the 90's-- howd that crazy era work.

[markc]

Yup. Grain.

Heh. Should try pushing T-Max or Delta 3200 to 6400 or so. Now that's grain.

 

[JamesD]

okay first of all.
grain is the equivalent of digital noise here.
If you look at a shot made on an EOS 1D mark 11, at 400, there is 0% noise at 16.7 flipping megapixels!!!!
On delta 400, developed as per manufacturers recomendations in ilfotec DD-X, grain is visible as soon as the width is more than 1700 pixels across, that, my friends, is annoying when i want speed, and good prints.
Why was film so underdeveloped(PUN INTENDED) compared to digital, digital had 5 seconds in frame (ALSO INTENDED) and already pushing (INTENDED) what we thought possible.
Further more, I am a slide film noob, is it much different in terms of grain to colour print film of an equal iso?

I typed up a long post after I read this, but I'm not going to post most of it. It's not strictly on the topic of the thread, and I'm not going to help start a film vs. digital debate--although that'd be hard to do, considering my position on both sides.

Instead, I'll stick to a few basic facts.

First off, to address your initial statement, noise and grain are completely different things, and not equivalent at all. Digital sensors are of fixed sensitivity, which is a product of surface area (need I point out that this is fixed?), and therefore require amplification, which introduces noise. Silver grains are of variable size, and therefore variable sensitivity, and therefore require no amplification, per se. However, as grain size increases, resolution decreases. No digital image is ever without noise, just as no film-based image is ever without grain. Both technologies have tradeoffs for sensitivity--digital trades the accuracy of intensity measurement, where film trades resolution. Neither one gets something for nothing, but they trade different things.

With that said, I'll add that you are absolutely right that a digital image probably won't show any readily apparent distortion of intensity measurement (that is, "noise") when shot at the amplification factor "ISO 400." I could find it, probably with the naked eye, and definately with appropriate software or dedicated test equipment, but it's not visually objectionable, and I prefer to not expend the effort.

I'm not going to address what resolution will show grain, mostly because grain size is variable in the negative, and pixel size is fixed in the sensor (it's variable in the procesing and print); they are fundamentally different and no simple comparison can be made in the space of this post. This is particularly true when you take into account lossy compression techniques.

I will say that digital technology is wonderful, getting better all the time, and will soon surpass traditional materials in every respect. You won't hear me say anything different. However, they're not quite there yet. A large number of other factors comes into play... dynamic range, color accuracy (which varies between brands and products), simplicity of processing, etc.

However, its incorrect to say that film is underdeveloped. Film is at a mature stage, while digital technology is in its infancy. Digital technology will surpass film in the near future, but right now, and most likely for at least a few more years, film still has superior dynamic range and superior contrast. Dynamic range is the difference between maximum and minimum signals the medium can record (in a nutshell), while contrast is the difference actually recorded on film. This means that the negative stores more information, and can reproduce more of the range of information it stores, both at the same time.

Digital on the other hand, probably does (in upper-end cameras) have resolution superior to all but the finest-grained films.. and it has that resolution at all "sensitivities" or "ISO speeds" (which are actually amplification factors, not sensitivities, and merely labelled "ISO" for convenience).

Now, to answer your first question, it's not that film is underdeveloped; rather, it's that it is approaching the limits of its potential, whereas digital has barely begun. Look at where digital is now in comparison to film, and where it was a couple of years ago, and it's easy to see that digital will soon be top dog. It just ain't quite grown-up enough just yet. However, it's possible to work within the constraints of the medium, taking advantage of its strengths--and exploit its weaknesses, too--to produce great imagery. We've been doing it for decades with film. Some of us, being the gluttons for punishment that we are, work with even more limited media and techniques, such as paper negatives and pinhole cameras, to produce some very nice and quite unique images. It's not what you've got, it's what you do with it, that counts.

As for your second question... I believe that slide film is usually finer-grained than color negative film of the same sensitivity, but I'm not sure. I rarely use slide film, so I'll defer to those more knowledgeable about it.

 

[JamesD]

Just to reiterate here... I'm not trying to start or assist with a film vs. digital debate here. I've tried to present a balanced, factual explanation of a few concepts that seem misunderstood or overlooked, without knocking or promoting either medium more than the other. Yes, I'm a film guy, but that's because I prefer it, not because I think digital is evil. And I can afford a film camera, but not a digital one.

