Personally, I found the following the most interesting:
"From these tests, it is my opinion that digital cameras will match Fujichrome Velvi 35mm film when they reach more than about 10 megapixels. Somewhere in the 12-16 megapixels will produce color image quality comparable to 35 mm film (this is a compromise of more intensity detail and less color detail than film). Somewhat fewer megapixels, approximately 8-10 Mpixels will match 35mm film intensity detail but at below 35mm film color detail.
"Medium format film: about 50 digital camera megapixels are need to match Fujichrome Velvia in 6 x 4.5 cm.
"Large format: more than 200 digital camera megapixels are need to match 4x5 Fujichrome Velvia film. How much more needs futher testing."
Guess it depends on who you want to believe. this guy's testing shows that "The 10D 6mp camera image quality approaches and in some cases may equal or exceed Provia F film scan quality at 4000 dpi" and "the Canon 1Ds 11mp DSLR exceeds 4000dpi 35mm film scan quality by a considerable amount. In fact, in some photographic situations 1Ds image quality may be competitive with a 4X5 camera image when the 4X5 chrome is scanned with a fixed focus scanner like the Epson 2450." See for example, this page that compares the 10D, 1Ds and Provia F ISO 100 scanned with a Nikon film scanner at 4000dpi.
So here's my dilema on this subject. I have recently switched to shooting almost everything with the 1Ds, except for my cityscape shots. I use anywhere from 5 -12 min exposures. So I use my pentax 67 and velvia. Has anybody experimented with very long exposures and digital? The last time I did the noise was terrible...
So here's my dilema on this subject. I have recently switched to shooting almost everything with the 1Ds, except for my cityscape shots. I use anywhere from 5 -12 min exposures. So I use my pentax 67 and velvia. Has anybody experimented with very long exposures and digital? The last time I did the noise was terrible...
With a canonD60 I get reasonably acceptable night shots up to about 5 minutes before its swamped in sensor supply noise and general thermal noise. I've heard that D10 can do slightly better.
Image stacking does wonders for random noise. the amont of this type of noise is reduced by the square root of the number of exposures, e.g. averaging four exposures gives a 2x reuction.
For an additional noise reduction opportunity, perform dark frame subtraction to reduce fixed pattern noise. the combination yields awesome results.
MWAHAHAHAHA -- knew I could get you guys to do some research for me. *grin*
Course, nobody on here is gonna find any articles that say that film is better, so I guess only half my research is done. ;-)
In all seriousness, thanks for the links to the articles folks.
I'd love to find some comparisions on colour quality too - digital is becoming increasingly cartoony to my eye - I suspect this is partly due to too accurate representation of the scene, compared to the vagaries of film
