35mm Scans VS FF digital

[etn]

I know, and that's the issue I'm fighting with. I nearly bought an F5 the other day, and then hesitated and didn't. I told myself that I can do anything I wanted/needed to do with the gear I have. But every now and then I like to go slow, think about my shot, and shoot a roll.

For this, forget about an F5 and go straight to medium format. Doesn‘t need to be expensive: something like a Rolleicord or Yashicamat can get you started for pretty much the same price as an F5. 1 lens, waist-level finder, 12 pics per roll, and the gorgeous looks of medium format will slow you down (in a positive sense) It is a completely different approach to photography! Enjoy
If you can, try slide film and project the slides.You will love it!

 

[ChristopherCoy]

If your goal is maximizing resolution, than the best approach is to work entirely within one type of workflow - either all analogue if your final output is to be analogue, or all digital if your final output is to be digital.

My ultimate goal is to build a portfolio that is all analog prints... however I get there. I've been investigating platinum palladium prints and I'm really drawn do it. This is something that I could make work in my current living situation, as a traditional dark room is out of the realm of possibilities right now.

 

[138S]

know that's a very generic question, because preferences will differ from person to person, and the end justifies the means, but from a quality perspective what are the differences?

The digital vs film debate is over. Regarding image quality, in general, FF has better optic image qualty than film since around 10 years ago, but film MF today surpases in image quality any Pro digital camera, including digital back costinf $40k.

Beyond image quality, there are other concerns were digital or film are superior. Digital is neatly superior in low light situations, film is neatly superior in sunlight, specially for portraiture.

Films like Portra 160 are still conserving detail by +5 overexposure !!! detail in the highlights is usually way more important than in the shadows because glare texture allows he mind to make an interpretation of the volumes.

Of course if the photographer doesn't know how to take advantage of highlight texture or the scene is dull then this is no advantage...

Another film strong point is that you have a dedicated sprectral response for each situation, Velvia 50 and Portra 160 have each very different interpretations that are top-notch and special for their intended applications. Instead sensors are for general usage...

Canon sensors are slightly better for skin tones, while Nikon sensors are slightly better for the rest, this is from the RGB dyes on the pixels, you always can adjust in Ps, but each sensor have an slightly better potential for one thing or the other. In the film case there is no slight difference... Portra is a totally powerful tool for portraiture, blowing miles away anything digital if the photographer is a master of his tools, and a Velvia 50 8x10" slide blows anything else out of orbit for landscape... there is no fight or rivalry, they play in different divisions.

Of course today film is not much a Pro tool today, photography work is cheap, film is slow and counter productive, and expensive if you shot Pro a lot... and market won't value much the film nuances, people are used to Nose jobs made with the smatphone selfies...

________

Then we have grain. Grain is not only a technical defect !!! in the 1980s Kodak planned to discontinue Tri-X because TMax had less grain. Photographers rebelled and assembled a riot aganist Kodak and finally they gave up their plans. Today, some 4 decades later, Kodak still makes profits from that product !!!

Grain structure has an aesthetic impact that has its roots in the ancient photographic culture. Grain usage has evolved during a century and a half, films and photographer made a co-evolution, a bit like electric guitars and amplifiers, you don't want a perfect linear amplifier !!!

_______

Finally, you may want authenticity, a grain in the film has received a photon that came from (perhaps) the sun an your subject reflected reaching the crystal you see developed, this may have no importance for some, but it sports a kind of purity that many artists value.

Recently Sally Mann made an exhibition with the most impressive prints many have ever seen on a wall. Basicly she departed from bare hand cut glass plates and simple chem, and never complained if a lens had an extensive crack in the middle... to end in those top notch silver prints (No AF... no zoom...), a great photograph may have many ingredients, but sometimes authenticity is the most powerful tool.

 

[jim10219]

My ultimate goal is to build a portfolio that is all analog prints... however I get there. I've been investigating platinum palladium prints and I'm really drawn do it. This is something that I could make work in my current living situation, as a traditional dark room is out of the realm of possibilities right now.

