[filmscanners] Re: Compression >> Wide range digitalcameras

["Bert Logan" <bert_logan@btopenworld.com>]

Julian Robinson wrote:
> [chop] disincentive to going fully
> digital.   My normal photography is with negative film for the reasons you
> state - to capture almost everything in a wide brightness range, and work
> on it later to produce an acceptable contrast final image.  This can't work
> with "normal" digital cameras because they have to produce the "acceptable"
> contrast image first up, in doing so they have to throw away a lot of good
> information.

Precisely my problem with Dig Cams at the moment - its not the
snap at that point in time that is necessarily the one I want.
The safety net of neg films range is also a means of delivering
more data to be creative with. Snapping with a digital camera
and taking the image provided might give more 'perfect' pictures,
but removes an element of the creativity.

As someone churning his way through a huge negative collection
garnered over 20 years I realize that those images that werent
the perfect ones are capable of providing something through
this analogue medium. I would surely, as most people now do,
have deleted the imperfections, blinded by the beauty of
the still flawed DigCam medium ... oh no - a vinyl user.

How many pictures arent perfect at the time, but are
gems 10 years later? A definte cultural change for
sure.

> So - is there a digital camera that allows you to record a
> wide-brightness-range raw file?  If not, why not?

The second problem. The storage (cam) requirements of, lets imagine,
a 20M pixel CCD with 16 bits in each channel, RAW, ready for
some curve manipulation - well, I know for sure that this will
come with the technology advances - but (as Tony and others have
pointed out) it will take time, money, and we will lose attributes
that make film unique, that square pixels cant match.

As for us filmscanner users, what do we really need? Something
with more pixels? More range, less noise? Cams are catching up
fast.

I wish I could attach a picture I found in a brutally underexposed
negative I scanned the other day - a stunning & beautiful
ex girlfriend giving me a look to die for - that I couldnt ask
her to do a second time around. The proverbial 'kodak' moment,
one DigCams havent quite got to yet.

bert

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