Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/04/11

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Subject: [Leica] Comparing film and digital resolution
From: richard at richardmanphoto.com (Richard Man)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 21:26:25 -0700
References: <37877B71-8223-4F5E-975D-816FAFBF28CA@bex.net>

You will be driven mad looking for the sharpness developer/film combo and
then the best scanner and ...

Shoot film for certain qualities lacking in digital, whatever they may be,
but chasing tangible qualities such as resolution is probably a loss cause.

Of course you can pick up a $200 Yashicamat and some Acros100 and THAT
should give the M8 a run for the money. For M9, move to a Hasselblad CM or
a Mamiya 7.

Or just go nuts with a cheap 4x5. The tonal range will any deficiency in
resolution :-)


On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 9:14 PM, Howard Ritter <hlritter at bex.net> wrote:

> As my work schedule slows down towards retirement, I seem to have way too
> much time on my hands. So I decided to pursue a question I've been
> wondering about for a long time. I got out some cameras and lenses and a
> couple rolls of film and shot some photos of the house across the pond,
> scanned the film, and cropped down to the small central portion of the
> images to compare. I'd read that the best general-pupose emulsions resolve
> as high as 150 line pairs/mm, which corresponds to 300 pixels/mm, or 7200 x
> 10800 pixels in a FF sensor. That's around 80 Mpx, which is also in the
> same range for estimates of the information content that I've seen quoted
> for 35mm film. This led me to expect that digital would fall short of film,
> which puzzled me a bit as I have been not at all impressed by the technical
> performance of the slides and negs I've been scanning.
>
> I picked Fujicolor 200 and Tri-X to compare with the D800, M typ 240, M8,
> and NEX-7, 35mm lenses for the FF cameras, and 24mm for the M8 and NEX-7. I
> also shot the same scene with both the M8 and NEX-7 at 35mm so I could
> compare performance at the same image scale on the sensor.
>
> Suffice it to say that I was surprised by the results, linked below. Sure
> wish I could try Panatomic-X!
>
>  http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Res+Test+Crops/
>
> I was also surprised to discover that even the highest pixel-count FF
> sensor yet available does not match the capabilities of the lenses we use.
> I've posted to that effect before, but here are the images to illustrate
> the point.
>
> Comments and corrections of my misconceptions invited & appreciated.
>
> --howard
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>



-- 
// richard <http://www.richardmanphoto.com>
// http://facebook.com/richardmanphoto


Replies: Reply from hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter) ([Leica] Comparing film and digital resolution)
In reply to: Message from hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter) ([Leica] Comparing film and digital resolution)