RE: Comparing digital to film
On the newer Nikon scanners, GEM does this by scanning the film with an IR sensor to effectively 'read' the grain pattern. This is why it is soo much more effective, and less degrading than simply software solutions. It works very well. BTW, I agree about the difficulty in carrying MF gear up a mountain. -Original Message- From: David A. Mann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 28 January 2003 05:24 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Comparing digital to film My next question is: If the same or similar interpolations to reduce the noise from the distance between pixels in a digital camera were used to reduce the grain noise in a scan from film, would this tend to level the playing field? Yep. Galen Rowell used this for huge exhibition prints made from 35mm. Guess what, he claimed it can compete with medium format. Heard it before? A very interesting concept. How does the software do this if the grain pattern of film is essentially random? Descreening processes tend to require a regular dot pattern.
Re: Comparing digital to film
David wrote: A very interesting concept. How does the software do this if the grain pattern of film is essentially random? Descreening processes tend to require a regular dot pattern. I don't remember how it was done. He did write an essay about it; I believe it might have been in one of his books. Mind you, he didn't do it himself but some high-tech computer guru who invested hundreds of hours (if my memory serves me right) on each image removing grain, keeping edge sharpness constant while magnifying the image. I believe the prints were really huge. Pål
Re: Comparing digital to film
Alim wrote: His point of view? The digital is still in the infancy... Pentax is of the same opinion. They believe they are extremely early by releasing a DSLR this year. I feel confident that we will laugh about todays DSLR's in, say, five years time. Pål
Re: Comparing digital to film
- Original Message - From: Mike Johnston [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 5:13 AM Subject: Re: Comparing digital to film The argument that digital A is equal to film B because resolution of C and D even out all differences is still meaningless. I have two large MF prints hanging on my wall. I have also two equally large prints made from 35mm. I find the quality to be good as far as print goes. Now this is a real life test of MF vs. 35mm as this is the quality of prints I get. I hereby declare once and for all that 35mm is equally good as MF because I can't see a bloody difference from my prints. You're amazingly contentious about this issue. It sounds a lot like it's an emotional issue with you, not a technical one. What a strange thing to get so emotional about. Certainly not. I'm emotional about the fact that people insist they are comparing film vs. digital when they are in fact comparing two digital products: digital cameras vs. scanners (and printers for that matter). I have no doubts whatsoever that people are getting great results with their digital cameras and I certainly expect to switch to digital at some stage; preferable when things starts to even out a bit.. I just wish some could get their facts and arguments straight instead of this stream of misinformation. Pål
Re: Comparing digital to film
Mark wrote: I find it absolutely baffling that anyone gets so worked up over this. Weird. Maybe because some of us would love to see a real assesment of the various mediums qualities instead of pompous conclusion based on an individual below par scanner and printer. I'm not remotely interested in the qualities or lackthereof of Mr. Reichmans printer and scanner. Pål
Re: Comparing digital to film
I was looking through the March Shutterbug and they have clearly declared victory for digital. Most of the articles were about digital equipment/techniques, including one about a photographer who switched from MF to digital. I suppose this is inevitable since digital is new and there's a lot more to talk about (so it's easier to write articles about it) but unless you're doing digital there's not much point in reading it. Steven Desjardins Department of Chemistry Washington and Lee University Lexington, VA 24450 (540) 458-8873 FAX: (540) 458-8878 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Comparing digital to film
Its inevitable that digital will take over, if only for convenience. I still think film is superior if one finds a decent processor, but there's the rub :( I sold my oly E-20 and enjoy my Pentax and 6x6. - Original Message - From: Steve Desjardins [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 6:58 AM Subject: Re: Comparing digital to film I was looking through the March Shutterbug and they have clearly declared victory for digital. Most of the articles were about digital equipment/techniques, including one about a photographer who switched from MF to digital. I suppose this is inevitable since digital is new and there's a lot more to talk about (so it's easier to write articles about it) but unless you're doing digital there's not much point in reading it. Steven Desjardins Department of Chemistry Washington and Lee University Lexington, VA 24450 (540) 458-8873 FAX: (540) 458-8878 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Comparing digital to film
Film photography will die long before actual superiority of digital imaging is achieved by the simple expedient of announcing it's death over and over and over. At 09:58 AM 1/28/2003 -0500, you wrote: I was looking through the March Shutterbug and they have clearly declared victory for digital. Most of the articles were about digital equipment/techniques, including one about a photographer who switched from MF to digital. I suppose this is inevitable since digital is new and there's a lot more to talk about (so it's easier to write articles about it) but unless you're doing digital there's not much point in reading it. Steven Desjardins Department of Chemistry Washington and Lee University Lexington, VA 24450 (540) 458-8873 FAX: (540) 458-8878 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. --Groucho Marx
Re: Comparing digital to film
Many people buy magazines as buyer's guides. Content is driven by what is selling. Overall 35mm film SLR sales are flat to declining a bit (the numbers in that other thread are rather meaningless). Digital is the hot area. It's no different in the shows: if a maker didn't have some new digital product, their booth was empty. Digital is an expanding market and film is flat to dropping. Making money means following the money trail, and that leads to digital. BR [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was looking through the March Shutterbug and they have clearly declared victory for digital. Most of the articles were about digital equipment/techniques, including one about a photographer who switched from MF to digital. I suppose this is inevitable since digital is new and there's a lot more to talk about (so it's easier to write articles about it) but unless you're doing digital there's not much point in reading it.
