Can scanned 35mm look as good as a 12MP Digital SLR?

777funk · Oct 18, 2011

I'm considering going somewhat analog again. I'd be interested to find out if a 35mm scanned neg can look as good as say a photo shot with a 5D or other good quality DSLR at reasonable resolution?

thanks!
Nick

glhs116 · Oct 18, 2011

If the question is can it look like it I would say the answer is no. Can it look as good? I think it can look better! It is an artistic decision. If you are looking to do film and achieve eye-bleeding detail levels I encourage you to consider a larger format. It will considerably reduce the effort and expense you need to put into the scanning and it will give you more freedom in film choices.

If you really want that level of detail in 35mm you are pretty much talking Velvia and a Coolscan. Move up to medium format and you can match that detail level with most films and an Epson flatbed scanner.

777funk · Oct 18, 2011

I am mainly wondering if at web sized formats (i.e. fitting within a monitor's resolution) if 35mm can look presentable? I'd say an average sized LCD monitor is bigger than an 8x10 print which most say is the limit for quality 35mm reproduction.

I haven't been around pro photo enough to know what 35mm can look like digitized.

glhs116 · Oct 18, 2011

Most of my stream is scanned 35mm and 120. All of it clearly marked as to the equipment used. You can even download original size:

Flickr: Doha Sam's Photostream

I usually print 60cm x 40cm which is quite a bit bigger than 8 x 10.

Jim Jones · Oct 18, 2011

A good analog print is much sharper than any digital display I'm familiar with. Scans of 35mm film on a good flatbed scanner may be good enough for casual web images, but they won't compete with analog prints.

timparkin · Oct 18, 2011

Colour or Black and White?

If black and white then, yes, scanned black and white can look a lot better than 12mp DSLR. If Colour then it's more complex. The 12Mp DSLR may produce some finer details but some of these will be 'made up' because of the bayer algorithm. However, at the limit of resolution the DSLR will have more contrast and hence most punters will say that the DSLR looks sharper. But, and it's a big but, the film 35mm will have a colour texture that beats the DSLR (for reasons to do with bayer algorith again - take a look at The Mysterious Case of the Missing Berries and Other Stories.. | Great British Landscapes). Take a look at the following for a 4000dpi scanned Portra 400 from a recent gig

I was quite chuffed about getting critical focus at f/1.4 (which is why it might not be as sharp as it could be)

Tim

pellicle · Oct 18, 2011

timparkin said:
Colour or Black and White?

I was quite chuffed about getting critical focus at f/1.4 (which is why it might not be as sharp as it could be)

Tim

really nice work there Tim!

pellicle · Oct 18, 2011

777funk said:
I am mainly wondering if at web sized formats (i.e. fitting within a monitor's resolution) if 35mm can look presentable? I'd say an average sized LCD monitor is bigger than an 8x10 print which most say is the limit for quality 35mm reproduction.

I haven't been around pro photo enough to know what 35mm can look like digitized.

sure ... been looking "presentable" for ages. The following are all scans from 35mm ... from Epson 4870, Nikon LS-20 and eventually LS-4000. All are from 35mm and some date from the 1990's

Dead Link Removed
Dead Link Removed
Dead Link Removed
Dead Link Removed
Dead Link Removed
Dead Link Removed

a little time in learning stuff about scanning and you can do wonders with 35mm if you wish
not sure how to display this one but download it and look at it on your monitor or print it to 8x10 if you like

pellicle · Oct 19, 2011

OMG Tim ... its Garry ... (fantastic!)

lenny · Oct 19, 2011

A high end drum scanner can outdo a digital camera such as you describe, easily.

Lenny

nsouto · Oct 22, 2011

777funk said:
I am mainly wondering if at web sized formats (i.e. fitting within a monitor's resolution) if 35mm can look presentable? I'd say an average sized LCD monitor is bigger than an 8x10 print which most say is the limit for quality 35mm reproduction.

I haven't been around pro photo enough to know what 35mm can look like digitized.

Dunno what you call presentable, but I took Dead Link Removed (click on image for full size) two months ago with my F6 on Provia 100f (RDPIII) and it's way more detailed than anything I can do with my 12Mpixel Oly EPL1. Particularly in the dynamic range. Of course: I can't change the ISO after the fact like I can with a raw image. But I think that's rather what we were given built-in meters for? Got plenty of other examples, some quite striking, on how I can get >18Mpixels with 35mm film, unlike what you read in most "expert" web sites.

timparkin · Oct 22, 2011

pellicle said:
OMG Tim ... its Garry ... (fantastic!)

spotted!

2F/2F · Oct 23, 2011

lenny said:
A high end drum scanner can outdo a digital camera such as you describe, easily.

Lenny

As can a home Coolscan scan of a technically-sound low-ISO negative or transparency...easily. The most expensive of SF digital cameras have finally matched (but not exceeded) amateur 35mm film scanners in terms of pixel dimensions. Pretty pathetic for what you have to pay, if you ask me.

