Nikon D200 verus Fuji S3 versus film

This was in the most recent issue of "Amateur Photographer" I saw.

In terms of dynamic range, colour neg. film wins handily on the high
end with 7 stops of "tolerance" above correct exposure.
The Fuji comes in second with 2 stops above the Nikon, but the Nikon
wins for the other
end, having 2 stops under what the Fuji can deliver and both cameras
beat film on the low
end. Sunset shots give the Fuji a noticeable edge over the Nikon.
The Nikon on the other hand wins easily over the Fuji and Film when it
comes to resolution.
Overall, the Nikon wins for most categories. But, the FM-2 they used
with the film apparently
had a much clearer, brighter viewfinder than either of the digitals.

RichA wrote:
This was in the most recent issue of "Amateur Photographer" I saw.

In terms of dynamic range, colour neg. film wins handily on the high
end with 7 stops of "tolerance" above correct exposure.
The Fuji comes in second with 2 stops above the Nikon, but the Nikon
wins for the other
end, having 2 stops under what the Fuji can deliver and both cameras
beat film on the low
end. Sunset shots give the Fuji a noticeable edge over the Nikon.
The Nikon on the other hand wins easily over the Fuji and Film when it
comes to resolution.
Overall, the Nikon wins for most categories. But, the FM-2 they used
with the film apparently
had a much clearer, brighter viewfinder than either of the digitals.

All sounds about right, The Fuji is a camera that many wedding photogs
say is better than film, did they use the advanced dynamic range
setting? The Fuji body is antiquated, slow card write speeds, poor
viewfinder even for a prism finder. A full frame camera will always
have a better finder, just more area to let light in. I have a D200,
bought over the Fuji because of the viewfinder. It isn't bad with an f2
lens attached, but my film cameras are better. I still think a 10mp
digital image is better than a scanned 35mm slide which is better than
a 35mm scanned neg. The 10mp will also beat some MF cameras.

Tom

tomm42 wrote:
RichA wrote:
This was in the most recent issue of "Amateur Photographer" I saw.

In terms of dynamic range, colour neg. film wins handily on the high
end with 7 stops of "tolerance" above correct exposure.
The Fuji comes in second with 2 stops above the Nikon, but the Nikon
wins for the other
end, having 2 stops under what the Fuji can deliver and both cameras
beat film on the low
end. Sunset shots give the Fuji a noticeable edge over the Nikon.
The Nikon on the other hand wins easily over the Fuji and Film when it
comes to resolution.
Overall, the Nikon wins for most categories. But, the FM-2 they used
with the film apparently
had a much clearer, brighter viewfinder than either of the digitals.

All sounds about right, The Fuji is a camera that many wedding photogs
say is better than film, did they use the advanced dynamic range
setting? The Fuji body is antiquated, slow card write speeds, poor
viewfinder even for a prism finder. A full frame camera will always
have a better finder, just more area to let light in. I have a D200,
bought over the Fuji because of the viewfinder. It isn't bad with an f2
lens attached, but my film cameras are better. I still think a 10mp
digital image is better than a scanned 35mm slide which is better than
a 35mm scanned neg. The 10mp will also beat some MF cameras.

Tom

I'd agree with that, based on what I've seen, but you still get
magazine reviewers
saying things like, 400 ISO colour neg. film beats 10meg for detail.
If this were the
case, you'd need a 30 meg camera to beat something like low speed
colour negative
or slower slide films.

I'd agree with that, based on what I've seen, but you still get
magazine reviewers
saying things like, 400 ISO colour neg. film beats 10meg for detail.
If this were the
case, you'd need a 30 meg camera to beat something like low speed
colour negative
or slower slide films.

Last time I shot 400 speed color neg (Kodak VR) photos from my Nikon
995 at 400 had less noise/grain. Pro lab processed.
I assisted in a shot of a minor league baseball team AAA, One year we
shot it with a Mamiya 645 (iso 160 film) and a Kodak DCS760, the 760s
pics were better and used for the team picture, the one you buy in the
store. The next year we used the 760 again and someone was there with a
Hassleblad. They still used the 760 pic because the printer wanted the
file that day. When we saw the Hassy pic, the press agent had it blown
up to the size ours was printed, better yes but not by much and
consider we were comparing an offset piece to a photo print.
I also spent 4 years doing large format printing, we would routinely do
20x30 prints from the DCS760 files.
Remember that was a 6mp camera.

Tom

In article .com,
"tomm42" wrote:

RichA wrote:
This was in the most recent issue of "Amateur Photographer" I saw.

