Reading mode: Light Dark

Film vs Digital SLR

Go to last post
Actually it seems a long time since I printed any photos, but that topic is sometimes addressed separately...

I am sure that digital has been better than the press film formulations like NPZ800 for absolutely years now, displayed in whatever medium. For ISO 50-200 I don't know. Another factor is that few labs seem to print negative film optically now. When I scanned in negatives the results were horrid anyway.

The days of slide film were when bracketing saved your backside...
 
RedFox88 said:
RedFox88 wrote:

But what the OP asked has nothing to do with resolution as you state with th e8 to 14 MP because he is dealing with 4x6 prints that need just 2 MP to provide a 300 ppi print.
RedFox88 said:
Piginho wrote:
Click to expand...
RedFox88 said:
On the other hand, most seem to believe that digital overtook film many years ago, with various estimates from 8-14 Mpixels supposed to be enough to beat film.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
It's become so accepted that 300 ppi is as good as you need in a print, that people have long ago, ceased to question it. Yet, it has been shown, that at normal viewing distances, most people can tell the difference between a 300 ppi and a 600 ppi print. (BTW, with prints, is it not dpi?)

If this is true (and it has been tested) then we might need at least 8Mp to produce better 6" x 4" prints.
 
nikkorwatcher said:
nikkorwatcher wrote:

Actually it seems a long time since I printed any photos, but that topic is sometimes addressed separately...

I am sure that digital has been better than the press film formulations like NPZ800 for absolutely years now, displayed in whatever medium. For ISO 50-200 I don't know. Another factor is that few labs seem to print negative film optically now. When I scanned in negatives the results were horrid anyway.

The days of slide film were when bracketing saved your backside...
Click to expand...
Personally, I don't recall having many exposure issues with slide film. I never used to bracket and my film cameras were all Contax, with accurate enough metering for slide film. But, maybe with the advent of digital and prominence of techniques like HDR, we've become obsessed with achieving a wide DR, which we weren't so worried about with film. I think I'll have to dig out some of my old slides and have a look.
 
Piginho said:
Piginho wrote:
Piginho said:
RedFox88 wrote:

But what the OP asked has nothing to do with resolution as you state with th e8 to 14 MP because he is dealing with 4x6 prints that need just 2 MP to provide a 300 ppi print.
Piginho said:
Piginho wrote:
Click to expand...
Piginho said:
On the other hand, most seem to believe that digital overtook film many years ago, with various estimates from 8-14 Mpixels supposed to be enough to beat film.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
It's become so accepted that 300 ppi is as good as you need in a print, that people have long ago, ceased to question it. Yet, it has been shown, that at normal viewing distances, most people can tell the difference between a 300 ppi and a 600 ppi print. (BTW, with prints, is it not dpi?)
Click to expand...
And there have been tests that showed very little difference by normal viewing between a 140 ppi print and a 300 ppi print for 4x6s.

dpi is controlled by the printer driver's quality setting. ppi is how many pixels are in the image you send to your printer.
Piginho said:
If this is true (and it has been tested) then we might need at least 8Mp to produce better 6" x 4" prints.
Click to expand...
For every "test", there is another "test" that proves something different.
 
Member said:
Lightpath48 wrote:

I sympathize, having spent a lot of time and effort in both film and digital media. They are somewhat different. And as you've already acknowledged, the way we worked with a roll of film in the camera was inherently different from recording files on a card with potentially thousands of images at little or no cost. Others responding here have already mentioned that your post processing technique could lead you to a satisfying end in the digital workflow as well. It may take time and effort, just as did your film work. If you were to concentrate on tonal range and color palette you might find digital becoming more satisfying. True, it will never be exactly the equivalent. Consequently, some have gone back to film, others are moving on. (I'm among the second group.) You might consider leaving the LCD off and shooting raw only, no more than 36 frames in a day. Return to the consciousness of every subject, moment and capture, just as if you were working with a roll of film without the benefit of immediate review. If you know someone who is adept at raw conversion, explain what you're hoping for as he/she guides you through post processing with tone curves, white balance, sharpening, tone mapping (if HDR is helpful). Sometimes those missing the long tonal range of film find satisfying images through moderate HDR. The photographic world is still your oyster.
Click to expand...
This is all around good advice. There is a loose movement out there called the slow photography movement that has similar ideas. I don't follow it all the time but I do try to be deliberate with my photography, and then after the fact to be brutal with what I keep. On the last few trips I've taken I've noticed, especially at famous sites, a herd mentality where a photographer will show up, walk to the exact same spot where 10 others are shooting, whip out the DSLR, fire off a couple dozen shots like a machine gun, and walk away as if they completed a chore. If you stay long enough it will start to look like an endless loop of drudgery. I don't know what that is, but it sure isn't photography.
 
