Scanned film or budget DSLR?

clachnacuddin

clachnacuddin

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I've dabbled a bit in using digital SLR cameras but I still have my film SLR as well as a number of fixed lens RFs, now I'm thinking of investing in a dedicated film scanner. Question is, what will give the best all round quality (all other things being equal) a film scanner such as the Plustek 7400 or a budget DSLR/compact system camera such as the Olympus E-PL1? Anybody got any experience they would like to share?
 
DSLR -- but put a decent lens on the front, not a kit zoom. I am constantly amazed at what an old D70 can do with good lenses, especially ZF. I have quite a good scanner (Konica Minolta II) and a few digital cameras from 6 to 18 megapixels, as well as LOTS of film cameras. Compared with 35mm, somewhere around 10-12 megapixels the contest begins to tip towards digi in terms of sharpness, etc., but of course there's still the question of 'look', which is why I still shoot B+W film (and wet print it).

Cheers,

R.
 
Thanks for the info, actually I was quite surprised that DSLR comes out on top! So now my thoughts turn to Olympus/Panasonic 4/3 or retain my Minolta lenses and get a Sony DSLR.......
 
It's more about the look you want to achieve.
Film vs. digital is for me the same choice as oilpant vs. waterpaint would be if I was a painter.
I like the look of film.
Cheers,
Michiel Fokkema
 
I suppose it all depends on how you define "quality". Also there is nothing to say you can't shoot both film and digital.
 
Unless you get a high end scanner you will be disappointed with soft images, dust and lower dynamic range than the film itself. I say DSLR.
 
clachnacuddin said:
Thanks for the info, actually I was quite surprised that DSLR comes out on top! So now my thoughts turn to Olympus/Panasonic 4/3 or retain my Minolta lenses and get a Sony DSLR.......
Click to expand...

How many Minolta lenses do you have? What are they? If you have a couple of good lenses, I'd say stick with Sony. I went from Canon to Nikon once, selling off some very nice stuff (I miss my 200/2.8 L). Wasn't a fun experience, as you lose a lot of money when you do that.
 
Jockos said:
This thread is worthless without pictures.
Click to expand...

Pictures on the web don't really add all that much unless they are shot only for the web -- and even then, a good-quality calibrated monitor would be needed to judge much. I've just been looking at L'URSS by Albin Michel, published in Zurich in 1971. Lots of double-page spreads, 60x33 cm, call it 24 x 13 inches, shot with Leicas and Leicaflexes, often on Kodachrome, drum scanned.

Any advice is only going to be a broad generalization, but even a reasonably good scanner such as my Konica Minolta or your Nikon ain't going to equal the drum-scan results in that book. The M9, on the other hand, would probably equal or top the technical quality.

This is somewhat beside the point in any case, as the OP made it clear that he was not talking about either top-end digital cameras or top-end scanners, so we've all given the best advice we can. With a DSLR, as I said in an earlier post, a good lens can transform an apparently indifferent camera. Your suggestion that the thread was 'worthless' until you showed us some of your pictures seems to me to be something of an overstatement.

Cheers,

R.
 
All depends on your end goal. For me, If I can't drum scan, shoot it digital. And, no, an Imacon doesn't count as a drum scan.
 
I had never intended to test this, but I had a hi res scan made of an Ektar negative, I'd been using my Pentax K100d and kit lens as a light meter. The Ektar scans look a lot better than the DSLR RAW images before you even get in close, but when I compared the hi-res scan to the film, the film had significantly more resolution.
 
Some very interesting replies, the question I have to ask myself is how much quality am I looking for? Really being honest I think a film scanner will be good enough although I accept it won't be the best. But looking at some of those scans earlier just how much dust, scratches etc will I need to remove before getting an acceptable image? The other issue keeping me in film is my Minolta 24mm, I'd miss that wide angle if I went with the DSLR option.
 
clachnacuddin said:
I've dabbled a bit in using digital SLR cameras but I still have my film SLR as well as a number of fixed lens RFs, now I'm thinking of investing in a dedicated film scanner. Question is, what will give the best all round quality (all other things being equal) a film scanner such as the Plustek 7400 or a budget DSLR/compact system camera such as the Olympus E-PL1? Anybody got any experience they would like to share?
Click to expand...

Well, there is no easy answer.
I am an engineer and have tested this intensively over the years.

Most films, combined with very good lenses, deliver much more resolution than a 12 MP DSLR.
Chip resolution is limited by the Nyquist frequency, that is a physical limit, it is impossible to get more.
With an 12 MP APS-C sensor you get real 65-70 lp/mm resolution (that is bit lower than the Nyquist frequency because of the low pass filter which reduces resolution a bit further).

Film resolution is not limited by the Nyquist frequency.
At medium contrast yo can get about 130 lp/mm with Delta 100, or about 120 lp/mm with Provia 100F, and about 80 lp/mm with Ektar 100.
And more than 200 lp/mm with high resolution BW films.
With higher contrast the resolution of film will be even higher.
At Carl Zeiss they tested that and got 170 lp/mm with Vlevia 50 and 140 lp/mm with Ektachrome 100, and about 200 lp/mm with T-Max 100.
And 400 lp/mm with Agfa HDP / Adox CMS 20 / Spur Orthopan UR (tests were published in the camera lens news 17, 19, 20, 24, 30).

With optical printing in the wet darkroom with excellent enlarging lenses it is possible to transfer almost all of this resolution onto paper. The loss in resolution is very small, about 5%.

Same with slide projection with quality projecting lenses, minimal losses in detail, comparable to optical printing.
Also the same viewing slides with excellent slides loupes on a lighttable. No visible quality loss.

With these two options you get by far the best quality, the best detail, resolution, sharpness and finest grain out of your film.

The problems begin with scanning: Then you will loose significant detail.
A Nikon Coolscan 5000 scanner with nominal 4000 dpi (real it achieves 3600 dpi) is able to resolve about 70 lp/mm.
The Reflecta you mentioned is significantly worse.
4000 dpi scanner are not able at all to resolve all the information which is recorded on film.
Optical printing and slide projection are far superior in this respect.

If you like film, it's aesthetic and all the other advantages, use it and get the best from it by projection and optical printing.
By the way, projection is not only extremely impressive by it's unsurpassed brillance with color, but also with BW slides. It's breathtaking, BW slides have a unique tonality.
You can't get that with BW prints.

Cheers, Jan
 
HHPhoto said:
Well, there is no easy answer.
I am an engineer and have tested this intensively over the years.

Most films, combined with very good lenses, deliver much more resolution than a 12 MP DSLR.
Chip resolution is limited by the Nyquist frequency, that is a physical limit, it is impossible to get more.
With an 12 MP APS-C sensor you get real 65-70 lp/mm resolution (that is bit lower than the Nyquist frequency because of the low pass filter which reduces resolution a bit further).

Film resolution is not limited by the Nyquist frequency.
At medium contrast yo can get about 130 lp/mm with Delta 100, or about 120 lp/mm with Provia 100F, and about 80 lp/mm with Ektar 100.
And more than 200 lp/mm with high resolution BW films.
With higher contrast the resolution of film will be even higher.
At Carl Zeiss they tested that and got 170 lp/mm with Vlevia 50 and 140 lp/mm with Ektachrome 100, and about 200 lp/mm with T-Max 100.
And 400 lp/mm with Agfa HDP / Adox CMS 20 / Spur Orthopan UR (tests were published in the camera lens news 17, 19, 20, 24, 30).

With optical printing in the wet darkroom with excellent enlarging lenses it is possible to transfer almost all of this resolution onto paper. The loss in resolution is very small, about 5%.

Same with slide projection with quality projecting lenses, minimal losses in detail, comparable to optical printing.
Also the same viewing slides with excellent slides loupes on a lighttable. No visible quality loss.

With these two options you get by far the best quality, the best detail, resolution, sharpness and finest grain out of your film.

The problems begin with scanning: Then you will loose significant detail.
A Nikon Coolscan 5000 scanner with nominal 4000 dpi (real it achieves 3600 dpi) is able to resolve about 70 lp/mm.
The Reflecta you mentioned is significantly worse.
4000 dpi scanner are not able at all to resolve all the information which is recorded on film.
Optical printing and slide projection are far superior in this respect.

If you like film, it's aesthetic and all the other advantages, use it and get the best from it by projection and optical printing.
By the way, projection is not only extremely impressive by it's unsurpassed brillance with color, but also with BW slides. It's breathtaking, BW slides have a unique tonality.
You can't get that with BW prints.

Cheers, Jan
Click to expand...
Dear Jan,

Most manufacturers who are honest enough (and rash enough) to make comparisons are of the opinion that a perfect 35mm transparency (fine grain sharp film, top flight lens at optimum aperture, perfect focus, tripod) is roughly equivalent to 18-21 megapixels, after allowing for random and raster arrays.

