HU: B&W -- film vs. digital

[jaapv]

The purpose of removing the colour array is to have real monochrome pixels, so the advantage in resolution is probably similar to the advantage of a foveon sensor compared to a bayer sensor with the same number of pixels, clear as mud as usual 😉

On a CCD or C-Mos the pixels cannot be otherwise than monochrome.The foveon sensor has a totally different way of "seeing"colour, which means that the real black-and -white resolution can never exceed it's actual pixel count, say 5 MP or whatever it may be. The 13 MP they are playing with is only an advertising-mathematical trick, that ,in real photography, is by no means recognized by all experts.

 

[John Camp]

I've been collecting photography and looking at photographic prints for years (decades) and have no particular inclination to give digital a break, although I personally only shoot digital now. My feeling is that high-end digital has, in the past two or three years, particularly with the appearance of some exceptional printing papers, gone beyond the overall capabilities of film-based photography. Which, obviously, is not to say that you can't get a beautiful silver print from film.

JC

 

[Kevin]

...reducing its actual resolution to 35 % of the theoretical maximum, if that. That means that the most one can hope for is about the equivalent of 8 MP.

It is really true? :bang:

We're talking B/W here, Tri-X is not as fine grained as Velvia and so the scanner resoluiton does not reveal any more detail.

And another thing, you'll get some 13 MPixel out of a Canon 5D at ISO 1600, try pushing Velvia 100 four stops 🙂

I see your point. :bang:

So if I am still shooting b&w it is definately worthwhile to continue shooting film.
But if I am shooting 135mm color film I should switch to digital 8mp or higher.
Unless I am printing directly from the negs, b&w or color.

??

 

[jaapv]

It is really true? :bang:

Unfortunately: yes 🙁

I see your point. :bang:

So if I am still shooting b&w it is definately worthwhile to continue shooting film.
But if I am shooting 135mm color film I should switch to digital 8mp or higher.
Unless I am printing directly from the negs, b&w or color.

??

Actually I find that scannng {slide film} at over 2700 DPI enhances the negative qualities of film, making my 5400 DPI scans worse than my 2700 DPI ones.....

Even 5MP digital will give you far cleaner colour shots than film, albeit at slightly reduced detail reproduction, which for most shots is utterly unimportant. Over 5 MP the quality of the lens is far more important than MP's and 8-10 MP's is all you'll ever need....

 

[bmattock]

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3799424

 

[Socke]

So if I am still shooting b&w it is definately worthwhile to continue shooting film.
But if I am shooting 135mm color film I should switch to digital 8mp or higher.
Unless I am printing directly from the negs, b&w or color.

??

No, why switch if you get what you want?

I'm a big fan of Fujipress 800 in my Contax TVS, still the best compromise between size and low light capabilities for what I use it for. I've yet to see a digital P&S with wide to normal (28-56) lens good enough beyond ISO100.

Then there is only one digital rangefinder and it's made for normal to tele lenses, which I don't use much if at all.

I haven't felt the need to shoot color in a SLR since I have the D60 but for the week in Madrid I packed two Contax Gs and 10 rolls of film, the DSLR stayed at home and I didn't miss it at all.

And then there is the fun I have with my dSLR using friends when they try to figure out how I can take B/W pictures with a Kiev 4 on Saturday evening and have them online Sunday afternoon 🙂
They gave up trying to mimic my scanned B/W with all those PS actions they found on the web.

 

[varjag]

We're talking B/W here, Tri-X is not as fine grained as Velvia and so the scanner resoluiton does not reveal any more detail.

And another thing, you'll get some 13 MPixel out of a Canon 5D at ISO 1600, try pushing Velvia 100 four stops 🙂

It is entirely possible though to have well over 13Mpix out of frame of Tri-X. Then, we have flat-grain films like TMax and Delta; I've seen TMY delivering over 19Mpix and I didn't even have to try hard.

But anyway, we're not into BW film for its resolution, or are we 🙂

 

[Bertram2]

It is really true? :bang:
??

I personally have doubts if this is true and by what analytic process it was found out. And I have no clue what it means in real world, I mean putting a 20X30cm print based on a 8 MP digital file and one based of a neg side by side, both with 100 ISO.

So what, it does not play a role at all anyway, because the discussion of resolution has nothing to do with the limitations of the dynamic range Mike Johnston is talking about, especially related to B&W.

