Cdiver2 i like that print a lot from the small web file i see, I wish I could look at it up close. Question any visual grain on that print?
Artic Mermaid: it doesnt take a full frame sensor to get better quality from digital files than from print film.
The problem is with most digital cameras is that the sensors are so small (size of a childs pinky finger nail) that the noise on the images gets bad quick beyond iso 200-400) because the pixels are packed so close together, with larger sensors there is less noise(at higher isos) due to the pixels not being pack together as tight.
Then when you start with smaller files it takes much more work to get a acceptable print as when the print dpi goes below 240-300 dpi image quality suffers. Example fuji frontiers print at 305dpi, and lightjets/chromira at 250-400 dpi so prints with less dpi are going to have pixelization.
Then quality is subjective, what may be acceptable to the average person is not acceptable to me as I have a very high standard for my work. As I have had rejected prints that clients thought where fine but still didnt release them.
Negatives can be enlarged in different sizes depending on the film type and size, any where from 1,000-10,000dpi (scanner) or 1-50x optically.
Far from it. Maybe it doesnt matter for snapshots up to 8x10 but I'm talking about enlargements 11x14 to 16x20 kind of stuff and bigger that you might want to hang on your wall.
Even snapshots I have taken with film have that made it into my portfolio have printed to 11x14 or larger without issues or degraded image quality. Like I said the smallest print in my portfolio is a 11x14 but have several that are 16x20 or 20x24 that where either hand optical prints or digital prints.
Well for me my smallest working print (ie a working proof) is a 8x10/12 and my average final print is a 11x14 or larger (will make smaller prints when requested/ordered, but will go up to 36x48 prints). I have scans from 35mm negative/slides for prints going up to 30x40 (even larger with my medium & large format negatives/slides) and some of these dont have any visual grain unless you are looking at them with a fine loupe in a dark shadow area where grain would show up, and noise would in digital. Then there are those that think that grain adds to a image.
Hanging on my wall currently is a batch of 16x20 and 20x24 prints(all from 35mm negs except for 1 kodachrome 35mm slide, and a 645 neg) for a project im working on and will have a 20x30 print ready on friday that was done from a 35mm fuji NPZ (iso 800)negative i shot several years ago.
Even the best film breaks down. You can only go so big before the grain starts to show and even the shapest picture gets fuzzy. But with good clean 8 MP digital files you can stair interpolate them to just about any size. I've done it many times with even smaller digital files.
The same goes for digital as most digital files straight out of the camera need sharpening to regain proper sharpness from capture (some images may need capture sharpening and output sharpening to achieve the desired results). The same goes for grain digital does it to but sometimes its a double edge hit because grain tends to artifact so that detail cant be sharpened or if it is it makes the artifact more noticable.
I to have done the same with smaller digital images (3-5 mp, but prefer to work with a larger file then downsize) but they needed extensive amounts of photoshop work to get them to a acceptable print size and quality or need specialized software (expensive)that has a steep learning curve (Lizard Tech Genuine Fractals)and took longer then i wanted it to take. With film you can do the same thing as a unsharp mask in photoshop(or any other tool for that matter because they all orginated in the traditional darkroom) it just requires a unsharp neg/slide it takes longer but the final results are the same. It all comes down to how your do your image post processing, and how much grain, noise or artifacting you think is acceptable
The range of colors and tones print film can capture is very, very limited compared to digital cameras. Combine that with the limited dynamic range of most scanners and theres no comparison!
I really beg to differ as this is your opinon. Consumer films that maybe correct but not for professional films. Even printing optically you are limited to the abilities of the paper the images is projected (even through color filration) on for the color space. Then digitally it comes down to the capture device and the color space the file is prepped in (Adobe RGB or SRGB).
As for scanners being limited in DR well then you would be including all the devices that produce the prints you are talking about is if not all are done digitally now (ie frontiers(color space is close to sRGB and that of digital cameras with no raw option), lightjet, chromira (both are close to the Adobe RGB colorspace that is much wider then sRGB)). Even most scanners capture in 16(and higher) bit just like newer DSLRs
well then that would mean that the prints like Richard Lohmann
www.richardlohmann.com or Robert Ketchum
http://www.robertglennketchum.com/ who both work with film and wouldnt be able to produce images like they do. For example ketchum used to do optical cibachrome reversal prints through west coast imaging that the largest he could do optically was a 30x40 before they fell apart. With the use of a tango drum scanner and a master printer from west coast imaging, ketchum regularly makes prints of up to 48x72 from his film negatives. link to article
http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/page/info/articles/ketchum.html
http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/content/2004/july/bestprints.shtml
Robert Ketchum next to one of his 48x72 in prints
On my Nikon 9000 scanner I can get better tonality, color and DR then I could using a optical enlarger print using traditional chemical darkroom techniques . Then you have drum scanners(like the tango) that can resolve detail down to individual dye clouds of a neg or slide. The dmax(how deep the blacks are in a image) of the Nikon 9000 is 3.8 and the tango drum scanner is 4.2 which is higher then printers using fuji papers which ranges from 3.2-3.6 depending on the printer (chromira, lightjet, frontier), and how they are set up.
Is there a digital camera out there that can do the same color, sharpness and saturation straight out the camera without post processing like Fuji velvia 50 or 100 or Kodak E100VS slides or even the Kodak(160nc) and fuji(NPS) iso 160 speed portrait films rated at 100 and developed normally?
And you don't have to worry about the lab scratching or losing your negatives.
Well it sounds like your lab doesnt know whats its doing because I havent had a scratch problem with them and I sent over 500 rolls of film through them last year, and have used the same lab for developing for 5 years. Plus even if there is a scratch, with the latest generation scanners with built in ICE technology any defects in the neg/slide can be automatically cloned out or done manually in post processing. Which is the same as you have to do with a DSLR that has a dust spot on the sensor that you have to mask or clone out in every shot.
As for loosing negs if you have a lab doing that find a different one. The lab I deal with I dont have any problems(have yet to have a roll lost damaged or scratched and I have sent more film and CDs through there then I can count) as the staff knows me and since Im in there on a regular basis if there is a issue that comes up they call me.
Digital doesnt make the photographer any less talented or less of a photographer. Just more likely to get the shots that nobody else is getting and make prints to show off to all their friends.
Opinion, and digital has lead to photographers to more or less using the machine gun technique and rely on photoshop to save a image rather then shooting it correctly first time around (quantity does not always equal quality). It is not the camera that makes the image its the person behind the camera that makes the image happen. The prints part makes no sense as I do the same no matter if it is a digital file or a film neg and in the same timeframe.
The instant gratification from digital may be great (to see it on the screen), but when I press the shutter I know what I got weather its a digital or film camera, and it takes no less time or money (for me at least) to get a image from digital or film to print.