Platinum and palladium prints are going to be contact prints. It's true that you can make them with digital negatives, however, platinum and palladium are capable of tremendous resolution. So by printing them from a digital negative, you'll be exposing the dpi limits of your printer. Not that that would make them useless. It's just that that would be an expensive way to print photos that would probably not look any better than what you'd get from an inkjet printer directly onto photo paper, in terms of resolution and tonality. Of course, there are other qualities that you may be after that would make those printing chemistries worthwhile.

To really take advantage of platinum and palladium prints, it's usually best to use a large format camera that produces a negative in the size of the final print. That way, you never have to scan it, and you're never confining yourself to the limits of your inkjet (or laser) printer. Now, you don't absolutely need to spend a ton of money on an 11x14 large format camera and the super expensive film that it uses. You could get away with an 8x10 pinhole camera. But you'd have to be okay with the pinhole look and you're still spending a good bit of money on film.

Or you could consider using a different chemistry to make your analog prints. Gum bichromates, cyanotypes, and Van Dyke prints are easy to make and don't have the resolution and tonal scale you can expect from a platinum or palladium print. Plus they're a lot cheaper. So by using a good inkjet printer to make your digital negatives, you're not exposing the limitations of your printer, because the chemistry doesn't allow for that level of detail.

Just some thoughts, as I too have gone through the same process.

 

[jtk]

I shoot FF digital, and I'm learning about printing digital negatives etc. A question that I have though is, what are the differences between a scanned 35mm negative, and a full frame digital file? Why would someone prefer to start with a scanned digital file, instead of a straight digital file?

I know that's a very generic question, because preferences will differ from person to person, and the end justifies the means, but from a quality perspective what are the differences?

"Why would someone prefer..." ? That was the question.

I prefer Kodachrome to other films, that that train left the station two generations ago. My Nikon scanner isn't as good with Kodachrome as my "camera scans" @24mp for color, but it's wonderful for B&S. Both systems seem equal with E6, and the Nikon does a great job with C41 negs.

My photos are intended to be printed, therefore for me the choice is between B&W and color.

Most of my prints are Canon inkjet. The largest I've seen from my files was 30X40 so I paid for that...normally my limit is 13X19 (a standard inkjet size).

While I'm sure someone working with my film negs or my slides could make him/herself happier with the work of an expensive custom lab, I doubt that person would make 13X19 prints, color or B&W, as routinely as I do. My work isn't exceptional, it's just typical of the work of people who get somewhat serious.

Therefore, for the most part, my goal is fine 13X19 prints...or, as recently, antique-looking letter size editions of 21 on a specialized Hahnemeule matte paper/

The way I read the OT is "Why would someone prefer..." I prefer to make beautiful prints from film cameras and digital cameras. One of the rarely mentioned reasons is that there is no way to produce the look I personally want in a darkroom...that's partially because there are very few "art" darkroom papers.

My favorite darkroom papers were Dupont Varilour and Agfa Portriga/Agfa Brovira. Kodak wasn't a serious option. If I wanted to play in a darkroom today I would have to coat my own paper.

If someone relies on photo labs for her/his prints, she/he doesn't know zip about the distinctions between film and digital...she/he just reads "reviews" and "opinions."

 

[warden]

I shoot FF digital, and I'm learning about printing digital negatives etc. A question that I have though is, what are the differences between a scanned 35mm negative, and a full frame digital file?

Just personal opinion follows: I'd be more comfortable comparing medium format film scans to FF digital rather than 35mm film. I think 35mm film compares favorably with FF digital only with excellent exposures that are professionally scanned. If you would appreciate a little cushion, increase the negative size.

My ultimate goal is to build a portfolio that is all analog prints... however I get there. I've been investigating platinum palladium prints and I'm really drawn do it. This is something that I could make work in my current living situation, as a traditional dark room is out of the realm of possibilities right now.

