So how many........

[Banger]

Pixels would a digital camera have to have 35mm quality?

I say 4 million!

Some say 6 million!

 

[mikeh501]

AFAIK about 20 million.

 

[markie_wales]

about 10 million, but to print "A3" 5 MP will be fine. 35mm is still the way to go for "LARGE" prints.

Mark

 

[ELIMINATOR]

Depends what ASA film rating you were using. Years ago I used to use Kodachrome slide film at 25 ASA, any hint of cloud and it was useless. But the results were fantastic. Also depends on the quality of the lense. so the answer is not black & white. HA HA accidental pun.
Best thing about digi cameras is the latitude of exposure, far better than any film camers.

 

[mikeh501]

Best thing about digi cameras is the latitude of exposure, far better than any film camers.

Are you sure? I thought normal film had far greater exposure lattitude than digital. You can push film far further, whereas with digital your exposure has to be pretty much spot on to get a good result. If your talking about changing ISO, then yes, you could say it has more lattitude, but for a given ISO rating, digital cant be pushed like film. AFAIK

 

[ELIMINATOR]

Perhaps at cross purposes here. What is lost in the shadows of a film is visible on a digital image, or can be lightened. Wheras if your film is dark, then there is nothing to retrieve.
Does that sound alright?

 

[Tsiklonaut]

Perhaps at cross purposes here. What is lost in the shadows of a film is visible on a digital image, or can be lightened. Wheras if your film is dark, then there is nothing to retrieve.
Does that sound alright?

Noupe. The negative film has maximum contrast ratio (maximum difference between over and underexposured areas) about 7 EVs (light level units) and more on professional films. Digitals have less than 5EV, so negative film is much more retrivable. You may do selective levels adjustments on both (digital picture and digitally scanned film) anyway, so film wins anyway. Just film emulsion "sees" more details on the picture because of more contrast sensitivity, while if digital overexposures some details at the same time doesn't "see" into some shadow areas - "there's nothing there".

About the digital vs film resolutions:

Altough I use medium and large format cameras mainly and doesn't find 35mm that good for my requirements as fully photo-phobic-fanatic but i sure consider the 35mm narrow film considerably better than any highest end pro-digital indeed. If to put in numbers comaring with digital cameras:

35mm fast film (ISO 400 and up) = 22.11 megapixel equiv.
35mm medium speed film (ISO 100 to 200) = 54 megapixel equiv.
35mm slow speed film (circa ISO 25-80) = 124.76 megapixel equiv

As a dedicated medium/large format user, i'll post those numbers too for contrast and educatiating people about the hidden facts in real life:

6x6 film = 453 megapixel equiv.
6x7 film = 566 megapixel equiv.
6x9 film = 633 megapixel equiv.
(For Medium speed films)

Devide it with 2 for fast speed and doulbe it for slow speed films (gigapixels).

For large formats (i.e. 4x5" and 5x7" size negatives) those numbers go to well into gigapixel range.

Altough the digital is constantly catching up 35mm film limits, but the medium and large format really is a science-fiction for digital dudes in image quality and there's no catching-up till 2015 i think, not talking about large format...

Hope this helps sorting things out about digital vs analogue issues on image quality, Mo

 

[mikeh501]

Noupe. The negative film has maximum contrast ratio (maximum difference between over and underexposured areas) about 7 EVs (light level units) and more on professional films. Digitals have less than 5EV, so negative film is much more retrivable. You may do selective levels adjustments on both (digital picture and digitally scanned film) anyway, so film wins anyway. Just film emulsion "sees" more details on the picture because of more contrast sensitivity, while if digital overexposures some details at the same time doesn't "see" into some shadow areas - "there's nothing there".

About the digital vs film resolutions:

Altough I use medium and large format cameras mainly and doesn't find 35mm that good for my requirements as fully photo-phobic-fanatic but i sure consider the 35mm narrow film considerably better than any highest end pro-digital indeed. If to put in numbers comaring with digital cameras:

35mm fast film (ISO 400 and up) = 22.11 megapixel equiv.
35mm medium speed film (ISO 100 to 200) = 54 megapixel equiv.
35mm slow speed film (circa ISO 25-80) = 124.76 megapixel equiv

As a dedicated medium/large format user, i'll post those numbers too for contrast and educatiating people about the hidden facts in real life:

6x6 film = 453 megapixel equiv.
6x7 film = 566 megapixel equiv.
6x9 film = 633 megapixel equiv.
(For Medium speed films)

Devide it with 2 for fast speed and doulbe it for slow speed films (gigapixels).

For large formats (i.e. 4x5" and 5x7" size negatives) those numbers go to well into gigapixel range.

