Why Digital is Dying?

[rogerzilla]

The main problem with digital is that pixellation is unattractive, whereas grain looks more natural; your eyesight is also grainy (just look at a plain wall).  Too many digital images look like still video.

The new Canon EOS 1Ds has probably got there in terms of resolution - you can make a 30" x 20" print from it - but it's not exactly mainstream technology.

[DrBru]

I only have one lens (300mm f4 Nikon) which you can just about see pixilation on 6MP digital camera - and even then you have to look hard. That might get some benefit from using film rather than digital, but I wouldn't notice the difference with any other lenses I have. Of course, if you are going to the bother of slide film and projectors, you probably ARE using lenses which justify it

I think what I wrote might be bollox... forgot about all the bayer resampling. Not sure how that affects the output image, but it suspect it means you see less pixilation than you'd expect from a simple optics argument... Would need to look at the individual channels in a raw frame (which I don't take because I shoot sports and raw is way to slow and fiddly for that!)

From an optics point of view, film does theoretically offer a big resolution advantage. Diffraction limit for 24mm f/2.8 lens is 1.6 microns (well sampled by a slow film; very poorly sampled by a typical digital detector)...

Right, going to have to borrow a Nikon film body now...

[tonycollinet]

To be honest - I've never seen pixellation under normal (printed) viewing conditions. I even have some pictures on the wall taken with my first (2mp) camera at around 9x7 size. Hang on - I'll go have a look. No, no obvious pixellation. It is not the sharpest print in the world (what do you expect from 2mp), but perfectly acceptable to hang on the wall.

[tonycollinet]

Just for interest - a look at what can be achieved with only 3MP

Untitled Document

[Jaded]

I have a 1.2MP image printed at 9" x 7".

It isn't 'sharp', and I notice chromatic aberration but you need good eyes or to get close to see that it is effectively over enlarged. I notice this, non-photographers don't.

What matters is the content.

[andygates]

The Gadget Show just did a test of a high-end 35mm film vs digital, using the same lens and blowing the image up to the size of a whole office block.  Digital spanked film.

This is one of those holy wars like linux/windows or cake/pie. 

[LEE]

The main problem with digital is that pixellation is unattractive, whereas grain looks more natural; your eyesight is also grainy (just look at a plain wall).  Too many digital images look like still video.

The new Canon EOS 1Ds has probably got there in terms of resolution - you can make a 30" x 20" print from it - but it's not exactly mainstream technology.

I'm not too sure about pixellation problems.  I have an example 12Mp image from a Canon G9 and I zoomed until it pixellated.  At that zoom level the image would be nearly 2 metres wide.  The optimum wiewing distance for an image that big would disguise much/all of that pixellation of course (I could see pixellation when viewing it sat at my desk at arm's length).

Zoomed to 1 metre across there really isn't any pixellation visible, even when I get really close to the screen.  12Mp is fairly mainstream now and 36" wide prints are fairly specialist

My 7Mp Canon's images starts to pixellate at around 56" wide (sorry for mixing metric and imperial) but we're talking about a 'grain' effect rather than noticeable square pixels.

www.dpreview.com allows you to download samples from the cameras tested.  The lastest 12Mp and above models have pretty spectacular resolution (especially when you consider what's happening down at semicondictor level).

It's very easy to zoom into a digital image and spot pixellation (5 clicks does it on mine) but forget just how big that image would be if you could see the whole thing.

Note.  Almost all the images I post on YACF are 640x480 which is only noticeably 'un-pixellated' at 6x4 postcard type enlargement.

Most people don't have the ability to print bigger than A4 and once you commit an image to paper you lose a huge amount of dynamic range so the gap between a projected film Transparency (as good as it gets?) and a Digital image displayed on a quality monitor narrows significantly.

I wouldn't like to bet my own money on being able to tell an A4 print from film and one from a 12Mp Digicam.

I'm now curious to see if DPREVIEW have got any images from 20Mp sensors

[Biggsy]

The main problem with digital is that pixellation is unattractive, whereas grain looks more natural; your eyesight is also grainy (just look at a plain wall).  Too many digital images look like still video.

