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Digital or Velvia?

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  #11  
Old 28-01-10, 18:26
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................ RAW will be replaced sometime in the not-so-distant future, when someone comes up with something better.
Alex,

I am up for discussion in between stops in the workshop. Plenty of time to think on boring milling jobs.

Just a quick one from a read through of this thread.

RAW ..... this is not a file format as such. Each manufacturer has a file format that is associated with the file that stores info from the sensor direct with NO in camera processing. As long as there is digital capture there will be demand for this. Adobe came up with DNG ( I think I am right ) as a format that they hoped would become a standard but that has not happened yet. I use Nikon and that is written in NEF format. No real worries about that being replaced into the future as I am sure my NX software will still run. However all my best stuff is saved after editing as Tiff format. Now I am certain that has been around as a format for years ( Rob will know ) and will continue into the future due to the number of photographers that have librarys of stuff in that format.

Don
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  #12  
Old 28-01-10, 18:59
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A bit of jumping between the two threads as I try to get a handle on this.

Resolution ........ Be it digital or film this is highly dependant on the quality of the lens. So if the lens is less than top notch it matter not a jot what the resolving power of the medium is. This also applies when we wet print ( enlarger lens ) or scan a negative or transparency ( scanner lens ).

The next problem with film in terms of resolving power is that the best are also the slowest. When I was on Tech Pan ( 12 ASA ) or Fuji Velvia ( 50 ASA ) the camera was mounted on a heavy tripod to make use of that resolving power. So for a lot of people talking about these low ISO's is not living the the world they photograph.

How is the image to be viewed. This is the biggest question. Printed to say 10 x 8 then I doubt you would notice any difference. Print to 20 x 16 then things will start to show. The first ones being technique and the quality of the lens used.

So for any real discussion, Alex, I think you need to give some guidance on .... print size and optics quality. Also are we in medium format or 35mm territory. A bit of a non starter it if its 35mm, as in that format my D2X will give Tech Pan a run for its money so I have no worries about stacking it up against 35mm Velvia.

Don
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  #13  
Old 28-01-10, 19:02
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Don,

You are right about Adobe making the DNG file (2006). This means it is just 4 years old, so we're not thinking about dicontinuation quite yet. Give it a few decades and it will be replaced, or someone will invent a format that is so good that all the camera makers will use it (currently every manufacturer has their own RAW format--annoying because you need proprietary software to process it).

Kodachrome was around as a format for decades--loads of photogs used it. It has now been discontinued in favour of Ektar. However, the digital world moves much faster, so I wouldn't be surprised if in 10-20 years time we have a whole new format and all that entails: converting with proprietary software, reburning discs, re-archiving etc.

Regarding resolution, as you say it depends on a whole lot of factors. Certainly the difference is pretty minimal, as you said. Saturation, dynamic range (how they handle very bright areas for instance) may leave the better films like Velvia 50 with a slight edge, but again it depends on a whole load of things.

The biggest advantage comes in logistics, reliability and equipment:

--Like I said before developed film is very durable and can be viewed anytime with the latest scanners.
--No time spent messing around the computer (I'm on it long enough as it is)
--Lovely, cheap manual cameras an optics (personal preference, but I love how an old camera gives you access to important things quickly without piling on unnecessary features that will just distract me).

Ken Rockwell has a great article on the subject: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/why-we-love-film.htm

Last edited by Alex1994; 28-01-10 at 19:09.
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  #14  
Old 28-01-10, 20:56
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..................
The biggest advantage comes in logistics, reliability and equipment:

--Like I said before developed film is very durable and can be viewed anytime with the latest scanners.
--No time spent messing around the computer (I'm on it long enough as it is)
--Lovely, cheap manual cameras an optics (personal preference, but I love how an old camera gives you access to important things quickly without piling on unnecessary features that will just distract me).

Ken Rockwell has a great article on the subject: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/why-we-love-film.htm
Lots there Alex

My most unreliable camera was a Nikon FE2 in the cold. My friends was an Olympus OM10. In each case it was battery probs. Well batteries have improved tremendously since the 80's but never the less old film cameras were not without problems. My most reliable old cameras had mechanical shutters and all the gear train that goes with that so servicing was important.
But cameras apart and we are onto the form of image capture.

Digital does require processing on a computer but having had my own darkroom for the best part of 20 years then in my experience there is no comparison in how to get to a processed image.

