Any technical explanations as to how or why film sharpness looks different from digital sharpness ??

[Lucamancini]

With film, the sharpness is quite subtle and soft even on medium format meanwhile with digital the sharpness is much more glaring and just pops out. Basically, the two have different character when it comes to sharpness. Is this just as a result of the grain sort of masking everything ?

 

[juan]

Are you using the same lens or are you using modern ED glass for the digital and an older lens for film? I find the lens makes a difference in what to my eye is digital harshness.

 

[Anon Ymous]

Try using the same lens with a film camera, shoot raw and apply no sharpening at all. How sharp does it look now?

 

[BrianShaw]

You could be doing something wrong if your film MF photograph's "sharpness is quite subtle and soft". That's quite possible (and in some cases quite desireable) but not "normal" expectation of MF. Please give technical details of how you are photographing with film and digital, as well as example pictures.

 

[Rudeofus]

It all started with technical advances in digital sensors, at some point 20+ megapixels at ISO 400 were noiseless enough to allow for digital enhancements without creating excessive image defects. It is quite obvious, that typical digital images shown in photo clubs or small exhibitions look a lot sharper than the typical analog scan or print. They have also substantially more micro contrast, and everyone seems to be affected by this trend (Cue in the two folks here "who have never done this).

Since people always yearned for "high sharpness" (there are decade old Kodak studies confirming this! ), their wishes finally came true, and what once was considered "way overdone" suddenly became the norm. I see myself sharpening my scans to somehow match that look, I see myself starting with overdeveloped film and still using gradation 4 during printing, and still many of my pics look "old" compared to what my digital buddies produce.

It is up to anyone to either follow this trend, or to create one's own style.

 

[Alan Johnson]

"look a lot sharper than the typical analog scan or print"
My scanner has a CCD sensor, why should that not be classified along with a camera sensor for sharpness?
The lens may be less sharp of course.

 

[faberryman]

What is ironic about the comments about the evils of sharpness in digital images is that there is a concurrent thread about APO lenses with the subtext that the sharper the lens the better. And the darkroom technique of using unsharp masks is the analog of the digital sharpness slider. I am not sure whether these positions are inconsistent or schizophrenic. That is not to say that digital sharpness, like everything else in life, can't be overdone.

 

[Rudeofus]

What is ironic about the comments about the evils of sharpness in digital images is that there is a concurrent thread about APO lenses with the subtext that the sharper the lens the better. And the darkroom technique of using unsharp masks is the analog of the digital sharpness slider. I am not sure whether these positions are inconsistent or schizophrenic. That is not to say that digital sharpness, like everything else in life, can't be overdone.

It is generally agreed, that sharper images look more pleasant to us, and that modern digital imaging techniques make it easy to achieve just that - no specific skills required, just a decent smart phone. And yes, as I have pointed out: even I tend to aim for higher sharpness and micro contrast in my personal images.

However: none of these images represent what was actually there.

 

[foc]

When I studied photography back in the late 1970s, photographers yearned for sharper and grain free images. Agfapan 25 was the bee's knees, then along came Tmax and Delta and the chromogenic range of films and we thought we had it made.

Nowadays it appears that grain is back in fashion, the grittier the better. So may what goes round comes a round (again).

 

[Pioneer]

What is ironic about the comments about the evils of sharpness in digital images is that there is a concurrent thread about APO lenses with the subtext that the sharper the lens the better. And the darkroom technique of using unsharp masks is the analog of the digital sharpness slider. I am not sure whether these positions are inconsistent or schizophrenic. That is not to say that digital sharpness, like everything else in life, can't be overdone.

Is this true? I am not trying to be a smart a.... I am honestly asking because I don't know. My minimal knowledge of unsharp masks while printing does not confirm this. I can sharpen an image digitally far more than I have ever been able to do with my enlarger. On the enlarger I have always felt it was down to the performance of the camera and enlarger lenses combined with my own ability(or lack of) to focus them properly, particularly when working with large format.

 

[faberryman]

Is this true? I am not trying to be a smart a.... I am honestly asking because I don't know. My minimal knowledge of unsharp masks while printing does not confirm this. I can sharpen an image digitally far more than I have ever been able to do with my enlarger. On the enlarger I have always felt it was down to the performance of the camera and enlarger lenses combined with my own ability(or lack of) to focus them properly, particularly when working with large format.

Admittedly with digital you can dial sharpness up to 11. You don't have to. My point is that film photographers have been chasing sharpness for a long time with sharper lenses, finer grain films, higher accutance developers, larger formats, unsharp masks, etc. so I find the statements about the horrors of sharpness in digital a little overwrought.

 

[faberryman]

Nowadays it appears that grain is back in fashion, the grittier the better. So may what goes round comes a round (again).

I don't know if grain is back in fashion or not. If it is, I'd be interested in knowing when it went out of fashion. I suspect film photographers think that grain is part of the "film look" and so they are shooting grainy film so nobody confuses what they are doing with digital. It seems to me there is more to the "film look" than grain, but maybe that is the most obvious thing they can point to, so that's what they are going with. I'd be more concerned with content.

