Two broad and basic questions about digital

[ruben]

a) Has digital brought tighter control by the photographer vis a vis the automatic digital mini-lab, in contrast to mini-lab automatic printing from film ?

b) How much of it depends upon the quality of the digital body in the camera, not the lens ?

Thank you all
Ruben

 

[jaapv]

a. yes-emphatically
b. Given a basic good sensor <and sensor technology has levelled out over the last few years> the lens is the decisive factor - as it was with film.

 

[bmattock]

a. yes-emphatically
b. Given a basic good sensor <and sensor technology has levelled out over the last few years> the lens is the decisive factor - as it was with film.

Have to disagree with you on 'b'. I don't think that digital sensor technology has yet reached the point where various lenses make much difference. I find that I can 'compare' 50mm prime lenses of different makes on a film camera by scanning the film and examining the results closely. Using the same lenses on my 6mp dSLR, I can't tell the difference between the lenses at the closest pixel-peeping.

I think that this will change, but at the moment, the bottleneck to quality for digital cameras is the sensor and surrounding firmware, not the lens per se.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[J. Borger]

Ruben ... are you writing a book with all those academic questions?

For the majority of people (95%??) taking pictures nowadays (seems almost everybody)
There has not changed a thing .... they bring the cf card to the lab instead of the film ... that's all. The lab does somee "autotweeking" and voila!
The only processing they do is deleting the files they do not like on screen or selecting the best.

I think in general .. for the snapshooter (the giant majority).. they get far better results from digital than they ever had from film!
Perhaps partly because they use better digital cameras than the film cameras they used.
Partly perhaps because they shoot tons of pictures now and just 2 rolls a year in the filmdays.

If you want the question answered for the dedicated photographer things get far more complex ..... you have to start manipulating your own files .. for that you need a callibrated screen and you need a lab that does not autotweek your files. For a minimum that is.

For B&W tonality with digital i think i gained from using older lenses on the R-D1 (Pre-asph lenses ) .. an option not available on my Canon DSLR.
Of course procesing skills also play a role .. far beyond the capabilities of the camera ... (because they are all capable of excellent results in the right hands).

Just some random thoughts because i think there are no general answers to your questions 😉

Han

 

[GeneW]

Have to disagree with you on 'b'. I don't think that digital sensor technology has yet reached the point where various lenses make much difference. I find that I can 'compare' 50mm prime lenses of different makes on a film camera by scanning the film and examining the results closely. Using the same lenses on my 6mp dSLR, I can't tell the difference between the lenses at the closest pixel-peeping.

Bill, I think that's because you're testing pretty decent lenses. There's a world of difference on my Canon 300D between the kit lens and a good lens and the difference is immediately obvious.

Gene

 

[ruben]

Then I assume

a) the tighter control comes from the photographer's home Photoshop processing before turning his files to the lab, provided he knows what the lab needs from him. Correct ?

b) How much your digital-body-only has to cost in order to obtain decent 11x14 inch automatic lab prints ?

 

[jaapv]

Depends on what one calles decent....

 

[bmattock]

Bill, I think that's because you're testing pretty decent lenses. There's a world of difference on my Canon 300D between the kit lens and a good lens and the difference is immediately obvious.

Gene

Gene,

Good point, I didn't think of that!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[jaapv]

Have to disagree with you on 'b'. I don't think that digital sensor technology has yet reached the point where various lenses make much difference. I find that I can 'compare' 50mm prime lenses of different makes on a film camera by scanning the film and examining the results closely. Using the same lenses on my 6mp dSLR, I can't tell the difference between the lenses at the closest pixel-peeping.

I think that this will change, but at the moment, the bottleneck to quality for digital cameras is the sensor and surrounding firmware, not the lens per se.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Bill, there are two main reasons for my opinion:
1. There is very lttle to choose between D60 and 30D files as far as results from the sensor go - I'm not talking about AF or in-camera processing etc. here, I mean raw files - and that is at least 10 years of evolution in sensor technology by Canon
2. You just have to hop over to for instance FM forums to see people discussing the merits of Leica and Zeiss lenses on Canon digital bodies to see the huge impact lenses have on picture quality with basically any Canon DSLR sensor from the lowly 350D up to and including the 1DsII. And I really don't think Canon lenses are much "worse" than any other high-end lenses.

 

[ruben]

Ruben ... are you writing a book with all those academic questions?

For the majority of people (95%??) taking pictures nowadays (seems almost everybody)
There has not changed a thing .... they bring the cf card to the lab instead of the film ... that's all. The lab does somee "autotweeking" and voila!
The only processing they do is deleting the files they do not like on screen or selecting the best.
.........
If you want the question answered for the dedicated photographer things get far more complex ..... you have to start manipulating your own files .. for that you need a callibrated screen and you need a lab that does not autotweek your files. For a minimum that is.
Han

Thank you Han for your kind attention. The problem I am addressing it the old and tragi-comic issue of the advanced photographer vis a vis the automatic lab. If nowadays you can calibrate your screen and Photoshop processing to that "autotweeking", without the machine gun technician interfering in between, then this is good news for me.

Unfortunately for me, the only digital prints I have seen come from that 95% of proud shooters, that never cared about what they got from the lab, highly discouraging me from digital cameras.

Fortunately for us, in the RFF we do not belong to that 95%-voila! milieu. Do you ?

Thank you again for your kind attention.

Ruben

 

[ruben]

Depends on what one calles decent....

Acceptable to you, for instance.

 

[jaapv]

I would say any Canon or Nikon DSLR on the market now, with the Olympus/Panasonic 4/3 system with Leica lens a strong contender as well. And my beloved now no longer available Digilux 2 or of course the RD1... So many possibilties 🙂

 

[Socke]

It's hard to show or describe on the net, even sending a print wouldn't help since the lab may not be available to you.

So the only possibility is trying yourself.