy duty pixel peepers on these forums seem to be very serious about their photography and they also have very good galleries.

You may disagree with me but IMO, if alive today, Ansel Adams would have been the ultimate pixel peeper and gear head. At the age of 9 or 10 my camera of choice was a Brownie Hawkeye while Ansel Adams was shooting an 8x10 ... why ... because equipment does matter and Adams, one of the masters of light, film, print, and image, was fully aware of that fact.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT

I found this image at Wiki:

ISO 1600 film negative



Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_speed

It looks pretty noisy to me.

In the 80's Ilford had a film that you could push to 800 but the results weren't near as good as we get with some point and shoot cameras today. How soon we forget.

The fastest usable film was 400ASA, Ilford made 800ISo too (?) - some people pushed films up to 1600. Grains of BW film shot in ASA 1600 were visible in postcard size. But if you think grains look good...

To get really good BW image quality i overexposured TriX by 1-1,5 stop = 200ASA and had a special formula to ("under") develop films. Even A3 prints could look good from 35mm film if the process went well. And if not, the damage was irreparable

Now the biggest print i have made from a 40D image is 90cmx140cm - and the noise is practically invisible.

I really like this DSLR thing ! I even think that FF is not so necessary(for me) ! IQ is just so very good with this sensor size..

http://web.mac.com/karipenkkila/iWeb/CANON%2040D

--
Kari
SLR photography for 40 years
60°15´N 24°03´ E

J A K said:

pixel peeping didn't exist it's hard to imagine DSLRs would be where
they are today...
...most of the heavy duty pixel peepers on these forums seem
to be very serious about their photography...
You may disagree with me but IMO...
... because equipment does matter and Adams,
one of the masters of light, film, print, and image, was fully aware
of that fact.

Click to expand...

J A K said:

Joe Kurkjian

Click to expand...

Well Joe, maybe I was a little harsh...I wasn't condemning 'pixel-peeping' out-right. It certainly has it's place and can be used effectively. What I find disconcerning is that I mostly see 'pixel-peeping' being used detrimentally. I've read many, many posts stating that 20x30 inch printed images look great but when viewed on a computer...etc, etc....you know what mean. Then the innevitable brick wall/battery 'test' images are conducted. It seems to me IMHO that an ever increasing number of people are treating photography in terms of the meachanical abilities of the equipment without first perffecting the proper understanding & use of metering, light, and composition. I feel the ease to 'pixel-peep' has steered the emphasis of photography from an artistic craft to an equipment craft...and that is what I believe is detrimental.

Omar

--
I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now - Bob Dylan

omarlyn said:

J A K said:

pixel peeping didn't exist it's hard to imagine DSLRs would be where
they are today...
...most of the heavy duty pixel peepers on these forums seem
to be very serious about their photography...
You may disagree with me but IMO...
... because equipment does matter and Adams,
one of the masters of light, film, print, and image, was fully aware
of that fact.

Click to expand...

omarlyn said:

Joe Kurkjian

Click to expand...

Well Joe, maybe I was a little harsh...I wasn't condemning
'pixel-peeping' out-right. It certainly has it's place and can be
used effectively.

Click to expand...

LOL, you were not being harsh. I just wanted to throw in a different perspective on the table for consideration.

omarlyn said:

It seems to me IMHO
that an ever increasing number of people are treating photography in
terms of the meachanical abilities of the equipment without first
perffecting the proper understanding & use of metering, light, and
composition.

Click to expand...

Couldn't agree with you more except for the "ever increasing" part. There will always be a certain percentage of the population that thinks better gear will turn them into a better photographer; the difference "today" is that same group of people can look at monitors, make judgments, and engage in forum conversations; that was not possible way back when. In the old days folks didn't compare 44 inch posters ... typically all they had were 3.5x5 or 4x6 prints and nobody else was around to discuss/evaluate those little pictures.

omarlyn said:

I feel the ease to 'pixel-peep' has steered the
emphasis of photography from an artistic craft to an equipment
craft...and that is what I believe is detrimental.

Click to expand...

