more film comparisons.

[arthurking83]

1:
Digital scan I received from the processing lab
http://www.ausphotography.net.au/gallery/files/1/0/15_15a_44250018.jpg

Ok, not a particularly splendiferous image by any means(that much I can accept), but a snap is a snap and I want my snaps to look at least half decent

... so

2:
my version captured by the D300, slide copy adapter and Nikon75/4 EL
http://www.ausphotography.net.au/gallery/files/1/0/15_film_0014_slide_copy_d300.jpg
By no means perfect, but a lot better. Processing was my basic batch job, no tweaks, WB differences are either mild or wild so I left it as is, from the batch process neg to print conversion in CNX2 I made.

Both of those images are the same negative, the lab obviously cropped a little too and my image is the uncropped version showing the edges of the slide copy adapter in all it's glory.

3:
D300 and Tammy 28-75/2.8 @ 28mm version of the 'same scene'(well, as the same as I could reasonably capture it anyhow.
http://www.ausphotography.net.au/gallery/files/1/0/15_dsf_6650.jpg

looking at it now the D300 image is a bit more contrasty, which is a lot easier to adjust compared to the film image.

Apart from the slightly darker exposure rendering I tried on the negative, I also used the grad to burn in the lower part of the image to better balance the shadows with the sky.
Look carefully and you can not only see a bluer sky, but more detail in the shadows of the table .. etc the camera and stuff in my print version.

[Jorge Arguello]

Hi:

Good work in your comparison. This is just my opinion.

In the above comparison, the negative is "losing" details when you scan it.
The comparison between film and digital image should be done on a final print out on a good quality paper.
If negative has a dynamic range of 9, and camera 7, then when you scan the negative you are losing details.
So the lab (if you find it) should have the “old” equipment to take a good print from film/negative.

A good negative scan (I don’t recall the name of the process but was something like “drumb”) use to give 100Mp file.

But it worth the comparison by ourselves, especially for the photographic needs we have.
Here is a link with a comparison as well. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/shootout.shtml

Anyway, it is much easier (and economic) to have digital images. And if they give the image that you want then all has been said.

[arthurking83]

Hi Jorge.

I didn''scan my negs as such, but captured them via the camera.

The reason I wanted to use the camera was to have the ability to adjust the exposure with the use of gradient ND filters to recover as much dynamic range as possible.

I used the filters between the film and the light source giving the negatives their luminance. So I just hand held a filter close to the negative to minimise the exposure to the section of the negative that required it.

The film has too many imperfections now, dust scratches and more importantly grain that is hard to remove.

A high quality film scanner capable of producing these 100M tiff files is an expensive proposition, but a high end camera(which is assumed is already in the possession of the operator) is less so.

That's because the operator already has the camera in their possession tho, so no more money is required for the acquisition of any other capture device.

I can convert the raw files into 75-80M tiff files if required, but that wasn't the point of the exercise anyhow.
While the little camera used to capture the images is not entirely terrible, it's too hard to make valid comparisons against the D300 and a good lens.
First of all you can't accurately focus the Rollei camera .. only guess at it.

One day when it comes in at a good price, I'll end up with the appropriate Nikon film camera and use like for like lenses.

FWIW: the only real reason a scanned images will come in at 100M or so from a 35mm negative is because the scanner can capture the image at a higher colour bit rate.

To put that into perspective, a D800(at 36Mp) will capture the image at a higher rate of resolution(that is number of pixels) than most scanners can muster.
(I think you can get super duper high end film scanners that can do 8000x8000 pixel images, but most affordable scanners struggle beyond about a realistic 11-12Mp(max).

The extra size in the file(in Megabytes) comes from the fact that this 11Mp scan is done at 32 or 48 bit colour, where a high Mpixel camera is only 14bit colour.

I just rechecked the pricing of getting the negs scanned at a pro lab and it'd cost about $90 or so for 40Mb scans.
That's close to what a bellows + lens will cost to do it yourself anyhow.

And the bellows and lens cost less than half the price that a high end scanner would have in the end too.

I'm not 100% entirely convinced of this supposed dynamic range that film has over digital either..

I've yet to find the skill required to reproduce it anyhow!

[hoffy]

Well, hello! Fancy my first post back after a long time being in the film area.

To get the most out of digitising negs, you really need to scan them with a dedicated scanner - I am not talking the scanning that occurs when the negs go through the Noritsu at the lab, but the scanning that you get from a Film scanner (for 35mm) or DECENT flatbed for bigger formats.

Good comparo tho.