 

[xkaes]

I don't know if grain is back in fashion or not. If it is, I'd be interested in knowing when it went out of fashion. I suspect film photographers think that grain is part of the "film look" and so they are shooting grainy film so nobody confuses what they are doing with digital. It seems to me there is more to the "film look" than grain, but maybe that is the most obvious thing they can point to, so that's what they are going with. I'd be more concerned with content.

Not all film has grain.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

FIlm sharpness depends only on the lens and resolution of the film. Digital sharpness depends on the lens, resolution of the sensor, plus the camera's program is artificially sharpening the image file.

 

[Anon Ymous]

FIlm sharpness depends only on the lens and resolution of the film. Digital sharpness depends on the lens, resolution of the sensor, plus the camera's program is artificially sharpening the image file.

Have you ever heard of unsharp masking? Do you know it's origins?

 

[faberryman]

Not all film has grain.

Are you pointing out that some films have less visible grain for a given enlargement than others or that color film has dye clouds?

 

[Rudeofus]

Have you ever heard of unsharp masking? Do you know it's origins?

Have you ever done it in a dark room? I sure haven't. That's the point: the sharpest lens and the sharpest film on earth won't make a scene sharper than it was, but a few actions in digital post will do just that. Everybody is used to this look so much that TMAX (a film, which was originally hated for its digital look) now looks like mush compared to the average smart phone pic.

 

[faberryman]

Have you ever done it in a dark room? I sure haven't. That's the point: the sharpest lens and the sharpest film on earth won't make a scene sharper than it was, but a few actions in digital post will do just that. Everybody is used to this look so much that TMAX (a film, which was originally hated for its digital look) now looks like mush compared to the average smart phone pic.

This is like complaining there is too much salt on potato chips. Find a brand with less salt or don't eat them.

 

[MattKing]

Sharpness isn't a strictly objective phenomena, it is a perceptual phenomena. You can have two similar images where one appears "sharper" than another, but the less sharp appearing image resolves more detail.
We tend to gravitate toward sharp appearing edge details. There are all sorts of ways to enhance the appearance of those edge details. Unsharp masking is one such approach.

 

[Anon Ymous]

Have you ever done it in a dark room? I sure haven't. That's the point: the sharpest lens and the sharpest film on earth won't make a scene sharper than it was, but a few actions in digital post will do just that. Everybody is used to this look so much that TMAX (a film, which was originally hated for its digital look) now looks like mush compared to the average smart phone pic.

Me neither, don't have the pin registration gear, nor the will to do it. But what I was trying to point out is that (excessive) sharpness isn't an inherent characteristic of digital photography.

 

[xkaes]

Are you pointing out that some films have less visible grain for a given enlargement than others or that color film has dye clouds?

The latter, but it doesn't just apply to color film.

 

[Steven Lee]

With film, the sharpness is quite subtle and soft even on medium format meanwhile with digital the sharpness is much more glaring and just pops out. Basically, the two have different character when it comes to sharpness. Is this just as a result of the grain sort of masking everything ?

Yes, that is true and the effect is quite real. You asked for a technical explanation, here it goes: film resolution depends on subject contrast, while digital sensor resolution does not.

What it means in practice is that high-contrast elements of the image, like eyelashes or sharp-edged textures, look extremely sharp on film. While low-contrast textures like skin blemishes aren't as sharp. This is where most of the visual difference you're observing comes from. Moreover, film's response to light is non-linear, particularly in the highlights. Those parts of an image that receive a lot of light start to "compress" and lose in contrast, so they start looking smoother.

And finally, and this applies only to color film where an image is formed by tiny dye clouds, these clouds grow larger in the over-exposed parts of an image, reducing resolution further.

TLDR: the primary technical difference in resolution between film and digital sensors is film's non-linearity: film gains and loses resolution in different parts of a scene depending on area contrast and exposure, while digital sensors deliver the same resolution regardless of contrast and exposure.

 

[markjwyatt]

The latter, but it doesn't just apply to color film.

Chromogenic B&W also has dye clouds, but both color and chromogenic B&W started the image with grain, but it was removed in the processing. I suspect the grain pattern is still in the dye clouds, though they may be more diffuse than the original grain.

 

[faberryman]

The latter, but it doesn't just apply to color film.

Yes, there are chromogenic black and white films like Ilford XP2. Ironically, Ilford describes XP2 as follows:

XP2 SUPER is a sharp, fast, fine grain black and white film.

And Kodak describes Ektar 100 as follows:

Kodak Professional Ektar 100 is a daylight-balanced color negative film characterized by an ultra-vivid color palette, high saturation, and an extremely fine grain structure. Utilizing the cinematic VISION Film technology, this film's smooth grain profile pairs with a micro-structure optimized T-GRAIN emulsion to make it especially well-suited to scanning applications, and advanced development accelerators offer extended versatility when making enlargements.

I am thinking saying some films don't have grain is just being pedantic because even the manufacturers say that they do.

 

[DREW WILEY]

How much of this is confusing lossy "sharpness" for the real deal? Digital edge enhancements do so by subtracting, not adding, actual detail. But film to film unsharp masking preserves the detail, while potentially enhancing edge acutance, provided one understands how to do that. Yet it can be overdone and look annoying either way. Basically, a lot of this line of debate is based on superficial generic stereotypes of things actually involving all kinds of variables. As usual, the Devil is in the details, either way.