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Image quality of 35mm slides vs. digital photos
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May 17, 2014 04:31:28   #
LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field
 
robertjerl wrote:
for all practical purposes that slide is a full frame RAW image at a higher resolution than any but a few very expensive cameras can approach (think NASA and spy plane cameras). The hitch with film is that it had to be processed exactly right. I will assume those slides were done by the same people who made the film, they were done right. You will also remember that some film came in ASA 32 and ASA 50, most cameras don't do those speeds today, they start at 100 which I remember was thought of as high speed grainy film in the 60's and 70's. Also, the film was probably above 24bit in the number of colors it could portray, at least the good stuff, processed right. Then the monitor or projector gets it's chance to down grade the image.
for all practical purposes that slide is a full fr... (show quote)


And don't forget Kodachrome 25....

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May 17, 2014 05:56:02   #
nicksr1125 Loc: Mesa, AZ
 
robertjerl wrote:
for all practical purposes that slide is a full frame RAW image at a higher resolution than any but a few very expensive cameras can approach (think NASA and spy plane cameras). The hitch with film is that it had to be processed exactly right. I will assume those slides were done by the same people who made the film, they were done right. You will also remember that some film came in ASA 32 and ASA 50, most cameras don't do those speeds today, they start at 100 which I remember was thought of as high speed grainy film in the 60's and 70's. Also, the film was probably above 24bit in the number of colors it could portray, at least the good stuff, processed right. Then the monitor or projector gets it's chance to down grade the image.
for all practical purposes that slide is a full fr... (show quote)


Robert, you're dredging up a lot of history. I hadn't thought about Kodachrome 25 in years. But, I do like your analogy.

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May 17, 2014 07:43:52   #
jockellis Loc: Cumming, GA
 
Oh, come on, rps, you know you enjoyed all that time in the darkroom. Oops, I see you are from Canada so you had to thaw out your chemicals instead of getting them down to 85 degrees for E4 and E6 processing.
Sure, chromes are incredibly vibrant. They could/can differentiate 300 levels of color. But the color negative films could only do 30 when printed. I think the quality loss is in the printing. I'm having a brain fart and cannot remember what light is called when viewed through a chrome rather than a reflected light of a print but it is always one generation closer to the original.

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May 17, 2014 09:37:11   #
Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA
 
Michael O, that's the best explanation and analogy of the difference between digital and film I have seen and it seems correct, right down to the dust and fuzz spots on my scanned slides reminding me of the scratches on my vinyl records. The analog vs. digital explanation is generally accepted for sound, and it makes sense for images as well.
I have played electric guitar for many years and have never been able to reproduce a tube amp sound through a digital amp or computer software, but plugging my guitar directly into a digital deck connected to my computer gives me a most of what I need, so the tube amps sit mostly idle. Same feeling I get when I compare a slide to a digital image, even though the film slide is scanned, and I'm looking at both images on a computer monitor.
The saxophone patch on my Kurzweil keyboard is the most authentic I have heard (many Broadway shows now use several Kurzweil keyboards instead of a whole orchestra) but it won't compare to a real saxophone. Like you said, we have gained something and we have lost something.
Michael O' wrote:
Mikedent, what you have seen is what we get. Digital is so crisp that it unable to portray the richness of color of film. There is no getting around it. This is quite analogous to the difference in sound between the old tube-type pre-amps and amps, which produced a richness of sound that is just not achievable with the crisp (comparably it is a harshness) sound
emitted by the solid state amps and pre-amps. Crystal clear, and harshly "thin." Perfect, but with the loss of that full richness
of the tube-type sound reproducers -- that sound more like you were actually listening to the original creation of the music,
be it piano, full orchestra, jazz group, or whatever. The subtle but noticeable difference is always there.

Similarly, the digital reproduction is so harshly pure that it cannot have the richness of color film. So we have lost, while we have gained.
Mikedent, what you have seen is what we get. Digi... (show quote)

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May 17, 2014 10:52:08   #
Bob Boner
 
I think that prints from digital are better than prints from slides and/or color film. I also have given slide shows both ways (Leica slide projector, Epson digital projector) and on 6-8 foot screens, both look good. The big difference is the difference in dynamic range of the images. Digital is way ahead here. It is even farther ahead if you do HDR processing to increase detail in both shadows and highlights.

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May 17, 2014 14:05:29   #
robertjerl Loc: Corona, California
 
OH Yes! ASA 25 High noon of a clear day on the beach at Ft Ord and I still managed to get a couple of under exposed shots using a higher shutter speed to compensate for the fact I not only didn't own a tripod it was the first 35mm camera I ever owned and was trying to learn how to use it.
LoneRangeFinder wrote:
And don't forget Kodachrome 25....

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May 17, 2014 14:27:39   #
mikedent Loc: Florida
 
Lots of good discussions here! Digital is great for what it offers and the creativity it gives us. We can only hope technology will continue to offer improvments so our images can become more "analog-like". More really life-like. Even now there is a move going back to analog recordings, a retro vibe, that more and more folks are experiencing. Digital just needs to be improved over time and if the market demands it, it will happen. All depends on who the future "market" will be.