I you like film grain, you can add a film-like grain effect to your digital images!  Pixellation is not normally visible because the pixels are so small.

Excessive noise and over-processing* makes many digital images look unattractive or unnatural - but you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between digital and film with good low noise/small grain examples of both.

* Including over-sharpening, excessive noise reduction, unnatural brightness/contrast levels - done by the camera or post-processing.  You can do better with a better camera or more subtle processing.

[tonycollinet]

The Gadget Show just did a test of a high-end 35mm film vs digital, using the same lens and blowing the image up to the size of a whole office block.  Digital spanked film.

This is one of those holy wars like linux/windows or cake/pie. 

From the quality of gadget show tests I have seen - I am more inclined to believe the exact opposite of whatever the gadget show concludes.
 

[LEE]

Agreed, the gadget Show almost always tests aspects of an item that seem irrelevant, downright stupid or are blatantly unscientific.

In honour of the Gadget Show here is my unscientific and meaningless test.

It's a download of a 15Mp image and a crop from that image to show the amount of pixellation.

Original image (downsized to 640x480 by Photobucket)


Now a crop from the (original 15Mp) Image



It's pixellated to buggery but the original image would be 11 feet across at that level of zoom, you'd be viewing the image at several metres distance and so wouldn't notice much/any pixallation.

Edit.  Actually, looking at it again now it's posted, it shows just how far sensors have come in the last few years.  You could actually get a (admittedly poor) 6x4 print of the girl for a family album if you were desperate. 

You can play "Where's Wally?" using the original image

Or, "Where's Brommie?"

[David Martin]

And a response from film.

This picture here:



Look at the white dot on the riverside about 50 pixels in from the left hand side.. This is it expanded:



You *can* print this 6 feet wide and it still looks sharp at close examination.

[LEE]

Impressive stuff, but I don't think anyone is arguing that you don't get more grain per inch than pixels, just that it takes more and more extreme examples to reveal the difference with modern sensors. (Nice photo and lens by the way David)

For a regular "Family Album Snap" I think that 640x480 is juuuust about acceptable for most people assuming no cropping is required (see London scene above).

The race for more and more pixels has become crazy though.  99% of people will never print larger than 6x4" and yet they will disregard 7Mp cameras in favour of 12Mp cameras at 3x the price.  My next purchase may be 12Mp (but because I want the feature set of a specific camera rather than actually wanting 12Mp per se).

For the regular Joe in the street I'd say get a bargain, end-of-line, 5Mp or 7Mp camera from one of the big names (Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and so on) and they'd be more than happy with the results.  "Highly Recommended" from DPREVIEW is one of the more meaningful awards around.

[kyuss]

For a regular "Family Album Snap" I think that 640x480 is juuuust about acceptable for most people assuming no cropping is required (see London scene above).

The race for more and more pixels has become crazy though.  99% of people will never print larger than 6x4" and yet they will disregard 7Mp cameras in favour of 12Mp cameras at 3x the price.

But it's always nice to have the option of cropping and being able to print big. I'd hate to take the perfect shot and never have the option of having a copy of it bigger than A4.

To me, the only drawback of digital is the limitations in size. A 10mp image will never be bigger than 10mp. With film you can scan to whatever size you need. For enlargements at ultimate clarity, film and a quality scan will kick digitals arse every time so I'm sceptical of the Gadget Show test.

Even a pro 30mp camera can only produce an image of about 570mm x 370mm at 300dpi print size which if you are doing posters at A2 or A1, is less than ideal. Obviously home users don't need to worry about these sorts of sizes and resolutions but you can see why some pros still haven't fully embraced digital.

There are places that can offer drum scans at 12000dpi so even 35mm works out at 179mp equivalent and 6x6 medium format a whopping 803mp. The best digital can manage at the moment is about 60mp and at £20,000 for the back and another £20,000 for the body it's not something even most pros can afford.

[David Martin]

Even a pro 30mp camera can only produce an image of about 570mm x 370mm at 300dpi print size which if you are doing posters at A2 or A1, is less than ideal. Obviously home users don't need to worry about these sorts of sizes and resolutions but you can see why some pros still haven't fully embraced digital.

