Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/04/13

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Subject: [Leica] Comparing film and digital resolution
From: mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 18:11:51 -0400

The "too much time on your hands" thing is like the "pixel peeping" thing.
An anti intellectual thing done to the study and practice of photography.
And me I find study and practice to be inseparable.
The idea being you can know too much about what goes into your image making.
In most other serious pursuits you don't run into this.
You cant "know too much" about glass blowing the more you study what glass
is all about them more it works for you. no one complains.  The other glass
blowing people don't ostracize you for having a glass physics book in your
back pocket.

I think knowing the history and chemistry and physics behind photography is
a good thing. Though your pix just may come out without all that.
They only way it hurts if it interferers with you being able to walk the
walk. To go out and shoot. As there are those who don't do much about that
but just spend their photo time reading and learning.
To me that beats spending your photo time bidding. There are plenty of
those.


On 4/12/14 12:35 PM, "Frank Dernie" <Frank.Dernie at btinternet.com> wrote:

> But surely a single grain in film is either exposed or not, whereas a pixel
> has, depending on the sensor, thousands of brightness levels. So they are 
> not
> directly comparable and it would require a big patch of film containing
> thousands of grains to display the range of tones a single pixel is capable
> of, though clearly a patch of pixels would be required to compare the 
> effect.
> 
> 
> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: Frank Filippone <red735i at verizon.net>
>> To: 'Leica Users Group' <lug at leica-users.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, 12 April 2014, 14:07
>> Subject: Re: [Leica] Comparing film and digital resolution
>> 
>> 
>> Several years ago, I did the calculations based upon the molecular
>> particulate size of TMax100 film.? I picked that film because the density
>> data was available, and it was the most consistent particulate size film
>> available, and it was reputed to be the most consistent homogenous density
>> mix of crystals within the sensitive film layer.
>> 
>> My assumption was that the TMax100 crystalline molecule was the smallest
>> discernible and quantifiable light capturing receptor.? Therefore, the
>> closest analogy to a digital sensor pixel.
>> 
>> As I remember it, the particulate size, and therefore the effective pixel
>> density, was around 15MP per square inch.? The closest ( B+W only)
>> comparison is the MM.?
>> 
>> The MM is about 10MP per square inch.
>> 
>> Based upon this, and for all practical purposes, digital sensor technology
>> resolution has caught up with chemical resolution.
>> 
>> Too much time on your hands is a bad thing......you worry about things 
>> that
>> are purely theoretical.? This happened to me as well when I first retired.
>> Seems a pattern....
>> 
>> Frank Filippone
>> Red735i at verizon.net
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information




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




In reply to: Message from frank.dernie at btinternet.com (FRANK DERNIE) ([Leica] Comparing film and digital resolution)