Color film less sharp than slides / B&W?

[Athiril]

Sharp C-41 is achievable. And it is not anything to do with how our eyes work, or 'perception of sharpness'. Line charts reveal that.

You need a sharper lens to reach the same levels I think with standard processing, or you can alter the processing.

Also your reproduction method and equipment matters a lot to anything decent off the film in terms of sharpness, flatbed scanners are very low res, they can be improved with 2-pass scan (separate files) and superresolution technique.

The following image I made should demonstrate a few of those points.

It is shot on Lucky 200, with modified C-41 developer.

http://oi43.tinypic.com/9glm6c.jpg

 

[Roger Cole]

Is anybody else wincing their way through this thread as color neg is referred to as "color film" versus "slide film" which is almost certainly also color, unless we are actually talking about reversal processed B&W like dr5?

Argh. Maybe I'm just pedantic but it bugs me. They are both "color film" so it's "color neg" versus "color transparency" not "color film" versus "slides."

In any case I've never noticed any difference in sharpness. I can project my slides to several feet on a side, but I've only printed color negs up to 11x14. Both seem adequately sharp, nor did I see any sharpness difference in actual detail between Ciba/Type R prints from slides or RA4 prints from negs back when I did the former. Subjective impressions of sharpness are another thing of course and often influenced by the inherently much higher contrast of the pos/pos prints, but in terms of actual visible detail I can't say I noticed.

 

[Richard Man]

Thanks for your comment.

5 feet panoramic, from a 35x66 mm scan. That's my comparison point. I guess I have higher requirements.

Anyway, sorry about the color film issue, but if that makes you wince...

 

[Roger Cole]

Sorry I've not been in the best mood lately, and I'm finding trivial things I'd normal ignore to be annoying. That's on me not you.

But to the point, I never noticed it.

 

[nworth]

Color negative films used to be less sharp than their reversal and black and white counterparts of the same speed, but that has not been the case for many, many years. They generally have much lower contrast, however, and that leads to the impression of less sharpness. Actual measurements show them to have quite comparable, and in some cases superior, resolution and MTF curves.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Ektar is capable of at least as much detail as any slide film. Maybe more. I print it using the finest neg carriers and apo lenses; and when its printed onto Fuji Supergloss, which is comparable to Cibachrome in its ability to hold detail, this characteristic is evident. But sharpness is also subjective and dependent upon both subject matter, specific hues, and contrast. Sometimes when I make dupe chromes or contact internegs the published specs and grain structure becomes quite important. It can also make a difference when working with very small neg like 35mm which are "wanabees" for otherwise outsized prints. But overall, there are a lot more important things to think about than just numerical resolution when choosing a film. I think the whole subject is a bit overblown.

 

[markbarendt]

But sharpness is also subjective and dependent upon both subject matter, specific hues, and contrast.

Very true.

Perceived sharpness is also dependent on the atmospheric conditions when shooting (haze, mist, fog), focus (as in depth of focus), lighting in the scene (scene/subject contrast), lens flare...

There are a lot of wildcards for any given shot.

 

[dynachrome]

It is true that color films have several layers but each one is very thin. There was no problem in getting high sharpness from Kodachrome 25. Kodachrome 64 was never nearly as good as Kodachrome 25 and that same difference existed between Kodachrome II and Kodachrome-X. I also shot Kodachrome briefly in 120 size while it was available. All maximum resolution numbers are based on high contrast ratios. I agree with a previous poster who pointed out that Ektar 100 is at least as good as any post-Kodachrome 25 slide film. If you can't achieve high sharpness with Ektar 100 it's not because of the film or any test or review of it.

When it comes to b&w negative films, TMX and ACROS are not nearly as fine grained as TP, ImakeLink HQ, CMS 20 or Agfa Copex Pan Rapid. I shoot Ektar 100 in 35mm and 120. You have to make a pretty large print from a 6X7 Ektar 100 negative to see grain or any loss of sharpness. As slide film use declined, all of the R&D for color films went into color negative film. Technology from motion picture film was also transferred to still film formats. That's how we have the high quality Portra and Ektar 100 films. Slide film hasn't been improved for some time. I also agree that basing things too much on scanning is likely to give erroneous results. You're just adding another step with all of the potential loss of image quality that can cause. If I know I will need a large print I would rather just use a larger format.