Again I think medium format would give you results more likely to make you smile, especially if you're going to invest in platinum palladium printing. The minor additional cost of shooting MF won't be noticed unless you are trigger happy with your camera.

How big are you planning to print?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

For me B&W film has a look I can't get from a digital camera. I use digital for a lot of stuff, am far from "afraid of it". I shoot with a D4 and a D800 regularly, especially for semi-pro event shooting I do. But I still find B&W film unique, and the same can be said for slide film.

I agree. Digital has a very clean and clinical look, like a digital soap opera show. Film is more loosey goosey, organic, hard to explain. Film also slows me down.. The contemplation creates different and I think better work, at least for me. In the end, content, composition and light make the day regardless of the way you get there. If it doesn;t have that, it won;t matter what equipment you use. If it does, you're golden.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Another 1000+ thread which been tossed at many other forums long time ago. ex-APUG is at least decade behind.

If you are blind, then here is no difference between digital and film. Scans, prints doesn't matter. It is so obviously visible. Size of digital sensor is totally irrelevant. If it is then you are blind.

Just grow already to realize they are different. Not better, not worse, just different. Here is no VS. It just so not smart, to be polite.

 

[warden]

Another 1000+ thread which been tossed at many other forums long time ago. ex-APUG is at least decade behind.

If you are blind, then here is no difference between digital and film. Scans, prints doesn't matter. It is so obviously visible. Size of digital sensor is totally irrelevant. If it is then you are blind.

Just grow already to realize they are different. Not better, not worse, just different. Here is no VS. It just so not smart, to be polite.

Whoa, film and digital are different? But one is not necessarily better than the other? My mind is freakin' blown! Tell us which of the modern forums dropped that secret knowledge on you! I'm living in the distant past so that's a very advanced concept straight from the future for me. I think I need to sit down, I'm getting light-headed.

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Digital is better, obviously.

Higher resolution, higher sensitivity, lower grain/noise, more shadow detail, higher dynamic range overall, no reciprocity failure, possibility for live-view to zoom in on an image and really fine-tune the focus.

Analog has a charming aesthetic, its relatively cheap to get into medium format and even large, or other weird formats. Projecting slides is still something else.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

It's taken me nearly a week to clean up, clean off, and consolidate two drives that I've had since about 2009. I deleted over 433,800 files, I'm down to about 15K, and I still have the 500gb hard drive from my old iMac to go through.

It was much easier to go through the binder and box of negatives that I have though.

thats partially because you’re not maintaining files as you go. Part of digital that a lot of people don’t do is maintaining storage. That fancy camera that shoots 12 frames a second? Do you really need every frame you ever took in burst mode? No, not really. Culling that, dropping out the non-keepers and grooming the keepers for the archive/system of record is part of post processing the images that you took for an event, or photo shoot or whatever. If you don’t do that, what you end up with is a bunch of stuff you have to go through when moving to a new storage medium, instead of having an official system of record that you just simply copy over. This applies to pretty much everything digital, and not just photos. You can either organize it and archive it as you go, or you can spend a bunch of time going through it and deciding what to move when migrating. I prefer to organize it and archive it as I go so when it’s time to move to a new drive or storage medium, I just copy the official system of record over. This means that you need to have a system though, which many people don’t.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

thats partially because you’re not maintaining files as you go. .

Yeah... after the two weeks it took to get organized, I bet you I don't do THAT again! In fact, when I have shot digital in the last few weeks, the first thing I do is cull and "remove from disk". I've probably deleted good images in addition to the junk, but I've only kept a single frame of whatever the subject was.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Yeah... after the two weeks it took to get organized, I bet you I don't do THAT again! In fact, when I have shot digital in the last few weeks, the first thing I do is cull and "remove from disk". I've probably deleted good images in addition to the junk, but I've only kept a single frame of whatever the subject was.