Re: Comparing digital to film
With results coming off an Agfa D-Lab, I can see the difference between 67 and 35mm in a 4X5 print. I think perhaps a better way to put it, is the results are not objectionable up to a certain size with 35mm. Bruce Tuesday, January 28, 2003, 6:11:15 AM, you wrote: snip PJ I would just like to add that I'm equally opposed to the argument PJ that 35mm is as good as medium format until you magnify the image PJ beyond a certain point. This is of course nonsense as medium PJ format is better than 35mm from the moment you press the shutter PJ regardless what you do with the image afterwards. What people PJ really are saying is that the printing process they are using at PJ present is so lousy that they cannot see the difference between MF PJ and 35mm until the image is blown up to huge sizes, but this has PJ of course nothing to do with 35mm vs. MF per se but everything to PJ do with quality, or lack thereof, of the printing process. PJ Pål
RE: Comparing digital to film
What I find interesting is the constant process we have whereby a new type of product comes out which is supposedly superior to the old technology in every way. Then later they are forced to improve the new technology because they realise it isnt. CDs were supposed to sound better than vinyl, now (20 years later) we have SACD and DVD-A with higher sampling rates and/or wider frequency response for better sound. What this means is we are getting closer to the vinyl sound because the old technology was missing too much. Digital was soo much better than Film. We didn't need to wait 20 years for this technology to be improved. There have been many improvements, and at each step digital has apparently equalled film (esp according to M Reichmann). Now Fuji is on the verge of 'dual sensor per site' CCDs to provide the lattitude of film, Foveon says that bayer loses too much info (and everyone seems to agree) and has some 'early days' technology to get around this, we all know that sensitivity at higher ISOs is a problem and on and on. How are we to know who to believe, or more accurately how are we to know WHEN and who to belive when they say that digital has finally equalled film? This is all rather academic as 6MP full frame was my goal. 12MP full frame was my dream as it allows for cropping AND reasonable enlargement (eg when my long lenses arent quite long enough or I decide I sould have shot vertically rather than horizontally etc). The 1DS is every bit the camera I want in spec terms. Just put the technology in the MZ-D with Pentax mount and MZ-S controls and you would get a sale from me, even at $8K. However, imaging a D1s with Foveon layering and dual photosites for extra lattitude and up to ISO 3200 noise free. When we get that there will be no more arguments. Digital is now GOOD ENOUGH. Whether it is up to film is debateable, and irrelevant.