It's always been about equipment ... some have the ability to get the most out of their equipment. Some of this pixel peeping activity has actually been a positive experience for those folks not in love with their equipment. More than a few folks have actually learned a bit about DOF management ... some have learned "blown highlights" actually means be careful about the exposure setting ... when both the big picture and crops are presented some folks have learned a bit about composition.

The biggest problem (actually, it's a limitation) today is there are no prints to discuss. Everybody on this forum is looking through the looking glass of a monitor (talk about an "equipment craft" issue, this is the BIG ONE). Hopefully the entire forum crowd will begin to realize that good discussions over pictures are impossible without properly calibrating and profiling their monitors; this is definitely an "equipment thing" because some sort of hardware calibration for monitors is a necessity.

Omar, you have made a lot of good points and I fully respect your opinion and perspective.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT

J A K said:

The biggest problem (actually, it's a limitation) today is there are
no prints to discuss. Everybody on this forum is looking through the
looking glass of a monitor (talk about an "equipment craft" issue,
this is the BIG ONE). Hopefully the entire forum crowd will begin to
realize that good discussions over pictures are impossible without
properly calibrating and profiling their monitors; this is definitely
an "equipment thing" because some sort of hardware calibration for
monitors is a necessity.

Click to expand...

YES, I forgot about this issue...monitor calibration & understanding the difference between a reflected image (print) and a projected image (monitor)...VERY important!

J A K said:

Omar, you have made a lot of good points and I fully respect your
opinion and perspective.

Click to expand...

THANKS...& back at 'ya!

Omar
--
I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now - Bob Dylan

Unless people actually developed their own film and made their own prints, they're probably largely unaware of how much "grain peeping" went on back then.

I think people have an overly-romanticized vision of what analog photography was all about.

There was endless technical discussion and experimenting to try to achieve different results. We'd use different films, different exposure levels, different developer formulations, different temperatures, times, and even our own special methods of agitation to get the grain and tonal qualities we were after.

The way a film is exposed and processed will affect grain and what we'd now think of as "curves".

The type of light-source in the enlarger would affect the spectrum of light and thus affect how it penetrated the film and how it affected the sensitive emulsion on the print paper. Again, this was similar to curves or contrast adjustments.

The technical side of things was always there. Today's "pixel peeping" and endless discussions of how things work or should work in our cameras, and how various software works or should work are nothing new in photography.

The worst grain film I ever tried was Royal X at ASA 1000. Nasty stuff

Even Tri-X (ASA 400) shot and processed "normally" had visible grain in even an 8 X 10 print.

The noise, pixellation, banding, posterization, and other things we see in our DSLR images is different than film grain was, so it's not directly comparable.

But overall, I'd say that ISO for ISO, I get better images from today's DSLRs, even APS-C sized, than I ever got from that same speed of 35mm sized film.

In my experience, digital has now surpassed film in most ways.

Plus.... My hands don't stink when I'm done making a bunch of prints now ;-)

--
Jim H.

Let me weigh in as one still shooting analog (see my profile). First, unfortunately, I don't have time right now to do much of any kind of "real", as in creative, photography versus snapshots, so there's not much point in spending money on something that's going to sit in the closet. I peruse these forums learning what I can so when the day returns that I can do some serious photography, I'll be ready.

About 20 or so years ago, Kodak had a ISO 1000 color negative film with grain big enough to hurt your foot if it fell off the print, LOL, seriously, it was visible in even 3x5 prints.

I have a picture hanging in my den that was taken on Kodak ISO 400 in 1992 (and film has had some further development in the meantime) and enlarged to a 20x30 poster print --20x magnification. At "normal" viewing distances, it looks good, but if you get real close, you can see the grain, almost sugar- or salt-sized. A file of the scanned negative (and scanner technology has improved since the neg was scanned ten years ago) printed at 8-1/2x11 on a Canon iP6700D printer reveals "grain" that is not visible on an 8-1/2x11 print made directly from the negative.

