I thought this was amusing:

FILM:

IMAGE QUALITY

RESOLUTION: A glass plate from 1880 still has more resolution than a Canon 1Ds-MkII. Film always wins here when used by a skilled photographer. One source of confusion is here, which uses bad science using prints too small (13 x 19") to show the difference. Also note that you're not even seeing the actual prints, but screen resolution images (about 72 - 100DPI) at that site. He throws away most of the resolution of the film. (It doesn't matter that his film was scanned at 3,200 DPI and it's completely irrelevant that the printer was set to 2880 DPI, since all that resolution was down-converted for your screen.) As I keep trying to say, if all you want is 13 x 19" inkjet prints made on a $700 Epson by all means get an $8,000 1Ds. If you want to feel the texture of every grain of sand on a 40 x 60" print, stick with 4 x 5" as photographers do.

From Ken Rockwell:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm#examples

and this one is better:

OK, I've had it with this idiocy. back to top of article Here are the examples I've been too busy shooting to waste my time scanning and posting. We all know the other websites showing a big name digital SLR looking as good as film resolution. Baloney. You may not realize that those sites are actually sponsored by those camera companies and the guy running them doesn't really know how to get good results on film. He then only compares them at such low resolution that you can't see what film's resolution is all about. It takes skill to get optimum resolution on film.

From Ken Rockwell:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm#examples

I do have to admit the guy has a funny and entertaining style of writing.

This is really very simple. The guy is a fruitcake with a massive ego. Not surprisingly, he is a bit amusing.

It would be interesting if he could come up with some evidence for the sponsor comment though.

He citicises this site for 'bad-science' and then goes onto post a comparison between a film image and a digital image and this is what he has to say about the digital camera used in the comparison 'The digital camera image is the same crop from a brand-new multi-megapixel digital camera made by the same company that keeps paying some bad-science photography websites to pimp it as being better than film' and you want evidence!!!.....

I've come to believe the Ken Rockwell is the cleverest troll in the history of the internet. He says just enough 'common sense' stuff to get some people to take him seriously, but in fact the joke's on them because taken as a whole his website is a farce.

Only based on his ideas about color management, I'd have to agree. Add him to the list along with Mr sRGB (Will Crocket).

Ken references the web site of Roger Clark. On checking Roger's web site, I was rather surprised to learn that Roger agrees with most of Ken's statements except on the issue of dynamic range and highlight clipping. Roger is a true expert in digital imaging and I would give a lot of weight to his opinion. Ken's analysis seems a bit dated, since he talks about the Nikon D100 and D1h. Extrapolating from Roger's data, it would seem that the Canon 1DsMIII would beat any 35 mm film camera hands down.

Bill

For those that haven't seen

http://www.bahneman.com/liem/blog/article...._Rockwell_Facts

Do we really need to waste space on this? Rockwell really is beyond the pale.

Michael

It is part off the learning experience in digital photography to read on Ken Rockwell site. Lucky enough I soon found other sources. Sometimes he actually does nice tests. But his opinion is often not mine. But he is just another source.

One thing I learnt fast. Mention Ken Rockwell and people go ballistic. He is funny.

He likes no other than himself. He also often proves to himself that he is right. But take his site as blog. Blogs are funny to read but rarely you learn much new. It is just one guys opinions.

Just a tip from me to you. You will stay more healthy by not taking stuff on internet seriously.

Please tell me you can level a libel suit? That would make my week

No such thing as bad publicity

Kevin.

Lol. A lot of diehard film guys are just delusional in their claims.

This is also beginning to happen now in the motion picture realm, where cameras like Red and Genesis are starting to take a bite out of chemical film's stranglehold on the industry.

In MY day, we made our photomographs in blood, and we LIKED IT!

If you read Ken Rockwell's "About Me" page, you find this disclaimer:

" I offer no warrantees of any kind, except that there are many deliberate gaffes, practical jokes and downright foolish and made-up things lurking. While this site is mostly accurate, it is neither legally binding nor guaranteed. The only thing I do guarantee is that there is plenty of stuff I simply make up out of thin air, as does The Onion."