Re: Comparing digital to film
Pål wrote: No, but it can make 67 look better. Like better scanners and better printers. Digital capture at present match the resolution limit of paraphernalia like printers and scanners while film do not (it is beyond). I agree. I'm afraid that the manufacturers may not produce a better quality scanner in the near future. This may cut into the digital camera sales(???) When was the last film scanner upgrade by Nikon? The turn-over is not as high as with DSLR's. And yes, Reichman is limited by his equipment it is not very scientific at ALL. I'd much rather see a SCIENTIFIC evaluation done by OBJECTIVE qualified researchers. Like Pål mentioned earlier: if you compared a 8x10 35mm print with a 6x7 8x10 print you may not see a difference. Therefore why go 6x7? But what if you go 30x40, then Peter --- Pål_Jensen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mike wrote: The thing I don't understand is why, or how, people can get so exercised over this. I mean, 6x7 hasn't changed, has it? It looked good before, it looks good now, and nothing about the state of digital development can or will make it look any worse, right No, but it can make 67 look better. Like better scanners and better printers. Digital capture at present match the resolution limit of paraphernalia like printers and scanners while film do not (it is beyond). Pål __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Comparing digital to film
Right on! Another comparable phenomenon was when the first transistor amps arrived Incidentally, you cannot nowadays find anyone who admit to be among those who claimed the first generation (or the three first generations) of CD players or transistor amps sounded better than what they replaced. They were plentiful back when it happened Pål - Original Message - From: Rob Brigham [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 11:51 AM Subject: RE: Comparing digital to film What I find interesting is the constant process we have whereby a new type of product comes out which is supposedly superior to the old technology in every way. Then later they are forced to improve the new technology because they realise it isnt. CDs were supposed to sound better than vinyl, now (20 years later) we have SACD and DVD-A with higher sampling rates and/or wider frequency response for better sound. What this means is we are getting closer to the vinyl sound because the old technology was missing too much. Digital was soo much better than Film. We didn't need to wait 20 years for this technology to be improved. There have been many improvements, and at each step digital has apparently equalled film (esp according to M Reichmann). Now Fuji is on the verge of 'dual sensor per site' CCDs to provide the lattitude of film, Foveon says that bayer loses too much info (and everyone seems to agree) and has some 'early days' technology to get around this, we all know that sensitivity at higher ISOs is a problem and on and on. How are we to know who to believe, or more accurately how are we to know WHEN and who to belive when they say that digital has finally equalled film? This is all rather academic as 6MP full frame was my goal. 12MP full frame was my dream as it allows for cropping AND reasonable enlargement (eg when my long lenses arent quite long enough or I decide I sould have shot vertically rather than horizontally etc). The 1DS is every bit the camera I want in spec terms. Just put the technology in the MZ-D with Pentax mount and MZ-S controls and you would get a sale from me, even at $8K. However, imaging a D1s with Foveon layering and dual photosites for extra lattitude and up to ISO 3200 noise free. When we get that there will be no more arguments. Digital is now GOOD ENOUGH. Whether it is up to film is debateable, and irrelevant.
Re: Comparing digital to film
Peter wrote: I agree. I'm afraid that the manufacturers may not produce a better quality scanner in the near future. This may cut into the digital camera sales(???) When was the last film scanner upgrade by Nikon? The turn-over is not as high as with DSLR's. I'm not THAT cynical. There must be litterally billions of images out there someone may want to digitize; particularly if the whole imaging industry will go digital (something I'm sure it will at some stage). Then only images in digital form will be accepted for any use. Hence, there will be huge market for scanners regardless of what happens with digital cameras. I also doubt that scanner will compete much or at all, with digital cameras as there are other reasons for digital than simply not having to scan your images. Pål
Re: Comparing digital to film
Right on! Another comparable phenomenon was when the first transistor amps arrived Incidentally, you cannot nowadays find anyone who admit to be among those who claimed the first generation (or the three first generations) of CD players or transistor amps sounded better than what they replaced. They were plentiful back when it happened I have an ulterior motive here. I want to encourage people to switch to digital so I will be more exclusive when I use film. g Just kidding... Sorta --Mike
Re: Comparing digital to film
Message text written by INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] This brings up a point which I've been wondering about lately. A digital camera pixel is continuous tone. It measures the _intensity_ of the light that falls on it. As I understand it, a single film grain or dye cloud or whatever it is, is a discrete device: either its exposed or its not exposed, and the density of the exposed grains control the perceived tone - ie its some kind of a randomly arranged halftone process. If this is true, its little wonder that people say digital files have finer grain than film. And higher perceived detail. Cheers, - Dave more complicated that this. the film texture that we can see with the eye or moderate magnification and commonly call grain is clumping of a lot of grains together or dye clouds that result from clumps of grain after the silver has been replaced with dyes. these clumps are basically a random halftone. the clumps or clouds in turn are grown from the actual silver halide crystals forming the real grain that are exposed and turned on or off. the clumps or clouds are much larger than the actual film grain. Herb
