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Scan film V Digital SLR
I have kept my quality film SLR kit, thinking I would use it
reasonably often, but my 4mp digital is so darned convenient, that in 2 years the SLR has stayed in it's bag. It's easy to lust for the latest digital SLR, but I was wondering how good film prints, through a good quality scanner, compare with a 5 or 8mp digital camera, on screen or printed. Anyone done this? DonB |
#2
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Scan film V Digital SLR
DonB wrote:
I have kept my quality film SLR kit, thinking I would use it reasonably often, but my 4mp digital is so darned convenient, that in 2 years the SLR has stayed in it's bag. It's easy to lust for the latest digital SLR, but I was wondering how good film prints, through a good quality scanner, compare with a 5 or 8mp digital camera, on screen or printed. Anyone done this? I still shoot Velvia sometimes. A well-shot Velvia slide, when properly scanned, can make a very large digital image file suitable for printing very large if necessary. Scanning the positive or negative film will do better than scanning a print. Otherwise, my 6-megapixel digital camera does a very good job on images for printing up to 11x14 or 16x18. Beyond that, you have to fool with it to get good results on larger prints. ---Bob Gross--- |
#3
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Scan film V Digital SLR
"DonB" wrote in message
... I have kept my quality film SLR kit, thinking I would use it reasonably often, but my 4mp digital is so darned convenient, that in 2 years the SLR has stayed in it's bag. It's easy to lust for the latest digital SLR, but I was wondering how good film prints, through a good quality scanner, compare with a 5 or 8mp digital camera, on screen or printed. Anyone done this? DonB |
#4
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Scan film V Digital SLR
"DonB" wrote in message
... I have kept my quality film SLR kit, thinking I would use it reasonably often, but my 4mp digital is so darned convenient, that in 2 years the SLR has stayed in it's bag. It's easy to lust for the latest digital SLR, but I was wondering how good film prints, through a good quality scanner, compare with a 5 or 8mp digital camera, on screen or printed. Anyone done this? DonB I haven't picked up my Canon film SLR in years. I have a slide scanner, but it's not a very good one and it just takes too darn long for the whole scanning process. Mark |
#5
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Scan film V Digital SLR
DonB wrote: I have kept my quality film SLR kit, thinking I would use it reasonably often, but my 4mp digital is so darned convenient, that in 2 years the SLR has stayed in it's bag. It's easy to lust for the latest digital SLR, but I was wondering how good film prints, through a good quality scanner, compare with a 5 or 8mp digital camera, on screen or printed. Anyone done this? Yes, several times in print. Generally the camera wins. The Canon D60 knocked Velvia scanned on a Nikon 4000 dpi scanner into a cocked hat for A3 magazine repro, and that was two years ago. The Sigma SD10 on an exact size basis (that is, cropping the Velvia 100F slide down to the same area as the small digital sensor and scanning at the same effective resolution) showed that film really can't compete, especially in terms of capturing usable, clean highlight and shadow detail simultaneously. Have a look at the second page of: http://www.freelancephotographer.co.uk/sigmaSD10.pdf I'm sorry, it is a very large PDF (4.4 megs) because it has been filed at 300 dpi printable resolution - same as the original magazine pages - to enable people to zoom in up to 400 per cent on the pages and still see image detail correctly. The comparative illustrations of Velvia 100F and Sigma SD10 show that in terms of sharp detail, and especially in terms of retention of fine highlight detail, the digital camera easily betters scanned film. Not to mention the colour aspect. The test could just as easily have been conducted using a Canon 300D, Nikon D70 or any decent 6 megapixel camera shooting raw files. If shots were taken as JPEG in camera (which the Sigma is incapable of doing) then generally the highlight/shadow detail will be a little curtailed - a raw file has a full dynamic range, and you can process it so that everything is retained. Kodak have a format called ERI-JPEG (Extended Range) which is supposed to do this but I was still able to get better results from raw files with the latest Kodak camera. Words of caution - generally, the 8 megapixel consumer cameras are not especially good and won't have the same capabilities. 5 megapixel cameras like the Olympus E-1 certainly do. All modern DSLRs, regardless of make, yield quality results more easily; while you can batten down a Minolta A2's settings and force it to produce a superb file, you can shoot freely with a Canon 300D set on auto everything and it will do the same effortlessly. David |
#6
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Scan film V Digital SLR
DonB wrote: I have kept my quality film SLR kit, thinking I would use it reasonably often, but my 4mp digital is so darned convenient, that in 2 years the SLR has stayed in it's bag. It's easy to lust for the latest digital SLR, but I was wondering how good film prints, through a good quality scanner, compare with a 5 or 8mp digital camera, on screen or printed. Anyone done this? DonB It all depends on how big your print will be. If you scan a slide at say 4000 dpi, you will get a better 16x 20 inkjet print from the scanned than you would get from a 5-8 MP Digital. If you print an 8 x10 or smaller you will probably see no difference between the print from the scanned slide or from the 8 MP digicam. Probably won't see much, if, any difference vs a 5 MP Digital image either. Bob Williams |
#7
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Scan film V Digital SLR
"Bob Williams" wrote in message
... DonB wrote: I have kept my quality film SLR kit, thinking I would use it reasonably often, but my 4mp digital is so darned convenient, that in 2 years the SLR has stayed in it's bag. It's easy to lust for the latest digital SLR, but I was wondering how good film prints, through a good quality scanner, compare with a 5 or 8mp digital camera, on screen or printed. Anyone done this? DonB It all depends on how big your print will be. If you scan a slide at say 4000 dpi, you will get a better 16x 20 inkjet print from the scanned than you would get from a 5-8 MP Digital. If you print an 8 x10 or smaller you will probably see no difference between the print from the scanned slide or from the 8 MP digicam. Probably won't see much, if, any difference vs a 5 MP Digital image either. Bob Williams True enough. It's all digital data. On occasion, I've had to have 5' posters made. My Canon S1 puts out 22" images at 72dpi. Blow that up to 5 feet, and you get garbage. Using a scan of a film print allows for a little more flexibility, but a nice Gaussian blur is still necessary. If I'm doing a print ad with an image, say, 5 inches or less, then the digital camera is just fine. It all depends on the application. (...and the scanner, of course...) dwight |
#8
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Scan film V Digital SLR
I can get a nice and acceptable 15x12 inkjet print from my 4mp
Nikon4500. I will do a direct comparison using the SLR film and scan and print. But it has to be better, to be worth it for those special photos, and I'm beginning to doubt it. Thanks to those who replied DonB On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 01:02:03 -0700, Bob Williams wrote: It all depends on how big your print will be. If you scan a slide at say 4000 dpi, you will get a better 16x 20 inkjet print from the scanned than you would get from a 5-8 MP Digital. If you print an 8 x10 or smaller you will probably see no difference between the print from the scanned slide or from the 8 MP digicam. Probably won't see much, if, any difference vs a 5 MP Digital image either. Bob Williams |
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