Working at high ISO speeds is another story. Digital has real-world advantages in areas that are often more important than absolute measurements of grain, resolution, sharpness, etc.

The way I see it, you cannot really compare the two. They are different media for different purposes in my hands. And I don't generally pit the two against each other in a "quality" comparison in order to decide which one to shoot. Both are capable of providing images that blow me away, considering that they come from small format cameras. If I want a digital file, I don't generally shoot 35mm film. If I want to shoot at ISO 3200 or 6400, I shoot digital, as the alternative is underexposing and pushing film with completely different (usually inferior to me) results. If I want pictures that I don't ever intend to print, I shoot digital. If I want to make my own prints, I shoot film. If I am in a rush I shoot digital. As you can see, none of these things have to do with megapixels, sharpness, resolution, or image size. They have to do with lighting, work flow, the final intended product, the subject, etc.

So, use the tool that best suits you getting what you want in the end. In most cases, I would say to go with digital over 35mm if you want a digital file to work with in the end. Not because it is "better" in "quality" as a rule, but because it simply makes more sense.

pellicle · Oct 24, 2011

Hi

2F/2F said:
As can a home Coolscan scan of a technically-sound low-ISO negative or transparency...easily. The most expensive of SF digital cameras have finally matched (but not exceeded) amateur 35mm film scanners in terms of pixel dimensions. Pretty pathetic for what you have to pay, if you ask me.

yes, and some time ago I took the time to compare a drum scan with a LS-4000 and a 10D image of the same scene from the same distance covering the same amount. Its long is but worth the read (here)

Working at high ISO speeds is another story. Digital has real-world advantages in areas that are often more important than absolute measurements of grain, resolution, sharpness, etc.

+1 & fully agree

The way I see it, you cannot really compare the two. They are different media for different purposes in my hands.

that's nearly the truth, except that there is so much overlap between the two that they do compare.

Personally I use both for different reasons (and that would be format size).

Les Sarile · Oct 24, 2011

Why set the bar so low at 12MP? Heck my 14.7MP G10 has far more than that

How about we go all the way to the current king of DSLR resolution the >24MP Sony A900 set at ISO 400 vs Fuji Sensia ISO 400 35mm film scanned with not pre or post processing applied except for the superimposition of both images into one. Keep in mind that the A900's native pixel count is even more then the Coolscan minus cropping so this is pixel for pixel comparison. The A900 courtesy of DPREVIEW's original samples from the camera but unfortunately has been moved to another location that I cannot find but had it saved. I kept the EXIF of the original A900 image when I merged the scanned image into it so it is still there to review.

Link to >10Meg file -> [url]http://www.fototime.com/E107CA46E2774A1/orig.jpg[/URL]

Les Sarile · Oct 25, 2011

If I can't achieve considerably better then a 12MP digianything with 35mm color film then something is very wrong.

Bob Carnie · Oct 26, 2011

A good quality scan will give you a enlarged print that shows film grain , just as you would see enlarging the same film. A Cannon 5 D will give you the same quality output, without the film grain, unless of course you introduce grain in PS.
The answer would then be do you like the look of an image with grain or not, and that would be your deciding factor.
I use both and like the results from either method.
So to my eyes yes they can look as good.

777funk said:
I'm considering going somewhat analog again. I'd be interested to find out if a 35mm scanned neg can look as good as say a photo shot with a 5D or other good quality DSLR at reasonable resolution?

thanks!
Nick

JBrunner · Oct 26, 2011

There are so many variables that one would need to be liar to answer that question, and then comes circumstance and subjectivity. In my own experience digital is something I use because of it's efficiency and workflow. I've never felt the "quality" was somehow better, because sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't.

nsouto · Oct 26, 2011

bob carnie said:
A good quality scan will give you a enlarged print that shows film grain , just as you would see enlarging the same film. A Cannon 5 D will give you the same quality output, without the film grain, unless of course you introduce grain in PS.

See, this is where I disagree with all these comparisons of "same for same". A 5D does not produce a noiseless image anymore than a film scan produces a grainless image.

*IF* one processes the latent raw image with the Canon Digic processor, most of the noise will be gone because that is what that processor does: it smudges away the noise according to an edge-detection algorithm. You can clearly see plenty of examples of this in published "pixel peeping" images taken with these cameras.

In particular, it is common to see a high contrast boundary with pixel-level sharpness whereas non-high contrast transitions show up smudged in the same image, right next to that boundary. As well, the processor applies major sharpening after the Bayer pattern has been decoded. This happens like it or not, unless one simply ejects all Canon pre-processing: not an easy task.

Now, why is it that film scans are always compared unprocessed for grain reduction and unsharpened, whereas dslr images are compared exactly the opposite?

I prost-process every single one of my film scans to reduce grain and increase sharpness. Under those conditions, I put the resulting images up for comparison with any dslr image of <20Mpixels and usually I get a better overall result from film - image-wide, not just high contrast boundaries.
Within the ISO capability of film, of course.
And assuming the lens resolution and quality matches what film can do.
Thats is not always the case in most examples I see out there on the net.

