What is bad with Digital?

[vondo]

Layers on film vs side by side pixels in digital.

The equivalent to layers in film would be a single pixel that reacted like the layers of film to a single point of light. The side by side arrangement of the pixels we have now produces a different look than the single spot of light on the layers of film. I think the single spot exposure on something that is layered produces a truer representation than 3 pixels picking up light from 3 close but not exact points of light. These three channels are then combined to produce the digital image. A single point of light that would cause a single pixel to react to all wavelengths would be more like film and "smoother" rather than "harsh" as the OP was observing. This is what I was addressing.

The value of the color would be dependent on the quality and properties of the pixel just like different types, formulations, and manufacturers of film made images turn out slightly different. This would effect saturation and other color related parameters, which I was not addressing.

There are sensors that work this way. The Foveon sensor in Sigma dSLRs does this.

 

[RonFrank]

How do you think film works? You don't have a definable spot that adopts different colours. The emulsion has layers which respond to different colours, hence the term (that has been adopted in digital photography) of "saturation".

Film has grain, but it does not yield blocks of RBG like digital does. However you must magnify a digital image way beyond that is visitable on a print to see the digital blocks assuming one is shooting at a high resolution using a good camera DLSR camera.

Most high end PnS digital camera's compare very favoribly to film, but I can not vouch for some of the 3.3mpix era PnS cameras.

The end result is that digital images best film images. Luminous Landscapes has been comparing medium format digital to large format film for some time. The results are that digital kicks film tail, and digital medium format compares or beats a 4x5 film image in most cases.

Die hard film fanatics don't want to believe this, but believe me, I WAS a die hard film user for a long time, and it just takes a good look to admit to the difference.

 

[SeaYoda]

There are sensors that work this way. The Foveon sensor in Sigma dSLRs does this.

I knew some manufacturers were working on them but I couldn't wait for the prices to come down when I got the itch to upgrade to DSLR. Have you seen any pictures from them and does it really make a difference in picture quality?

 

[SeaYoda]

Just did a quick search and found these on the DPreview site:

What we are used to:

New sensor:

old ....................................new

If the image quality is to be believed then less manipulation will be needed post camera to acheive the look we all desire - less "harsh".

 

[Larry C]

I don't like people that suck taking pictures, but know photoshop. I do not, and will not photoshop any of my photo's. Only editing I do is crop. That said, even with film you can do a lot of manipulation for back scatter and so on.

That's kind of an elitist attitude, don't you think? You don't have to "suck taking pictures" to use Photoshop to good effect. No camera is perfect, no picture is perfect. In real life, things get screwed up sometimes. I recently took a picture of a snail for my divemaster on Utila. He had never seen one before in 8 years diving the island. Thankfully, I took it in RAW. The picture was straight down into white sand. My sync cord had failed the day before, leaving me with no choice but to aim my strobes to center, as I didn't have a fiber optic cord, and the strobes weren't responding well optically at my normal position. I had my camera set to maximum slave for the same reason. Both pictures were white outs. I processed them in my RAW conversion program, turning the exposure way down and the contrast way up. I had to adjust the levels and add some saturation in Photoshop, but when I got done, you couldn't tell the original exposure wasn't perfect. They were as good as or better than the ID book originals that one of the authors of the Caribbean Slug Book used to help Matt ID
them. Try that one with film sometime. By the way, it was a night dive as well.

Gaudy Natica Moon Snail (Natica Canrena)

 

[Nemrod]

I think several people think I am comparing my P&S vs something else. No, I am comparing various film to digital using as comparable media as I have, a slide projector and a digital projector. It would serve no purpose to demonstrate here as I said because for me to put the film images here I would have to scan them into digital media which then converts them into the same media and with the same defects--if they are defects.

As I said, I was simply trying to explore the dark side of digital, not debunk digital and champion film. Anybody that thinks digital is superior to film in ALL respects is kidding themselves. Nothing is perfect and rarely completely superior. But more than that, neither good nor bad, how do the images differ between the medias? No reason for people to have a meltdown, we are just having a campfire discussion.

I am still very interested in exposure latitude and signal to noise ratios as well. How do they improve across the digital spectrum from P&S to dslr etc?

N

 

[Nemrod]

I quote this from an expert digital photog:
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"Proponents of digital cameras talk about how much latitude digital photography has compared to slide film. This is, in fact, true - but it is true for the shadow areas. At most, when it comes to highlights, a one f/stop overexposure is all you get before there is a total loss of detail. Furthermore, if you are shooting in JPEG mode, this will be less. JPEG has even less tolerance for overexposure than shooting in RAW. If you shoot in JPEG, your chances of holding detail in the highlights are not very good"
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This is what I am talking about regarding this issue that I notice quite a bit. For discussion, how does this compare and improve from P&S to dslr. I have read through numerous reviews and I am not seeing the improvment in specs alluded to but I am sometimes terrible at finding good specs.

N

 

[vladimir]

I do not, and will not photoshop any of my photo's. Only editing I do is crop.

I am curious to see your portfolio.

 

[vondo]

Just did a quick search and found these on the DPreview site:

What we are used to:

New sensor:

old ....................................new

If the image quality is to be believed then less manipulation will be needed post camera to acheive the look we all desire - less "harsh".

I read the same article. I've never used such a camera or really seen pictures with one, but my take from that article is that a 5 Mpix camera like that is the equivalent of about a 10 MPix standard digital camera, not 20 as you might expect from the layout. Also, the consensus in that article seemed to be that the colors were not as rich, especially as you go up in ISO because the last layer is getting very filtered light.

But all that's academic for me as I have a lot invested in Canon gear. So if Canon decides this is the best thing, I will probably have one at some point and if not, then probably not.

 

[fppf]

I'm not an "elitist", I'm not perfect either.
Thats my point. Nothing in the real world is "perfect". But people have this notion that the shot must be perfect, no back scatter, perfect color, perfect balance.

I'm not a pro, (just a novice) but I really take pride in my photo's. It really, REALLY, torques me to no end when someone looks at mine or my wifes photo's and says "that took a lot of photo shop". And people have that image of digital photography now. They think everything is photo shopped, touched up, and not real. Which to some end is true.

I would love to share my real, yet imperfect porfolio. I just have not had the time to scale the images and uploaded them. Someday, maybe when the house is done and all my projects are done. Or if I get board.