When does digital beat film?

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #5472952
That's what I used to shoot

I love the compact size. I take it everywhere and shoot it when it matters. One frame per person max... or per concept.

I meter carefully, compose and click. The only thing I don't like too much about it is the shutter lag - the lens has to retract.

I'm itching to get the prints.

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #5472915
That's almost as easy as shooting film in the first place, except the film is more tolerant to under/overexposure and the labtech can correct it easier, giving you better prints.

Now that I sold my digital cameras, I don't really complain about the cost. I buy expired color film for pennies and shoot it composing carefully. All of my stuff comes out the way I previsualize it. I just dropped off a roll from a new stylus epic which I've been shooting for the last six weeks. The development and two sets of 5*7 proofs cost me 8 bucks. That's cheaper than shooting digital and printing 50 images of that size!

Yeah but to get that tonal range that makes large format B&W so special you need the zone system and process and print thing yourself and that means you have a very narrow exposure latitude you've tested so you know exactly where you threshold of exposure lies and exactly how much more or less development time your N+1, N+2, N-1, N-2 etc needs.

carpenter wrote in post #5461387
I believe they say somewhere between 25-30MP to equal film.

Is that so?

I have scanned Ektachrome 50 35mm slides and compared them to 20D (8 mp) images. Zooming in, I see film grain way before I see individual pixels in the 20D image.

I've heard is said that people who post film images to Flickr get roundly criticized because of "soft focus".

An organization for which I volunteer blew up one of my 20D images to a 3x5 foot poster that they mounted in Atlantis Marine World (on Long Island, NY). The detail amazed everybody. Similar attempts with 35 film were ghastly.

That's my experience.

Why do I have the impression that those who claim that film is better than digital are still film devotees? I'm not saying that film does not have its benefits, just not for my style.

joedlh wrote in post #5473081
Is that so?

I have scanned Ektachrome 50 35mm slides and compared them to 20D (8 mp) images. Zooming in, I see film grain way before I see individual pixels in the 20D image.

I've heard is said that people who post film images to Flickr get roundly criticized because of "soft focus".

An organization for which I volunteer blew up one of my 20D images to a 3x5 foot poster that they mounted in Atlantis Marine World (on Long Island, NY). The detail amazed everybody. Similar attempts with 35 film were ghastly.

That's my experience.

Why do I have the impression that those who claim that film is better than digital are still film devotees? I'm not saying that film does not have its benefits, just not for my style.

Very few scanners resolve more than 6 megapixels when scanning negs. Add high compression and you get "complaints of softness"

I'm not defending film in general. Some emulsions have 30 lines per mm resolution or lower. That's 3 megapixels and the resolution is simply not there. Some low ISO films are much better.

In the end - shoot with the medium you like more.

I just like the smell of fixer

joedlh wrote in post #5473081
An organization for which I volunteer blew up one of my 20D images to a 3x5 foot poster that they mounted in Atlantis Marine World (on Long Island, NY). The detail amazed everybody. Similar attempts with 35 film were ghastly.

That's my experience. Why do I have the impression that those who claim that film is better than digital are still film devotees? I'm not saying that film does not have its benefits, just not for my style.

One should not merely compare resolution alone.

One reason is that digital is limited to 4096 levels of brightness. Add to that the fact that film can reproduce more than the digital limit in the quantity of gradations of both brightness and color. Note the 'wars' between aRGB and sRGB reproduction of colors as one very concrete example of the fact that the color spectrum cannot be adequately addressed with today's digital file.

And that is comparing only 35mm vs. dSLR, it is not even attempting to address the fact that medium or large format have more grains or color clouds to express the same amount of subject area, which is why those larger images are so much more dymanic and captivating than the same image on 35mm.

Kodak Technical Pan, developed in Technidol. Too bad it's not made any more...

But man, was it sharp.

Double Negative wrote in post #5473237
Kodak Technical Pan, developed in Technidol. Too bad it's not made any more...

But man, was it sharp.

It was a long time ago - wasn't that something like ASA 6? Or am I thinking of another high resolution film?

-js

Tech pan info from Kodak

EXPOSURE

The speed of this film depends on the application, the type and degree of development, and the level of contrast required. Therefore, no single speed value applies for all situations. (Speed ratings may range from a low of EI 16 for pictorial photography to a high EI 320 for microfilming. Use the exposure indexes in the following table with meters marked for ISO, ASA, or DIN speeds or exposure indexes. They are intended for trial exposures.
You can expose this film with daylight or tungsten light. Exposure to tungsten illumination produces a 10-percent increase in speed and a 5-percent increase in contrast.

Exposure- and Contrast-Index Values for Various Development Conditions Contrast Index KODAK Developer Development Time (minutes at 68°F [20°C]) Exposure
Index
contrast High 2.50 DEKTOL dev time 3 ISO 200
2.40 to 2.70 D-19 (1:2) time 4 to 7 ISO 100 to 160
2.25 to 2.55 D-19 time 2 to 8 ISO 100 to 200
1.20 to 2.10 HC-110 (Dil B) tim 4 to 12 ISO 100 to 250
1.25 to 1.75 HC-110 (Dil D) time 4 to 8 ISO 80 to 125
1.10 to 2.10 D-76 time 6 to 12 ISO 64 to 125
1.00 to 1.50 MICRODOL-X time 8 to 12 ISO 32 to 50
0.80 to 0.95 HC-110 (Dil F) time 6 to 12 ISO 32 to 64
contrast Low 0.50 to 0.70 TECHNIDOL Liquid time 5 to 11 ISO 16 to 25

Ya really wanna see mojo try some tri-x professional sheet film ISO 320 in a special dulition of HC110 WHOA or t max 400 sheet film in rodinal 1:50 the tonality in both are simply amaizing.

Has anyone shot with Ilford Pan F Plus ISO 50? I used to shoot with Agfa Pan B&W ISO 25 and really liked it.

Karl C wrote in post #5473593
Has anyone shot with Ilford Pan F Plus, ISO 50? I used to shoot with Agfa Pan B&W ISO 25 and really liked it.

THat's such a broad question.

I'm shooting efke 25 for the really slow film, works fine for me. I didn't compare it with anything else yet.

Karl C wrote in post #5473593
Has anyone shot with Ilford Pan F Plus ISO 50? I used to shoot with Agfa Pan B&W ISO 25 and really liked it.

I still have a roll of agfa pan 25 in the freezer.

I don't remember anymore but yeah, it was slow.

But the developer Technidol as well as Rodinol were both great, as mentioned - with Tri-X or other films.

One of my favorites (not for the camera) was Kodak Lith Film. Enlarge onto that, contact print it and offset the two sheets slightly. Rotate a light around them or use your enlarger over a sheet of paper for an "ink drawing" effect. Lith film had no greys - it was BLACK or it was WHITE. All kinds of fun with that!

number six wrote in post #5473493
It was a long time ago - wasn't that something like ASA 6? Or am I thinking of another high resolution film?

Double Negative wrote in post #5477431
One of my favorites (not for the camera) was Kodak Lith Film. Enlarge onto that, contact print it and offset the two sheets slightly. Rotate a light around them or use your enlarger over a sheet of paper for an "ink drawing" effect. Lith film had no greys - it was BLACK or it was WHITE. All kinds of fun with that!

I never played with it myself, but a friend did lithographic printing. His camera was pretty big - it used 18 X 24 inch Kodak Litho film for separations.

-js