Ive found that it’s helpful to treat shooting digital just like you would with film. Putting the camera on high speed continuous shooting is only a good thing for a few instances. This cuts down how many images you have to cull quite a lot. It’s also OK to keep the best 2-3 images (or even several good ones) of a subject, though this depends on what you’re shooting, the point is to drop off the clear non-keepers early on, then, before you call it done, enter in meta info, groom it for whatever your system is and actually put it there.

for images, I’m a Lightroom user, and actually have an official personal catalog, a paid work catalog, and a staging catalog. All new images go into the staging catalog where they await culling and post processing. From there, once I have a set of finished keepers, they’ll either be copied to the personal catalog, or to the paid work catalog. Those two catalogs only contain finished images and are the official “system of record”/archive. I maintain the images in those catalogs as DNG files and save the original raw file, the preview, and all associated meta data into the DNG file. This allows me to lose the Lightroom catalog file and as long as I have the actual DNG files, I’ve not actually lost anything because everything LR needs to render that file is in the DNG. I can just create a new catalog file and import the DNG and I’m back to where I was. This also makes moving and backup super easy as all I have to do is copy the DNG files.

 

[rknewcomb]

Basicly she departed from bare hand cut glass plates and simple chem,

Hi,
Would you please explain this to me as I'm confused. She used to make silver prints from wetplate negatives, what did she do differently?
Thanks,
Robert

 

[rknewcomb]

Digital is better, obviously.

Higher resolution, higher sensitivity, lower grain/noise, more shadow detail, higher dynamic range overall, no reciprocity failure, possibility for live-view to zoom in on an image and really fine-tune the focus.

This defines better only for you!
btw, the endless struggle to save the highlights in digital and the many digital images where that did not happen would suggest that your statement of "higher dynamic ranges" in digital is BS.
Robert

 

[138S]

Hi,
Would you please explain this to me as I'm confused. She used to make silver prints from wetplate negatives, what did she do differently?
Thanks,
Robert

Different ? Sally Mann photography benefits from some very high electro-organic tecnology.

First she uses head activeted VR, then a high technology organic shutter, and of course a metering device that never fails.

Better if you see it:




,,, prints in his last exhibiton are the most impressive many have seen on a wall, dot

 

[Helge]

The digital vs film debate is over. Regarding image quality, in general, FF has better optic image qualty than film since around 10 years ago, but film MF today surpases in image quality any Pro digital camera, including digital back costinf $40k.

Beyond image quality, there are other concerns were digital or film are superior. Digital is neatly superior in low light situations, film is neatly superior in sunlight, specially for portraiture.

Films like Portra 160 are still conserving detail by +5 overexposure !!! detail in the highlights is usually way more important than in the shadows because glare texture allows he mind to make an interpretation of the volumes.

Of course if the photographer doesn't know how to take advantage of highlight texture or the scene is dull then this is no advantage...

Another film strong point is that you have a dedicated sprectral response for each situation, Velvia 50 and Portra 160 have each very different interpretations that are top-notch and special for their intended applications. Instead sensors are for general usage...

Canon sensors are slightly better for skin tones, while Nikon sensors are slightly better for the rest, this is from the RGB dyes on the pixels, you always can adjust in Ps, but each sensor have an slightly better potential for one thing or the other. In the film case there is no slight difference... Portra is a totally powerful tool for portraiture, blowing miles away anything digital if the photographer is a master of his tools, and a Velvia 50 8x10" slide blows anything else out of orbit for landscape... there is no fight or rivalry, they play in different divisions.

Of course today film is not much a Pro tool today, photography work is cheap, film is slow and counter productive, and expensive if you shot Pro a lot... and market won't value much the film nuances, people are used to Nose jobs made with the smatphone selfies...

________

Then we have grain. Grain is not only a technical defect !!! in the 1980s Kodak planned to discontinue Tri-X because TMax had less grain. Photographers rebelled and assembled a riot aganist Kodak and finally they gave up their plans. Today, some 4 decades later, Kodak still makes profits from that product !!!

