Scanned 35mm. VS full frame DSLR 12MP ?

[Merkin]

I am going to have to go with the "I don't have $7K for that" argument. Otherwise, I have been talking myself out of ordering one since it was announced.

At $7k, if you assume an average of ten bucks for the cost of a 36 exposure roll of film and the processing (it can be less, it can be more), it takes 25,200 trips of the shutter for the M9 to break even, and that is assuming that the 35mm camera you are using is free. If you assume that you are going to spend an average of 1200 bucks for a used film Leica (again, you can spend much more, and you can spend much less), it takes about 20k exposures. For people who are choosing between a brand new M9 and a brand new MP, however, it only takes 9,361 exposures for the M9 to be cheaper than the MP. If you buy a brand new MP and a dedicated film scanner, the M9 would be cheaper in a matter of months. For people who are in the market for a brand new Leica, an M9 seems like a pretty good deal. Unfortunately, many, if not most of us, aren't. For me, $2000 bucks for a refurb D700 was in my price range, and at my current rate of shooting with it, it will take almost a year to the day from when I bought it for the savings in film and processing to essentially make it free for me. I have a warranty on it for three years, and I plan on using it for at least five, and after that, I will probably have it IR converted instead of just getting rid of it.

None of this even considers the intangible value of getting out and shooting more. I am shooting at least two to three times as much with digital than I did with film, and because of that, I am getting more good shots. Sure, my 'keeper ratio' has dropped from about 1 in 18 to about 1 in 25 (a lot of that has just been the learning curve), but my overall number of keepers has increased greatly.

 

[wgerrard]

Putting the M9 aside (perhaps), I'd argue that the last 20 years of personal computing technology provides a very good preview of the next 20 years of digital camera technology.

That's been a history of evolving capabilities and standards making relatively recent products obsolete and uncompetitive. Costs decrease and capabilities increase so much that it is very often more expensive to repair old hardware than it is to replace it outright. Yes, you can run Windows 3.1 on a 386 machine. But, you can't use it to effectively leverage the internet. Why try to repair it when even $300 bargain machines are orders of magnitude more capable? Why try to upgrade it when contemporary components might not be able to "talk" to that old hardware? I.e., use different and better standards.

I fully expect to see the same thing happen with digital cameras. Costs will drop for any given baseline of capability, while the very best tech will always command a premium price. Better ways of doing things will establish new standards, increasing the incompatibility of old and new. E.g, while SD cards may be around for a long time, someone may develop an improved storage technique that makes them obsolete, prompting camera companies to release cameras that cannot accept SD cards.

We won't see people sending digital cameras in for CLA's because they will be effectively unrepairable unless duplicate circuitry can be found, and because the cost of doing that CLA will be close to the cost of buying a new camera of equal capability. Again, perhaps not so much for a camera that costs $7000. But, it won't be long before full-frame digitals are commonplace in inexpensive cameras. (Consider: If Olympus produced a full-frame M3/4 the size of the EP-1 with either an optical viewfinder or usable EVF and sold it for $900, how many of us would worry about it not being a rangefinder? I expect to see cameras like that. Not immediately, but 4-6 years out.)

 

[Merkin]

That has happened plenty of times in the film photography world, as well. Sheet film is increasingly only found in 4x5 and 8x10 sizes. 220 roll film is becoming increasingly less common. There are only one or two 127 roll films available now, and 620 pretty much has to be hand spooled. HIE and Kodachrome are gone now. There used to be loads of various chemical processes, but E6, C41, and b/w are pretty much all that is left. Sure, you could pour your own collodion plates, but why bother when you could just use sheet film? (full disclosure: I would LOVE to learn how to do wet plate photography some day, it seems like it would be an absolute blast.)

I don't deny the fact that my D700 will be someday obsolete to the point of unusability, perhaps even in as little as a decade. It is certainly possible that digital cameras will follow the precedent set by the personal computer, and they will constantly keep getting faster, better, and cheaper, and on that day, I will be happy to pay 300 bucks for a pro quality body that is twenty times better than a D3x, even if it means it goes to the recycler after five to seven years.