Let's try to not get up in arms, try to remain civil, and hopefully each of us may attain enlightenment greather than what we already posess. Myself included.

 

[mysteryscribe]

Grain is your friend/// learn to use it...I have spoken

 

[Luke]

yeah yeah i get you, I'm no noob when it comes to flim, and I like it much more, MUCH more than digital in most respects, except when i want a grainless print, thats the only time i get annoyed.
First of all, yeah of course grain and noise are different, and i know that they are fixed sensitivty sensors, but, digital gets noise while film gets grainl, so really, theyre the same thing with the exception of this: digital noise looks crap, while grain is rather nice. when i asked why film was underdeveloped i was expressing surprise that the limits of a physical reproduction of the same size (35mm) were so different to the digital equivalent.
That being said.
Delta 100 with the 25A is friggin awesome and i wouldnt give up the ability to shoot handheld, silently, stealthily with no meter capturing street moments for the world and still being able to use images that are a stop under of over.
And yes, I would probably trade my film cameras for an EOS-1D mark II, It's an amazing cam!

 

[Jeff Canes]

I have little to add to this debated other that I agree with Matt that 35mm DSLR are already sharper that MF film.

 

[mysteryscribe]

Did you mean sharp or grainless. I m sure you didnt mean sharp did you.

 

[Jeff Canes]

Did you mean sharp or grainless. I m sure you didnt mean sharp did you.

Both , but mainly that digital is grain less and far sharper that film, he also applied that a good 35mm 8mp DSLR was sharper that MF film.

 

[mysteryscribe]

so a dslr with a bad lens is sharper than a medium format camera with a good lens thats interesting I had no idea. Now are we talking after it's printed on paper to or just when it is in digital format.

 

[Jeff Canes]

so a dslr with a bad lens is sharper than a medium format camera with a good lens thats interesting I had no idea. Now are we talking after it's printed on paper to or just when it is in digital format.

never say bad and I do not own any bad lenses ether, hope that don’t sound to pompous

 

[mysteryscribe]

I never met a lens I didn't like.... Or a bourbon either

 

[Jeff Canes]

I never met a lens I didn't like.... Or a bourbon either

you must have never owed an Quanteray lens, i need to go find so bourbon

 

[mysteryscribe]

never even heard of one..

 

[digital flower]

As such i was wondering, how did people shoot front covers for magazines etc predigital was it:

Disclaimer: this information predates the 90's

While growing up one of my neighbors had a small art studio on his property. He and about 10 other artist spent all day hunched over light tables with transparencies of pictures adding and deeping colors, taking out imperfections and generally 'photoshopping' the pictures by hand. He had contracts with several of the huge fashion magazines, Playboy (we weren't allowed to see) and others. As I remembered just about every picture from every issue, including the ads were touched up. So, at least some, of the magazine covers you saw were not straight from the camera. They underwent some processing before publication.

(being 14 i wasnt really paying attention for most of the 90's...)

I know what you mean. Like I said this was more like the 70's and I wished I had been paying more attention.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

How unusual. A mass debate about which is 'better' - digital or film.
Having worked professionally in Photography for over 30 years I had always assumed that that the most important thing was the picture.
I was obviously mistaken.
When people were looking at my pictures I now know they weren't admiring the image or the skill with which it was wrought, but were looking to see how much grain there was.
Right.
My personal opinion is that it doesn't matter a damn wether you use film or digital, get it grainy or grainless just so long as you get the image you want.

Several points:
If an image is being used for reproduction in a magazine or newspaper (and that is how most people see images) then it doesn't matter what state the image is in. The half-tone process used in offset litho printing generally homogenizes everything anyway.

Photographs for publication have always been retouched. In the 'old' days they used pencils, scalpels and chemicals on the neg. Now they use PS. The reasons and the results are pretty much the same though.

And if you want to know where digital is heading:
http://www.sinar.ch/site/index__0-e-1744-54-1865.html

I'm an old school film buff but I still think digital is wonderful: it's film and polaroid rolled into one with no farting around for days in the darkroom - and the results are immediate.
But then, I'm more interested in the image than the process.