Printing quality involved with digital vs. film

I started a topic recently on MF vs. a digital camera with more mp's
such as the 5D or 1DSMKII. One thing I should have mentioned is the
printing technique. So we take the MF setup since that needs scanning
which the digital does not unless you consider the tiny bit of time to
load in images a scan. We take the Nikon 8000/9000 scanners, maybe the
latter since it is the last higher end model to come out as an
available option to those that cannot buy a new BMW each year. We take
a nice Contax 645 setup, say, and we run through some wonderfully
exposed shots via Nikon 9000 and make HUGE files for them. At this
stage, we now have files from the Canon 5d/1DSMKII AND Contax 645. We
put them both through the post-processing to get what we have learned
to be the very best result on a given printing machine. However, we
must rely on a printer such as the Fuji Frontier or maybe a much more
expensive inkjet type. Question now is, rather than deal with
enlargements...what does the final print actually look like when you
have a digital source as Canon 5D/1DSMKII vs. the film source going
through a digital printer??? In other words, doesn't something like
film "require" a special printer to start competing with digital for
the finished product? Or, can the same results be achieved off the
local digital printer???

How much does printing play a part in all the digital and MF film based
images and what must be done with a film based image to get the same
kind of clarity/resolution "on print" as you can with the digital?

There is no technical answer to an aesthetic question.

"Progressiveabsolution" wrote in message
oups.com...

How much does printing play a part in all the digital and MF film based
images and what must be done with a film based image to get the same
kind of clarity/resolution "on print" as you can with the digital?


There's no real difference at this point.

To my way of thinking, there's image capture and then
there's the "back end" -- ie., image processing and printing.

Image capture can be digital, or it can be film+scanner.

The main difference is the number of pixels involved,
which has surprisingly little relationship to the overall
image quality.

Film scans typically have *many* more pixels than
digicam or DSLR captures.

For large prints made from digital captures, folks
start to worry about upsampling algorithms, hoping
to find "the best" among these -- but that's mostly a
goose chase, in my experience.



rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

"Progressiveabsolution" wrote in message
oups.com...
I started a topic recently on MF vs. a digital camera with more mp's
such as the 5D or 1DSMKII. One thing I should have mentioned is the
printing technique. So we take the MF setup since that needs scanning
which the digital does not unless you consider the tiny bit of time to
load in images a scan. We take the Nikon 8000/9000 scanners, maybe the
latter since it is the last higher end model to come out as an
available option to those that cannot buy a new BMW each year. We take
a nice Contax 645 setup, say, and we run through some wonderfully
exposed shots via Nikon 9000 and make HUGE files for them. At this
stage, we now have files from the Canon 5d/1DSMKII AND Contax 645. We
put them both through the post-processing to get what we have learned
to be the very best result on a given printing machine. However, we
must rely on a printer such as the Fuji Frontier or maybe a much more
expensive inkjet type. Question now is, rather than deal with
enlargements...what does the final print actually look like when you
have a digital source as Canon 5D/1DSMKII vs. the film source going
through a digital printer??? In other words, doesn't something like
film "require" a special printer to start competing with digital for
the finished product? Or, can the same results be achieved off the
local digital printer???

How much does printing play a part in all the digital and MF film based
images and what must be done with a film based image to get the same
kind of clarity/resolution "on print" as you can with the digital?


Hi.

How long is your piece of string?

Roy G

On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:38:55 -0400, rafe b wrote:



"Progressiveabsolution" wrote in message
roups.com...

How much does printing play a part in all the digital and MF film based
images and what must be done with a film based image to get the same
kind of clarity/resolution "on print" as you can with the digital?


There's no real difference at this point.

To my way of thinking, there's image capture and then
there's the "back end" -- ie., image processing and printing.

Image capture can be digital, or it can be film+scanner.

The main difference is the number of pixels involved,
which has surprisingly little relationship to the overall
image quality.

Film scans typically have *many* more pixels than
digicam or DSLR captures.

If you're going to go the film+scanner route, aa bigger deal is the quality
of the film processing. Most nowadays are barely better than a 1.5MP camera
unless you get 8x10 prints.


For large prints made from digital captures, folks
start to worry about upsampling algorithms, hoping
to find "the best" among these -- but that's mostly a
goose chase, in my experience.



rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

I would be using a Nikon 8000/9000 scanner for the MF film. Just
curious how the digital scan does during the printing process. In
other words, will a printer like the Fuji Frontier be able to provide a
nice looking print from the scanned file or is it a waste of time using
MF/film and film scanner to get prints from a machine that show digital
artifacts of some sort..if possible?

Also...are the Nikons really the best solution at this point or will an
Epson V700/V750, Konica Multi Pro, etc. be viable options...OR, is drum
scan really the only path for maximum quality? I'm used to my last
setup which was a Contax G system using the Nikon V which did wonderful
scans and prints at the local Frontier look fantastic. I can print
8X12" in the least, maybe larger but this machine won't allow for that
so I won't know at maximum scanning resolution from the Nikon V and the
image is completely grain free and sharp as a tack so they say about
lenses. Color even looks just like my crappy un-calibrated
laptop...well...it's not a crappy laptop, it's just outdated, though
certainly did the job for getting matching results from the cd I took
in with the mega files...oh what a blast that was, scanning this
thing until it about lit up in flames. With MF files, of course I
would be buying a larger computer which we need at this time anyhow.

Like the first response said, different flavors, I suppose. This is
where things really do confuse me most. When I look on the internet
and see Contax G images, then see digital images, there is a major
difference in the look. On the print, I can easily see the film look.
But I do question what, say, a digital rangefinder looks like on print
compared to the Contax G film...in other words, once a print is made,
is that "film look" lost in ways where the digital starts looking quite
similar, or can people with a critical eye easily tell which was taken
with what? It's this notion of film having a "distinctive/entirely
different" look on the computer screen that makes me question if it is
really that distinctive on the print...hmmmm....

Getting off-subject, I know...but it "sorta" fits in line with what to
expect from MF prints from a good Film/flatbed Scanner such as the
Nikon/Minolta/Epson (some consider it almost as good as the 9000 when
properly executed) and then printed on a digital machine...or even an
inkjet machine...if I'll still see that "film look" that is not
replicable with a digital camera.

On a last note, I've worked a lot with digital stuff, but I've only
seen prints from cheaper lenses or point and shoot stuff (nice and
clean, but godaweful compared to my Contax SLR and particularly the G
film images). I never got a chance to print out my Olympus with Zeiss
glass prints that were extremely sharp...I wish I had so I could get a
better idea of just how different a look there is and even just how
much one can do to make the digital look like film (not adding
grain...just adjusting all the parameters to make it look like a film
image)...