Grain structure has an aesthetic impact that has its roots in the ancient photographic culture. Grain usage has evolved during a century and a half, films and photographer made a co-evolution, a bit like electric guitars and amplifiers, you don't want a perfect linear amplifier !!!

_______

Finally, you may want authenticity, a grain in the film has received a photon that came from (perhaps) the sun an your subject reflected reaching the crystal you see developed, this may have no importance for some, but it sports a kind of purity that many artists value.

Recently Sally Mann made an exhibition with the most impressive prints many have ever seen on a wall. Basicly she departed from bare hand cut glass plates and simple chem, and never complained if a lens had an extensive crack in the middle... to end in those top notch silver prints (No AF... no zoom...), a great photograph may have many ingredients, but sometimes authenticity is the most powerful tool.

http://www.thermojetstove.com/Tonality/
To me the microscope crop image at the end, compared to the size of the whole frame, looks like at the very least 70MP equivalent, if not quite a lot more.

That’s just slide.
Negative film is higher resolution still.

 

[138S]

http://www.thermojetstove.com/Tonality/
To me the microscope crop image at the end, compared to the size of the whole frame, looks like at the very least 70MP equivalent, if not quite a lot more.

That’s just slide.
Negative film is higher resolution still.

Well... in that link it says "The scans were done on a Plustek 7200i. This is an extremely high resolution film scanner, able to resolve up to 7200 dpi. 7200 dpi works out to be just about 70 megapixels for a full frame, 35mm slide."

But the plustek does not deliver 7200 effective but 1/2 linear or 1/4 area of that, (https://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7600i.html#Bildqualitaet) so the plustek scan would be limited to 70/4 = 17.5MPix effective. Perhaps 12 effective in practice, what a Nikon D3200 yields.


Here you can see well made ratings by Mr Parkin

https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2011/12/big-camera-comparison/



Also I would recommend you next information:

http://www.tmax100.com/photo/pdf/film.pdf

Ancient VR100 consumer film is what rocks regarding resolution, it introduced Tabular crystals in color emulsions. At one point all CN films were optimized to be scanned in high production digital minilabs, at least the Frontier scanned with an area sensor...

To avoid color noise, reportedly, color clouds were made larger when CN films were re-engineered, slide films were not modified, if you see the rating in the linked document Velvia is sharper, but it always depends on density, film resolving power is very complex.

______

Anyway, if you download the Porsche slide here: http://www.adox.de/Photo/adox-films-2/cms-20-ii-adotech-ii/

Enlarge the glass lettering on the right headlight...

Yes... it's painful agfa copex microfilm... but... amazing !!! I guess they used a good lens...

 

[Helge]

Well... in that link it says "The scans were done on a Plustek 7200i. This is an extremely high resolution film scanner, able to resolve up to 7200 dpi. 7200 dpi works out to be just about 70 megapixels for a full frame, 35mm slide."

But the plustek does not deliver 7200 effective but 1/2 linear or 1/4 area of that, (https://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7600i.html#Bildqualitaet) so the plustek scan would be limited to 70/4 = 17.5MPix effective. Perhaps 12 effective in practice, what a Nikon D3200 yields.


Here you can see well made ratings by Mr Parkin

https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2011/12/big-camera-comparison/



Also I would recommend you next information:

http://www.tmax100.com/photo/pdf/film.pdf

Ancient VR100 consumer film is what rocks regarding resolution, it introduced Tabular crystals in color emulsions. At one point all CN films were optimized to be scanned in high production digital minilabs, at least the Frontier scanned with an area sensor...

To avoid color noise, reportedly, color clouds were made larger when CN films were re-engineered, slide films were not modified, if you see the rating in the linked document Velvia is sharper, but it always depends on density, film resolving power is very complex.

______

Anyway, if you download the Porsche slide here: http://www.adox.de/Photo/adox-films-2/cms-20-ii-adotech-ii/

Enlarge the glass lettering on the right headlight...

Yes... it's painful agfa copex microfilm... but... amazing !!! I guess they used a good lens...