In terms of dynamic range, colour neg. film wins handily on the high
end with 7 stops of "tolerance" above correct exposure.
The Fuji comes in second with 2 stops above the Nikon, but the Nikon
wins for the other
end, having 2 stops under what the Fuji can deliver and both cameras
beat film on the low
end. Sunset shots give the Fuji a noticeable edge over the Nikon.
The Nikon on the other hand wins easily over the Fuji and Film when it
comes to resolution.
Overall, the Nikon wins for most categories. But, the FM-2 they used
with the film apparently
had a much clearer, brighter viewfinder than either of the digitals.

All sounds about right, The Fuji is a camera that many wedding photogs
say is better than film, did they use the advanced dynamic range
setting? The Fuji body is antiquated, slow card write speeds, poor
viewfinder even for a prism finder. A full frame camera will always
have a better finder, just more area to let light in. I have a D200,
bought over the Fuji because of the viewfinder. It isn't bad with an f2
lens attached, but my film cameras are better. I still think a 10mp
digital image is better than a scanned 35mm slide which is better than
a 35mm scanned neg. The 10mp will also beat some MF cameras.

Tom

You are fooling yourself....10mp is not even close to MF....not for
resolution or for detail...the only thing its better at is ease of
use....I did a shoot for Disney and used 6mp digital and 6x7 from my
Mamiya RZ 67 II....the RZ blew away the 6mp digital, which I knew it
would, but I wanted to see some files immediately...but 2 years later I
have a D2X and its AMAZING....I was printing 11x17 images on my Epson
4800 and I ran across a scan from the RZ 67....I printed it and compared
it to prints made from the D2X and they were close, but the shadow
detail was amazing with the film.

JR

JR wrote:
You are fooling yourself....10mp is not even close to MF....

10mp is not even close for 35mm with Technical Pan.
With a very sharp macro lens having 100 line PAIRS per mm, you would
need about

100x2x36x100x2x24= 34.5 mp for B&W only.

Even with a more realistic 80 lpm, you are talking about 22mp for B&W.

Tien

JR wrote:
You are fooling yourself....10mp is not even close to MF....not for
resolution or for detail...the only thing its better at is ease of
use....I did a shoot for Disney and used 6mp digital and 6x7 from my
Mamiya RZ 67 II....the RZ blew away the 6mp digital, which I knew it
would, but I wanted to see some files immediately...but 2 years later I
have a D2X and its AMAZING....I was printing 11x17 images on my Epson
4800 and I ran across a scan from the RZ 67....I printed it and compared
it to prints made from the D2X and they were close, but the shadow
detail was amazing with the film.

Unless you are doing dodges with Photoshop to bring up the shadow area
I would have thought that the D2X would have far more shadow detail
then would show up in a print. A print has a much more limited dynamic
range what you should be seeing from your D2X. If you look at the
prints from the D2X and the original file does it look like the lack of
detail is from the image or from the print?

Scott

JR wrote:

You are fooling yourself....10mp is not even close to MF....not for
resolution or for detail...the only thing its better at is ease of
use....I did a shoot for Disney and used 6mp digital and 6x7 from my
Mamiya RZ 67 II....the RZ blew away the 6mp digital, which I knew it
would, but I wanted to see some files immediately...but 2 years later I
have a D2X and its AMAZING....I was printing 11x17 images on my Epson
4800 and I ran across a scan from the RZ 67....I printed it and compared
it to prints made from the D2X and they were close, but the shadow
detail was amazing with the film.

In some ways comparing apples to oranges. Taking a section of the MF
film that is the same size as the sensor gives a better comparison.
Either that, or taking multiple exposures with sensor so that you get
an image size the same size as film.

But even there you start running into trouble in making a comparison. A
sensor might have more pixels per inch than film, but less resolution
because the pixels are so tiny that noise effectively masks the extra
resolution.

A digital image is always going to look different than an analog one.
Ultimately it comes down to a matter of personal preference.

Scott W wrote:

JR wrote:
You are fooling yourself....10mp is not even close to MF....not for

resolution or for detail...the only thing its better at is ease of
use....I did a shoot for Disney and used 6mp digital and 6x7 from my
Mamiya RZ 67 II....the RZ blew away the 6mp digital, which I knew it
would, but I wanted to see some files immediately...but 2 years later I
have a D2X and its AMAZING....I was printing 11x17 images on my Epson
4800 and I ran across a scan from the RZ 67....I printed it and compared
it to prints made from the D2X and they were close, but the shadow
detail was amazing with the film.


Unless you are doing dodges with Photoshop to bring up the shadow area
I would have thought that the D2X would have far more shadow detail
then would show up in a print. A print has a much more limited dynamic
range what you should be seeing from your D2X. If you look at the
prints from the D2X and the original file does it look like the lack of
detail is from the image or from the print?

I'm suspecting default jpeg contrast settings.

Paul Furman wrote:
I'm suspecting default jpeg contrast settings.
You may be right, but even then I would expect a good jpeg to have way
more range that
could be printed.

Scott