I read Ken Rockwells site once and that's all it took for me to realize what a complete incompetent, ignorant, moron he was!! I call him "The Blanket" as in he makes blanket statements about everything, like buying this lens with this camera makes no sense, or "TV Makes You Stupid" (disclaimer, I don't watch much TV) or a litany of other incoherent statements. The internet is a cesspool of misinformation and Ken Rockwell is certainly one of the leading contributors. Why even post his name here?

This KR statement certainly is very ironic considering the source,

"The Internet can make you stupid or smart, depending on what you do there."

Ken talks garbage.

Apparently the D700 is an amateur camera, Michael Reichmann is obsessed by technology and not a real photographer, and the extra features of the Nikon SB600 and SB800 flashes absent from the SB400 are nothing but fluff. Oh and all lenses are sharp.

Ken even had the gall to state that he is a much better photographer than Art Morris, who according to Ken is another gear obsessive. Art Morris is one of the world's most respected bird photographers.

Someone who can make such statements is a fool.

He used to be an engineer, and he must have been a very bad one given his poor reasoning skills.

The digital versus film argument is long dead as far as most of us are concerned. This site is yet another statement of what we all know, using a laboratory microscope to squeeze everything from the film:

http://www.janrik.net/MiscSubj/2007/FilmVs...SLR_Images.html

At best Rockwell and Clark are exploiting the misuse of "extinction resolution", at well under 10% MTF. This is of technical interest in astronomy and such, where all you need to do is distinguish black from white ("star or no star") but rather irrelevant to artistic photographic image quality ("revealing the shadings of the star's complexion"), where measures like 50% MTF are far more relevant.


P. S. It is Rockwell who pimps his sponsors, suggesting where to buy your gear, so his business is generating web-site hits.

Funny you felt the need to add the disclaimer... just proves Ken's point.

I wonder what we could get in this comparison: Take a Leica M8 and M7 - shoot B&W - get the best landscape images you can side-by-side, lots of trees, rocks, etc. Use a really fine-grain B&W film of ISO 25 or better on the M7 and shoot a stop or two over so you can soft-develop the negatives. Think the M8 would win? I dunno about that. I could believe that a direct scan would beat film in any case.

I think that you need to read what I wrote one more time, the entire paragraph! He made a blanket statement that "TV makes you stupid" isn't that blanket statement idiotic? In other words, there are educational shows on TV, you can also watch DVDs, VHS, etc. on your TV. You can extract something out of almost anything and become a more learned person. I don't watch much TV; that doesn't prove his point, quite the contrary. Naturally everything should be done in moderation, if all you did is watched TV, you'd be obese, not social, etc. If all you did was eat, you'd get fat, so shall we say, eating makes you fat? If you exercised 24 hours per day you will probably die within a few days, so we can say "Exercise will kill you"? Blanket statements are generally written by people who are intellectually deficient!

How's this: Watching TV puts you at risk of stupidity. Racing motorcycles puts you at risk of grave injury. Does that sound like a recommendation for either? It's more accurate technically than Ken's statement, but is it that superior? One thing our intellect gives us the ability to do is understand, even when the statement isn't technically accurate.

I note that the "Digital Camera Image" is labeled "© 2003." It was therefore taken with a digital camera that is at least five years old, and possibly considerably older. We are all aware that digital camera technology has come a long ways in the the last few years.

Also, I don't see where he identifies the camera in question. For all we know it could be one of the early 3-Mpixel cameras.

I'm quite aware that top-end digital cameras have surpassed film in most if not all areas, but I have to point out that the DR test on the Clark site is biased: It measures detail that can be brought back in the shadows. With slide film, it makes sense. But with print film, you can overexpose by several stops and stull retain full color and detail in print or with multiple scans, into a range where a digital camera or slide film would return clipped channels and irretrievable whites. It probably still has less DR than digital, but for some situations it has more useful dynamic range.