There are places that can offer drum scans at 12000dpi so even 35mm works out at 179mp equivalent and 6x6 medium format a whopping 803mp.

Care to guess what the film I showed above was scanned at? It is Velvia 50 and you can see the grain in the scans.  With digital (and film for that matter) you can use an appropriate upresing algorithm to get a pleasing to the eye shot. Once your resolution is better than that of the grain of the film then you are onto a winner with digital.

..d

[Jaded]

12MP in one camera isn't 12MP in another, quality-wise.

Size of sensor is critical.

[kyuss]

Even a pro 30mp camera can only produce an image of about 570mm x 370mm at 300dpi print size which if you are doing posters at A2 or A1, is less than ideal. Obviously home users don't need to worry about these sorts of sizes and resolutions but you can see why some pros still haven't fully embraced digital.

There are places that can offer drum scans at 12000dpi so even 35mm works out at 179mp equivalent and 6x6 medium format a whopping 803mp.

Care to guess what the film I showed above was scanned at? It is Velvia 50 and you can see the grain in the scans. With digital (and film for that matter) you can use an appropriate upresing algorithm to get a pleasing to the eye shot. Once your resolution is better than that of the grain of the film then you are onto a winner with digital.

..d

4800dpi? I remember that shot from the Holga discussion. It's a beauty.

I don't mind film grain (at least it looks natural unlike digital noise) so I still prefer to scan film for those occassions when big images are required. I think my mate Anna agrees, as although she's just spent a small fortune on a Hasselblad digital will still use 6x6 film when the big stuff is needed.

Jaded is right though. The only thing a larger megapixel camera will result in is a larger image. Quality comes from the sensor and the lenses and if you don't have quality, what's the point.

[David Martin]

4800dpi? I remember that shot from the Holga discussion. It's a beauty.

2400 I think. My feeling is that I havemore of a problem with diffraction on that image than film grain. Focussing was non-trivial - the cheat is that it was a 5x4 camera, not 35mm.

I don't mind film grain (at least it looks natural unlike digital noise) so I still prefer to scan film for those occassions when big images are required.

Digital noise is nothing to do with resolution. It is to do with exposure. Take a badly exposed film and process it badly -- the grain will look terrible.
I also think your natural/unnatural is based on what you have grown up with.

Jaded is right though. The only thing a larger megapixel camera will result in is a larger image. Quality comes from the sensor and the lenses and if you don't have quality, what's the point.

Absolutely. I won't buy compact cameras with silly numbers of pixels. 5 mp is more than enough. Using them properly is even better.

..d

[DrBru]

Even a pro 30mp camera can only produce an image of about 570mm x 370mm at 300dpi print size which if you are doing posters at A2 or A1, is less than ideal. Obviously home users don't need to worry about these sorts of sizes and resolutions but you can see why some pros still haven't fully embraced digital.

You can always resample an image to a larger size.  You won't get any more resolution of course, but you can make a digital image as large as you want...

A digital image direct from the camera is exactly the same as a digital scan of a film.  A 12MP full frame digital sensor will produce the same resolution as a 3000dpi scan of 35mm film...**
So, in fact, the image David showed (which is beautiful. I've always loved that view of Dundee -- especially in a rear view mirror ) should be equivalent to a 12MP digital image.

Or have I got myself confused? (suffering from lack of oxygen at 14000ft at the minute, so may well have!)

edit: yes I have. Didn't pick up was 5x4 film! That is a bit of an unfair comparison though -- a 5x4 image is going to have higher resolution than a 35mm film image too...

** probably not quite, as I imagine negative scans don't do bayer sampling to get their colour info -- anyone know?

[Really Ancien]

I've been totting up how many prints of digital photos I've done, then it occurred to me that the main hard copy archival source I have for my decent cycling photos is Arrivee. I don't think I would ever have bothered submitting negs, slides or prints. That's where digital has been liberating, in creating a mechanism whereby ordinary people can share their good images. Technical quality is a bit of a red herring here. The best photos are composition led, the best aid to that is location scouting and continuous shooting. For the two Arrivee covers I have had, I rode both 200km events specifically to take the shots which appeared. Digital enabled me to compose the shot prior to the arrival of the main subject, then to check the results so that I would know if I needed to take more.
But on PBP 2007 we took 5 hours of video and a large number of digital stills. The one picture we have up is a poor quality Polaroid taken with my Grandfather's camera, it shows me, Heather, M Series, Mike Thompson and Riccardo Gravina before the ride. Being a Polaroid the actual picture was there with us 90 seconds later and is a unique record, a single artefact unlike the rest of the stuff. Everything else is work, that's a memento.