I'm surprised that no one has pointed out differences (sometimes significant) in print quality. So the question is not necessarily film vs digital, but rather where the prints were made and by whom. Were the film and digital prints made in the same place, and on the same machine and by the same operator? The same paper? Whoever is doing your prints now could simply be doing a poor job.

at that size, it should be virtually impossible to tell if the film was reasonably fine-grained.

sanath444 said:
sanath444 wrote:

I was looking at 4*6 prints of photos I took during years 2000 to 2005 using a film SLR (Canon Elan II) and they appear to be better than photos I took recently with Digital SLRs (Canon 550D) and mirror-less.

Do modern ASP-C SLRs as good as Film? I would like to think that photography skills improved over time but probably, my technique changed with switch to digital. With film, I may have been more diligent in composing because every shot counted then.
Click to expand...
 
Most likely your films were exposure and colour corrected, sharpened, and tweaked by an automated machine operated by someone who does it full time...what's YOUR expertise in processing?

People forget how much work was done by the photo lab, which now has to be done themselves!
 
Indeed

this is why I don't understand the shooters that seem to shame editing. . .what separated your film images from looking consistently amazing were either that you processed the film yourself or worked very closely with someone who did. Meaning there was a decent amount of editing going on.

for most scenarios - shooting and leaving the file as-is could be compared to hasty automated film drop offs from the pharmacy and its even more crucial as you work with the seriously high resolution sensors of today.

its not necessarily that you're compensating for lack of photography skill but more so to correct the highlights or shadows your camera missed, to correct the color that the WB system got wrong, to properly sharpen the image that is going to be undoubtedly resized etc. . .because out the box its only sharpened for its initial resolution.

Embrace the digital darkroom, back in the film days very few had the opportunity to own a full fledged lab :)
--
Oldschool Evolt shooter
 
sanath444 said:
sanath444 wrote:

I was looking at 4*6 prints of photos I took during years 2000 to 2005 using a film SLR (Canon Elan II) and they appear to be better than photos I took recently with Digital SLRs (Canon 550D) and mirror-less.

Do modern ASP-C SLRs as good as Film? I would like to think that photography skills improved over time but probably, my technique changed with switch to digital. With film, I may have been more diligent in composing because every shot counted then.
Click to expand...
That is pretty much a fact because of the technical aspects, sure digital dynamic range may be limited but you can combine shots and do HDR BUT...

What I noticed when I took my film into walmart or where ever was closest to me, they processed my images and made them look better. When I would use a film scanner it would not look as good as the print, I would have to do major modification with saturation and other controls so they would look the same.

I would try this. Find a program that uses raw (or it could be JPG but jpg does not hold up as well to extreme color changes) that has film presets in it. They have film presets to look like various different film. It adjusts the vibrancy, color, contrast to look more like a film look. Make your own tweeks to make the images look like the prints.

If you are talking about composition, there is no difference between the cameras unless you have gotten lazy and no longer try to put an effort in to getting good composition, getting a film camera again will not help you.
 
