[Leica] Comparing film and digital resolution

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

Grain quality. 
If we can see it in a darkroom print but have said goodbye to it when we
scan it than that is really a low rez scan.
The idea that each film grain equals a digital pixel and that somehow
equates in any real way seems logical perhaps at first but on further
thought does not even begin to cut it.
It takes really many pixels to surround a film analog grain turn it into a
digital reality. So we can look closely and see the grain quality just like
on the darkroom print. To me that's when we have archived film digitally.
And can then make a large inkjet that would equal a silver print technically
and esthetically.

For a scanner to really get my attention it has  to be able scan the grain
in film so that each grain particle is accurately delineated as an entity
to itself.  
Otherwise you've shot a picture of a brick wall and you don't care that you
can't see the bricks. You also gotta see the mortar. When you pixel peep it
at least.

The COOLSCAN 5000 ED which I have approaches this though a drumscan
certainly achieves this.
In film each analog grain particle and the spaces in between are the
building blocks of an analog image and to replicate this digitally I feel it
has to be done at this level.

Without the ability to scan on the grain level what we end up with is
Interpolation. Just like when we change the resolution of a digital file
from one size to another or change the viewing size on our screen. ... Only
on a analog grain to pixel level instead of a pixel to pixel level.



-- 
Mark William Rabiner
Photographer
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/