Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/05/27
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]As someone who has been shooting film with my Leicas a lot lately, I'll gladly throw some gasoline on this fire. . . When discussing the presumed superior resolution of silver-gelatin prints vis-a-vis digital inkjet, you're ignoring a basic (and important) difference. Prints from 35mm negatives require two optical stages. Forgetting about the noise (grain) limitations inherent in film, prints from 35mm negatives can only be as good as the optics used throughout the production chain. Superlative optics, carefully focussed, can draw a high-resolution image on a piece of film. That piece of film then has to have evenly-distributed, often diffused, light passed through it and then through a superlative, carefully focussed enlarging lens, stopped down to its "sweet spot," to produce the highest resolution final print. Clearly there are a number places in this sequence where "operator error" can rear its head. Then there are the issues of optical quality in both the production and post-production stages. While focussing error can be as big a problem in digital as it is with film, only one optical stage (the taking lens) is required to produce a print from a digitally-captured image. Printing from digital strikes me as much closer to projecting a transparency than it does to enlarging and printing a negative. If the digital capture is made through superlative optics, precisely focused, onto a high-resolution imaging chip and printed at a sufficiently high dpi on a high-quality inkjet printer, it will definitely have higher-resolution and "more detail" than an equivalent enlargement from a 35mm negative. The latest high-megapixel large chip "35mm" digital cameras when used at common ISO settings (100 to 3200, let's say) surpass the image quality of equivalent 35mm film hands down. It is fair and legitimate to claim a preference for the look of a silver print from a film negative. Some claim a "clinical" perfection to digitally captured images (as with digitally recorded music) that they dislike. But to claim that this particular level of connoisseurship, or empirical evidence, your choice, equates with quantifiable fact is false. Carefully produced digital images are verifiably superior to any equivalent print from 35mm film. The evidence is overwhelming. If you're comparing a print from an 8X10 negative to an 8X enlargement from a 13 megapixel digital capture, OK, you win. But that's comparing apples to Buicks. You would equally correct in making that comparison to an 8X enlargement from 35mm film. I love working with my Leicas. But I'd rather be shooting digital than film. rs ______________________________________ www.robertschneider.com www.schneiderpix.com On May 27, 2006, at 11:10 AM, Tina Manley wrote: > At 10:42 PM 5/26/2006, you wrote: >> Moreover, no inkjet system (and I suspect no lightjet system, >> about this I am unsure) has the resolution of silver-gelatin or >> even color printing paper. You look with a 20x magnifier and you >> see the dots. Nothing wrong with this, except if you are curious >> about some detail twenty years from now and have only the print. >> >> Have I missed the revolution? >> >> MK > > You haven't seen good inkjet prints ;-) But then again I don't > usually look at my prints with a 20x loupe. I hold them at arm's > length or stand across the room and look at the content not the ink > dots. > > I totally disagree about the quality of digital. Digital surpasses > almost all film. And I'm using the same lenses with digital that I > did with film. > > Tina > > Tina Manley, ASMP, NPPA > http://www.tinamanley.com > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information