digital or stay with XPAN and mamiya7

[b.espahbod]

I am an ACE (Adobe Certified Expert) on Digital Imaging Print Specialist and from my experience I dont think Digital is a waste of Time or Money, its a way of sacrificing quality, tonality, resolution, perspective and sense for the sake of Commercially Fast and Better Services for THE CLIENT. I dont have a single digital camera my self cuz i dont feel the need. I shoot 35mm to 4x5" and I think the Optimum quality is only reachable by means of a braod knowledge in Light, Perspective and DOF control on 4x5" Slide using symmetric LF optics and scan them with a 4000+ DPI scanner and nothing can compare to this.

more math:

8 bit image means 16.7 million colours defined
16bit image means 256 billion colours defined
while slide carries infinite colours ready to be picked and ur basket capacity is a 48bit (16bit per channel RGB) and thats what i call capture fidelity and your max file size is 96GBytes of data to deal with. this is not a dream its just a AztekPremier scanner with interpolation resolution of 64000 dpi bicubic (8000dpi). I wonder why they make such scanners is it for Slide or something else that we dont know yet???

 

[Ray Nalley]

Arguing that a 1DsMkIII is only suitable for 12x18 photos is just silly. The math just doesn't translate into real world results.

 

[Ray Nalley]

I just don't shoot photos with a calculator. 🙂

 

[eggman6]

Maybe theres something wrong with my eyes, but most of the color film photos i've seem look less than impressive. Maybe its just bad scans, in which case you're losing any benifit film has if you dont make enlargements and settle for the scan.

But saying that film is quicker than digital is just madness, and nothing else, thats more crazy than buying an m8.

Anyway theres a review somewhere that compared 35mm MF and a canon digital, digital beat the 35 with ease, cant remeber with MF it might have had a bit more detail, not much more though. But with a higher spec digital you'd have the edge. I was surpirsed myself i expected MF to win by far.

Anyway i find that digital cameras (decent quality SLR) produce higher quality images. Now people will want to call me an idiot, or say i'm wrong, but i'm not biased like some of the people here are.

I only base my conclusions on what i've seen with my own eyes, if people can point me to evidebnce that proves otherwise i will change my opinion. I dont have much real life experience with 35mm but the pictures i've seen online don't impress me so much.

I'm aware LF will have the edge over digital SLRs, but i dont think its right to compare. 39 mp digital backs would be more appropriate.

 

[RObert Budding]

Aha. Thank you so much for your valuable input. Appears to me you haven't learned too much in school.

You must be one of the guys who try to bend reality until it fits your own needs, ignoring phyics, math or any proven science at all.

And you are one of the guys who makes me wonder how the Americans managed it to get to the moon by bending math and physics, really.

And how is this attack going to move the conversation forward?

It is reasonable to look at native resolution when discussing optimal print size. But some of the scaling algorithms work very well for certain subjects. So, yes, you can make large prints from digital that look good, particularly when viewed from a distance greater than 12 inches.

 

[Ray Nalley]

I've printed 16x20 inch photos from 3 megapixel Canon D30 files that are stunning, scaling them with Genuine Fractals. According to the math, they should be pixelated garbage. I simply can't deny my own experience.

 

[adonf]

There is a reason that film is rarely used by the majority of pros and serious ametures anymore. Either "everyone else is an idiot" or there just maybe something to that digital stuff after all.
(...)
I still use film, but not for any serious or paid work anymore.

I've seen probably more than a hundred photography exhibitions this year, most of which I enjoyed. For me, photography is not just taking pictures: I enjoy at least as much watching what those who makes it an art-form do.

Of all those exhibitions (mostly contemporary photographers' current work), I can count on the fingers of one hand those that where shot digital. These days, colour photography is mostly print digital (inkjet) though, and I think it's a good thing : I don't really like RA4 paper.

But knowing that 99% of the photography I like and admire is still captured on film means something to me.

I don't care much for the "majority of pros" : those are PJs, wedding photographers and so on, who have to deliver files.

