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"Nature's Best" contest and film vs digital



 
 
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  #11  
Old December 7th 05, 02:27 AM posted to rec.photo.technique.nature
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Default "Nature's Best" contest and film vs digital

Alan Justice writes ...

Are the changes statistically significant?


Yes If you don't think so ask Kodak and Fuji how their film sales
are doing. And the tipping point for film vs digital new camera sales
came in 2003 when digital first surged ahead for the first time. By
2005, according to the PMA, digital cameras would out-sell film cameras
by a 4-1 margin (20.5 million digital vs 4.6 million film bodies, down
from 19.7 film cameras sold in 2000).

I wonder how the digital/film selection differs depending on
level of experience. And how does it differ for landscape
vs wildlife shooters?


If there were some way to determine the top 20 nature/wildlife
photographers who made their reputations with 35 mm film (I feel
confident in naming maybe 10 of them ... Shaw, Lanting, Mangelsen,
Brandenburg, Wolfe etc) then I'd bet 80-90% of them have switched to
digital and dropped 35mm. Take the top 20 landscape photographers
(which will probably be one medium format guy - RG Ketchum - and the
rest 4x5 or 8x10" view camera guys) and I'd bet a high percentage
(maybe all) are still shooting film (Velvia for the most part) since
the highest quality 39 Mpixel digital backs are still extremely
expensive (say $30,000 or so, something a commercial studio will pay
but not a landscape photographer) and while these are better than
medium format they don't seem to quite match large format.

It's not a matter of level of experience, it's a question of whether or
not digital offers more advantages than what they are now using at a
reasonable cost.

For example, in deciding if I want to go digital for Canon, I might be happy
with the 16.7 MPix 1Ds MII for scenics, but it only shoots 4 fps, so would
not work well for wildlife


Right, so get the 1Ds M II for scenics if you need to print that large
and get the 1D Mark II for wildlife, which is what many of us like
myself and Roger are using for birds and bears etc. 8 Mpixels is
enough for wildlife, I feel.

My 1V is 10 fps, and even with just a desk scanner (4k dpi) I
get 24 MPix (with film)


This was explained to you previously by Roger, about why you can't just
say one is better than another because it has a higher pixel count. To
use your 24 Mpixel value (it's actually more like 21 Mpix if you scan
to the edge of unmounted film, less if scanning mounted slides), if you
shot a crappy high speed film, say 400 iso pushed one stop to 800, it
would be grainy and not as saturated as slower films. You scan it and
you have 24 Mpix, you scan Velvia or Provia 100F and you also have 24
Mpix ... are they the same even though they have the same pixel count?
No. You could make this more absurd by scanning the grainy, low
saturated film with a drum scanner at up to 12,000 dpi and have around
182 Mpixels ... is this 7 or 8 times better than the Velvia scanned at
24 Mpixels or is it inferior for practical purposes? All you've done
is scan grain and you still have poor colors.

For the same reasons, pixels from the better digital cameras are better
than scanned film pixels.

Bill

  #12  
Old December 7th 05, 02:51 AM posted to rec.photo.technique.nature
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Default "Nature's Best" contest and film vs digital

googlegroups2sucks wrote:

too _much_ focal length... interesting.

i can't decide between nikon's 500mm and the 200-400mm zoom. which
would you prefer for general wildlife photography?

No question for me: the 500 mm f/4 lens is my
preferred lens whenever I can lug it around.
I have the canon 100-400, but prefer a 300 f/4 if
I have to travel lighter (than the 500). With the
300, I can use 1.4 and 2x TCs.

Roger
  #13  
Old December 7th 05, 04:59 PM posted to rec.photo.technique.nature
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Default "Nature's Best" contest and film vs digital

Alan Justice writes ...

