[filmscanners] Re: Canon IDs vs Pentax 67II

["David J. Littleboy" <davidjl@gol.com>]

"Arthur Entlich" <artistic-1@shaw.ca> writes:

>>>>>>>>>>
I think what the authors show is that a great deal of the size of a
scanned film is capture of the structure of the film (grain) which does
not necessarily provide more useful data, while the digital image is
pretty much "pure data", resulting in a much smaller file to work with.
<<<<<<<<<<

Reality check guy: printed at 450 dpi, 4000 dpi scans of Provia look pretty
good, but at 150 dpi digital looks less than wonderful. Those correspond to
identical size prints for 1Ds vs. 6x7 and D60 vs. 645.

All the article shows is that 255 ppi on an inkjet from digital looks quite
good, and if you mess up your MF scan, or printing thereof, it'll look
worse. Figuring res = 70% of Nyquist, 255 pp is 3.5 lp/mm. Sure that's not
"Leica quality", but it's about as good as inkjets get.

There's no way MF can be significantly better at that size.

>>>>>>>>>
  Further, if one is working with prints smaller than about 13 x 20 the
full frame (35mm) 11 megapixel sensor digital image wins against the
medium format film image in print quality, work flow and cost.
<<<<<<<<<

I don't see any reason digital should win at any print size. One, in
principle, ought to be able to exactly match the MTF that the printer needs
by downsampling/sharpening (or whatever) the far-higher-than-necessary
resolution source file and make optimal inkjet prints from scans. We (or is
it only MR?<g>) just don't know how to do that, yet.

But scanning _is_ an incredible pain. I took a dozen or so rolls over new
years and have barely got 3 or so scanned. And someday I might buy a 12x16
printer, so there's really not much point to 645 MF, were an 11MP digital
affordable.

>>>>>>>>>
In making larger size prints, the waters are a bit murkier,
<<<<<<<<<

What's murky? As above, at 450 dpi 4000 dpi scans look pretty good, but at
150 dpi digital looks yucky. (There is a bit of murkiness in that one
doesn't need all that much more quality than the 1Ds provides for a 20x30"
print as long as nobody gets too close, but for fine art photographers whose
gallery-hopping clients stick their noses in the prints they're considering
buying, I doubt the 1Ds would be acceptable.

David J. Littleboy
davidjl@gol.com
Tokyo, Japan

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