Zeiss and others have found that the limiting factors for resolution with most cameras are film flatness and film location, which limit reliable resolution to 100 or at most 120 lp/mm.

I'm surprised at your 5% figure for enlarging losses: I'd have thought it was higher, but no doubt you have researched it more carefully than I. I have however found drum scans to be all but perfect, with less loss than the best wet prints. A good amateur scanner like my old Konica Minolta II is acceptable for many purposes, but it ain't a drum scan.Or, as you point out, a wet print.

Cheers,

R.
 
Dear Roger,

Roger Hicks said:
Dear Jan,

Most manufacturers who are honest enough (and rash enough) to make comparisons are of the opinion that a perfect 35mm transparency (fine grain sharp film, top flight lens at optimum aperture, perfect focus, tripod) is roughly equivalent to 18-21 megapixels, after allowing for random and raster arrays.
Click to expand...

I refer to scintific tests as an engineer, not to marketing fairy tales.
Most of what DSLR manufacturers said concerning comparisons of film vs. digital and resolution has been marketing driven. The expensive DSLRs had to be sold.
And all of them talked about comparisons between scanned film and digital. And that is not a film vs. digital comparison, but a digital vs. digital comparison.

If you scan film, even with best drum scanners, you loose significantly resolution. Much more than with an optical imaging chain.
Therefore all these stupid scanned film vs. digital comparisons lead to wrong conclusions concerning the resolution power of film.

By the way, if you talk to the designers "behind the curtain", they admit that film has higher resolving power at medium and higher object contrast. I had these confirmation both by Leica and Zeiss designers at Photokina.
Quote from the Leica man: "Of course we know of the power of film and the superior resolution of our lenses with film. And in an ideal world we would shoot film.
But currently the market prefers digital. That is the reason why we concentrate on digital. Not because it is better".

Roger Hicks said:
Zeiss and others have found that the limiting factors for resolution with most cameras are film flatness and film location, which limit reliable resolution to 100 or at most 120 lp/mm.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but that is complete nonsense. And I have never found a publication of Zeiss or others proofing that.
I have hundreds of shots with more than 120 lp/mm and even more than 200 lp/mm resolution.
Film flatness is definitely not a factor of resolution limitation at these values.

By the way, my test results are confirmed by other scientific tests made and published by Zeiss (camera lens news17, 19, 20, 24, 30), Franic, Seeger, Seemann, Ventzke, Antara, Image Engineering Wüller.

Even if film resolution would be limited at about 100 lp/mm (what is not the case):
To achieve 100 lp/mm with a digital FF sensor you would need at least 35 MP (in reality even 10 - 15% more because of the resolution loss of the lowpass filter).
You can easily do the math for calculating for the Nyquist frequency.

Cheers, Jan
 
Here I compare a 6MP DSLR to a high res Ektar scan, not a drum scan.

compare.jpg


Of course when it comes to look the film scan looked amazing while I wouldn't know where to start at getting the RAW file to look as good, I'll post them later as no time now.
 
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Comparisons don't mean crap. It's what makes you happy.

I love film, grew up knowing nothing but film. IN bed with it.

But I shoot primarily DSLR (Canon 5D Mk II), S95,Fuji x100 and Leica M9 P dpending on what and the day of the week).

High end digital does most things film does and some the it doesn't. You can do bracketing and HDR without thought digitally. Film tends to have more range. Digital, after years of complaint, has greater grasp of low light than can be believed. Etc. I find that both work about equally depending on the situation..

The real problem for me is that between the camera an damage, the world has moved to digital, original digital. Whether it's a wedding or a baseball game, digital is faster, gets to the screen quicker, etc. So you'll shoot film, scan it an then you'll get to the point you can offload a digital image takes in only a few seconds instead of minutes or hours.

There's nothing wrong with film images. I've got thousands upon thousands of very old b&w and color images, most of them very high quality, but they take endless editing for dust spots, scratches, etc. Some are high resolution and others are from pushed film that is coming close to falling apart. How do you get from preliminary images to selections. YOu will spend more time with film scans than with straight out of the came.

Either way is find, but the reasons most pros go to digital is both more than adequate quality but also maximizing the work day. Even if someone else did your post production, it will go faster digitally.

If you don't care about money, it depends on how much time you have to deveote to a dying art, i.e. lab work.

We're at the point where
 
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