Mr. Puts' opinion (2010) on film vs. digital (M7 vs. M9)

Steve, I don't think that is a concern in the near future. I'm sure they will have a few on the shelf for quite some time. It's not like the design was going to change, you know? So, there's really no cost to keep stamping them out, even only to fill a few requests a year.
 
I think Puts is one of the weirdest people writing about photography at the present moment. From what I can see, his only interest seems to be in a very narrow set of technical capabilities and the fact that cameras, lenses and films/digital sensors are a creative tool seems to pass him by completely. Digital vs Film comparisons are simply pointless. Which do you prefer: oils or acrylics?
 
sjw617 said:
I think he should have compared them at the same ISO and given both either 100% or 400%.
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You can't. There is no microfilm fast enough or ISO setting slow enough. And 100% from film is an arbitrary measure. What's a 100% crop of a microfilm negative? You can't even scan it at high enough resolution to make sense, unless you get really high-end gear.
 
rxmd said:
You can't. There is no microfilm fast enough or ISO setting slow enough. And 100% from film is an arbitrary measure. What's a 100% crop of a microfilm negative? You can't even scan it at high enough resolution to make sense, unless you get really high-end gear.
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Well, guess he shouldn't have used microfilm but a 'normal' 35mm that is commercially available. That would have given a more accurate comparison.

Pickett, I guess you are right. But they will become a special run product instead of a 'few' a week being made.

Steve
 
Had Erwin Puts used another more usual film, things would have been practically the same... Film isn't better -to him- because of the size of the grain, but because of the tone and resolution it gives, and digital sensors have a square arrangement of pixels, and that counts for final appearance...

Digital is around a decade ago... If it was really better than film, being film a lot more expensive and complicated to process until the final print, film simply just wouldn't exist many years ago. But film continues being manufactured and even sees new improved emulsions and formats in 2010. Nostalgia? Oh, yes, sure...

Cheers,

Juan
 
gotium said:
...what is spur orthopan?
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It's a special film developer with chemical properties that allow you to take pictures on high-resolution microfilm, while still getting some grayscale out of them. Basically it turns a technical microfilm into a very slow, very fine-grained, high-resolution film. There are several such developers available.

As a result you can enlarge the picture until you hit the resolution limit of your lens. In order to take advantage of this, however, you have to take your pictures very carefully, put the camera on a tripod (the slightest shake makes resolution go down) and be careful with selecting aperture on your lens. f/1.4 may yield substantially less resolution than f/5.6. Together with the ISO 12 or 16 speed this is quite limiting, if you want to shoot something else than white printed signs on Dutch railway stations at noon.

The main advantage is not really the greater resolution, as far as I can see, but the better tonality reserves. A medium format lens may still have better net resolution - maybe not in absolute terms, but then you need smaller enlargement ratios with medium format negatives. With normal film grain there are limits on enlargement rations in terms of grayscale, too; basically if you use microfilm, it takes this particular advantage of medium format into 35mm photography, at the cost of very slow speeds and having to shoot very carefully. Your lenses still the have same limited resolving power, of course. That's why for this kind of application I'd prefer a large format camera - if I need a tripod and slow photography anyway, I don't see the point in using a Leica. The resolution reserves in a 4x5" negative are much, much greater.
 
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Juan Valdenebro said:
Had Erwin Puts used another more usual film, things would have been practically the same... Film isn't better -to him- because of the size of the grain, but because of the tone and resolution it gives, and digital sensors have a square arrangement of pixels, and that counts for final appearance...
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I have read several articles on imx.nl site and I find author's interest mainly advance of optical technology in terms of resolution. In past he made a more practical (but flawed at the same time) comparison of M8 with Portra 160 and Spur Orthopan:

http://www.imx.nl/photo/leica/camera/M8/M8/page22.html

It's not written there, but the scan of negative was probably compared with JPG file, not RAW.

I wrote - practical, because while I believe there is a little more to find in film negative than the Coolscan can capture, it's kind of affordable scanner in comparison to other high-end options.

And now with this latest test... Honestly I remember Graphic Converter application he used now to upsample the M9 file and I would never consider it to be the best tool for this job. Considering the squareness of result, the nearest neighbour method has been used. There are more effective methods to upsample. That's why I consider also this comparison interesting, but flawed.
 
palec said:
I have read several articles on imx.nl site and I find author's interest mainly advance of optical technology in terms of resolution. In past he made a more practical (but flawed at the same time) comparison of M8 with Portra 160 and Spur Orthopan:

http://www.imx.nl/photo/leica/camera/M8/M8/page22.html

It's not written there, but the scan of negative was probably compared with JPG file, not RAW.

I wrote - practical, because while I believe there is a little more to find in film negative than the Coolscan can capture, it's kind of affordable scanner in comparison to other high-end options.

And now with this latest test... Honestly I remember Graphic Converter application he used now to upsample the M9 file and I would never consider it to be the best tool for this job. Considering the squareness of result, the nearest neighbour method has been used. There are more effective methods to upsample. That's why I consider also this comparison interesting, but flawed.
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Hi palec,

I have worked in the past (for two years) with a digital back on a 4x5 Sinar, and that was good enough for pro product jobs. But 35mm digital cameras don't give great quality, no matter the brand or price. Honestly I find better results with 35mm film, not to talk about Hasselblad, or 4x5 film... But well, we're all free, and we all use our cameras for different needs. M9s didn't come to give a lot of quality, they came to get more money for the company from owners of Leica lenses.

Cheers,

Juan
 
rxmd said:
It's a special film developer with chemical properties that allow you to take pictures on high-resolution microfilm
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Thank you.

So he is essentially demonstrating that the M9 sensor has not reached the resolution limit of his lens. Doesn't necessarily have any relevance to current photography techniques.

Does look like fun film though. I've never seen such detail in anything I have scanned.
 
"Im surprisingly shocked to see this written down."

Why are you shocked? The film versus digital debate is over. Seriously. It's only subjective preferences that make any difference in real life photography now. Technical debates are now esoterica that have no practical significance to 99 percent of folks who take photos now.
 
rxmd said:
you have to take your pictures very carefully, put the camera on a tripod (the slightest shake makes resolution go down)
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I've heard that the limit of handheld photography is around 10 megapixels. That's why Olympus said that 12 MP is good enough for most people, and (probably) why Nikon's cameras are mostly 10 or 12 MP.

So to have a film that gives you 50 MP of resolution is pointless if you actually want to walk around and take pictures.
 
Debating film vs. digital is like debating apple pie versus peach pie (when everyone knows pecan pie is the best, ideally bourbon pecan pie with chocolate).

I usually shoot film because I like the film cameras I have. But, when I scan the negatives, the digital product that results can't be distinguished from images straight out of a digital camera. If I was really rational, I'd sell my film cameras.

For almost everyone, using a modern digital on full automatic will produce better images more consistently than fumbling around with a manual film camera.
 
Well, I've found a well scanned shot with pro portrait negative gives better highlight rendition and tonal gradation for skin than any digital camera I've seen. But then we get to the same final point: what people consider good enough... And you've got a point there: what's good in shooting with a film camera if the shot is on a great material but it's a bad shot many times?

Cheers,

Juan
 
Pickett Wilson said:
"Im surprisingly shocked to see this written down."

Why are you shocked? The film versus digital debate is over. Seriously. It's only subjective preferences that make any difference in real life photography now. Technical debates are now esoterica that have no practical significance to 99 percent of folks who take photos now.
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I think shocked because for some reason your arrangment of words or my reading of them has sunk in a little further than is normal.Im sure your right.
There is still room for debate though,for example in the realms of the accurate depiction of reality.
 
rxmd said:
On the contrary, it proves that nowadays apparently you have to use an ISO 16 film if you want to compare it with an ISO 80 digital camera.

So it's just another film vs. digital article, with the author getting increasingly desperate to show that SOME film CAN be better in some respects if you choose extreme enough conditions.

So it says quite a lot actually.
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Exactly, it proves or disproves nothing and is irrelevant to me. You use what you like. Film vs digital has become a dog and pony show for most people put on by possibly desperate people on both sides of the fence. If you need a lab and lab conditions to show how something is technically better than another the difference is likely of no consequence in the real world practically speaking. Finally, where is Back Alley?

Bob
 
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