In general these digital-analog comparisons tend to switch over to the resolution issue very quickly, as if resolution could be the measurement to prove "quality" with ?
Is it because resolution is the only issue where digital is comparable with film ?
Actually resolution does not say too much, only how large your prints can be.
And, a theorectical maximum of a mediums or complete systems res is always relative to the limits of our perception, which ends at about 80-120 lpmm for a 20X30cm print.
The resolution discussion leads nowhere in this context which was why does digital B&W look so poor ?.

bertram
.

 

[Socke]

In general these digital-analog comparisons tend to switch over to the resolution issue very quickly, as if resolution could be the measurement to prove "quality" with ?
.

That's why I counter the "Velvia matches 24MPixel" argument with the "At ISO400?" counterargument 🙂

Velvia is neither known for latitude nor for accurate colors.

 

[rvaubel]

I have noticed the film vs digital discussion reaching a new phase (I hope). Before, it was an argument, now its more a realisation that they are just different. I use both and enjoy both. Darkroom printing is a unique experience that cannot be replicated by scanning (does anyone like scanning?). Although I love digital, I recently started developing film again and in fact set up a wet darkroom. I think that there has been somewhat of a return to film among the true aficiandos but, lets face it, for professional work, its just too slow.
I just hope that the new people coming up, especially in the schools, learn the basics of film photography. Not so much for the lessons learned being transferred to the digital realm (although important) but for the experience of working in an analog medium. Many of the best of the brightest seem to understand the value of getting your fingers wet, at least on a artistic level.
Rex

 

[Kevin]

I sometimes enlarge a 135mm b&w neg to 50x60cm (24x24 inch) and don't mind the grain at all. It is pleasing to my eye.

But what if I printed a b&w-converted 8mp RAW file in the same size? Would I not see a lot of little squares instead? Would the print not look kind of fuzzy?

I respect the issue of dynamic range yet I am still concerned about the resolution issue at the moment. The math conversions I posted earlier are supposed to be a benchmark. I understand that higher speed films will have less detail and convert to a lower pixel number.

That being said, most of my 50x60cm prints are from Tri-X negatives. And I love the grain. That is why I asked about resolution. What do 50x60cm b&w prints from 8mp files actually look like?

 

[dnk512]

I find digital censors to be great, but, digital cameras to lack, big time! Then again I do not even like autofocus film SLRs. I like manual focus and enjoy processing my own film and as long as I have access to it I will keep doing so. However, if someone gives me some 'digital film' that I can pop into my manual focus film-cameras, I will use it, too!

 

[jaapv]

I personally have doubts if this is true and by what analytic process it was found out. And I have no clue what it means in real world, I mean putting a 20X30cm print based on a 8 MP digital file and one based of a neg side by side, both with 100 ISO.

So what, it does not play a role at all anyway, because the discussion of resolution has nothing to do with the limitations of the dynamic range Mike Johnston is talking about, especially related to B&W.

In general these digital-analog comparisons tend to switch over to the resolution issue very quickly, as if resolution could be the measurement to prove "quality" with ?
Is it because resolution is the only issue where digital is comparable with film ?
Actually resolution does not say too much, only how large your prints can be.
And, a theorectical maximum of a mediums or complete systems res is always relative to the limits of our perception, which ends at about 80-120 lpmm for a 20X30cm print.
The resolution discussion leads nowhere in this context which was why does digital B&W look so poor ?.

bertram
.

That is a number of different tangents you're off on, Bertram and I really see where you're coming from. Yes , as I said, as soon as you are over a certain "Schwellenwert", be it 3 MP for some uses or 5 for other or whatever, it is a more or less meaningless number. Having said that, high resolution seems to be important for microcontrast, so that might invalidate this argument to some extent. Anyhow, the lens is far more important, by a number of magnitudes. Dynamic range is quite another matter. Ansel Adams defined his 10 zones, of which he could only print 8. Top-level digital camera's have a dynamic range of about 8 to 10 stops, which, I'm sure not by accident, happens to be exactly the same. All other tricks, like burning,dodging and preexposing have their equivalents in Photoshop, so that isn't the difference either. It is not the dynamic range. If anything, digital offers a larger dynamic range, when really pulling out all the stops (pun 😀) RAW file can yield up to 16 stops. . The "dynamic" argument applies to the camera's of three generations ago. The only real problem in B&W used to be the printer, which really couldn't compete with fine prints. Now I have seen a number of sites and web-publications that claim this problem is solved as well, so where does that leave us? In the same position as any other hobby: We simply like to do it and like our results. That is justification enough for me. For colour I feel the situation is different, as it is virtually impossible to have any control over the darkroom part of the process with film. I feel that any photographer who really wants to make the best of his colour work should go digital, either with the camera or with the scanner to exercise the same amount of control that B&W offers. In this case I really prefer the digital camera, as any extra step in the process is bound to influence the end result negatively.

