"Star" is asking :"How to become an analogue photographer"?

[tomfrh]

You have a lot to learn!

I'm using the term in the ordinary sense of the word. The other aesthetic qualities you're talking about aren't resolution.

 

[George Mann]

I we have heard here so far is how much lp/mm a format can reliably resolve given current amateur testing procedure.

But this isn't all there is to it. You have acuity, spacial resolve, dynamic resolve, several types of contrast, color resolution, and finally the transparency of the film base itself.

 

[George Mann]

The other aesthetic qualities you're talking about aren't resolution.

Actually, they are.

 

[faberryman]

Blah, blah, blah. Everyone needs to give it a rest.

 

[George Mann]

Blah, blah, blah. Everyone needs to give it a rest.

Without inquiry, you have no discovery.

 

[tomfrh]

There is no inquiry, just bickering.

I'm enquiring! I've looked closely at 35mm positives and can only see the equivalent of 15MP worth of detail. Beyond that it turns to mush. If I'm doing it wrong and there's in fact 78MP worth, or 138MP (or 400MP worth as someone once told me) I want to know about it.

 

[George Mann]

I'm enquiring! I've looked closely at 35mm positives and can only see the equivalent of 15MP worth of detail. Beyond that it turns to mush.

It is useless to try to determine a films native resolution by viewing it at it's molecular level without the aid of sophisticated forensic equipment!

If I'm doing it wrong and there's in fact 78MP worth, or 138MP (or 400MP worth as someone once told me) I want to know about it.

The engineers that make the film spec it as such.

 

[faberryman]

It is useless to try to determine a films native resolution by viewing it at it's molecular level without the aid of sophisticated forensic equipment!

What units of measurement are you using to signify resolution?

 

[George Mann]

What units of measurement are you using to signify resolution?

I am just referring to lp/mm.

 

[removed account4]

I prefer to call it realism.

no clue how film depicts realism more than digital makes absolutely no sense to me ..
and lines / inch has nothing to do with realism ... film and digital image making are as far from realism as realism can be.
in every sense of the word they are completely manipulated statements of reality and about as unreal as can be ..

Sure. I wouldn’t argue there. Film does have a look that is hard to replicate digitally.

maybe for some people it can't be replicated digitally, but i have found film can replicate digital and digital can replicate film .. its just a matter of taste
and im not talking about lines or dots per inch resolution has nothing to do with reality but everything to do with gear-chat ..

gettting back to the OP
the premise of the whole article is flawed
pick up a camera, put film in it make sure the camera works ahead of time
press button, .. repeat
you can just as easily give a point and shoot to a chimp in the zoo and they will easily make film exposures no matter the media ..

Blah, blah, blah. Everyone needs to give it a rest.

yup

 

[tomfrh]

I am just referring to lp/mm.

Really? I thought you said there’s a lot more to resolution than merely the ability to discriminate line pairs?

 

[George Mann]

Really? I thought you said there’s a lot more to resolution than merely the ability to discriminate line pairs?

You are quoting me out of context!

 

[tomfrh]

The engineers that make the film spec it as such.

We’re talking about what’s actually achievable, not fanciful theoretical predictions based on grain particle size.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

How many lp/mm do I need to make this photo:

https://d32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net/1fbD3NrH4yEAbhk3IHjbjA/larger.jpg

 

[removed account4]

How many lp/mm do I need to make this photo:

https://d32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net/1fbD3NrH4yEAbhk3IHjbjA/larger.jpg

thank you for putting this "stuff" into perspective
making photographs is achievable .. from what i understand

 

[faberryman]

I am just referring to lp/mm.

At the molecular level, which is what you were advocating analyzing.

 

[George Mann]

At the molecular level, which is what you were advocating analyzing.

I am no advocate of it, as you would know if you were paying attention to my replies!

 

[Craig75]

Almost as if its one person with two ids...

People need to google wum

 

[wiltw]

The film resolution vs. digital resolution is a moot argument...when film resolution was tested with lenses, the testing was done with Panatomic X, which an emulsion which is no longer in production, now out of production by 30 years! So any testing today is kiwis vs. bananas

And then in recent tests of lenses with 50MPixel cameras, we see MTF values in excess of 5500 line-pairs per picture height.
If 50Mpixels is represented by the Canon 5DS, with 5792 vertical pixels, how do we get more than 5500 line-pairs of resolution when the Nyquist Limit says we should see 2336 line-pairs. Howzat?

 

[cooltouch]

With all this arguing back and forth, I wonder how many folks here have actually tried a real-world comparison between a film and digital image. I have. I did it several years ago, and I was able to fairly closely construct a setting such that the two could be compared.

I used this image, a dupe from a slide which I took back in 1989 using a Canon FD 50mm f/3.5 macro lens and Fujichrome 100 slide film.

The point for comparison's sake that I used is the watch. For the digital comparison, I used a 10.1mp Canon DSLR (the highest res camera I owned then) and a 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor lens (I no longer owned the Canon macro). The subject of the digital image was the same exact watch, taken at approximately the same distance as was used in the original photo.

Here's a 100% crop of the watch from the slide. The original slide image held enough detail where I could make out that the watch was set to "Thursday." But the text below "Rolex" is an unintelligible blur. This image is sharp enough such that I have resolved this Fujichrome 100 slide's grain, so that's as good as it's gonna get.