A question for those of you who have been shooting the same camera for decades: If you had to guess, how many rolls of film have you put through your camera in the last x number of years? From there, how much would you estimate the total cost of operating that camera to have been?

leicaforever: I certainly wouldn't expect an image from a 6mp pentax to stand up to an R4. At the time that Pentax came out, I was still firmly in the 'film is better' camp. The differences between digital and film, however, are something that really needs to be re-evaluated every six months or so, considering the pace at which digital is improving. One thing that I feel is demonstrably true is that each generation of DSLR has been better than the previous, with the possible exception of the EOS 50d, which I don't find as good as the 40d. Also, you were putting R glass against Pentax K glass. I love Pentax lenses, but I don't have any illusions about them being as good as Leica lenses.

 

[philosomatographer]

For 35mm, my experience is that slow B&W flm (Ilford Pan F) beats any digital SLR, any time, if the end result is a print. But for this, you need to print the Pan F negative carefully, using a very good anlarger + lens, etc. You also probably need to make th eimage carefully in the first place, i.e. the odds of achieving a good hand-held image is less at this low film sensitivity. So, *the best* 35mm B&W shots a demonstrably superior to *the best* 35mm-style DSLRs, I think.

However, an average DSLR shot is definitely much better than an average 35mm film shot, it seems.

For something like Ilfor FP4, the black + white film seems to have higher resolving power than a 12MP DSLR, but also a huge amount of grain (comparatively speaking).

Scanned 35mm film absolutely sucks compared tro a DSLR, you need to compare prints (final output), or scan an darkroom print, if you wish to compare on-screen. The difference is night and day, I find that film does not respond pleasantly to any form of direct scanning, once you've made your own optical prints. Really, I would forget about scanning 35mm film if that is your chosen route. So, enjoying (and being proficient in) the darkroom is a prerequisite.

Colour film generally still seems to have a wider colour gamut than a DSLR sensor, but I honestly don't think it's worth the effort.

Now, when we're talking about medium format? Large format? I just started a new thread here:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1162170

There is absolutely no digital camera, not even a $40,000 MF digital back, that will do what a 6x17cm piece of slide film can do, in my humble opinion. I scan to 120 Megapixels using a so-so Epson V700 scanner.

This comes at a cost, per-shot, and in time. So, really, as everybody has been saying here, the best is what's best for you.

P.S. In my opinion, Micheal Reichmann (Luminous Landscape) is a raving amateur with a hidden agenda, who shifts the goalpost every time a new camera comes out. His ages-old article that claims that a 3MP DSLR even matches, never mind beats, a 35mm Provia slide, is patently absurd. With my lowly V700 I can scan a print I made from 35mm film to 30 megapixels or more.

 

[sepiareverb]

8x10 prints are one thing, 16x20 prints are another. At 240dpi my M8 files can print to 16" wide or so. Bigger than that edges start to look jaggy. I routinely print 35mm negs at 19" wide, one begins to see a bit of grain with HP5, but details are still there when viewed up close. With FP4 a 23" wide print gets about the same level of detail as HP5 at 19".

I prefer film for how it looks, period. I shoot digital when I have to- for speed and for ease of workflow with clients.

As to the high ISO, I rarely shoot anything faster than 800, some Neopan 1600 every now and again (@1250). I find 400 film too fast a lot of the time, I find the ISO 160 of the M8 too fast some of the time.

 

[Olsen]

For 35mm, my experience is that slow B&W flm (Ilford Pan F) beats any digital SLR, any time, if the end result is a print. But for this, you need to print the Pan F negative carefully, using a very good anlarger + lens, etc. You also probably need to make th eimage carefully in the first place, i.e. the odds of achieving a good hand-held image is less at this low film sensitivity. So, *the best* 35mm B&W shots a demonstrably superior to *the best* 35mm-style DSLRs, I think.

However, an average DSLR shot is definitely much better than an average 35mm film shot, it seems.

For something like Ilfor FP4, the black + white film seems to have higher resolving power than a 12MP DSLR, but also a huge amount of grain (comparatively speaking).

Scanned 35mm film absolutely sucks compared tro a DSLR, you need to compare prints (final output), or scan an darkroom print, if you wish to compare on-screen. The difference is night and day, I find that film does not respond pleasantly to any form of direct scanning, once you've made your own optical prints. Really, I would forget about scanning 35mm film if that is your chosen route. So, enjoying (and being proficient in) the darkroom is a prerequisite.

Colour film generally still seems to have a wider colour gamut than a DSLR sensor, but I honestly don't think it's worth the effort.

Now, when we're talking about medium format? Large format? I just started a new thread here:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1162170

There is absolutely no digital camera, not even a $40,000 MF digital back, that will do what a 6x17cm piece of slide film can do, in my humble opinion. I scan to 120 Megapixels using a so-so Epson V700 scanner.

This comes at a cost, per-shot, and in time. So, really, as everybody has been saying here, the best is what's best for you.

P.S. In my opinion, Micheal Reichmann (Luminous Landscape) is a raving amateur with a hidden agenda, who shifts the goalpost every time a new camera comes out. His ages-old article that claims that a 3MP DSLR even matches, never mind beats, a 35mm Provia slide, is patently absurd. With my lowly V700 I can scan a print I made from 35mm film to 30 megapixels or more.

I agree with this a long way.

I do not have the experience of shooting B&W, though. But I have a large Hasselblad camera collection and a Nikon 8000ED, and can vouch for that Medium Format exceeds the output of my Canon 1Ds III. That said, scratches and dust is far more a problem with film than sensor dirt on the digital Canon. But it is not obvious to many here that a 1,000 $ 2.hand 500C/M beats a 8,000 $ 1Ds III, but that is so.

135-film, however, is beaten long time ago by digital alternatives, unfortunately.

 

[sojournerphoto]

I agree with this a long way.

I do not have the experience of shooting B&W, though. But I have a large Hasselblad camera collection and a Nikon 8000ED, and can vouch for that Medium Format exceeds the output of my Canon 1Ds III. That said, scratches and dust is far more a problem with film than sensor dirt on the digital Canon. But it is not obvious to many here that a 1,000 $ 2.hand 500C/M beats a 8,000 $ 1Ds III, but that is so.

135-film, however, is beaten long time ago by digital alternatives, unfortunately.

I think this is right, although I shoot 35mm film because it ofers a different quality to my 1Ds3, not because it is better.

Mike

 

[sojournerphoto]

P.S. In my opinion, Micheal Reichmann (Luminous Landscape) is a raving amateur with a hidden agenda, who shifts the goalpost every time a new camera comes out. His ages-old article that claims that a 3MP DSLR even matches, never mind beats, a 35mm Provia slide, is patently absurd. With my lowly V700 I can scan a print I made from 35mm film to 30 megapixels or more.

It's always good not to beat about the busk when your talking🙂 Of course you may get sued, or have to settle offline...

Mike

 

[Merkin]

I agree with this a long way.

I do not have the experience of shooting B&W, though. But I have a large Hasselblad camera collection and a Nikon 8000ED, and can vouch for that Medium Format exceeds the output of my Canon 1Ds III. That said, scratches and dust is far more a problem with film than sensor dirt on the digital Canon. But it is not obvious to many here that a 1,000 $ 2.hand 500C/M beats a 8,000 $ 1Ds III, but that is so.

135-film, however, is beaten long time ago by digital alternatives, unfortunately.

I completely agree that a full (35mm) frame digital camera can't currently compete with MF film- it has only recently passed 35mm film in my eyes. Comparing anything digital to medium format film, including $60k digital medium format cameras, is a bit difficult because of the sensor crop, just like comparing four thirds or aps-c to 35mm isn't as easy as comparing FX to 35mm. The closest I could come to thinking of a fair comparison of MF film and MF digital at the moment would be a stitched pano of MF digital images in an attempt to artificially 'scale up' the size of the sensor, but that has all sorts of problems of its own. I do think we will eventually see 6x6 sensors, and I think it will be really close between MF film and FFMF digital. The difficulty there is in making a sensor that physically large, I think it will take several more years of development.

ETA- comparing a Baby Rolleiflex to a Hasselblad with a digital back would be a pretty interesting comparison. The sensor is close to the same size as 127 film, and both would be using zeiss planar lenses.

 

[mich8261]

on a computer screen it would all depend on the skill of the person using PS and doing the scanning. If you are interested only in on screen images, shoot digital. There is no point in shooting film if your criteria are computer images.

I disagree Turtle. Grain looks very different than noise/pixels. I am lazy, I get all my film processed and most of it scanned at time of developing.

