Film vs Digital. But with a difference!

[rayfoxlee]

Some great replies here, so thank you all! Please keep them coming! The general push seems to be towards the digital workflow and at least I would not have to add yet more cameras, although methinks some better glass for the K5 might be needed.

I cut my teeth on 6x6 with Rolleis and thoroughly enjoyed the process, including the darkroom work, but I don't have a darkroom anymore , so that's out. I have processed conventional B&W film stock and chromogenics and last week processed my first black and white film for ages. 35mm FP4 - and it was not great, so my technique would need some tightening up (loads of cloning to get rid of the specks). Having said that, I do like medium format, but perhaps is a 'camera' thing. Big ground glass screen and manual everything is very seductive!

Ray

 

[thegman]

I shoot medium format, generally 6x6 and scan with a V700. I'm very happy with the results, and I'm pretty sure you can enlarge to the sizes you want with good sharpness.

Of course you can improve things further with 6x9 or 6x12, at low cost, at least for the camera.

I think it's worth getting your own scanner, as high-res scans are crazy expensive ( in the UK, at least), but not worth getting a printer. The initial outlay, ink, and paper I think means it's not that good an investment vs. getting prints from a pro lab.

 

[Paddy C]

This is something I've been thinking about lately so I'll throw in my two cents. (please note that mine is typical forum advice: not expert, just some thoughts)

One critical thing you didn't mention is your budget.

If going the film route I think a Pentax 67 would be the best solution for what you want to do.

However, using an Epson V700/750 I think you may not be able to get the print quality you want at A2 size (had to look up European sizes to figure out how big that is 😱 ).

I own a 67 and a V700. Scanning a B&W 67 neg at 3200 dpi will get you a 126MB file. Adjusted to 300ppi this would print about 29" x 23". I'm not sure it would be sharp enough (but I haven't printed at this size). It might be for even an A2 print if you have the V700 set up well, have a tack-sharp neg and apply careful sharpening during your workflow. But I'm going to take a guess that it won't be.

So then you are either looking at a better scanner. Expensive. Or at sending out the prints for a pro scan. Again expensive. But with the latter at least you know you are going to be pulling everything you can out of that neg.

When you start adding it up you want to make sure it makes sense.

 

[ferider]

Since high ISO is no issue, and it sounds like tripod is OK as well, with the right film, even 35mm format still beats digital (unless you have a MF digital camera), at least for wet prints.

Since you want to scan, I recommend a 20 year old Hasselblad, and to put enough money in the scanner. As much dynamic range as possible.

Roland.

 

[gavinlg]

Film is all about the scanning unfortunately. If you're scanning 6x7 with a nikon coolscan 9000 it'll probably look better than a standard digital 5d mkII or similar print. But you can definitely make huge prints that look fantastic out of the high mp DSLRs at the same time. Personally I've had enough trouble with epson flatbeds and printers to avoid the brand as much as possible. As far as printers go, I'll second Will's recommendation of the canon pro 9500mkII.

It's undeniable film gives you a certain look, and if you wish to have this 'look' then it'll be hard to make do with digital files. However, I think the current crop of full frame DSLRs will output an almost comparable quality with much easier process. Most of the med format film 'look' comes from the giant negative!

 

[konicaman]

Give the K5 some nice prime lenses (some old ones in good condition can be had for peanuts), shoot RAW, use a tripod, and you should do great.

At least that is my experience when I am comparing my 5D MK II to some of my Pentax 6x7 slides - not much difference when it comes to details, even with an expensive drum scan. LF is another matter though.

 

[Roger Hicks]

You'd need a bloody good scanner. Either wet print or buy a high-end digital. You may get away with 20-25 megapixels, but I'd prefer 35+.

Or, of course, despite your reservations, go for LF. Even a mediocre scanner works quite well with 4x5 and above.

Cheers,

R.

 

[ChrisN]

Ray, how's your post-processing skills on the computer with RAW files from the K5? It's taking me some time and effort to get reasonable-looking B&W images from RAW files, and I haven't had any printed yet to compare with darkroom prints. Probably I'm scared to! Nik Special Efex Pro 2 is pretty good for conversions to B&W. You'll need to develop a good workflow (ie a consistent step by step approach). What lenses do you have for the Pentax? Don't forget you can often stitch multiple frames together to make a very large and detailed image with digital.

If you are going with MF film scans the files will be huge, and you'll need a reasonably powerful computer and lots of disk storage! A Hasselblad would be great for the still-life work, but would you want a 2:3 format for landscape prints? A 6x9 MF camera should give you all the resolution you need with slow fine-grain film. As mentioned above, cropping the 6x6 frame to 6x4.5 might lose you the resolution you ned.

I also love the old film cameras. I just acquired a Fuji GSW690, with landscape in mind, despite having a nice Hasselblad kit. The Fuji is lighter and has just one lens. 🙂 The 'blad is better if I want to use grad ND filters as I can see the effect on the ground glass - not so with the Fuji.

I'd have to agree with the poster above who suggested trialling the K5 first. Convert your favourite image, make a suitable digital file from it and get it printed at the size you need, then see how it looks and get opinions from the folks whose opinions count.

Great project - have fun, and good luck!

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Both for sharpness and tone, MF film.

And you can wet print anytime you want in the near or far future.

And also scan, as technology gets better and better.