Darkroom :
Lets start with a roll of B&W as thats the easiest.
Film development no probs but 120 is more difficult to load ... and yes I have dropped a roll on the floor at this stage.
Mix up dev, stop, and fix then rinse and dry measures. This even if you only want one print.
Printing is a joy but a bit costly if you do a sheet as a printing map for dodging and burning. Sometimes I have gone through half a dozen sheets 12 x 16 to get what I want. Then when done its all about washing up.
Colour :
Unless you have a processor this is when you enter a different world. Water baths for temp control of chemicals. Time taken for your eyes to aclimatise to a sodium safe-light ( yep seriously dim ).

No way can digital processing be considered hard after that.

Scanners - Well thats where money comes into it. No point in using hi-res film, best optics and a budget scanner.

Of course both processing and scanning can be left to an outside processor but machine prints means everything has to be spot on. I have looked at film processing and scanning in a previous thread and its expensive and the scanned super res file is less than a D2X Tiff, so unless you do it yourself on a top scanner or pay for that then you are not getting all that the film will give.

Cheap cameras yes. There can be a great deal of enjoyment from owning and using one. But once again unless the optics are top drawer then looking at film resolution numbers in isolation is not giving the whole story. A bit like having a super-car on the UK roads. Super-car = the film. The speed limit = lens resolution. The car might be capable of 180mph but its limited to the 70mph speed limit.

KR link. Well he is a fav of mine when I want a laugh but I will go through it in the spirit of this thread.

Back tomorrow.

Don
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  #15  
Old 28-01-10, 21:42
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You know, I've never actually needed to develop any film myself. I haven't been in the hobby all that long but I always pass it over to a lab, it's expensive but convenient. If you specify 'no mods' you get pretty damn good results for 0 time and effort.

Scanner--you don't need one to appreciate pictures. For showing to people I stick prints in an album, far faster than digitising, sorting etc. I only scan when I want it to be on this site, and that's a very small percentage.

Good quality optics are sometimes so cheap it's almost stealing. As a case in point: the old manual focus Nikon lenses along with the Zuiko line for OM series. Both cost on average a fraction of the price of, say, a Canon EF-S lens while giving great results (not to mention the large apertures that give consumer zooms a run for their money).

KR proves that an old Kodak Retina IIIc with Velvia 50 and professional lab scanning is sharper than a Canon 5D!!
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  #16  
Old 28-01-10, 23:01
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I just love these discussions. Basically, for me, digital photography is so far superior to film that any lesser image quality is so minor a consideration as to be non-existent.
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  #17  
Old 29-01-10, 04:06
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KR proves that an old Kodak Retina IIIc with Velvia 50 and professional lab scanning is sharper than a Canon 5D!!
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KR link. Well he is a fav of mine when I want a laugh but I will go through it in the spirit of this thread.
I thought I would give the KR link a second look. Another example of a seriously flawed comparison.

Alex where does KR "PROVE" that the Kodak scan result is better than the 5D ?

At the beginning he makes a statement that a film scan from a Rebel looks better than a 5D. He provided no evidence to support the statement or outline of the test conditions. If the film scans are at 5039 pixels x 3339 pixels he should really compare it against a 5D Mk2.

Further down the page is a comparison between the Kodak and a Nikon D3.

To start with do we know what processing has been applied to the professional scans. i.e sharpening, levels etc.

Next it does strike me that there is a marked difference in the lighting conditions between the two shots when you look at the tree shadows.

Thirdly the Kodak is using a prime lens and the Nikon a zoom lens, applying a completely different transfer function to the image before it hits the film or sensor. The lens and lens setting should be transferred between the two bodies so that the lens transfer function is identical in each case.

The Nikon image has been re-sampled to enlarge it by 18% so that it matches the scanned film image size. This will have an effect on the Nikon image quality. One could ask why did he not down size the scanned image to match the Nikon image ?

Lastly there is no information on the Nikon D3 image pre-sets with regards to noise reduction, sharpening, contrast etc. Was Raw or Jpeg used ? The image does look as if some heavy noise reduction has been applied.

The trouble with these sorts of comparisons is that the images can always be tweaked in such a way to support your arguments. If the comparison was under controlled conditions by the likes of Photozone I would have more confidence about the reported outcome.
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  #18  
Old 29-01-10, 04:42
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Originally Posted by Alex1994 View Post
You know, I've never actually needed to develop any film myself. I haven't been in the hobby all that long but I always pass it over to a lab, it's expensive but convenient. If you specify 'no mods' you get pretty damn good results for 0 time and effort.