Re: Comparing digital to film
William wrote: My next question is: If the same or similar interpolations to reduce the noise from the distance between pixels in a digital camera were used to reduce the grain noise in a scan from film, would this tend to level the playing field? Yep. Galen Rowell used this for huge exhibition prints made from 35mm. Guess what, he claimed it can compete with medium format. Heard it before? Pål
Re: Comparing digital to film
- Original Message - From: Pål Jensen Subject: Re: Comparing digital to film William wrote: My next question is: If the same or similar interpolations to reduce the noise from the distance between pixels in a digital camera were used to reduce the grain noise in a scan from film, would this tend to level the playing field? Yep. Galen Rowell used this for huge exhibition prints made from 35mm. Guess what, he claimed it can compete with medium format. Heard it before? HAR William Robb
Re: Comparing digital to film
Ryan wrote: I suppose I should say that my real issue is with folks who are continuing to take pot shots at digital cameras based on conjecture and complete lack of personal experience. Hmmm.It is more like some claim digital is better than film without the evidence. Or think they have discovered some great original idea of a technical shortcoming that makes a DSLR useless or inately flawed. I won't be happy with 45 l/mm resolution over the size of a 35mm frame. Even a 1Ds provides nothing but low resolution image. I know you can get a sharp image out of low resolution digital. It is very much like a road sign; clear and concise. It is like minidisc versus high-end analogue sound reproduction. My only claim has been that I'm getting better results on my 1Ds than with film in the 67, with the sole exception of APX25 in 1:100 Rod. Fine, so you are not then getting much value out of your 67 in terms of what it technicaly can do, due to the fact that the periferials aren't up to the task of transitting the 67's high resolution. I agree that a pragmatic approach might be OK, particularly for commercial purposes. The argument that digital A is equal to film B because resolution of C and D even out all differences is still meaningless. I have two large MF prints hanging on my wall. I have also two equally large prints made from 35mm. I find the quality to be good as far as print goes. Now this is a real life test of MF vs. 35mm as this is the quality of prints I get. I hereby declare once and for all that 35mm is equally good as MF because I can't see a bloody difference from my prints. Pål
Re: Comparing digital to film
Pål Jensen wrote: My next question is: If the same or similar interpolations to reduce the noise from the distance between pixels in a digital camera were used to reduce the grain noise in a scan from film, would this tend to level the playing field? Yep. Galen Rowell used this for huge exhibition prints made from 35mm. Guess what, he claimed it can compete with medium format. Heard it before? A very interesting concept. How does the software do this if the grain pattern of film is essentially random? Descreening processes tend to require a regular dot pattern. BTW, of course 35mm can compete with medium format. Which is better is a different story ;) Looking at the slides themselves I find more detail on a 6x7 than a 35mm of the same scene. But that still won't convince me to carry a medium format kit up a mountain. Cheers, - Dave http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/
Re: Comparing digital to film
digital cameras all have built in filters to sharpen, noise reduction etc, nothing that you can't turn around and do to a 35mm scan. Remember that th digitl images are all processed in some way, a way tha can be aplied to 35mm if they'd tell us exactly what they're doing. --- Bruce Rubenstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's filled in with digital pixel dust. BR [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One of the things I keep reading WRT how good digital capture is relates to the lack of grain in the digital capture. I do have a problem understanding this. It seems to me that in order to have a grain free image, the capture would have to be a continuous tone device. I know this to be untrue, as the manufacturers talk about pixel counts, and I know that a pixel is a discreet thing. I've seen comparative pictures between a 6mp digital capture, and a 35mm film image, and the digital capture is much smoother. So, somewhere along the way, it seems to me, a big fat lie has crept in somewhere. Specifically, what sort of image processing is being done to the image from the digital capture device to smooth out the spaces between the pixels? William Robb __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
Re: Comparing digital to film
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Specifically, what sort of image processing is being done to the image from the digital capture device to smooth out the spaces between the pixels? This info is just manufactured. If the capture sensor reads red next to me, and I read red here, color everything in between us red too on the final output. Regards, Bob S.
