

Film vs. Digital - aycangulez
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm

======
jdietrich
The article is completely and utterly obsolete. 35mm digital would out-resolve
medium format film circa 2002, with the Canon 1Ds[1]. A 39 megapixel medium
format digital back will come within spitting distance of 4x5 film[2].
Hasselblad now have a 60 megapixel medium format camera.

Being able to use a smaller sensor format at the same or better quality is of
critical importance, because it allows the photographer to use smaller,
lighter, brighter lenses. A digital MF system can happily be used handheld,
whereas a 4x5 camera demands a very large and heavy tripod to work at all.
Large format lenses are so slow and the cameras so bulky that a mere gust of
wind can ruin an image.

That's at low ISO. Start cranking up the sensitivity and digital is in a world
of it's own. A Nikon D3s will produce useful images at 12800 ISO and very
clean images at 6400 ISO[3].

For any serious use, film is absolutely stone dead. It still has a place for
hobbyists and students, for whom the much cheaper equipment makes up for the
inconvenience and poorer quality. For any serious use, digital is vastly,
incomparably better than film.

[1] <http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/shootout.shtml> [2]
<http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/Cramer.shtml> [3]
[http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/digitalcame...](http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/digitalcamera/slr/d3s/sample.htm)

~~~
Tamerlin
Not even remotely. The luminous landscape comparisons were complete rubbish.

The best prints that I've seen from digital imagers, including modern full-
frame 35mm digital cameras, look miserably blurry if you approach the print
closely enough to read the caption. From 15 feet away, they look nice and
sharp... my prints from 4x5 look every bit as sharp from 15 feet away until
you stick your nose on the print -- and all you keep finding is more detail.

The other thing that the digital fanputzes ignore is that with the exception
of the Foveon, DIGITAL SENSORS ARE MONOCRHOMATIC. They invent most of their
color information through interpolation because THEY CANNOT RECORD COLOR.

If you want high ISO ability, digital rules the roost. If you want fast
turnaround, you go with digital. If you want the best color and maximal
detail, you use film -- the bigger the better.

Even Jack Dykinga, who switched to using multiple exposures stitched together
for his commercial work, says that for fine art images, he still uses 4x5
film, because not even stitching 15-20 full 35mm frame digital images together
can match an image from a 4x5 sheet film, especially if you use a drum
scanner.

~~~
jdietrich
If my comparisons are rubbish, post better ones. This is HN, not Reddit. Cite
your sources.

~~~
Tamerlin
Sigh... typical response. I suppose I should have known better than to expect
an intelligent response, eh? (Then again, people actually believed Apple in
spite of their equally transparent gaming of their SPEC tests.)

The best way to see the comparison in person would be either to see my prints
(easy if you're in Seattle) or order one or two large prints and see for
yourself.

However, there are still some examples online done by people who are skilled
photographers, and who know a thing or two about scanning... plus, unlike the
folks who did the comparison for the luminous landscape, this guy uses a GOOD
scanner. (He's also the person who got me started with large format
photography, so I had a chance to spend a week photographing with him in the
Smokies, and got a lot of instruction from him.)

<http://www.dannyburk.com/drum_scan_resolution.htm>

------
teilo
Ken Rockwell is largely regarded as a crank in the Pro-Am photographic
community. He is well known for making blanket statements like: "A Nikon D40
is all the camera you will ever need" and "6MP is enough resolution for
anybody." and "all higher MP gets you is more noise". All wrong.

The biggest problem with this article is that he assumes that film has
infinite resolution. This was just as ridiculous in 2006 as it is today.
Anyone who knows a thing about analog encoding techniques will instantly spot
the fallacy in this argument. The resolution of film is certainly more
"organic" in nature, but it is not even remotely infinite. Film has grain, and
while it is difficult to pin a precise equivalent PPI on film grain, it is
nevertheless the case that you cannot exceed the resolution of the grain.

Since 2006 the resolution of full-frame digital sensors has vastly surpassed
film, and with Canon's announcement of a 120MP sensor, and the mainstreaming
of 4K digital video, there seems to be no end in sight. As it is, the biggest
bottleneck to resolution is now the glass. It is becoming increasingly
difficult and more expensive to create glass with enough clarity, and low
enough distortion to take advantage of the higher MP sensors.