I find digital censors to be great, but, digital cameras to lack, big time! Then again I do not even like autofocus film SLRs.

And this is a sentiment I can identify with for 100% 🙂

 

[tetrisattack]

Reading the comment about the colored bayer filter, I had an eureka: forget re-writing the camera's firmware, why not just re-write the raw converter? Why has nobody done this!?

I was about this close to sitting down, downloading the dcraw sourcecode, firing up xcode, and setting to work writing software that would decompile the raw as a many-megapixel b&w image (the software equivalent of taking off the colored bayer filter, then treating each photosite as an individual pixel), but then I realized - the color filter array being what it is, you'd have to interpolate each photosite with its nearest neighbors to get a pixels that looked panchromatic, instead of like a checkerboard.

Damn. So much for that.

 

[bmattock]

Reading the comment about the colored bayer filter, I had an eureka: forget re-writing the camera's firmware, why not just re-write the raw converter? Why has nobody done this!?

I was about this close to sitting down, downloading the dcraw sourcecode, firing up xcode, and setting to work writing software that would decompile the raw as a many-megapixel b&w image (the software equivalent of taking off the colored bayer filter, then treating each photosite as an individual pixel), but then I realized - the color filter array being what it is, you'd have to interpolate each photosite with its nearest neighbors to get a pixels that looked panchromatic, instead of like a checkerboard.

Damn. So much for that.

Unless you use a Sigma with the Foveon sensor. I'm told that's great for B&W used that way. Don't know, just what I read.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Kevin]

As a continuation of my previous post, I simply never know in advance if a frame is going to be interesting enough to warrant printing it at 50x60cm.

Usually I get about a hand full of such images a year and they cannot be retaken with another camera at a later point in time.

If I start shooting the streets with a 8mp or 12mp or whatever, what will the images look like printed at these sizes?

Has anyone here made big b&w prints from an 8mp digital camera? What about all of you RD-1 users? What do your big prints look like?

 

[jaapv]

I sometimes enlarge a 135mm b&w neg to 50x60cm (24x24 inch) and don't mind the grain at all. It is pleasing to my eye.

But what if I printed a b&w-converted 8mp RAW file in the same size? Would I not see a lot of little squares instead? Would the print not look kind of fuzzy?

No you would not, provided you handled it correctly in your post-processing software.
No, it would not, as you are still within the resolving power of the eye as Bertram pointed out (depending on the viewing distance, of course.)

 

[Socke]

Kevin I just looked that up at photodose who have a special deal on 30x45cm at the moment. They expect around 3 MPixel to print at that size. IMHO 6MPixel is good enough for 20x30cm viewed at normal distance so you might get to 50x60 but since the photo finishers all print on colour paper it might not look good at all.

With the minilab here I worked out the settings so I get B/W prints from scanned negatives and digital files in a quality which people who can't compare to fibre based B/W prints find exceptional 🙂

My results up to 20x30 with a converted Epson printer where quite good but it's too expensive and the inks clog up within two or three weeks when not used.

 

[Kevin]

Kevin I just looked that up at photodose who have a special deal on 30x45cm at the moment. They expect around 3 MPixel to print at that size. IMHO 6MPixel is good enough for 20x30cm viewed at normal distance so you might get to 50x60 but since the photo finishers all print on colour paper it might not look good at all.

With the minilab here I worked out the settings so I get B/W prints from scanned negatives and digital files in a quality which people who can't compare to fibre based B/W prints find exceptional 🙂

My results up to 20x30 with a converted Epson printer where quite good but it's too expensive and the inks clog up within two or three weeks when not used.

So essentially 8mp printed at 40x60cm might look just fine, even exceptional.

Thanks, looks like I might get a digital sooner than I expected.

Scanning film is driving me nuts.

Kevin

 

[jaapv]

Prepare yourself for a steep learning curve, Kevin