[pure-silver] Re: Comparing the Image Quality of Film and Digital
- From: "Eric Nelson" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "emanmb@xxxxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 12:04:38 +0700
Ross-Ehlert Lab had a Kodachrome line in Chicago as well back in those days. I
think it came about because Kodak had closed their own lab there that it became
feasible. It was such tricky & expensive process that it had to be closed down
after a time. I don't recall any pros' comments on the film back then other
than sharpness, but it was "the thing to do" as it was new-ish, snip tests were
available, and processing could be done in a reasonable amount of time.
Kodachrome had always been held in higher regard than Ektachrome. Given the
large quantity of common, pedestrian subjects in commercial work, ektachrome
was fine for most shootings.
I don't know how my chromes or B&W's are doing at this moment as I haven't gone
to the storage area to look at them in over a year. Also taking them out of
their protective bags will only invite problems till I have a permanent home
for them. Our house has been going thru a year-long needed update and refurb
so storage was the only answer. :(
On Dec 31, 2014, at 3:56 AM, bobkiss @caribsurf.com wrote:
DEAR RICHARD,
Don't forget, Kodak also had a Kodachrome processing lab in Fair Lawns, N.
J. which was where they offered us pros overnight Kodachrome processing. I
seem to recall a 5:30 pm pickup.
HOLIDAY CHEERS!
BOB
On Tuesday, December 30, 2014, Tim Daneliuk <tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 12/30/2014 06:32 AM, bobkiss @caribsurf.com wrote:
DEAR PETER,
If color neg still has a wider dynamic range than digital color images
(raw files I assume) then at the risk of comparing gray apples and colorful
oranges, black and white neg film must tromp raw files as, even with "normal"
processing, it has a greater dynamic range and, with "N Minus" it can greatly
exceed raw files. Further, b&w neg can record this wide SBR in one exposure but
digital requires multiple exposures and post exposure image processing just go
get a similar effect.
But, as you said, the manufactures are working on extending the range.
Further, from what i understand, the D600 does not produce the same raw file as
the top of the line Nikon or Canon DSLRs which, allegedly, do produce a wider
dynamic range raw. Not as good as film yet but it is just a matter for time.
Then again, I don't think anything will touch the image quality I get with
my 8X10 for a while! LOL!!!
HOLIDAY CHEERS!
BOB
Bob -
My experience is that with care in exposure and a good highlight compensating
developer like PMK Pyro, I can get a usable SBR of 15+ stops out of a piece
of film.
Digital cannot remotely do this, but that's not really the whole story. Film
is an analog medium that represents *(effectively) continuous* tonality, albeit
in a
nonlinear way (i.e., The tones are not spaced equally on a log-log HD curve.)
Digital presents a *sampling* of the tonal space is a fairly linear (log-log)
way. This means that film will capture and reproduce more tonal "information"
than digital will.
For example, even a 14 bit camera (which is what most of the higher end ones
are these days, Hassy excluded), you get get only about 16 thousand or so
discrete tonal values (per color). I'd argue that this is where the real
difference shows up. Suppose the 0-th value represents complete blackness
and the 16 thousandth-value represent the brightest part of a 15 stop SBR.
Yes, you'll see both ends of the dynamic range, but a lot of information
between them is going to get lost because there are just not enough bits
to encode the subtleties of tonal gradation that film can hold.
Then there's the problem that all those teeny sensor lenses
create diffraction effects way earlier than a pure optical system. This
is the reason most digi point-n-shoots hardwire their apertures at about
f/5.6 or so because below that you can see diffraction taking place,
especially with very dense sensors which have very small individual
taking surfaces.
Then there is the issue of resolution. The best pro DSLRs are a worthy
competitor to 35mm film when it comes to resolving power. But there is
nothing even close to a decent medium format neg - again the Hassy H-series
probably come closest - and forget trying to render what a decent 4x5 neg
can resolve. The silver grains are packed together so tightly that it is
going to take a quantum breakthrough in sensor design to begin to hold that
kind of detail.
But that's not going to happen ... because it doesn't need to. DSLRs are more
than good enough for the majority of commercial shooting encounters. Pictures
of people don't need huge dynamic range and no one wants detail down to
the pore when shooting fashion. Product photos are largely intended for a
web display that is (relatively) low resolution. The market for
really fine detailed, long SBR images is very small (it's us :) and does
not justify the money it would take to build a 4x5 equivalent sensor and
A/D converters to hold the equivalent amount of tonal information.
Then again, when you see the Photoshopped dreck that is masquerading as
art, one could argue that the capture medium is irrelevant in any case. And
this too has precedent. I was working in a recording studio some time the
first Moog synth became widely used. Everyone was whining about how this
would be the death of "real" instruments, the planet was doomed, blah, blah,
blah. Well, guess what? Steinway still makes fine pianos and people still
learn to play them. The early excesses of synth music were soon surpassed by
real musicians making real music irrespective of instrument type. Electronic
music (which I largely do not care for) went on to become its own, distinct
genre. I think this is what is happening to photography, at least photography
as art. The digital world is becoming a hybrid of captured and constructed
(in the computer) images. The film world remains a separate artform.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
=============================================================================================================
To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your
account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,)
and unsubscribe from there.
Other related posts:
