quality question

[northeast16th]

First, I've made my best prints from scanned film on Epson printers. I was always a horrendously bad printer in the darkroom, so I shot slides for the most part and like to look at them on a light box. This is just as digital printing was just really getting going, and my first time around I was stunned by the image quality of a scanned transparency printed on an Epson.

My question is this. Since I mostly make smallish prints, never larger than 6x8, can someone tell me if they have compared scanned film to a digital camera?

Let's put it this way for clarity. Let's say I have a digital camera that will give me a file of 1800 by 2700 dpi exactly, which would give a 6x9 print at exactly 300 dpi. Now let's say I scanned a neg or transparency to give me exactly the same, 1800 by 2700 dpi, and then printed them after doing photoshop corrections. And let's say the photoshop corrections could be done in a way where you have the same curves, same exact histogram, same color balance, etc. (I know this is impossible, but let's just say it were possible).

Now to make it even more even, let's say I used the exact same lens and switched between a digital full frame body and a film camera (like how you can use older Nikon lenses on DSLRs). And it was the exact same subject with the exact same lighting conditions, taken almost simultaneously.

I think I'm actually answering my own question. It seems to me that there's no way there could be any noticeable difference. I'm not talking theoretical here, which I don't really care about, but real world impressions from normal non-obsessive people.

This seems kind of silly now that I've gone to the trouble to write it down, but what the hell. I'm thinking about getting a dslr to shoot with for convenience. My prints are normally 6x8, never bigger, only smaller sometimes. It would be handy to use a dslr. Oh, what the hell, maybe this was just to convince myself that it was a-ok to get a digital camera. I love shooting film, but I'm thinking about shooting digital.

Cheers.

 

[nyx]

If you like film look and you'd try to reproduce it on every photo from your dslr, would it still be more convenient than shoot film directly?

And those corrections...you admit it's impossible to make them exactly the same and yet you're considering trying? I'm not saying it's impossible or even hard to get good photos from digital, but trying to perfectly imitate other medium might be.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The film image may show grain if it was shot in 35mm, especially if you used a 400 speed or faster film. I print a lot of my 35mm scans 6x9. I scan at 4000 dpi, to get a 4000x6000 pixel image, so that I have the resolution needed to make larger prints too. I resize the file down to 6x9 at 360 dpi. Epson printers print at 360 and yes you can see the difference between a 360 and a 300 dpi file printed, though it is subtle.

My experience comparing a digital camera to scanned 35mm film is that if you have just exactly the capture resolution to make a 300 dpi 6x9 from your D-SLR, then the film image looks sharper, but if you have a higher resolution digital and size the image down to 6x9 at 360, the digital image is equal to the film image and sometimes better (the grain of the film can get in the way, while the higher res. digital camera has no grain).

I used a Nikon D70, which gives a 6x9 at 300 dpi native file against a Kodak 14n which gives a 10x15 at 300 dpi file and 35mm film scanned on a Nikon LS-8000 with glass carrier. Films I have scanned include slow ones like Pan-F and Tmax 100 as well as 400 Tri-X and Tmax 400 and Tmax 3200.

 

[Bob Michaels]

<snip> Epson printers print at 360 <snip>

Chris: I believe the modern Epson desktop printers actually resize the file to 720 dpi but my eyes cannot see any difference between a file originally sized for 720 and one for 360 dpi. The algorithm used in the Epson printer driver is very good.

None of this should be confused with the actual print resolution of 1440 or 2880 dpi. That is entirely different.

 

[aad]

I've spent much time and money answering this question for myself.

The medium won't make a damned bit of difference at 4x6. You may prefer the colors of one over the other, but it will be more a question of exposure than media.