I would liken this topic to: why paint when you can photograph or why draw with charcoal when you can use watercolour, etc.

To answer the OP, each film has its signature, grain size, colour saturation, etc. Sure that can be reproduced in post processing of digital images, but I prefer to work with the constraint of the film signature upfront.

 

[kellymjones]

I continue to use my old film cameras because I like their size, manual focus, and manual metering options. Plus, depending on the brand, the old primes are very affordable. The results are good enough for me, though I'm under no illusion that modern digitals can't produce outstanding results. My Pentax K100D is good quality, fun, and useful camera, it's just that for my preferred style of shooting, I prefer using old manual cameras, regardless of the advantages in convenience I get from digital.

 

[TomN]

it looks as though, effectively, the overall quality of digital image has well surpassed film, once for all !

...and about dynamic range, the newer cameras, be it Nikon or Canon, have reached a DR that maybe (?) is now wider than any actual film (as the choice of film is getting scarce !).

don't quite get this post...I mean are you taking the piss or what?

 

[emraphoto]

don't quite get this post...I mean are you taking the piss or what?

Really, they lost me on the dynamic range bit.

 

[wgerrard]

I continue to use my old film cameras because I like their size, manual focus, and manual metering options. Plus, depending on the brand, the old primes are very affordable. The results are good enough for me...

Agree. It's the attributes of the camera, not film, that attract me. I've often been tempted to buy an RD-1 but haven't succumbed. When someone markets an affordable full-frame M-mount digital, I'm there. And I'll be in good company.

 

[sbelyaev]

Dear David,

Yes, but a cordless drill is cheap consumer electrics/electronics; an M9 is not an almost disposable purchase. Leica has said they will support the M9 for 20 years, which one might fairly take to include continuing to provide batteries.

I am told in any case that there are companies who will take your old battery; rip it apart; replace the cells; and glue it together again, and that this costs surprisingly little.

Abandon the consumerist mindset -- as Leica says they have done, and as their history indicates -- and as I say, 'superseded' looks a lot less threatening.

EDIT, in light of your new post. Sure, I fully accept your arguments too, but I suspect that the M9 may be as close as you can get to a digital 'camera for life': if not a camera for life, then at least, a camera for a generation. A couple of days ago (in hospital!) I did a piece on exactly this, with respect to high end cameras.

Cheers,

R.

Roger,
Back in early 2006 I bought a used Contax N Digital, for I had a lot of Contax N lenses. (As you may remember it was released in 2004. Its price was $7000). By then Kyocera had left photography business and provided practically no support for this camera. The drivers for Mac have disappeared from Contax's website. When I called Apple to find out whether Aperture supported Contax ND files or not I was told by a representative that my 2-year old camera was obsolete (these are his exact words) and would not be supported by Apple.

Very similar story has happened with my Power Mac G5 QUAD. That was $3500 top of the line unit. I got it in October of 2005. In Jan 2006 Mac switched to Intel processors and introduced a new operating system. Four year later I can not run many new programs for Mac (like new Capture One), for they would work only on Intel based computers.

$7000 and $3500 are not trivial amount of money, still the electronic corporations treat these expensive products as disposable.

 

[wgerrard]

Very similar story has happened with my Power Mac G5 QUAD. That was $3500 top of the line unit. I got it in October of 2005. In Jan 2006 Mac switched to Intel processors and introduced a new operating system. Four year later I can not run many new programs for Mac (like new Capture One), for they would work only on Intel based computers.

There's an iMac G5 sitting idle on the floor behind me as I type this on an Intel iMac. The G5 needs a new drive, but replacing it seems pointless since Apple has ended support for the non-Intel CPU's at the core of the G5. This means no software updates or security updates, etc. Apple had sound commercial and performance reason for moving to Intel, and I don't expect them to support two different hardware architectures, one of which is now an abandoned legacy platform.

Comparable things happen, sooner or later, to all digital products, including cameras.