Scanner--you don't need one to appreciate pictures. For showing to people I stick prints in an album, far faster than digitising, sorting etc. I only scan when I want it to be on this site, and that's a very small percentage.
If your not doing your own darkroom processing or electronic editing what is the difference between taking a roll of film or memory card to the photo lab ?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex1994 View Post
Good quality optics are sometimes so cheap it's almost stealing. As a case in point: the old manual focus Nikon lenses along with the Zuiko line for OM series. Both cost on average a fraction of the price of, say, a Canon EF-S lens while giving great results (not to mention the large apertures that give consumer zooms a run for their money).
Yes, great if your subject matter is not that demanding i.e static subjects.
Try manual focusing on fast moving subjects at close range with a depth of field of only a few inches. The glass component is only a fraction of the story with modern lens. You get what you pay for.
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Last edited by robski; 29-01-10 at 12:47.
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  #19  
Old 29-01-10, 10:24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex1994 View Post
Ken Rockwell has a great article on the subject: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/why-we-love-film.htm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex1994 View Post
KR proves that an old Kodak Retina IIIc with Velvia 50 and professional lab scanning is sharper than a Canon 5D!!
As has been pointed out, there really isn't any proof in the article to back up his statement... given some of the nonsense that he writes on his site I couldn't beleive a word of it with out evidence.

As for digital vs film - for me film is simply too costly to deal with, in fact it's over three years since I took a shot on film. Digital does all I need it to, it's easy to use for a days shooting, I have control over the processing and the image/print quality is good enough for my needs.
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Old 29-01-10, 14:39
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So, film will never be obsolete as a storage medium. This is because developed film can be scanned easily using whatever scanning technology we have available (and we'll always have scanners). Glass plates from centuries ago can still be viewed today. Prints, slides and negatives will be scannable in centuries time, ready to be viewed on a computer screen.

Digital, by contrast, is tied by two things: file formats and digital storage media. Hard drives continue to crash on a fairly regular basis, so the best option is a DVD, a format that in itself may become obsolete and still isn't as reliable as a negative/transparency.

Secondly, file formats: these come and go all the time. RAW will be replaced sometime in the not-so-distant future, when someone comes up with something better. In the race to stay on the cutting edge, companies will drop RAW support on their hardware. Result: you have to convert all your images into the new format, or bin them.
The others know far more about the technical stuff than I do but there are some points here. 1) Some glass plates can be viewed today in carefully controlled conditions so deterioration is not speeded up, but many have been lost. Prints fade as do slides and negatives which also go mouldy. In other words film is far from permanent and there is only one exact copy which is the original, if that is damaged that is that. Digital files can be cloned and exact copies kept in a variety of places even miles apart.
Film can be scanned but quality is lost and file formats will no doubt change but they can be converted at a click of a mouse. It would takes goodness knows how many weeks of work to scan all my past slides and negatives, backing up my 35,000 digital images takes a couple of hours during which I do not even have to be there.
I doubt many if indeed any use DVD to back up photos these days. Hard drives do die, in fact a couple of mine just have. No problem, I have backups and everything is restored in a couple of hours including cataloguing. Then new technology comes out like solid state drives which will be more reliable and the cost will come down.
You argue that film will still be scannable in centuries time which is doubtful as the film will probably be dust by then or damaged but even if possible it is hardly an argument, you are just saying film is better than digital because it can be turned into digital, even if it means loss of quality, which it does.
One last point, we are all agreed that the final piccie is what counts but you also admit you have never worked in the wet darkroom and printed your photos under an enlarger. That means that you have handed over your picture to someone else to do at least half the process of producing the picture you want and he puts your film in an automated machine. If you are truly going to get the most out of your photography then you need to have control of the whole process from start to finish. Use film by all means and enjoy it but set up your own darkroom, us oldies have done it and enjoyed it but my old Durst stands rather forlorn in a corner because digital is far easier, gives more control, and is repeatable without the risk of destroying the original which can all too easily happen when developing the negative or slide. Darkroom work is fun but can be very frustrating and expensive when chasing a colour cast because the temperature is not quite right or constant. When you are in control of everything from start to finish you feel far more of a real photographer whether you use digital or film.

Last edited by miketoll; 29-01-10 at 15:11.
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