I had noticed in the 6/05 Outdoor Photographer that 18 of 20 photos in
Top Landscape Tips from "veteran scenic masters" were film


I found the article you mention (pg 66+ ?) and while there are 20 Tips
from the "veteran scenic masters" there were only 13 photos, not 20 ...
as I guessed, most of these were large format (four used 4x5" cameras)
or medium format (two 6x7, two 6x4.5). This leaves five and of those
three were film images shot with Nikons and two were digital images
shot with Canons, so the percentages and brands match up pretty well
with what I described for "Nature's Best" if you compare 35 mm to
digital.

Bill

  #14  
Old December 7th 05, 06:43 PM posted to rec.photo.technique.nature
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Default "Nature's Best" contest and film vs digital

I'm pretty good at math, but, apparently, not at counting.

Your bottom line compares 35 mm film to digital 35-mm-like (what is it
called, anyway, especially if the sensor is less than 35 mm across? I guess
just "digital SLR".). But it is still the case that film has it over
digital for landscapes. It just has more options with larger formats.
(Compare best film to best digital, although I don't know about those large
39 MPix backs.)

--
- Alan Justice

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message
ups.com...
Alan Justice writes ...

I had noticed in the 6/05 Outdoor Photographer that 18 of 20 photos in
Top Landscape Tips from "veteran scenic masters" were film


I found the article you mention (pg 66+ ?) and while there are 20 Tips
from the "veteran scenic masters" there were only 13 photos, not 20 ...
as I guessed, most of these were large format (four used 4x5" cameras)
or medium format (two 6x7, two 6x4.5). This leaves five and of those
three were film images shot with Nikons and two were digital images
shot with Canons, so the percentages and brands match up pretty well
with what I described for "Nature's Best" if you compare 35 mm to
digital.

Bill



  #15  
Old December 7th 05, 07:05 PM posted to rec.photo.technique.nature
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Default "Nature's Best" contest and film vs digital


"Bill Hilton" wrote in message
oups.com...
snip

For example, in deciding if I want to go digital for Canon, I might be

happy
with the 16.7 MPix 1Ds MII for scenics, but it only shoots 4 fps, so

would
not work well for wildlife


Right, so get the 1Ds M II for scenics if you need to print that large
and get the 1D Mark II for wildlife, which is what many of us like
myself and Roger are using for birds and bears etc. 8 Mpixels is
enough for wildlife, I feel.


This was pretty much my conclusion. But I like my large wildlife shots to
be as sharp as the landscapes, if not sharper. For certain human portraits,
soft focus is desirable, but I like to see the snot in the bison's nose, or
the feather detail on an eagle. Surely these would be better at 16 than 8
MPix. In your experience, how large would one have to print in order to see
this difference? I'm currently only going to 13x19, but would like to plan
for when I need larger.

My 1V is 10 fps, and even with just a desk scanner (4k dpi) I
get 24 MPix (with film)


This was explained to you previously by Roger, about why you can't just
say one is better than another because it has a higher pixel count. To
use your 24 Mpixel value (it's actually more like 21 Mpix if you scan
to the edge of unmounted film, less if scanning mounted slides), if you
shot a crappy high speed film, say 400 iso pushed one stop to 800, it
would be grainy and not as saturated as slower films. You scan it and
you have 24 Mpix, you scan Velvia or Provia 100F and you also have 24
Mpix ... are they the same even though they have the same pixel count?
No. You could make this more absurd by scanning the grainy, low
saturated film with a drum scanner at up to 12,000 dpi and have around
182 Mpixels ... is this 7 or 8 times better than the Velvia scanned at
24 Mpixels or is it inferior for practical purposes? All you've done
is scan grain and you still have poor colors.

For the same reasons, pixels from the better digital cameras are better
than scanned film pixels.


I'm still trying to wrap my cerebral cortex around that one. I guess I just
need to experience it.

When scanning grainy film, the film is the weakest link (garbage in, garbage
out).
But with Velvia under ideal conditions, I assume a 4000 dpi scan is the
weakest link. An R print (or other direct print or drum scan) would lose
less in the translation, so it should be best, right? (At least for
resolution.)