Aside from pointing that out, I have to admit that I go read Rockwell's opinions on new cameras and old lenses when they come out. When I was first getting into photography and was reading up on the internet, I found him a useful source of technical knowledge, knowledge which has now been heavily salted with the awareness that he is in many ways a hack. He had convinced me to spend $600 on a D40 with kit lens for my first DSLR. Not having the money yet to buy, I had plenty of time to mull this over. I ended up handling a D40 in a store and finding that it felt slightly more solid and less cheap than the rebel sitting beside it, and then I went and handled my friend's entry level Olympus... $400 later, I had a much better camera than the D40, a camera that Rockwell had dismissed as essentially pointless.

Beyond his somewhat misguided opinions, one of the things that really irritates me is his complete ignoring of other brands. He hasn't mentioned anything besides Canon, Nikon, and Fuji SLRs in years. There are old mentions of Olympus and Pentax and even Kodak, but from his site you'd get the impression that Sony doesn't even make cameras. Given the fact that other brands have come to surpass Canon and Nikon's offerings in their respective price ranges in many ways, you'd think they'd at least get a mention. Instead, he just tells everyone the best deal in digital is the Nikon D40. It's just unfortunate, because half the people reading don't know any better.

I agree with the first part, but I must take issue with the last point. I browsed KR's site once and found a lot of simplistic and trite stuff, a lot of misinformation, and nothing very amusing.

I get better amusement by reading the reactions to KR on LL.

I want evidence that this site is bought off by camera companies to lie to people. That remark has its ass hanging out all over the place. It's an opinion as it stands.

Everyone knows you can scan a negative with higher resolution than any digital camera. You can even scan 80 year old negatives from 80 year old cameras with 80 year old film and get more resolution. The comparison is then how good scanners are at scanning negatives and reproducing them with high resolution, not how a MF film camera compares to a 1DS3 using traditional processing and enlarging techniques. And yes this analogy is a bit off the mark. What Rockwell is saying is that a MF negative has in it more detail possible, and that detail can be extracted using a negative scanner.

That being the case, it is something to think about. If you can use a 700US MF camera or even a 35mm and get three times the resolution using a high end scanner, that is truly something people should think about. Why not go back to film for landscape and use a scanner if detail DR and is so important?

It will until you take the 35mm negative and scan it using a 2, 000US negative scanner. Then you get a 80mb file instead of a 21 MB file.

Well Michael, can you validly refute his positions? It's a fair thing to ask.

Of course there is no way to "prove" his comment about you being in the pocket of camera makers because he has no evidence. His was just an assertion that can be dismissed for the same reasons yours above can: no evidence, no argument. Forget about that comment unless he can shoulder up the evidence. The burden of evidence is always on the person asserting "x". So that's a non issue.

I'm taking about his position of the MF vs digital using a scanner. Show us how beyond the pale he is. I would like to see a step by step refutation of his points on this issue. I could care less about Ken Rockwell's personality, but we should all try to use valid counter arguments, right?

If he is beyond the pale and worth stating that he is "beyond the pale" then I would think (maybe I'm wrong) that you would offer a valid counter argument to his?

The only motivation I have for the above is that I want to learn about this. That's it.

You can't level a libel suit off an opinion. He gave no evidence or misleading evidence. He just said it off the cuff, which is equal to an opinion. I think it's crap for anyone to do that sort of thing unless he or she can back it up with evidence, which Rockwell did not.

The best defense of this sort of thing is a valid, well reasoned, evidence containing argument. Anything else make it look like he's on to something.

I think we're in the minority here, but I think this too. Rockwell did post his evidence for his position about scanned negatives being superior to any digital on the market.

His other comments are not of much interest to me, but the film scanned vs digital is from what I can see and from what I've read, a valid point. Who can inform us that Rockwell's position on this point is wrong?

