I'm perplexed

[ssim]

Let me give you just a little history. I had been doing photography over a number of years and then about 10 years ago I just sort of quit. I took a reinterest in this about a year ago and acquired a 10D and a set of very good lenses. I am very pleased with this camera to date.

I was planning a trip to India so I thought I should pack along a film camera or two, particularly as a back up. I bought a Canon EOS 3 as the 35mm backup and decided to pack along my old Pentax (can I say that here) 6X7.

I always assumed (that was probably my first mistake) from the things that I had read online that the scans from print and slide film were normally better than the ones taken with the 10D. To say the least I am very disappointed in the quality that I ended up with.

I took the films upon return to a pro lab in Montreal and I have spent many an hour improving the quality of the scanned images in Photoshop. I could not believe the number of scratches in the emulsion and the sheer number of dust spots that were in there as well. This is cosmetics and they can all be fixed. In comparing the transparencies to the scans the slides have much better color and saturation. It should be noted that the scratches in the emulsion are not on all images so I don't think that there was a foriegn substance in the camera body that would have created this.

I shot on either 100 or 200 ISO film and they all seem to be much more grainy than similar shots on the 10D.

Am I making the wrong assumption that the scans coming off of a negative or slide should have greater resolution than the 10D. I had asked for the maximum resolution in the scan that this lab could provide, was this a mistake.

While not wanting to look like a total fool, I would like to hear from some of you as to what you might think had gone wrong.

Thanks

[John_T]

Don't quite know what to say except:

- Original digital sources like your 10D will always be as clean as your lenses and your ability to use the camera within the specifications of the camera.

- Images scanned from negatives, positives and prints will be as good as the scanner and it's operator, and as clean as the megatives, positives and prints are when scanned. Pro lab is a meaningless term and you now see why. It is inconcievable to me that you should be cleaning up after a "pro lab".

I have a Canon Canoscan 9900F flatbed scanner which includes dust and scratch removal, color correction and a number of other functions to improve scans. I have scanned 40 year old negatives, positives and prints with stunning results, and been very surprised at how little additional work they needed.

If you will forgive my bluntness, assumptions are always the first mistake, and you are only a fool if you believe in the common beliefs, advertising, "they" say, et cetera, and don't take the trouble to make your own experience. This experience you have just had should carry you a long way toward happiness with your 10D and future joy on photography.

[w10d]

ssim wrote:
Am I making the wrong assumption that the scans coming off of a negative or slide should have greater resolution than the 10D. I had asked for the maximum resolution in the scan that this lab could provide, was this a mistake.

While not wanting to look like a total fool, I would like to hear from some of you as to what you might think had gone wrong.


I have been working with scans for 10 years, most coming from transparency, occasionally from neg or print. I started out getting Kodak Photo CD scans (as they were economical), and moved onto drum scans, and I've had these done by about 8 different Pro Labs in London and Paris.

From this experience I can assure you that the quality of drum scans varies enormously, from lab to lab and even from day to day. One lab gave me scans that varied so much I gave up taking a chance on them (too often too little time on a job for re-scans). Another gave me scans that were ALWAYS filthy, the next labs output was pretty clean, but I couldn't sharpen them without introducing unacceptable levels of noise....

Recently I had to use an old image from a PhotoCD scan - I was amazed at the quality, just like digital capture it was a little soft, but sharpened beautifully. I always used to assume I was working with something 3rd rate and wished I could afford drum scans! (I must stress, it may only be some labs that produce such good PhotoCD output).

Re- the 10D: I'm still new to the camera, but in general I think digital capture images are easier to work with than scans (in MOST respects). They sharpen more easily, are generally cleaner, and certainly upsample more successfully.

You may have less than top quality scans, or you may just need to use a little more expertise in squeezing the best results out of them - hard to say without seeing them.

Hope that's of some interest...

[msvirick]

Stick with 10D and save your pictures in hi res (uncompressed).
Uncompressed results beat scanned pictures.
I have been that way. Then life will be more simpler

[Jesper]

I just got my 10D last Saturday and made about 80 photos with it until now. Before the 10D I was using my EOS 30 a lot with Fuji Provia 100F slide film - a film with very little grain and nice colours. I was scanning the film with a Minolta Scan Dual III film scanner.

Film can capture more detail than the 6.3 megapixels of the 10D. My film scanner produces a 10.8 megapixel file when I scan at the highest resolution, and you can get better scanners such as the Minolta Elite 5400 that will give you a 40 megapixel file at the highest resolution. That might be more than film can capture, in different articles about film-vs-digital I read that the resolution of good, low-grain film is comparable to about 25 megapixels of digital resolution. So, in theory, film should give you higher resolution photos than your 10D, but there's more to a good quality photo than resolution.

The Minolta Scan Dual III doesn't have dust and scratch removal hardware that more expensive scanners do have. Even the smallest scratches and particles of dust and dirt are readily visible on the scans and I've spent a lot of time cleaning up my scans. Also, even though Provia 100F has very little grain, the grain is still visible. With the 10D, these problems are gone - no dust and scratches and the 10D at ISO 100 produces very smooth, noise free images - much better than scanned Provia 100F!

[MiG82]

"That might be more than film can capture, in different articles about film-vs-digital I read that the resolution of good, low-grain film is comparable to about 25 megapixels of digital resolution."

Of course that's a moot point if you're not creating poster size prints out of these photos. I suppose you could pull out the magnifying glass for viewing...

[Longwatcher]

One of the factors that is missing is how good was the film you used. Some films are better then others.

Also has been somewhat mentioned, scratches, dust and the like will vary depending on how it was taken, handled, processed, developed, scanned, etc..

Theoretically color film can be better then 10D, but that means the best color film 25, 50 or maybe 100 ISO, done in the best scanner, handled with care by a trained and experienced technition.

In practice the 10D will outshine color film as there are no handling issues that put additional defects in the image.

As to B+W, film should be slightly better in reality.

Just my opinion, research and experience,