In priority to great pictures.

Of the few work I saw recently that where obviously shot digital, the only one I really liked was Gregoire Alexandre's exhibition in Arles, because he is very talented anyway, and digital "coldness" suits his style very well. Yet, the huge prints they made allowed to see unpleasant extrapolation artefacts you will not see enlarging a medium format film. He's probably using Phase One backs or something similar, that can probably record as much "usefull" information about a scene as a 4x5" low sensitivity film. Yet, when you enlarge beyond this usefull information, the texture you get just sucks. At a point, enlarging film will only bring you grain (seen Blow-up anyone ? 😉), but grain does look good ! And at least more "organic" and natural than any digital extrapolation algorithm (although fractals can do wonders...)

I've also seen in July an exhibition from Paolo Pellegrin (As I was dying - amazing work and pictures !). The prints from 35mm B&W film where huge, also. And looked just as stunning in close-up (where it looks like an insanely fine pencil drawing !) as it looked when looking at the full picture from a few feet back.

Finally, as far as I'm concerned, I just don't like digital cameras. I just really don't get inspired by those plastic cases, and bells, and whistles. I just don't like seeing what I just took on a screen. I like to discover my pictures with a certain distance from reality, and if possible a better look than reality. I don't want to discover them on a video picture, cluttered with numbers and histograms, when I still have in front of me a scene I judge is worth photographing.

Yet, people just pursuing "efficiency" and "technical perfection" should just stop using film and "go digital".

Which reminds me how much I hate the "Hey, not "gone digital" yet ?!" sentence, generally followed by a long monologue about the brother's in law new Canon digital Rebel, and how much it must be superior to my "Is it Russian ?" Leica M6 filled with tri-x or Portra, that can't even zoom.

Efficiency or technical perfection is simply not what I'm after, but to each his own... I'm just fed-up with people* explaining me that I'm stupid using what I'm using, and telling me what I should do.

*(Be sure that I'm not talking about you Andrew, I just quoted your post as a starting point 😉)

 

[eggman6]

I can understand why people use film, and what they like about it. And i can apreciate many of the points people make about the advantages of film.

But fred makes a good point.

Many of the people who defend the use of film dont shoot, or use their negatives in such a way that they get these benifits.

Theres alot more i could say, but it would only offend people.

10 years from now, the discussion film vs digital wont exist. Film wont have a leg to stand on. As far as detail and image quality is concerned.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Digital cameras are awesome. In terms of IQ, they are absolutely the equal of film.

However, film is different. If you really like it, you may miss it a lot. You can buy a 14mp consumer DSLR like the Pentax K20D, and get a nice wide zoom like the Sigma 10-20, and then crop your photos to the dimensions of the XPAN, and your printed results will be wonderful. But it won't be like using the XPAN at all, and it will look different too.

If you have the money and want to try a new way of working, get a nice digital camera. But don't go selling the XPAN and 7 in the hope it will be like them, but better.

 

[Riemann]

I have been working with M7 and the best Hasselblad(Imacon) scanners and it really gives great results.
I have a prof. photog. friend in Japan who recently bought a Haselblad H2 with a standard lens on it. It gives very good result and same resolution as the scans. The big difference in my opinion is the feel of the negative and the different feel from the raw file. Some photoshoppers even put scanned film grain into the pictures to resemble negatives. I think its all compares to what you want the print to look like. In 50 years we probably think todays digital images look really old fashion and have that 2000's feel to them.

100% Mamiya 7 neg on hi res scanner:

100% Hasselblad/Leaf file:

 

[Parkes Owen]

As a fine art picture framer for 20 years, I`ve seen every kind of print available, and I can say both film and digital are very different in the final stage of printing. Digital is fantastic for the folks who REALLY know how to post process to get the best out of their gear, and when done properly is amazing,but.....when you start talking about large 72 inch landscape prints, I still have yet to see anything come close to a high res drum scan from a velvia 617 transparency in terms of dymamic range and tonality. It may just be a matter of time, but at the moment , film is still kicking ass!