~~~
jacobolus
I’m not the biggest fan of Rockwell, but come on,

> _The biggest problem with this article is that he assumes that film has
> infinite resolution._

No he doesn’t.

> _Since 2006 the resolution ..._

If you look, this article is from before that. So what’s your point?

> _As it is, the biggest bottleneck to resolution is now the glass._

The glass has always been one of the biggest bottlenecks. Which is why bigger
and bigger megapixel counts aren’t always so useful.

~~~
teilo
I'm sorry, this wasn't the precise article that I thought it was. Here are the
exact quotes:

"20 years from now we can re-scan our film and get 2029-level image quality."

...

"You can't go back to a raw file and get more resolution. With film, you don't
have to make a resolution decision until you scan it.

With film, you can scan at any resolution. With film, you can scan it again in
30 years with whatever technology we have then, because you still have your
original raw image captured alive and well."

...

"Real Raw needs no noise reduction.

Details and textures are always crisp and clear on film."

From: <http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/real-raw.htm>

~~~
jacobolus
Okay, that third one is nonsense, but it seems to me that you are deliberately
misinterpreting the other two. The meaning which seems obvious to me is:
“You’ll get whatever resolution a 2029 scanner can pull out of a piece of
film, and you are therefore not limited by the scanners of 2009, because
you’ll still have the original negative.”

Anyway, low-ISO film has very very good resolution, I expect often exceeding
the resolving power of the glass. So making it higher than that (that is,
adding megapixels) doesn’t help anything.

If you want higher resolution than a 4x5 negative (and I’m really not sure why
you would, since a 4x5 negative will let you print crystal clear images at
poster size or larger, so frankly this is all pretty academic and kind of a
stupid argument), try an 8x10 negative. I’m almost certain there’s no widely
available digital back that comes close to the resolution you’ll get. (If you
had more money than you knew what to do with you might be able to get some
kind of neat custom part or something).

* * *

Anyhow, Rockwell is an anti-raw-format zealot (he just does jpegs), as well as
a view camera user, which is why the article you are linking to is doubly
biased and stupid. But so what? If you figure out what his opinions are, it’s
pretty easy to discount them when reading his essays; and, for instance, the
essay you link can mostly just be ignored altogether.

------
jnovek
Some context for those unfamiliar -- Ken Rockwell is considered to be a bit of
an agitator in some photography circles and this particular post is comparable
to Zed Shaw's "Rails is a Ghetto" in infamy.

At the time there was a lot of sensationalist noise that film was "dead", and
I think that's why he spends so much time focusing on the virtues of film
photography.

~~~
famousactress
I'm not sure that's a very fair assessment. The article was an even-handed
reminder that both tools are useful and can serve different purposes.

We lost Kodachrome, we lost Polaroid (for a while).. I think there's a handful
of folks trying to make sure that with the influx of interest in digital
photography that people are aware that film still exists and does a few things
that your digital camera doesn't.

~~~
jnovek
I didn't claim that film was inferior or superior to digital -- in fact, I
shoot mostly film and run a color darkroom in my home.

You may not recall, but at the time, 2006, there were many articles declaring
the death of film. The film market was rapidly contracting, Agfa had recently
gone bankrupt and Kodak was cancelling lines left and right.

The popular opinion was that film would be gone "in 10 years" and Ken Rockwell
-- love him or hate him -- was QUITE the agitator for suggesting otherwise.

Happily for those of us who enjoy shooting film, he was correct. Film is the
right tool for some jobs and digital is the right tool for others. Film
markets stopped contracting and now we're even seeing some new and interesting
lines (new Maco/Rollei emulsions new Polaroid integral films, etc).