Before anyone says that I'm trying to troll for Rockwell, please let me say this: I use to read Rockwell's site years ago when I was first starting out. I found him amusing and he had some reasonable points. The reason I visited his site recently was that I was reading some essay where the author was talking about a MF he use to use. I wanted to see the camera he was talking about so I Googled it to see what it was, and Rockwell's site was the first to come up. So I just read the essay. So again, please those of you and especially Michael, don't think I'm trying to stir anything up.

However, I am interested in Rockwell's point about MF scanned vs the best digital in resolution. He does have 100% crops of each camera, and the crops are telling, if true and accurate. Of course he is really comparing digital to digital, but his point is that using a scanner and a MF negative, you will get vastly better images than any digital consumer camera. Is he right?

Or just trying to be funny. Rockwell is obviously not stupid. One might say that those who offer false dichotomies are intellectually deficient, but that would be a blanket statement in itself, because "generally" is a blanket word.

It doesn't take much research to gather enough evidence that shows many really smart people use blanket statements for many reasons, not simply because they are intellectually deficient. I'm not trying to start anything here, but in the spirit of intellectual hygiene, I thought it important to respond.

It doesn't really matter for his point. He's saying if you take MF negative and scan it in you can get a 180MB file by using the scanner resolution. Compare that to say the 1DS3's 21MB digital capture and you get the point. I'm not saying he is right, but that is his position.

The file size is irrelevent. What matters is the underlying detail. In other words, the amount of information (not the pixel count). Anyway this is long since dead, and it is widely accepted that a ~12MP DSLR beats colour film, at least in terms of resolution if not dynamic range.

In the UK you can. If I said on my web site "MR is paid by Canon to push their product" then I would be open to legal action as that statement is libellous, since it is untrue (or at least I have absolutely no reason to suppose that it is true).

I think Ken needs to be careful what he says. Now that would be a first.

I think that there is a lot to be said for scanning film and I´m not even sure that you need to go to b/w film to find out! Kodachrome-as-was scans very well in the CanoScanFS4000US and as I am using Nikon lenses in both film camera and digital, I am fairly accustomed to the expectations of what I might get from either.

There are down sides to film insofar as the costs involved, the doubts about processing standards, the inevitable spotting that has to take place. There are also, I suppose, scanning technique problems, but when you put all that aside and look at the end product on paper, then film, to me, produces the more traditional look, which is what I like.

Digital colour seems to look very impressive, but as most of what I´m interested in doing ends up as b/w print, I won´t argue in that area.

Anyway, getting hung up on comparing different sites isn´t going to be very productive: we find ourselves here because we like it; others are free to differ, so why should anyone complain? To each his own.

Rob C

Seriously pale, that has to be the stupidest thing that I've ever read! Not to start anything! If you have the ability to read then you would have to know that the word "generally" is NOT a blanket statement especially not in the context of this discussion! A blanket statement covers everything, whereas generally covers a high percentage, I'm sorry if you can't understand the difference.

Why is it obvious to you that KR isn't stupid?

It would be fine to use a blanket statement if it were true, but I have noticed KR makes them constantly and gave just 2 examples. All new Ferraris are expensive, a blanket statement right? Is it accurate? It could be, it just depends on the person writing it and his/her perspective. TV makes you stupid is a stupid statement! Lens A is worthless if used on camera A, is the same, blanket statements that simply aren't true or accurate. My point (obviously you missed it) was that KR doesn't state generally speaking, most of the time, a high percentage of the time, etc. he makes blanket statements regarding everything from camera gear to tv watching.

I don't need to research intellectually deficient people, there's enough of them everywhere. It's ok to respond, but why not respond with something which makes sense?

He gave you his reasons and evidence that from which he derived his conclusion. It's purely circumstantial, for sure. You would need to first prove definitively that his argument is knowingly untrue.

