Negative Thoughts or Digital

I was a pro photographer for quite a few years and used 35mm and 6x6cm cameras. Prints were always sharp. I now have 30D with lenses and my question is, digital just doesn't seem to be as sharp as negs unless you spend endless hours sharpening them up on the computer which obviousely degrades the image somewhat. All this wasted time. Don't get me wrong, I love digital and especially my 30D but when I check the shots on my monitor they just don't seem to have that bite. Not like negs did. I suppose that if you haven't shot negs before and only shot digital there is nothing to compare. Am I being a pain to myself or is there something more in this? Would love to know what you out there in canonland think.

I use to shoot negative and now shoot digital, but never a pro.

Your comparison doesn't seem to be fair. Looking at a negative is much like looking at it thru a small lcd, of coarse its going to look sharp. The pixel are going to be very dense. Try looking at it thru an enlarger and then compare it a print then it would be a fair comparison. The time you spend on the computer is much the same as if you would spend in a dark room the main difference would be that you would have the option to eave the lights on and the odor you smell would be from you body not of chemicals.

If your end objective is prints, have you tried comparing the print output of digital with the film versions? Part of the problem with digital is that allows pixex peeping......and the same edges that seem like a big deal at 100% on the display dont seem to matter on print.

I am not a pro and can only talk from my amateur experience but would be interested in pros giving their thoughts......

I do use deoderant and appreciate your comments lostdoggy but neg prints were always much sharper

summers were always much longer, girls were prettier, music was much better
(& this thread should rightly be in the 'talk' forum)

I used to take a lot of slides (positives..) and they seem to be much sharper than my digitals. But in my film days I didn't like the prints of negatives (I didn't use a pro-lab for printing). Today it looks like the prints that make from digitals are mucht better than the one I make from negatives.

If you want, you could adjust the sharpness, contrast, saturation, in camera on JPG's. If you shoot RAW, its going to neutralize everything, to give the user control over their image.

Glass will make a difference though. Some glass will give you a better pre-processed output than others of course. If you really want the less processed image, quality glass will help that.

But go back to trying the parameters towards +2 on sharpening and +1 on contrast. You'll defintely get images that need very little processing.

I used to shoot 35mm and back in the early 90's did my own developing too (though certainly not at a pro level!), I think the print enlargements from digital (30D) blow everything I ever got on film out of the water. I have some A4'ish sized prints from 35mm and they look terrible compared to my digital prints. The other day I got a large print done of a cropped section of one of my 30D shots, I have to admit it didn't look all that great (to my eyes) at 100% on screen but in print it is stunning. Just my take on it!

Really appreciate all your comments. Maybe I just keep looking for perfection

Nowt wrong with that!

I think its what you consider prefection. If you want, digital allows pretty much 100% control of what your output will be. That's where RAW is very cool. Even JPG to certain extents(especially if you shoot on neutral pic mode in the pic styles). But then you can always switch up the pic styles or the parameters to push contrast and sharpness from the computer in the camera.

I guess perfection is only relative to how you want it, but you can do one of the two ways paired with a good solid lens, and that'll help of course.

Best wishes.

Some twenty odd years ago I shot part time for a studio owner here and for myself using my own gear. I also did a fair bit of freelancing. I probably did some 30+ weddings on film and a multitude of other types of jobs. I never did use 35mm commerically as I had an RB67, Mamiyaa 645 and a Pentax 6X7 of which I still have two of them. As children came along they became my priority along with my fulltime employment. You are right in that the prints that came out of the lab back then were very sharp, even the 35mm stuff that I did shoot personally and the odd job that required 35mm transparency's as a deliverable.

I retired at the end of last year and decided to do photography again and am making a pretty good living at it. I guess in some peoples minds this would call me a pro. I know a couple of other people have other words for me.

Did you ever do your own darkroom work. Do you remember having ever done your prints with your enlarger lens wide open. That is akin to an image right out of the camera. Stop it down and you were sharpening, in a manner of speaking. I almost always used a combination of filters to add contrast, boost a certain color, etc. Again, akin to color balance now. We did doding, burning and alot of other things that we do now in the computer. Even in today's high tech 1 hour photo labs there are adjustments made to your negatives if you have them printed, albeit they are somewhat more automatic. File-revert..well throw the piece of paper you just printed, take out a new one and start over. Now you just go file-revert and start over without getting your hands dirty and it is a whole lot less expensive. In most cases I used to send my film and printing requirements to a pro level lab so you didn't see the time investment in that image but it was there.

There are still times where I will pull out the old film cameras and shoot a job, particularly if the customer wants a very large killer print. I have recently added a 1DsMKII to my body list but I have not tried making any large prints from it but I assume that it is going to make it easier.

I don't disagree that, particularly in the beginning, using a DSLR seems to be alot harder. I've taken a slightly different approach though to make this a little easier. I still spend time in the darkroom, though my enlarger is now a computer. There was post production time before just as there is now, find it easier now and the profit margin is alot better.

I shoot RAW so I expect to have to spend some time on my images in that post production phase. In the odd occasion where I do shoot JPG in order to cut a couple of steps out of post production it took me awhile to get the parameters set where I was happy with them. Now I am and I can get shots straight out of camera that can sometimes be delivered with "as is".

It takes some time to get your shots where you want them out of camera but it can be done. You have to invest the time in the shots to attain that punch and sharpness that someone else was probably doing for you as a pro.

Don't be disheartened but take this as another learning experience in life. It is all part of the process. As always, IMHO.

no your looking for what we ALL should be getting i use to shoot film and i agree with what your saying Digital is great no doult about it and i would not go back but it is often a hit and miss afair and i use top of the range gear .
Yes some of it is my fault but often its Not it will get there one day but its not there yet imho.
Rob.

How do you PRINTS compare film vs. digital? Looking at 100% on a monitor (that may be low quality) is not a good judge of image quality - unless you print poster size every image.

Medium format films do hold more detail than the 8mp digitals of today.

Question is - can you live with the output of 20D?
Do you realise that you need to interpolate when you have a bayer sensor?
What lenses are you using?