[filmscanners] RE: Compact Cameras

["LAURIE SOLOMON" <LAURIE@advancenet.net>]

While I do not usually engage in this sort of comparative reviewing of
products nor in the recommending of them, I will make two general
observations from my experiences, which need to be taken with a grain of
salt since they entail my biases and preferences.

First, even at today's stage in technology, I do not find digital black
and white to be all that satisfactory be it captured with a digital
camera or scanned in via a scanner.  I find that both the monitor
displaying and the hard copy printing of digital black & white to be
full of problems that result in much additional work to correct or
minimize or in less than satisfactory quality.  Issues such as the
ability of dye based inkjet prints or pigmented inkjet prints to render
the images with true rich blacks with little bronzing or metemerism with
clean neutral whites without warm or cold color casts, the tendency to
emphasize grain structure, aliasing, and noise when rendering the image,
and the frequent exhibiting of color artifacts in the form of stray
color pixels that appear.  To be sure, some of this will be found with
B&W film based captures that are scanned and reproduced just as it is
with the digital camera captures since these issues seem to revolve
around the rendering and reproduction stages rather than the capture
stages; but I have found the problems easier to deal with when scanning
B&W films and rendering them into monitor displays and prints than is
the case with digital camera captures.  This is especially true given
that there are a number of varying film types and speeds to use that are
better for different subjects and scan with differing results with
respect to some of the problems mentioned like emphasis of grain
structure, aliasing, and noise which is not true for digital camera
unless one has an arsenal of different digital cameras to select from
that use different sensors in different configurations.

However, secondly, for color, I have been quite impressed at the
results; and if my experiences are any example, I think that the
technology has reached a stage where film versus digital becomes a toss
up when comparing small format cameras. I have been using as a personal
digital camera which I use for snapshots a Nikon 4300 4 megapixel
digital camera. While it is an older model of the point and shoot
digital cameras which may not be on the market anymore, I have been
quite amazed with the quality of the color images it is able to capture
even after those images have been enlarged and printed both full frame
at 16 x 20 inches as well as only a cropped section of the frame at 16 X
20 inches.  I expected the image to fall apart, display a prominent dot
pattern, be soft, and contain numerous color artifacts; this was not the
case. The prints did show some of the same sorts of printing problems as
B&W when they were made with inkjet printers but did not come off as
pronounced as was the case with grayscale images.  Unlike the B&W, you
did not have to go to as many extraordinary measures to remedy or
minimize the printing issues.  However, when I had the images enlarged
and printed using one of the hybrid printing process like the LED
Chromira printer printing to traditional Fuji color photographic paper -
gloss or luster - the prints displayed none of the problems that I saw
with the inkjet color prints which I made. Thus, I think a 7 megapixel
camera should serve you well for color images.

I cannot comment on the remarks by others about a deterioration in the
quality of current point and shoot digital cameras due to a cheapening
ion sensors and sensor design as compared to the older ones like the
Nikon 4300.  But I can say that professionally I also use a Nikon D100
and a Kodak Pro 14/n and have found that the quality of the image output
of the Nikon 4300 is every bit as good, although it will not stand the
degree of enlargement of cropped sections as the other cameras and does
not have the flexibility that they have with interchangeable lenses.
However, the Nikon 4300 cost me new $499 US while the Nikon D-100 cost
$1,000 US used and the Kodak Pro 14/n ran $2,400 US used.




----Original Message----
From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk] On Behalf Of
Al@greenspace.freeserve.co.uk
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2005 10:46 AM
To: laurie@advancenet.net
Subject: [filmscanners] Compact Cameras

> Hi,
>
> I know this question has been asked in the past (and slightly
> off-topic) but times change so I'd thought I'd raise it again.
>
> I recently read an article about a photographer who started
> out with digital (Fujifilm S2 Pro) but then switched to
> medium format for colour and to an Olympus XA for 35mm black & white.
>
> The latter part caught my eye as I use an XA for its size and
> portability, albeit with slide film.  I like the XA and its
> exposure is normally reasonable but always feel restricted by
> the lack of manual exposure.  (I often use a hand held meter
> with my "proper" cameras.)  Additionally, although I enjoy
> occasional scanning - I have a Minolta Scan Elite - it is
> just too time consuming.
>
> As a result, I have been seriously considering retiring the
> XA for one of the latest generation of 7 megapixel digital
> compacts like the Canon S70, which not only has manual
> controls but can also output in RAW format.
>
> So my question is this: have digital compacts reached the
> stage yet where they can give film compacts like the XA a run
> for their money on image quality?  I'd be interested in
> hearing any experiences list members may have on this.
>
> (I can't really give a print size for a comparison as I don't
> always print my slides but the scanner can produce images
> roughtly 3800 x 2500 pixels and the XA lens is surprisingly
> sharp for its size.)
>
>
>
> Al Bond
>
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