I guess you missed the crucial microscope crop part at the end. Everyone knows the Plustek scanners, while certainly better than any flatbed ;-) is not optimal in any sense of the word.
And also you missed the microscope images in the Parkin link of yours.
Even Tim Parkin concurs that good DSLR macroscanning is the superior solution over drumscanning for 36x24 and smaller.

 

[138S]

You may find intersting this particular thread, comparing a howtek at 4000 dpi with an Epson V850:

https://www.largeformatphotography....wtek-8000-Drum-vs-Epson-V850-flatbed-scanners

__________________________________

A V850 yields 2300-2900dpi effective depending on the axis, a plustek reaches 3500 effective which is the same than a Drum at 4000. The drum may scan at 8000dpi or more...

A DSLR scan, if stitching enough crops, may reach 10000 dpi effective, for example if stitching a 3x3 mosaic for a 36x24mm frame, this is something I personally evaluated with a USAF 1051 glass slide, with a reversed enlarger lens. I you want I link the thread.

Anyway you may know that scanner performance is a plain overkill from some certain point, if the film does not resolve more...

____


Let me post the howtek drum vs V850 result ( bad news for the epon haters ):

 

[Helge]

I really have little experience with the Plustek scanners. All I can see is that the results is a notch above the positively soft 850, and below the (already barely acceptable) 2004 Pakon standards.
DSLR scanning is as you know not one thing.
There are many ways to fuck it up and come away thinking “you’ve done a good job”, because the results are half decent.
The focus is crucial, so is the backlight.

 

[138S]

2004 Pakon standards.

The pakon is inferior to the plustek, IIRC.

DSLR scanning is as you know not one thing.

The focus, the stitching, the color inversion, dust...

The epson detects/corrects dust in the infrared dedicated channel working perfect specially for color film.

the positively soft 850

This is a urban legend, coined by people not knowing how to focus the epson and having little skills in image edition.

With a 1.2mm curling the Epson losses half of its performance, see this graph, resolution falls from 7 microns to 14:

New ANR glass holders allow perfect flatness and adjustable focus, allowing a proficient user to make totally Pro scans, specially for MF and LF, for LF it shines.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The pakon is inferior to the plustek, IIRC.



The focus, the stitching, the color inversion, dust...

The epson detects/corrects dust in the infrared dedicated channel working perfect specially for color film.





This is a urban legend, coined by people not knowing how to focus the epson and having little skills in image edition.

With a 1.2mm curling the Epson losses half of its performance, see this graph, resolution falls from 7 microns to 14:

View attachment 249008



New ANR glass holders allow perfect flatness and adjustable focus, allowing a proficient user to make totally Pro scans, specially for MF and LF, for LF it shines.

I tested the two 4x5 holders that came with my Epson V850 Pro. There are five stops of height adjustment. I found on one of the holders, the middle slot was the best focus. On the other it was the slot between the middle and bottom. The difference was fairly apparent when comparing unsharpened scans.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Needless to say, you should test the heights for best focus when you buy one of these scanners.

 

[138S]

Needless to say, you should test the heights for best focus when you buy one of these scanners.

Alan, you are privileged because you have the new holders, beyond adjustable height, with the curling up the ANR glass ensures flatness, which is of great value because if not there is no way to focus all the frame if some curling is there, with the former holders in the V700 it was necessary to get 3rd party holders to obtain the results you are obtaining straing from the box.

Also, as obviously you have discovered, Epson images require a proficient edition to shine, once you get used to it then you do it in two clicks. Personally, I prefer a very raw image from the hardware and making manually the optimization, specially for portraiture.

What is not debatable is that the Epson is a top notch performer for MF and up, there is no doubt, that side by side you performed is smashing evidence. I don't know if you are totally aware but you are rivalling a good Howtek drum with the Epson, not everyone would be able because it requires a proficient scanning and a proficient edition, this takes some effort, but wet mounting the drum takes way more effort.