As a plus, your photographs will never disappear...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[luuca]

I think sharpness is good enough for A3 prints with 6x6 and epson v700

this one is from an ektar 120, scanned with epson v700 and silverfast at 3600 dpi (half the possibility of the epson) and printed on hahnemulhe photorag 308 with epson pro3800 (43cmx43cm)

I understand that a photo of a print is not a great thing, but I can assure you that quality is outstanding (at least for my standards...)

 

[rayfoxlee]

Ray, how's your post-processing skills on the computer with RAW files from the K5? It's taking me some time and effort to get reasonable-looking B&W images from RAW files, and I haven't had any printed yet to compare with darkroom prints. Probably I'm scared to! Nik Special Efex Pro 2 is pretty good for conversions to B&W. You'll need to develop a good workflow (ie a consistent step by step approach). What lenses do you have for the Pentax? Don't forget you can often stitch multiple frames together to make a very large and detailed image with digital.

If you are going with MF film scans the files will be huge, and you'll need a reasonably powerful computer and lots of disk storage! A Hasselblad would be great for the still-life work, but would you want a 2:3 format for landscape prints? A 6x9 MF camera should give you all the resolution you need with slow fine-grain film. As mentioned above, cropping the 6x6 frame to 6x4.5 might lose you the resolution you ned.

I also love the old film cameras. I just acquired a Fuji GSW690, with landscape in mind, despite having a nice Hasselblad kit. The Fuji is lighter and has just one lens. 🙂 The 'blad is better if I want to use grad ND filters as I can see the effect on the ground glass - not so with the Fuji.

I'd have to agree with the poster above who suggested trialling the K5 first. Convert your favourite image, make a suitable digital file from it and get it printed at the size you need, then see how it looks and get opinions from the folks whose opinions count.

Great project - have fun, and good luck!

Chris, I wish I could say that I am an expert with post processing, but I am not, although I have experience! Do you ever stop learning? I have CS3 and Lightroom 3 - LR is my favourite and getting nice B&W from this software is not too onerous, although I haven't had one image printed under both digital and wet for comparison. Having read all the comments and having hit on an interesting theme, I am a bit less enthusiastic about expanding the film route further than 35mm right now, so I will look at the digital workflow in more detail for this project.

The K5 is a recent replacement for my Samsung GX 10 - so recent that I have not really had time to really get to grips with seeing what it can do, although I have seen the benefits of that sensor and the high ISO performance. I have Pentax M 50 f1.7, M 75-150 f4 zoom, M 200 f4 and K 300 f4, plus a Sigma 17-70 DC Macro that finally produces the goods after adjustment by Sigma. The older lenses are quite nice, but CA is sometimes an issue with colour, but that seems to be the case with many digitals, but no problem with B&W, of course. I am thinking of a couple of top quality primes to replace the oldies.

It is interesting to see the arguments on the quality of B&W output from both analogue and digital, both here on previous posts. Rightly, this is a pretty passionate debate, but I have been bowled over by the quality of some of the digital images that I have seen both here and in other places, so I know that all is possible. As I think the project through, I think I may produce more images at the more modest sizes, with the odd one at A3 - another reason for leaning more towards digital.

More work and exploration to do on this. But I feel energised by a new direction! Isn't photography just great!!

Ray

 

[ChrisN]

Hi Ray

Sounds like you are underway. 🙂 For the Pentax you might want to consider a wider prime lens for landscape subjects, depending on what you want to photograph of course. Some of the new DA-series primes are outstanding, and you have a good choice amongst the 15mm f/4 (22mm-equivalent FOV), 21mm f/3.2 (31mm-e), and the 35mm f/2.5 (52mm-e). There's also the FA-series autofocus lenses which are a little older now but in the Limited series are all pretty good, with the 31mm f/1.8 an outstanding lens that gives you a 46mm-e FOV. The 21mm and the 31mm are my favourites, and would fit nicely with your existing kit. Most of these give their sharpest results across the frame at f/4 to f/5.6.

Of course your Sigma zoom covers these lengths too and if it gives you good results no need to look further!

I like to set the K5 to capture RAW + JPG files, and to display the JPG as a monochrome image (the RAW file remains full colour). The jpeg files can be surprisingly good if you use the highest quality setting and play with the BW filter settings (I like green filter, -2 Contrast Shadow Adjustment, and +4 Sharpness with all other setiings left neutral. The image look better straight from the camera with +2 overall Contrast (to my taste), but that's easy to tweak later in Lightroom. Generally speaking the RAW files will give you a better result after post-processing than the camera jpegs, but it's pretty close sometimes! Nice to have the option of keeping both.

I'll admit I've also neglected the K5 lately in favour of the film cameras. Especially with medium format the limited frames per roll makes me work harder on each exposure, whereas with digital my discipline tends to slip. Next week I'll probably concentrate on using only the K5 on a short trip away. After Christmas I'll give the new 6x9 a good workout.

Too much fun! Cheers!

 

[M4cr0s]

One thing not mentioned is stitching. Any half-decent DSLR with a suitable lens (probably a short tele, a dirt-cheap and very sharp 50mm could work well) and a carefull approach can produce truly stunning end results that will print to massive sizes.

You'll need...
- A good tripod with a pano head preferably.
- Some knowledge and suitable software
- Patience
- A somewhat capable computer to handle the files.

Stitching can also be combined with HDR and other fancy modern techniques giving you end files with massive dynamic range too that will convert into unbelievable B/W's. In some ways going this route might be more flexible than shooting mf film.

There are a lot of guides and how-to's on this approach on the web, just google it.

Mac