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May 17, 2014 14:52:09   #
blackest Loc: Ireland
 
it's really dpi when you think about it doesnt matter how high a resolution your picture is if you then scale it down to fit on a screen. Digital projectors tend not to be high resolution closer to tv / dvd resolutions.

A Slide on the other hand projected magnifies every grain and isn't an average of 20 grains around it.

on a print the detail can be much higher as each pixel of the digital image gets used provided the print is small enough. Even then your creating overlapping dots with an inkjet. Printing on photographic paper will be better but there is still has to be a bit of fuzzyness, you probably will not see it unless you look under a microscope unless your blowing up to really large sizes.

I think i only really got my head round this when people were finding my images noisy but on my small computer screen they looked fine. Just bigger screens were revealing the noise which was averaged away on my smaller screen.

Film slides will look better than the scanned copies just because the digital projection technology hasn't the resolution of a light and a lens

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May 17, 2014 14:59:17   #
Racmanaz Loc: Sunny Tucson!
 
Talk about film to digital, noticed that we all wanted the slowest/lowest grain film possible to get higher quality slides and or prints?. Now we all talk about the highest ISO we can get for low light shooting. YES I would go back to film in a heart beat if it wasn't so expensive.

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May 17, 2014 22:28:34   #
amehta Loc: Boston
 
Racmanaz wrote:
Talk about film to digital, noticed that we all wanted the slowest/lowest grain film possible to get higher quality slides and or prints?. Now we all talk about the highest ISO we can get for low light shooting. YES I would go back to film in a heart beat if it wasn't so expensive.

My use of low and high ISO is the same with film and digital. For most uses, I use the lowest ISO I can, whether it's Velvia 50, Ektar 125 or D800@ISO 100. When I used shoot indoor sports, it was Kodacolor Gold 1600, Fuji color 400 pushed, or D800@ISO 3200.

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May 17, 2014 22:49:47   #
Brandmic Loc: Alabama
 
mikedent wrote:
Last night we looked at a bunch of 35mm slides I did 20-30 years or more ago using an old slide projector. I was totally amazed at the clarity, colors, sharpness,and intense details I could see compared to what I've seen on digital images on computer screen. Back then I used Olympus OM2N, Tokina 28-85 lens, Fuji 100 slide film. Now I've got all Nikon equipment using highest quality JPEG. OK, not RAW files or pp, but still. Is this a common finding? Maybe due to larger 35mm sensor, analog exposures? Poor computer screen resolutions? Would a modern digital projector give a better result? Differences in projection screens? It was kind of disappointing really. Just had to vent.
Last night we looked at a bunch of 35mm slides I d... (show quote)


I was doing the same > going through old slides recently. They looked almost 3D. I used a fully manual Pentax Mx.

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May 17, 2014 22:58:57   #
Erik_H Loc: Denham Springs, Louisiana
 
Michael O' wrote:
Mikedent, what you have seen is what we get. Digital is so crisp that it unable to portray the richness of color of film. There is no getting around it. This is quite analogous to the difference in sound between the old tube-type pre-amps and amps, which produced a richness of sound that is just not achievable with the crisp (comparably it is a harshness) sound
emitted by the solid state amps and pre-amps. Crystal clear, and harshly "thin." Perfect, but with the loss of that full richness
of the tube-type sound reproducers -- that sound more like you were actually listening to the original creation of the music,
be it piano, full orchestra, jazz group, or whatever. The subtle but noticeable difference is always there.

Similarly, the digital reproduction is so harshly pure that it cannot have the richness of color film. So we have lost, while we have gained.
Mikedent, what you have seen is what we get. Digi... (show quote)


:thumbup: :thumbup:

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May 18, 2014 01:25:04   #
Michael66 Loc: Queens, New York
 
LoneRangeFinder wrote:
And don't forget Kodachrome 25....


Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's
a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

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May 18, 2014 05:59:31   #
nicksr1125 Loc: Mesa, AZ
 
And on the B&W side, who can forget Panatomic-X. ASA 32 as I remember.

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May 18, 2014 06:48:52   #
Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)
 
mikedent wrote:
Last night we looked at a bunch of 35mm slides I did 20-30 years or more ago using an old slide projector. I was totally amazed at the clarity, colors, sharpness,and intense details I could see compared to what I've seen on digital images on computer screen. Back then I used Olympus OM2N, Tokina 28-85 lens, Fuji 100 slide film. Now I've got all Nikon equipment using highest quality JPEG. OK, not RAW files or pp, but still. Is this a common finding? Maybe due to larger 35mm sensor, analog exposures? Poor computer screen resolutions? Would a modern digital projector give a better result? Differences in projection screens? It was kind of disappointing really. Just had to vent.
Last night we looked at a bunch of 35mm slides I d... (show quote)


Here is a good thread that describes film against digital, and it takes contrast into consideration. The best contribution is from the guy who does scanning. Truth be told, digital has already surpassed film in many ways - especially when you consider ISO and dynamic range, both of which are better by a few stops than even the best film out there. And I started using film back in 1967, so that means I am an old-timer as well. I currently love the image quality I am getting with my D800.

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