I agree with Roger, in principle, about taking a non-consumerist approach to acquiring tools and other products. But, that does assume that non-consumerist manufacturers are in the game, too, and that they price their products at levels I can afford. Leica meets the first condition, but, in relation to my resources, fails to meet the second.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Roger,
Back in early 2006 I bought a used Contax N Digital, for I had a lot of Contax N lenses. (As you may remember it was released in 2004. Its price was $7000). By then Kyocera had left photography business and provided practically no support for this camera. The drivers for Mac have disappeared from Contax's website. When I called Apple to find out whether Aperture supported Contax ND files or not I was told by a representative that my 2-year old camera was obsolete (these are his exact words) and would not be supported by Apple.

Very similar story has happened with my Power Mac G5 QUAD. That was $3500 top of the line unit. I got it in October of 2005. In Jan 2006 Mac switched to Intel processors and introduced a new operating system. Four year later I can not run many new programs for Mac (like new Capture One), for they would work only on Intel based computers.

$7000 and $3500 are not trivial amount of money, still the electronic corporations treat these expensive products as disposable.

Point fully taken, but I think the key lies in your words 'the electronic corporations' -- which Mac and Kyoto Ceramics are, and Leica isn't. I fully take Bill's point about affordability too, but as Leica has specifically said they will support the M9 for 20 years I hesitate to call them liars -- though there are some who cheerfully do so, usually from a position of complete ignorance of the company, on the basis of what 'everybody knows'. Support is one of the things ou're paying lots of money for. As for those who say Leica's going to go bust, well, it's a risk I'm prepared to take (because I believe it's pretty trivial), and if others see things differently, they don't have to buy Leicas.

Cheers,

R.

 

[JPS]

don't quite get this post...I mean are you taking the piss or what?

Oooops ! When I wrote "gentlemen" at the beginning of the post which Mr TomN quoted in the post #92, obviously I wasn't talking about him !

😎
J-P.

 

[Ronald_H]

It's a dead horse...

Even my now considered obsolete Nikon D70 will kick the cr*p out of 35mm, even my M2 with a Summicron on it. A bit sad, but true. Color fidelity and pixel sharpness is much better and big prints (75x50cm) look much better. Hi-ISO is better too.

BUT, I like the look of film. Film won't kill your highlights in high contrast situations and no digital bw looks like bw film. I also like my manual cams much more than the zillion parameters and modes on my D200. So I use film for 90% of my shots these days. I develop bw myself (a bumpy road) and use my scanner to the death. I feel more involved with film.

And a nother big but, my 115 Euro Yashica Mat 124 (medium format) will destroy my D200 in picture quality.

So yes, I firmly believe a dSLR is better than 35mm for most purposes. But I use film more because it challenges me more and ultimately is more fun.

 

[TomN]

JPS, I apoligise for the tone of my previous thread. I just don't like these absolute answers that have no basis. In photography, there is rarely a black and white answer. For me, as a working photographer, I cannot just rely on film. Digital is certainly advantagous in some circumstances, and it does allow one to take certain risks that he would not with film. Image quality is subjective however, and what I think is best for me may not be best for you. It all comes down to which medium and tools you prefer to work with. Would Robert Frank's image of Elevator Girl have looked the same if it had been taken on a D3? Of course not, and for several reasons.

But companies like Nikon and Canon aren't interested in the photographer really. What they are interested in money, and so are the shareholders. It never used to be so much like that, especially with Nikon. Their D3 and D3x are cameras which would serve pro's well for another ten years. The only real advantage that I think is neccessary, is improved dynamic range. High ISO is not required, it has just become a pissing contest now, which really has no practical use for most working photographers. Some may think they may need it, but if they bought some nice fast glass instead of using medium speed f2.8 zooms, ISO technology from two years ago would more than suffice.

But Nikon of course will release at least another six new model pro bodies in the next ten years, and they will continue to bring out these ridiculously sized, cheaply made (no aperture ring!!!!!) 'pro' zooms rather than nice fast primes. Working photographers cannot not afford to play along with this upgrade structure that is currently expected, and at present, they seem to be working for a great amount of time to pay for their next cameras. Remember when Nikon used to bring out new pro bodies every ten years, and even then alot of photographers took years to embrace the new technology? But why wouldn't these big camera companies keep bringing these updates out? With the internet now, there is so much hype created, with big name photographers selling themselves out and jumping on the marketing train, deliberate media leaks and so on. Consumers just lap that stuff up..."25600 ISO....just what I always needed". So I don't know who is going to break this cycle. Are the consumers going to come to their senses, or are consumers going to take a stand?