High ISO and other thoughts

[wdenies]

I made a comparative test between the Nikon D70s at 1600 ISO and the Fuji Neopan 1600.
The winner is...... Neopan!
less noise (grain)
more highlight detail
sharper
nicer tonality

In the near future ISO settings above ISO 400 on prosumer digitals will remain a compromise, I am afraid.

Of course there are excellent digital systems on the market. See Reichmann's (luminous landscape) ultimate digital system.
Recipe:
take
a Linhof monorail M679cs camera
a Phase One P45 one shot 39Mpixel digital back
a couple of Schneider/Rodenstock digital LF lenses
etc.
and.... film as final back-up

but which non prof is willing to spend the price of an European sportscar on a digital camera system?

For us, non profs, Ken Rockwell has a more realistic approach in his article "a 100MP digital camera for $2000"

For a while my critical/high quality work will still be done on film with my old second hand toys: Technika IV, Mamiya 645, Mamiya 6 and Xpan.

Wim

P.S.
1. I love Reichmann's articles and his DVD series.
2. I DON'T WANT TO (RE)START THE DIGITAL VERSUS FILM DEBATE!

 

[PeterL]

Which negative size where you using ? Strange way to compare, otherwise, if you don't spec one of the sides. And also, you don't want to restart the digital vs. film debate ? Are you sure about that ?

Peter.

 

[amateriat]

2. I DON'T WANT TO (RE)START THE DIGITAL VERSUS FILM DEBATE!

Doesn't take much to start, Wim. 🙄

Of course, I prefer a barroom brawl on RFF over a "civilized" debate elsewhere (partly because of the company, partly because we have better and cooler "referees"). 🙂


- Barrett ("shoots, leaves and scans")

 

[Pherdinand]

i think neopan 1600 comes only in 35mm format, Peter.

So far the best black and white in low light for me was delta 3200 in 6x6 (rolleiflex). A bit slower lens, no problem, the 'flex can be shot reeeally slow.

 

[Kin Lau]

Interesting.... what did you soup the Neopan 1600 in?

I just got my 100ft roll of NP1600 and will be playing around with that in Diafine, probably an EI of 2000, 2400 & 3200.

 

[pvdhaar]

You're comparing a B&W film versus a colour dSLR? Not really an easy comparison to make, and at first impression I'd say that film should win. But how you capture and convert the digital image is so crucial to the end result that there are a lot of potential pitfalls..

My experience is that retaining highlight detail in digital takes a bit of caution. Of course, JPG is a nono, you have to shoot in RAW and save as NEF. Then you have to make sure that there's some space left over in the histogram at the right (highlight). I've the impression that when the histogram even touches the right side in the slightest, that details are lost. Probably because the histogram represents the sum exposure of all three channels, but doesn't show whether one or two have already burned out. If done right, the highlight detail that can be extracted is quite good.. After that, desaturation to get to black and white can benifit from tuning the contribution of the various channels. Depending on make/model, you'll find that some colour channels may be noisier than others. On my D50, it's appears to be the blue channel that is a bit wilder than the other two at 1600ISO. How much it acts up depends on the blue content of the subject matter (another variable).

 

[wdenies]

Soup used: amaloco AM74 (liquid D76)
I am aware of the pitfalls of digital shooting, so I never expose to the extreme right and always shoot in RAW. Conversion from RAW to TIF is done with Pixmantec's Rawshooter premium.
Before comparing digital to Neopan all known tricks for BW conversion were applied (not only desaturation). When only looking to the converted images, they are usable, but Neopan looks nicer to me. (subjective?)

Sites for Reichmann and Rockwell:

www.luminous-landscape.com
www.kenrockwell.com

Wim