When does digital beat film?

^ Check out the program Lightzone. Never used it myself, but it looks like an interesting approach.

apersson850 wrote in post #5462314
Somewhere in the 10-12 megapixel range digital passed the resolution film is capable of, in the 35 mm format.

But resolution alone is NOT the only criteria for evaluation of 'performance'

cosworth wrote in post #5464454
Yeah, they said the 1Ds Mk.I almost beats medium format film.

Even Luminous Landscape quickly admits that the single criteria of the judging of quality was the aspect 'resolution', and that no effort had been made to grade the two on the basis of other factors...

Yet 'tonal reproduction' and 'color reproduction', the ability to capture the same subject area with more tonal gradations and color clouds of film have always been advantages of medium format vs. 35mm. Yet the medium format film has always be compared after it is altered from film to digital via scanners. So generational loss of quality due to adding a step into the process have always somewhat handicapped medium format film to some degree, since even the best scanner cannot equal the dynamic range of film!

A bit like judging a car by its top speed capability alone. Yet handling, braking, acceleration are all other factors for 'best car'.

Wilt wrote in post #5465099
A bit like judging a car by its top speed capability alone. Yet handling, braking, acceleration are all other factors for 'best car'.

What? Time to sell the rocket car then

I hope I'm not taking away the thread off its course, but allow me to throw in a couple of mediums for comparison:

The first two are sandpainting. Not much resolution at all.

The first one is backlit hand-driven type of sandpainting. Not much to it - the resolution is much less than two megapixel, but you can move the stuff around as you see fit. Kinda like photoshop, and you can only use one color at a time for the background... it seems.

If you choose Mandala Sandpainting, then you have to color your own sand. Then you have to spend hours on a design. The resolution is higher, but it sucks, because you can't move the sand around once you put it on the plate. That Mandala thing is clearly inconvenient, especially if you have an "anxious art director" breathing down your neck.

Then there's oil and water painting. Those thing really blow. Instead of getting your histogram with instant preview, you have to actually mix your paints from primary colors... and there's not much color management either. The canvas costs would kill me as well. I shot about twenty thousand frames last year alone. Imagine what it would cost me to paint twenty thousand pictures in terms of brushes, canvasses and paint! I'd be ruined! Or if I had to paint photojournalism, on tight deadlines and send them across the globe for publication. I'd have to wait for the paint to dry, then scan it and then send it! Gosh...

So, if it wasn't for digital, I wouldn't be able to practice any other hobby... or eat at all.

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #5466712
I hope I'm not taking away the thread off its course, but allow me to throw in a couple of mediums for comparison:

The first two are sandpainting. Not much resolution at all.

The first one is backlit hand-driven type of sandpainting. Not much to it - the resolution is much less than two megapixel, but you can move the stuff around as you see fit. Kinda like photoshop, and you can only use one color at a time for the background... it seems.

If you choose Mandala Sandpainting, then you have to color your own sand. Then you have to spend hours on a design. The resolution is higher, but it sucks, because you can't move the sand around once you put it on the plate. That Mandala thing is clearly inconvenient, especially if you have an "anxious art director" breathing down your neck.

Then there's oil and water painting. Those thing really blow. Instead of getting your histogram with instant preview, you have to actually mix your paints from primary colors... and there's not much color management either. The canvas costs would kill me as well. I shot about twenty thousand frames last year alone. Imagine what it would cost me to paint twenty thousand pictures in terms of brushes, canvasses and paint! I'd be ruined! Or if I had to paint photojournalism, on tight deadlines and send them across the globe for publication. I'd have to wait for the paint to dry, then scan it and then send it! Gosh...

So, if it wasn't for digital, I wouldn't be able to practice any other hobby... or eat at all.

How many Mega-granules in your sand painting?

Double Negative wrote in post #5464441
Back in 2000-2001 when the D30 first came out, it was claimed that IT beat film already. I think it was Luminous Landscape that said that, or came just short of saying it in one of the reviews. And that body was only around 3MP.

