[Leica] Digital vs. Film

[jimbrick@photoaccess.com (Jim Brick)]

At 07:33 AM 5/7/98 -0500, Eric wrote:
>
>>Currently available cheap digital cameras are great for newspapers, web
>>sites, ID badges, drivers licenses, etc... Currently available very
>
>Jim,
>
>Have you used the cheap digital cameras? The current king of digital, the
>EOS520 or Kodak EOS2000 (same thing) that costs $11,500 minus hard drives
>and batteries, and is just barely up to newspaper repro.
>

>Eric Welch

Sorry... I should have left newspapers out of the list.

I don't use the things. I just design their internals. One thing that
people don't realize is that if you have a 1024x1024 pixel CCD in a color
digital camera, you don't get 1024x1024 pixels of resolution. There are
Red, Green and Blue pixels. So each point of resolution, takes three
(actually four) pixels. Pretty much cuts the actual (physical) resolution
by four. So advertized megapixel  resolution is not really megapixel
resolution.
It is going to be a long time before true hi-res *inexpensive*
digital sensors are available. To make a photo sensor as small as a silver
halide grain, and get them in a massive matrix, is going to be tough. In
any CCD (or CMOS) sensor matrix, there is a percentage of bad cells. Does
your film have a percentage of bad silver halide grains? Are there vacant
holes in your film? Usually not. Interpolation fills in missing electronic
pixels. If you capture raw pixels, you then have to use something like
Photoshop.

Digital photography is not simple. Good digital photography is not simple
and not cheap. Outstanding digital photography is not simple, not cheap,
and not available.

This is why drum scanners (to scan your FILM in very very high res.) will
be with us for a very long time. To make an outstanding 16x20 digital
print, start with FILM, drum scan it, Photoshop it, then print it on an
Iris, LightJet 5000, or other high end ink jet or laser printer. If you have a
spare quarter million dollars, you can get all of these toys and have just
a little left over to buy FILM.

You have to start with film. And it'll be that way for a long time.

IMHO, there's nothing nicer than looking at a print from your B&W negs,
coming up in the developer tray, or looking at your transparencies with a
6x loupe. Then making Cibachrome (Ilfochrome to the uninformed) prints from
selected transparencies. It's tough to beat the looks of a good Ilfochrome
Classic print.

Jim