Last edited:
esco said:
esco wrote:

Indeed

this is why I don't understand the shooters that seem to shame editing. . .what separated your film images from looking consistently amazing were either that you processed the film yourself or worked very closely with someone who did. Meaning there was a decent amount of editing going on.

for most scenarios - shooting and leaving the file as-is could be compared to hasty automated film drop offs from the pharmacy and its even more crucial as you work with the seriously high resolution sensors of today.

its not necessarily that you're compensating for lack of photography skill but more so to correct the highlights or shadows your camera missed, to correct the color that the WB system got wrong, to properly sharpen the image that is going to be undoubtedly resized etc. . .because out the box its only sharpened for its initial resolution.

Embrace the digital darkroom, back in the film days very few had the opportunity to own a full fledged lab :)
--
Oldschool Evolt shooter
Click to expand...
Most of the photographers I know - people who exhibit their work, shoot film and digital, so it's not an either/or choice. Digital can't do anything comparable to large format, and large format can't do sports. It's just a matter of using the tool which is likely to achieve the desired end.
 
sanath444 said:
sanath444 wrote:

I was looking at 4*6 prints of photos I took during years 2000 to 2005 using a film SLR (Canon Elan II) and they appear to be better than photos I took recently with Digital SLRs (Canon 550D) and mirror-less.

Do modern ASP-C SLRs as good as Film? I would like to think that photography skills improved over time but probably, my technique changed with switch to digital. With film, I may have been more diligent in composing because every shot counted then.
Click to expand...
What does one mean by "good"? Sharpness and resolution may look better with digital, but sometimes film may be nicer in terms of colors, tonality, highlights etc - which overall makes a more pleasant image, visible without pixel peeping or huge enlargements.

Film looks different than digital, and different films look different from each other.

Some like it, and use it as a tool in the arsenal. Personally I would use it a lot more if it could compare in convinience and cost with digital.

Others prefer the digital look all the time. It is up to the individual.

A few Velvia samples.

































































--

 

Attachments

  • 2505022.jpg
    2505022.jpg
    144.9 KB · Views: 0
  • 2505021.jpg
    2505021.jpg
    207.5 KB · Views: 0
  • 2505042.jpg
    2505042.jpg
    429.8 KB · Views: 0
  • 1590033.jpg
    1590033.jpg
    393.9 KB · Views: 0
Modern large-sensor digital cameras (43, APS and 35mm) are comparable to the best film emulsions in resolution, dynamic range and color depth. In fact, they combine the dynamic range of color negative film with color quality of slide film. However, there is a caveat. With slide film, if properly processed, you will get perfect colors, tuned by film manufacturers. With print film, your lab will probably tweak the colors to give you something very nice. But with digital, if you look at the files on your computer, you need to do your own stuff. Adjusting files to get contrast and saturation similar to film is not easy, especially if you didn't scan film yourself and process the files, which would make you familiar with the colors. People usually make a mistake with digital files and process them too flat, and when you compare that to film, it is of course worse.
 
Richard said:
Richard wrote:
Richard said:
Midwest wrote:
Richard said:
Richard wrote:
getting a film camera again will not help you.
Click to expand...
It will help you drain your wallet to the tune of 25 to 50 cents every time you press the shutter release.
Click to expand...
Ain't dat the truth.
Click to expand...
Whereas with digital, the camera you paid for up-front just depreciates by 25 to 100 cents a day whether you press the shutter release or not. ;)
 
Noise control and resolution of detail. You get a few film die-hards claiming otherwise, but a lot of their "proofs" just aren't.
 
We are talking colors and general impression here, not ability to make big prints.
 
Midwest said:
Midwest wrote:
Midwest said:
Richard wrote:
getting a film camera again will not help you.
Click to expand...
It will help you drain your wallet to the tune of 25 to 50 cents every time you press the shutter release.
Click to expand...
The last time I sent film to NCPS, it was almost a dollar per shot. Of course I got the cheapest scan that wasn't really that cheap. I think it was $ 30 for a 36 exp roll. They charge around $ 6 or so to mail everything back to you.
 
danijel973 said:
danijel973 wrote:

We are talking colors and general impression here, not ability to make big prints.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Many negative films have great highlight retention unlike digital where most of its DR is in the shadows which makes for overall darker looking prints compared to over/well exposed film.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top