On the other hand, we can parse his position by putting it in the best argument form we can given the information, and then test it for validity and soundness:

His argument goes something like this, which is invalid:

(1) LL image quality test comparing digital to scanned negatives is wrong.
(2) It's easy to see that MF scanned negatives are much better in quality than the best digital file.
(3) Since it's easy to see this difference for anyone who understands photographic and digital principles that this is true, LL must be giving out bad information knowingly.
(4) One very good reason bad information like this would be given out by people who know better is that companies pay people to do it.
(5) Conclusion: LL is being paid by camera companies.

What I would do to refute this argument would be to attack the premises first. Is the information KR gives accurate and accepted? If not, then the entire argument fails and you need go no further with it. If so, then we need to look at the argument's form to make sure that even though the premises are true, the argument's conclusions follow a valid form, that is, don't make leaps.

So second, I would test the validity of the argument's form, since an argument can be valid and unsound, meaning the premise(s) are false, but the logic is sound. (e.g., Socrates was a man. All men are deers. Ergo, Socrates was a deer. False premise, with valid argument form. Everything follows with no leaps. In this case, the first premise's "predicate" is 'distributed" in the second and the second in the third (predicate logic). You can see the validity by exchanging "deer" with "mortal" or "All As, are B's. All Bs are Cs. Therefore, all As are Cs.)

We see here that KR's argument is unsound because his premises do not lead directly to his conclusion--that LL is paid off by camera companies does not follow directly from his premises (If LL is giving out bad information, there may be other reasons for giving bad information rather than being paid off).

So in summary, even if his information is correct, the argument does not follow to it's conclusion. But if his information is correct, it does call to question many things.

"It's ok to respond, but why not respond with something which makes sense?"

See my post on KR argument and how to refute it.

---------

I never took any of his statements to mean "ALL." If you take his statements to mean ALL, then he is simply wrong, but that does not make him intellectually deficient, or anyone else for that matter.

When I suggested scanning was superior I was referring to a direct scan, i.e. "scanning back", no film involved. My suggestion for a film -vs- digital comparison would be two similar (and similar sized) cameras, B&W, and "soft developing" the negative on the film side. This is critical in reducing the grain. It also is important to have the best possible optics so as to minimize that influence in the results.

And speaking of negatives, we haven't talked about comparing prints of all-film (chemical) processing -vs- scanning the negative and processing digitally from there.

It really amazes me that here, in mid-2008, there are still some people that maintain the image quality superiority of film. To me this simply shows that they have little real world experience. This was a heated topic back in 2001 - 2003 but has long since been laid to rest.

Are there still people shooting film and doing darkroom prints or making scans? Yes of course. Some simply like the process. That's cool. But most of the leading photographic schools, like RIT, now teach the chemical darkroom as an alternative process, not mainstream technology any longer.

Does anyone seriously think that the majority (I'm not saying all) of the world's leading fine art and commercial photographers use digital is simply because of convenience. Not!

No, pundits and knowledgeable reporters laid the digital vs film argument to rest some years ago. When leading large format fine art photographers like Charles Cramer and Alain Briot give up film for digital you know that the battle has been won, and it's all over except for a few die-hards who haven't yet gotten the message.

Now, if you'll please excuse me, I have to go to the mailbox and pick up this month's checks from the major camera makers, all of whom are paying me to preach the advantages of digital. And, if you want to see how effective that program is, go to any camera store in the world and compare the number of film cameras on the shelves to the number of digital cameras. Boy, I must be powerful.

Cheers,

Michael

Ps: I still own and use at least three film cameras, more for fun than anything else, and for when image quality is less important than fun or a special application. I use my Hasselblad / Imacon scanner, and curse every time when I have to spend an hour or more cleaning dust spots, but that's another story.

As for my chemical darkroom of 30+ years. Gone, finished, closed, no regrets.