I am looking at an image taken taken with a Canon A650 IS at the medium resolution setting, super-fine jpeg, ISO 200, and printed onto letter size glossy paper with a Canon iP6700D printer. I magnified the image about 2.7 times over a 4x6 print -- I have no idea how much larger a 4x6 print is enlarged over the sensor's size since manufacturers use non-sensical dimensions like 1/1.7", which does not mean it's 1"x1.7" which would be FF -- and then used the "print screen" key to print from Paint. I see black dots that look like pepper grains, smudges of color that resembles film's grain -- noise? -- in the shadow areas and straight lines that I guess are the edges of magnified pixels where lines in the original image are diagonal.

Is what I'm seeing a printer limitation or a limitation of the camera sensor? I suppose if I was to take a given digital image to the local kiosk, especially a fulltime

photo lab with higher-end equipment, I would surely be wowed by the output. I don't know anyone with a DSLR who would let me borrow it for a while to see what it's capable of, but with my experience "at this point", I would prefer Fuji Superia 400 printed at a proper lab to a point & shoot and home photo-capable inkjet printer.

I'm sure I'll get flamed over this, but the original post asked so I'm replying. I'll probably get chastised for buying a p&s when for a few hundred more, I could have had a "real" camera. Well, the vice-president of finance permitted a p&s, but absolutely denied a DSLR. It's just a matter of getting it past her.

--
Wayne G

I've heard that the only important thing to calibrate on a midrange+ modern LCD monitor using DVI is the gamma level. The RGB colours on most modern midrange systems today with LCD+DVI are pretty accurate from the fabric. So I’ve heard, anyway. Is this legitimate?

Don't forget the kodak TMZ (also called T-max 3200). An iso 3200 b/w film (although it's real iso value was more like 1600).

Back then 'grain' was also used as a creative means. With different film developers you could even influence the grain, more soft or more pointy etc... Grain sometimes had the same connontation as 'boheh' has today.

Rob.
--
'Life is funny but not Ha Ha funny. Peculiar I guess'. (Mr. E.)

Hmm... I'd have to say, no, it's not - when I load profiles on a (cheap) Samsung 940BW, my neutral gray background loses a pronounced blue cast.

--
http://www.pbase.com/nadrek
Equipment list in profile

KariP said:

Good old Kodaks TriX...

Click to expand...

Wow, welcome to the time tunnel!

I used to buy Tri-X in bulk, 100-ft rolls. Then I cut a specified length of film and rolled it into a 35mm canister (treasured the re-usable ones, could manage to re-use some that were meant for disposable use), home-developed and enlarged.

I actually liked the grain. But for the cleaner shots, I used Plus-X, also purchased in 100-ft bulk.

KariP said:

Now the biggest print i have made from a 40D image is 90cmx140cm -
and the noise is practically invisible.

Click to expand...

That's a pretty impressive size, analog or digital.

My largest print was a series of B&W posters of Rio's rainforest that I sold to a photo gallery in the late 70's. Bought a 6m roll of N3, cut to size (100cmX150cm I think) and enlarged each one with the paper tacked to a wall, the enlarger projecting horizontally across to it.

Developing & fixing those huge prints was a REAL MESS in the bathroom, but the final result was pretty good.

Things we do at 18...

--
Best regards,

Bruno Lobo.



http://www.pbase.com/brunobl

Well, when I said midrange+, I didn't mean the cheapest monitors. Though, I guess any monitor would benefit from calibration as in more or less.

The real question is how much it means for the layman in term of personal photo editing if you have a decent LCD. I've taken a look at some post-edited pictures done on calibrated monitors, and those look as good as perfect on mine which is not calibrated - not in colours, anyway. I use the default 6500k colour temp recommended for picture post-editing.

I mean, a monitor needs to be really bad if the colours are so inaccurate that what you edit on your monitor looks terrible on others?

JimH said:

But overall, I'd say that ISO for ISO, I get better images from
today's DSLRs, even APS-C sized, than I ever got from that same speed
of 35mm sized film.

In my experience, digital has now surpassed film in most ways.

Plus.... My hands don't stink when I'm done making a bunch of prints
now ;-)

--
Jim H.

Click to expand...

Oh yes!

And females did not find the smell especially attractive and a man doing something strange alone in a room with red light (red light district, sort of) ... now it is better ;- )
--
Kari
SLR photography for 40 years
60°15´N 24°03´ E