Bob Carnie · Oct 27, 2011

Digital Noise and film grain are two different things.

You need to sharpen a film scan just the same as you need to sharpen a digital capture. one will show the inherent grain of the film and the other will not if the capture device is of sufficient quality.
they both look different and my point is that both are acceptable to different people and projects.

compare a side by side example of a tri x film in Rodinal, and a Tmax film in Tmax developer , one will look definately smoother. some like it with grain and others prefer no grain.
I think this is why there are a lot of 8x10 shooters using Tmax and a smooth developer, and why a lot of rangefinder shooters are using trix and rodinal.

both are acceptable means of producing images.

Diapositivo · Nov 6, 2011

For monitor presentation both 12mp and 35mm are "overshooting", you would obtain the same results with much less resolution.

More in general, my experience as a user of both digital (11mp) and film (35mm slide scanned with a 4000 ppi tabletop scanner) is that scanned film has a resolution which is superior to my digital. Besides, I contribute to some stock agencies and I can see that they accept my scans and they would not necessarily accept 10mp digital captures.

Some people compares a 35mm scan to a 6mp digital capture. I think they either scan with a low-quality scanner (a flatbed scanner is normally quite inferior in quality to a film scanner) or they confuse the "neatness" of digital with detail.

Besides resolution, film has a much better behaviour in the highlights. Even scans from slides have a much better highlights behaviour than digital captures. For "highlights behaviour" I mean that digital highlights clip abruptly, while film highlights clip much more gradually and so even in those instances when clipping is present it is unnoticeable, whereas with digital clipping results in a "white hole" in the picture (or grey mush if you use "recovery").

That said, film requires more postprocessing. I spend I think on average 10 or 12 minutes for a scan and something like 5 minutes for a digital capture. Considering that there is no digital advantage in all the ancillary work (description, keywording, uploading to the agencies, managing the stock at the agencies) I would say that digital costs, in term of time, some 25% less than traditional photography for stock purposes. Besides, one has to develop film and scan it but that's very easy and fast when one is organised.

I find the real advantage of digital capture is versatility, especially the ability to change ISO speed on the fly. I recently went to Paris and brought my digital with me, because I was worried about bringing with me dozens of film cartridges, and also I wanted to walk light, with only 1 camera (I actually ended up bringing with me two cameras, a digital and a film camera with a very wide angle lens).

Digital and analogue have both their pros and cons. To me, digital is more versatile, analogue yields better quality both as far as resolution is concerned (that's not very important, and is probably matched by very find digital cameras) and highlights behaviour is concerned (that is important, and cannot be matched by any digital camera so far).

Alan Klein · Nov 13, 2011

I find that when I shoot medium format film, I slow down and the quality of my photos improve. Not from a resolution standpoint, but from an "artistic" one. Composition, subject, everything improves because I'm thinking about what I'm shooting more with film than with digital. With digital, I tend to be more impulsive and get my shots off quicker. It'll probably get worse once I discover the continuous shutter mode. There are more "keepers" with film. Most people don't pixel peep and even those who do will admire "good" photos that have meaning, or inspire awe, or just attract attention. Resolution doesn't usually do that by itself. Use whatever makes your photography "better".

Eric Rose · Nov 17, 2011

I hate to be the dissenting vote here but in my experience my Nikon D700 produces files in RAW that are every bit as good and in some cases (colour) better than from my Nikon Coolscan 5000. And it's not that I don't know how to scan. I do.

nsouto · Nov 18, 2011

Maybe the film image technique is not the best? Have yet to see a dslr produce better images than what I get with 35mm film, outside of the expen$ive 24MPixel monsters. I am assuming all else equal. As in: lens quality, light quality, ISO, etcetc. And the camera quality itself: one cannot expect a tired old 35mm Zenit camera body to have the film path flatness of a late model Nikon F6, or of a Contax/Leica.
For the medium format, nothing gets anywhere near film - at a sensible price. Bang for buck, nothing beats a M645 ProTL with Velvia or Ektar, or a RB67 or even a Arax 60. Got one of each of the above and the image quality is absolutely stunning - again, for the price I paid for them.
Of course: if no limits assumed on expenditure, it's possible to get digital medium format cameras that match film.
Dslrs will take photos at 3200ISO. That's never been denied. The need for that is what becomes curious. Still: the good thing is that we can all use what we feel comfortable with and can afford.

donbga · Nov 18, 2011

eric rose said:
I hate to be the dissenting vote here but in my experience my Nikon D700 produces files in RAW that are every bit as good and in some cases (colour) better than from my Nikon Coolscan 5000. And it's not that I don't know how to scan. I do.

I would submit to you Eric, that you are just wasting your time in this discussion, even though I do agree with you.

Can scanned 35mm look as good as a 12MP Digital SLR?

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