Damon.

[frankly frankie]

Quality comes from the sensor and the lenses and if you don't have quality, what's the point.

But I agree with Really -

Technical quality is a bit of a red herring here.

There are loads of good reasons for taking photos that have little to do with 'quality'.
My observation is that most people take photos just because they enjoy it (look at the picture of Really, above, to see what I mean) - and quite frankly in the case of film, if the camera wasn't even loaded it would make naff-all difference.  So what price quality then?

[rogerzilla]

But wouldn't it eat away at your soul if you'd taken the photo of a lifetime on a 3MP camera?  You could never hang it on your wall.

[hellymedic]

But wouldn't it eat away at your soul if you'd taken the photo of a lifetime on a 3MP camera?  You could never hang it on your wall.

You could hang it on a wall or at least put it on the mantlepiece/bookshelf.
What would eat my soul would be if I'd not taken the picture at all, not the size I could get by enlargement.

[Biggsy]

But wouldn't it eat away at your soul if you'd taken the photo of a lifetime on a 3MP camera?  You could never hang it on your wall.

Yes you could.  People hang Monet paintings on their wall.  They just don't stand too close to them to view, so they see the whole image rather than the individual blobs of paint.  Same thing with posters of photos taken on high ISO film.  Looks too grainy when you look close-up, but OK when standing back.

If you want more detail, you don't have to use film, just higher resolution digital.

[kyuss]

All of my views are coming from a print background (so not particularly important to most users). I totally agree that the most important thing is the ease of use, the fact this allows far more opportunities for pictures of loved ones and the interest in photography in general that digital has allowed. I would never argue against that and I'd absolutely love one myself.

You can always resample an image to a larger size.  You won't get any more resolution of course, but you can make a digital image as large as you want...

A digital image direct from the camera is exactly the same as a digital scan of a film.  A 12MP full frame digital sensor will produce the same resolution as a 3000dpi scan of 35mm film...

But the point is that 12mp image will only ever be 12mp. That 35mm film can be scanned at anything up to 12000dpi (or 180mp). Resampling digital images for print is only possible to a certain extent, you can't just make a digital image as big as you like unless it's only ever going to be viewed on a screen or printed at low res. That's one of the drawbacks as a lot of people think because it's digital you can do pretty much anything with it. I'm sent tiny 800k images all the time and am expected to use it in a magazine at A3. Clients see it large on their computer screens and can't understand how it can't be printed at the same size.

For instance if I'm sent a 72dpi jpg that's 36cmx23cm and I convert that to 300dpi for printing it's physical size is reduced to 8cmx5cm and can't be printed any bigger. To make it bigger the resampling programme has to make a 'best guess' and add pixels where none exist which always effects quality and the bigger you need to make it the worse it gets.

Digital noise is nothing to do with resolution. It is to do with exposure. Take a badly exposed film and process it badly -- the grain will look terrible.
I also think your natural/unnatural is based on what you have grown up with.

Absolutely. But people working with film are much more likely to expose properly in the first place. And maybe it is what I've been used to growing up, but to me a grainy black and white shot with some 3200 film looks moody. A similar amount of digital noise would just look strange.

[Biggsy]

You can only go so far before you out resolve the lens.  With 35mm, that will happen long before you get to 180 MP.  I think there's a way to go with digital before that happens with good SLR lenses, but not all that far.

Re exposure:  I expose better with digital because I've got a chance to instantly see the exposure and make corrections and take another shot.

Re digital noise:  It doesn't look too bad, and can even look quite like film grain, if you correct the colour of the noise (colour noise reduction) to eliminate that nasty multi-coloured speckly effect.