Here's a shot of the same watch taken at the same distance as the original. I don't think this is 100%, just a crop. And difference in image sizes are at least partially due to full-frame vs APS-C cropping. But still, the difference in the level of detail is dramatic. The text below "Rolex" is clearly legible.

Honestly, before I ran that test, I didn't think the difference between a sharp film image, using a relatively fine-grained slide film, and a digital image would be that great. But it is clearly indisputable that circa 1989 Fujichrome 100 has a resolving power significantly less than 10.1mp. Funny thing, though -- this info has not made me appreciate the film image any less. I still like it, and one thing that it conveys that the digital copy definitely does not is a certain warmth, whereas the digital image looks clinical. This is why I still shoot film for artistic expression and use digital for the more mundane stuff.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I shoot film because I want to and I can. Until digital sensors are the size of the smallest film grain and/or film is no longer available at an affordable price, I will continue to shoot film. The arguments in this thread remind me of the religious debates in Jonathon Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

 

[trendland]

How many lp/mm do I need to make this photo:

https://d32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net/1fbD3NrH4yEAbhk3IHjbjA/larger.jpg

From my oppinium the question about how many lp/mm is not so unimportant as some might think. But this isn't in regard of you Theo !
But just imagine your shot you made with large format (6 x 9 ? from my suggestion) you would have make years later on minox bw film ?
Your shot may have got the same quality
(the depth of field characteristic isn't comparable with minox of course) !
But it is coming to issues of resolution next if you may have the chance to show this photo on an exibition.
(probably you have done exact this - I don't know).
In addition I have strong hope if this shot isn't made by Henry Cartier Bresson wich I did not remember... - then it may be a gerneral example.
But it isn't made by Henry it is actiually your shot Theo - right?
In case of exibitions / in case of selling a photo it is a question of format of the print. It is dependable from your photographers intention. You may say :" I don't like "large" prints I made my photography for smal formats in prints."
You may say from your intention the bigger print of your photo "has" to have smaler resolution.
But you also may have the intention to say : " I intended to print this photo as a big size print in 2,35m x 4,20m (not everybodys darling such "monumental sized photography") but then your intention may be : "There is NO need of finest details for the observer" nevertheless in some cases you want to have big sized photography with All details. Therefore you have to ask : "How could I get max. resolution"
with regards

PS : It is 4x5 inch with Graflex Speed Graphic press - right?
So you may have the oportunity to print bigger in size with good characteristic if you want......

 

[trendland]

With all this arguing back and forth, I wonder how many folks here have actually tried a real-world comparison between a film and digital image. I have. I did it several years ago, and I was able to fairly closely construct a setting such that the two could be compared.

I used this image, a dupe from a slide which I took back in 1989 using a Canon FD 50mm f/3.5 macro lens and Fujichrome 100 slide film.

The point for comparison's sake that I used is the watch. For the digital comparison, I used a 10.1mp Canon DSLR (the highest res camera I owned then) and a 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor lens (I no longer owned the Canon macro). The subject of the digital image was the same exact watch, taken at approximately the same distance as was used in the original photo.

Here's a 100% crop of the watch from the slide. The original slide image held enough detail where I could make out that the watch was set to "Thursday." But the text below "Rolex" is an unintelligible blur. This image is sharp enough such that I have resolved this Fujichrome 100 slide's grain, so that's as good as it's gonna get.

Here's a shot of the same watch taken at the same distance as the original. I don't think this is 100%, just a crop. And difference in image sizes are at least partially due to full-frame vs APS-C cropping. But still, the difference in the level of detail is dramatic. The text below "Rolex" is clearly legible.

Honestly, before I ran that test, I didn't think the difference between a sharp film image, using a relatively fine-grained slide film, and a digital image would be that great. But it is clearly indisputable that circa 1989 Fujichrome 100 has a resolving power significantly less than 10.1mp. Funny thing, though -- this info has not made me appreciate the film image any less. I still like it, and one thing that it conveys that the digital copy definitely does not is a certain warmth, whereas the digital image looks clinical. This is why I still shoot film for artistic expression and use digital for the more mundane stuff.

Look at this pls. :
www.petapixel.com/2014/12/18/comparing-image-quality-film-digital/

with regards

 

[trendland]

I am no advocate of it, as you would know if you were paying attention to my replies!

George these issues of comparison have been dicussed for a couple of years.
To me it was confusing at the very beginning : In 2000 an electrician told me his digital camera with 850.000 pixel
has "full" film quality but next we might have cameras with 1.000.000 pixels that should be indeed full film/photo quality?
A year later the first one stated he saw pictures of a 2 Mp digital :"definitiv better than from film" 2003 - 2005 some photo magazines made comparisons and recomanded 6 megapixel as far as like the quality of midt format in 4,5 x 6.
So over the following years digital cameras became better and better - suddenly the result of comparisons reached more and more quality equivalents for film....? .
Today it may be a shame to shot exited photos (they are probably possible) with apple cell phones (18mp) because the quality for bigger prints is much much restricted. Nevertheless of 18mp from miniature sensors.
Therefore I personaly want to become (back) an analogue photograper...

with regards

 

[trendland]

Never shot digital seriously by the way (outside comercial).....and will not shot digital !!!!!

with regards