Shooting the same scene under the same conditions (e.g., ISO 50 film and
digital set to 50, same lens etc.), you're saying that an 8 MPix (or 16?)
digital is better than film (resolution AND color?), using the best
availible method of printing each?

Bill


- Alan Justice


  #16  
Old December 8th 05, 12:03 AM posted to rec.photo.technique.nature
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Default "Nature's Best" contest and film vs digital

Alan Justice writes ...

Shooting the same scene under the same conditions (e.g., ISO 50 film and
digital set to 50, same lens etc.), you're saying that an 8 MPix (or 16?)
digital is better than film (resolution AND color?), using the best
availible method of printing each?


Not quite what I said, but close ... to be precise, I don't have a 16
Mpix body and haven't downloaded one of the test files but we do have
6, 8 and 11 Mpixel bodies (Canon 10D, 1D Mark II and 1Ds) ... when
debating whether to switch to digital I took my wife's 10D and two
EOS-3 film bodies to Alaska two winters ago and was able to photograph
eagles at close range under similar circumstances, using Provia 100F in
one film body and Velvia 100F in the other (I was testing films too)
with a 1.4x converter on the 500 compared to the 10D without a
converter (there's a built-in 1.6x f-o-v difference because of the
smaller sensor, so this left me at 700 mm vs 800 mm fov). I also shot
the 10D with a 1.4x vs film with a 2x. This was as close as I could
get to real-life comparisons ... here are links to two of the 10D shots
that I could duplicate almost exactly with the film cameras with the
1.4x or 2x since he sat on this post for 15 minutes eating a fish ...
http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/ea...gital/head.jpg (500 mm w/
1.4x)
http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/ea...igital/cry.jpg (500 alone)

So I printed those (and others) 12x18" and printed the film scans and
felt the film scans looked a bit better at this size print, with more
detail in the feathers and eye. In other words 35 mm film beat a 6
Mpixel Canon 10D at this print size, but I sure liked skipping the 1.4x
converter with the digital and I would have liked looking at the images
each night (I didn't take a computer on this trip, no room), and I
liked increasing the ISO to freeze the wings as I needed a higher
shutter speed, and I liked not having to pay $12 per roll for film and
processing ... in other words, I was ready to switch to digital but not
at 6 Mpix. I also found the 10D's autofocus slow and lacking compared
to the EOS-3.

A month or so later I made the plunge and got the 1Ds which has 11
Mpixels and there was no comparison, I could make 12x18" prints with
these files that were much smoother and more detailed than I could with
Provia 100F slides scanned at 4,000 dpi on a Nikon 8000. I pretty much
quit using 35 mm film at that point, but still used two medium format
systems (645 and 6x7 cm) with Velvia. Twice I took the 1Ds and the
medium format systems on trips and shot the same things and felt the
prints from medium format film were noticeably better than prints from
the 1Ds (some people disagree with this but that's what I saw on my
equipment). By this time I had an Epson 4000 printer which can print
up to 16x24" and at 16x20" I feel MF has the advantage.

In June 2004 we also got two 1D Mark II's for wildlife (the 11 Mpix
body is a bit slow for birds-in-flight etc) and these are excellent
cameras, with 1.3x f-o-v so you get almost a 'free' 1.4x converter. I
didn't shoot them side-by-side against 35 mm film since I was no longer
shooting 35 but when everything goes just right with the shot (ie
perfect focus, no subject motion) we get better 16x20" prints from
these than we ever got from scanned 35 mm. This is comparing digital
shots taken generally at ISO 250-320 to film shots at ISO 100
(occasionally pushed to 200).

So that's what I'm seeing ... I think a lot of others are seeing pretty
much the same trend. I think you have an Epson 2200 or similar 13x19"
printer and you can download test images from bodies like the 1D Mark
II or 1Ds M II (16 Mpix) or, for grins since you don't do Nikon, 12
Mpix files from the D2x and print them to see how smooth they are. I
think you'll be surprised.

Bill

 




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