Considering the cost of film and the ease of manipulation of digital, the D60 convinced me. I keep a couple of Eos Elans (100 & 7e) around still to go with the 30D and D60, but rarely use them, fine cameras that they are. I was amazed at the D60 qualty. By the time you take film to digital with reasonable sized files, no comparison as far as I was concerned,

As far as I'm concerned, film is absolutely, totally, irrefutebly dead.

It may well be better in some esoteric respects, but in real life I just don't care. I get everything I need out of digital. I'll agree that compared to large format film I don't get the same resolution, but I get enough to satisfy my needs. I shot film for years, I didn't have any choice. Now I do, and I'm not going back!

In the end, it truly doesn't matter. Different strokes for different folks.

To each their own.

Which is probably why a camera repair lab about 2 hours from me cannot keep up with the film cameras being sent in for repair to be put back into working condition..so many people I hear are going back to film. Believe it or not, I still use both my T-90's for my scenics and fujipro film 100ISO. Yes, it is 35mm but really great on scenics.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #5463537
Thats the one area (B&W) that digital is still not close. One thing that still gives film its edge is silver....
Another thing is tonal range if processed properly is greater on film.
I have yet to see an ink jet print come close to a beautiful zone system print for large format. Tonal range and just the way the silver (or platinum) reflects the light back to your eye has a mojo that a digital print hasn't come close to.

+1

I do 99% of my work digitally, but have never seen a single digital black and white print that was anywhere close to the quality of a film BW print.

It's all in the final print. Ink on paper's got nothing on silver halide, and digital attempts to print this way are a) mad expensive and b) still in their infancy. The inherent depth of the crystals in the paper is something digital prints simply can't have right now.

Shooting wrote in post #5466872
Which is probably why a camera repair lab about 2 hours from me cannot keep up with the film cameras being sent in for repair to be put back into working condition...

Well, around here I think we have less shops still alive. My old haunts have closed up and blown away. Other than pro film cameras, most can be replaced by buying another used cheaper than getting it repaired. I fixed my Elan 100 by myself for that reason.

Shooting wrote in post #5466872
Which is probably why a camera repair lab about 2 hours from me cannot keep up with the film cameras being sent in for repair to be put back into working condition..so many people I hear are going back to film. Believe it or not, I still use both my T-90's for my scenics and fujipro film 100ISO. Yes, it is 35mm but really great on scenics.

I think the majority of them closed a 2-3 years ago... the ones that remain now are swamped to an extent.

I'm about to shell out 100 bucks to have the shutter curtains replaced on a FED. It's expensive, but after that it'll keep working for another 50 years or so.

Double Negative wrote in post #5464441
Back in 2000-2001 when the D30 first came out, it was claimed that IT beat film already. I think it was Luminous Landscape that said that, or came just short of saying it in one of the reviews. And that body was only around 3MP.

cosworth wrote in post #5464454
Yeah, they said the 1Ds Mk.I almost beats medium format film.

Exactly. So the benchmark is raised everytime, as I wrote in an earlier response.

Now there's some folks who say it would take 24MP or up to 40-50MP before digital is close to 35mm film.

Frankly, I don't know why we always get so wrapped up in such discussion, and why I am stupid enough to participate. If you think film offers more than digital, then do that. If you think that convenience and speed of workflow of digital is better than in film, then do that.

Do we always need exacting resolution? Yes, it's very nice to have and we probably bought into Canon's line of DSLRs because of that (or because it comes close do doing it). But few of us need to quibble about the minor differences that may exist.

Ultimately, do what you like. Even though I believe there's some truth in film having an 'oomph' that digital does not, I'm not going there entirely because I like instant review. Maybe it makes me a worse photographer, but who cares. Ultimately if I can produce pictures that I like or make others go 'wow' (long way to go before that happens), I'm massively happy.

I know the comparison was brought up in the thread already but it is funny how much this debate mimics audiophiles discussing phonographs vs. CDs (or tube vs. solid-state).