------
stan_rogers
Hmmm. Apparently he has never shot a grey card (or a Photodisk) or used a
densitometer. Or he left it behind as "kid stuff" when he became an expert.
One card per day per film lot ought to be enough to make consistent,
repeatable prints.

The grey card is also the key to getting professional negative printing done
as well. (And there were several entire industries dependent on professional
labs. Portraiture, weddings and forensic photography were almost always done
on negs, usually Kodak Vericolor 160 shot at 100 or 125, later split between
Portra 160 and Fujicolor Reala; the prints from transparencies were too garish
for skin tones.) Think of it as "white balance" for film. One standard
18%-grey exposure with push/pull instructions would do for both souping the
negs and printing. Get the grey right, and all of the qualities of the light,
including filtration, come in the package (modulo reciprocity failure if you
print murals from small or medium format).

[Okay, I'll admit it -- as a photographer, I was an immaculate technician but
no sort of an artist. It still bugs me that guys like this guy and David
Brooks can make a living at the game without knowing any of the voodoo behind
what they do. In our world, it's as if Larry Wall _really did_ create Perl
accidentally by falling asleep face-first on his keyboard. It ain't right.]

------
antidaily
" _Extremely_ skilled photographers can get better results on film". Not just
skilled. Extremely skilled. Doesn't sounds like me. But I love that old tech
still works in the right hands.

~~~
Tamerlin
I can't do with digital what I do with film... the technology in its current
state is simply too limiting.

------
CWuestefeld
He's speaking mostly from a theoretical perspective. For me, and everyone I
know, the investment necessary for the super-pro equipment just isn't going to
happen. That those things exist aren't really relevant to me.

Then he says that digicams are more expensive, and that film cams _and their
lenses_ last forever. The thing is that, in general, the lenses for 35mm cams
are generally usable for DSLRs as well. My Pentax DSLR can accept any lens
ever made for any Pentax 35mm.

While he does mention workflow as an advantage for digital, I think it
deserves greater emphasis. That's not just because there's no need to send out
to a lab (or go in your own darkroom with all the chemicals). It's also
because of the availability of tools like PhotoShop, allowing us to do all
kinds of post-production. Basic editing like exposure correction you could do
in the darkroom. But color balance pretty much requires that you shift to
digital. And of course there's really fancy editing like removing unwanted
objects, changing sharpness and contrast, etc. The extreme flexibility of
digital images is a killer feature.

------
burningion
Photography has been a big hobby of mine. You can see some of my film
photography over at <http://www.zothcorp.com/photos/>. That being said, I
recommend everyone who's serious about learning photography start shooting
with a digital camera, then switch over to a film camera.

Digital is a great to learn exposure, because you get results so quickly. You
can see immediately the effects of over or under exposure.

But film has a much greater latitude than digital. That is, it's very easy to
blow out your highlights on a digital camera. Have whites that are completely
white and ugly.

With film you get a nice curve on your highlights, and so you can preserve
more detail. You also get that thing called grain, and a physical product.

Shooting film costs more, but you can get great results with less computer
editing.

But really, there is no great battle. There's a place for both. My own
personal preference has been film for black and white, digital for color.

------
aycangulez
"A glass plate from 1880 still has more resolution than a Canon 1Ds-MkII" says
it all.

~~~
sp332
Yeah, can you imaging hauling around 2,000 glass plates on your next vacation?
Or a professional photographer lugging 5,000+ plates and trying to get some
candid shots at a wedding? Digital helps people take better shots. Resolution
isn't everything!

~~~
joshfinnie
This applies even to film. The fact that you had to switch film when going
from inside the church to outside receiving line to inside reception is lost
on most photographers today. Not only were glass plates inconvient, but so was
film!

------
grk
Keep in mind that this is a pretty old article (2006), so things could've
changed a lot.