Altough the digital is constantly catching up 35mm film limits, but the medium and large format really is a science-fiction for digital dudes in image quality and there's no catching-up till 2015 i think, not talking about large format...

Hope this helps sorting things out about digital vs analogue issues on image quality, Mo

Thats what I said I think

 

[Tsiklonaut]

Thats what I said I think

Depends what you mean?

Right about the "retriving" issue.

But the digital's 35mm catching-up issue - i only mean it on resolution to pixel equal basis - they'll catch up in resolution in pro camers in 2008 i guess and consumer cameras in around 2010, but then they'll miss the emulsion thickness that collects the whole curved-lightpattern (the picture as light photons) into it, while digital CCD sensor has no thickness, just CCD surface, thus it has more abberations on the picture borders (centre sharp, borders not). Digital is only good for macro photography on that perspective, when the light comes flatly on to CCD sensors thus less abberations. So i extrapolate there will be multi-layer CCD sensor by that time to sort out those flaws. Altough they're making special aspheric lenses for digitals already indeed.

But good point to shoot even into narrow 35mm film in the future is archieving issues too that digital format gets beaten into deep knockout and motivation doing a real photo on paper, not leaving it into computer HD what most digital users do.

Mo

 

[mikeh501]

The whole megapixels thing is just a marketing ploy right now. More megapixels = better. I dont think so. I would stick with the 6mp I have now and have better exposure lattitude anytime.

As for the 'aberrations' your talking about, surely this isn't as much an issue on current dSLR cameras as they have a inbuilt crop factor because of the size of the CCD, so they take the centre anyway. Thus they get the best part of the lens. Also, why would this be any different from film? as this not curved anyway? And I thought all lenses were made so that the light reaches the flim/sensor as flatly as possible - or at least they strive for it.

 

[Tsiklonaut]

Yes, megapixels purely are marketing ploy for consumer users that easily are satisfyed watching photos from the computer's monitor primarly. Most of people anyway don't do any difference between many seriously different things principally, that's right!

But for example i do from 20x25cm (8x10") to 50x60cm (20x25") enlargements mainly from my photos, and that's why i use mainly medium and large format equipment. No digital can do any good for me, even the (20 000 UK pounds) 22Megapixel digital backs for MF ain't up for the quality job, not even near to it - you just can't watch the picture nearby when it's done digitally - it's incredibly ugly. It may look ok from few metre distance in details, but then the contrasts, halftones and artistic look is still boringly sterile and dry, no matter how professional manipulation work you've done on Photoshop on it, it's just print with limited dot-per-inch/colour depth limitations compared with physical enlargement of millions of silver crystals per inch on photopaper with countless colour and halftone dynamics - it's continous, without no steps, it's smooth and incredibly sharp-detailed for a photo-phile. To describe it for my eyes eyes: it's just like you sliding down from a mountain side with skis on smooth snow. For digital: coming down on your but on stairway, the less pixels and colour depth thus bigger steps - the more you'll hurt your butt.

I sure agree the primary thing is the photographer's eye on the whole process - without any doubt you may do compositionally excellent picture with 2MP digicrap too, but then comes the technical side that complete's the mission for an artist as a helping hand to forward his art to others wheather they're professioanal customers or tasteless consumers. All depending on the needs of artist-photographer.

No question that's why National Geographic photographers still perfer film 400% more than the digital equipment.

And in movies too - none of the successful films are done on digital from the beginning of motion picture till today. All are 35mm (or medium 55mm some special ones - Baraka for example) roll films rotating in the moviecamera on professional hands.

Curved field: there're full frame CCDs in pro-digital field, and the BEST digital cameras are full frame dSLRs - Canon D1 for example that needs special asperic lenses for avoiding abberations. And the small sized CCDs are piece of crap indeed for me - they almost have no depthfield because of their tiny size, almost impossible to isolate objects on the picture.

And what's the difference eating "curved picture" between the film and digital - film emulsion has thickness about 100 micrometres that just fits the whole curved picture field inside it from border to the centre without any loss even with serious tele-optics.

Those are the facts.

The conclusion for the indrocution would be: shoot on your beloved 6MP digital with glad heart if you're completely satisfyed with it and think it's the best thing available on Earh. Why the hell to border yourself with other things anyway then

Mo

The whole megapixels thing is just a marketing ploy right now. More megapixels = better. I dont think so. I would stick with the 6mp I have now and have better exposure lattitude anytime.

As for the 'aberrations' your talking about, surely this isn't as much an issue on current dSLR cameras as they have a inbuilt crop factor because of the size of the CCD, so they take the centre anyway. Thus they get the best part of the lens. Also, why would this be any different from film? as this not curved anyway? And I thought all lenses were made so that the light reaches the flim/sensor as flatly as possible - or at least they strive for it.