Re: Comparing digital to film
Pixel smearing. At 01:22 PM 1/26/2003 -0600, you wrote: One of the things I keep reading WRT how good digital capture is relates to the lack of grain in the digital capture. I do have a problem understanding this. It seems to me that in order to have a grain free image, the capture would have to be a continuous tone device. I know this to be untrue, as the manufacturers talk about pixel counts, and I know that a pixel is a discreet thing. I've seen comparative pictures between a 6mp digital capture, and a 35mm film image, and the digital capture is much smoother. So, somewhere along the way, it seems to me, a big fat lie has crept in somewhere. Specifically, what sort of image processing is being done to the image from the digital capture device to smooth out the spaces between the pixels? William Robb Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. --Groucho Marx
Re: Comparing digital to film
- Original Message - From: Herb Chong Subject: Comparing digital to film nothing. there isn't any reason because there aren't any gaps. pixels are not points, they are areas, just like film grains are. Pretend I'm from Missouri So, they just butt right up to each other? I've always envisioned an array, something akin to a CRT in reverse, where the pixels are set in a screen of sorts. William Robb
Re: Comparing digital to film
On 26 Jan 2003 at 13:22, William Robb wrote: One of the things I keep reading WRT how good digital capture is relates to the lack of grain in the digital capture Specifically, what sort of image processing is being done to the image from the digital capture device to smooth out the spaces between the pixels? The key to the digital look is tied to the interpolation algorithms that are implemented to decode the mosaic (ie non-continuous sensor) array. For an interesting article see: http://ise.stanford.edu/class/psych221/99/tingchen/ There are many photoshop compatible plug-in filters (algorithms) that do a good job of filtering the grain in areas of sky to make them appear like a digital captured image. We are back to the same arguments of PCM vs analogue audio, the dispensation of noise and lower apparent distortion of the reconstructed analogue signal from the PCM stream was touted as the road to audio nirvana. As we now know as far as convenience it's been a huge success but for those really in the pursuit of audio nirvana it seems that analogue still takes precedence regardless of the inherent higher background noise etc. Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications.html
Re: Comparing digital to film
Message text written by INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Pretend I'm from Missouri So, they just butt right up to each other? I've always envisioned an array, something akin to a CRT in reverse, where the pixels are set in a screen of sorts. William Robb they are in an array whose exact configuration depends on the manufacturer. the pixels are large enough to not be able to call them points. although they do not touch each other, they are very close together, usually closer together than the size of a pixel. the most key point is that the pixels are not points, they are areas, usually close to square or octagonal. within the area of the pixel, all color changes are averaged together because all of the light goes to activating the one pixel no matter what different colors strike where the pixel. the hardware reads the pixel as a single value. it's actually more complicated than this with blur filters, Bayer patterns of pixels, but if you were recording grayscale mode, which many digital cameras do by changing a setting, the simpler explanation is close enough. yes, there is stuff not sampled between the pixels, but at a high enough resolution, the change between adjacent pixels is not very rapid and so the eye, seeing the dots close together, blends them together. if you want to think of it that way, film grain is the same as pixels too, but they are smaller and randomly arranged. large scale grain patterns appear as dye clumps to people because people are designed to see patterns in everything even though they are random. these patterns are what most people talk about when they talk about visible grain. the actual grains are far too tiny to see under ordinary magnification. if you could drive a monitor with a resolution of 3Kx2K, or 6 megapixels, you would see basically continuous tones at normal viewing distances. there are such monitors made, although i missed my opportunity to check them out when i had the chance. Herb
Re: Comparing digital to film
William Robb wrote: One of the things I keep reading WRT how good digital capture is relates to the lack of grain in the digital capture. I do have a problem understanding this. It seems to me that in order to have a grain free image, the capture would have to be a continuous tone device. This brings up a point which I've been wondering about lately. A digital camera pixel is continuous tone. It measures the _intensity_ of the light that falls on it. As I understand it, a single film grain or dye cloud or whatever it is, is a discrete device: either its exposed or its not exposed, and the density of the exposed grains control the perceived tone - ie its some kind of a randomly arranged halftone process. If this is true, its little wonder that people say digital files have finer grain than film. And higher perceived detail. Cheers, - Dave http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/
RE: Comparing digital to film
-Original Message- From: David A. Mann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 12:53 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Comparing digital to film William Robb wrote: One of the things I keep reading WRT how good digital capture is relates to the lack of grain in the digital capture. I do have a problem understanding this. It seems to me that in order to have a grain free image, the capture would have to be a continuous tone device. This brings up a point which I've been wondering about lately. A digital camera pixel is continuous tone. It measures the _intensity_ of the light that falls on it. not quite, with 8 bit output it resolves 256 shades of grey per color and 64K shades with 16 bit output. JCO