Here's a piece I did in 1999:

http://www.digitaldog.net/files/Filmvsdigital.pdf

Here's a better JPEG to see what was printed:

http://digitaldog.net/files/FilmVsDigital.jpg

Not a bad scanner used too (ScanMate 5000).

Not so, at least in the UK. In court it would be for Ken to prove that his statement are fact, and hence not libel. Assuming someone took him to court of course.



Sorry but is there much point in giving Ken any credit? His methodology is so often completely half baked, and his statements so absurd, that it is not worth the time and effort.

My regret is that some people find him funny (humorous), and I never have done. I just find him rather sad.

Can you PM me the contact-information of the guys at Canon, Nikon and Hasselblad who bribe you?
I've preached the advantages of digital for free so far, so I feel I deserve at least a free Mark III, D3(x) and H3D for my efforts too. :-D

Speaking of which, we (RIT) just mothballed another 80 or so darkrooms... If anyone would like a good deal on a truckload of Omega 4x5 enlargers, lets talk!

Greg

Actually in my world I have a slightly different viewpoint.

As most major labs and institutions are mothballing their darkrooms , we in fact have increased the size of our darkrooms. We just installed a 55inch x 480inch wet sink to accomodat 4x8 ft fibre prints from enlargers and lambda.
We are still getting clients landing in Toronto and dropping off film and producing prints on enlargers to be exhibited .
Increasingly we are printing from digital files to fibre *wet* , in fact I think today digital prints outweigh the enlarger prints. But as I find that there still is those who do appreciate a crafted enlarger print and are willing to invest in film cameras and wait for the results.
I have been working in both area's as a exhibition and portfolio printer for 20 odd years in TO and as Michael points out the conversion to digital is a done deal. No argument .
But I strongly believe there is a place for both in the ** art ** and ** commercial ** world .
In fact I think most of the best advances are when digital and wet technology is combined, and that is where I believe we are headed.

As an aside,

The major schools should take a moment to pause and keep some of the darkrooms open, my bet is the ones that do will attract the new wave of students.
Colour Carbon prints off digital negs , I think will pass the grade with any one on this form , I think.

Today , I just spent two hours at a local highschool accessing their needs for enlargers, sinks, and digital printers. All which we will donate to a very appreciative Principle and dedicated photography teacher.

Those who feel film cameras are obsolete and useless are more than welcome to donate any and all film cameras, 35-8x10. as well any digital slrs are also very welcome.
send me a email at bob@elevatordigital.ca and I will make sure all this equipment gets into the hands of some very appreciative students.

ps. I too shoot famly snaps and vacation snaps, but I use a digital point and shoot for this and keep the Noblex and Fuji 6x9 loaded with HP5 for the art prints.

We’re not doing away with darkrooms entirely, just reclaiming/repurposing space to deal with curricular changes and current technology. We started out with ~185 darkrooms when the building was opened in the late 60’s. I’m aiming for around 35-40 to remain in service for the foreseeable future. We will also maintain our E-6 and C-41 machines until utilization bottoms out and we can’t run enough film to keep them in control... RA-4 will be around indefinitely to support our Lambda.

So this is more about accepting and dealing with mainstream reality in the marketplace. If our students want to use film cameras and take elective classes in stuff like C printing and the Zone System, they will still have the option. Back in the spring, we received a generous donation of M series cameras from the principal owner of Leica to help perpetuate the teaching of film-based photography. And we still have quite a fleet of 4x5’s.

But to be honest, we’re talking about a digital generation (all of our incoming students grew up with computers and Photoshop) and for the most part, they have very little interest in analog processes...

Greg

Little interest and expect for historical purposes, little need. Its useful to provide as a historical context, but for practical knowledge in a horrendously difficult business to make a living at, is teaching film any more useful (outside of history) compared to teaching Photography capture on glass? Or having prepress students learn manual stripping or design students learning PageMaker?

I know (indirectly) several people doing photography degrees in the UK, and both a doing lots of film, and not so much digital. I have the impression that the teachers are well out of date.