Comments on: Nikon D700 vs. Nikon F5

By: Robert Capa

Robert Capa — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:14:41 +0000

You cannot compare digital vs film. With film, one unit of capturing light is MOLECULE, and you don´t just make a digital sensor in size of molecule! Second thing is, film doesn´t have any levels of brightness, like digital. Where digital has 1024 levels or whatsoever, film always has 1 000 000 times more, as it is analogue, and film photo IS A REAL THING, digital is just a bunch of bytes and ones and zeroes. Other thing is, if digital is printed digitally, film should be enlarged as it is, you JUST CAN´T COMPARE digital in its natural form, and film, scanned from analogue to digital and than vv back to real thing on digital printer. Next thing is, they might have used a 1$ minolta vx film, and no one would even get to know. And if majority of DSLRs is made with small sensors, and majority of film SLRs are made for 35mm => so these few with fullframe sensor should be compared to those few made for 6×6 (120/220 or whatever) film. I own F5 myself, and try to see what happens if your D700 falls on the floor. Crack, and you´re done.

By: Steve Turrell

Steve Turrell — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:54:09 +0000

Vinyl is better than CD , when cd came out most people had very cheap turntables in a midi centre i had a good turnatable & cd sounded crap. CD is far better today but so is Vinyl.
Vinyl is still the best but you have to spend a fortune several thousand pounds & up to compete with a CD system that is a third the price .
Film is still the best untill you put it through a scanner.
I prefer a film look i’m allways adding film grain to photos in Photoshop

By: Steve Turrell

Steve Turrell — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:44:23 +0000

Digital wins at 35mm perhaps a 50 iso film could match the D700?
but digital gives you more dynamic range than slide & if you want more you can use HDR.
Medium format film i expect would be better than a 35 mm DSLR & Large Format
film is far better.
In 10 years i expect the debate will be digital whether 35mm or medium format against large format & maybe we will be debating are cameraphones better than a D700

By: David Henry

David Henry — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:02:02 +0000

This video is amusing but utterly unconvincing otherwise. Obviously both prints are digital, so naturally the huge print made from the negative taken with the F5 was made from a scan. So this calls in to question the scan… there are so many scanners, scanning software, ways of preparing the scan before printing (with Photoshop for instance), that if there was such a difference… might this not call in to question the competence of the person(s) doing that work?

Making a fine quality print of any size in a 100% non-digital process requires someone very good in the darkroom with an enlarger, something I never mastered in color, myself.

I did a panorama that got printed 11×36 meters, a montage of about eight pictures, each scanned at 4,000 dpi (20 megapixels) with my Nikon Coolscan 5, for a total of 108.4 megapixels (310 megabytes in 8-bit tiff format).

Is it better than digital? Who knows, I never saw the print, the client was very happy with the result, what’s for certain, cameras that provide that much resolution cost more than 8,000 dollars/euros in the summer of 2008 when I took the pictures (that much resolution costs 2700 dollars/euros in December 2008), while the scanner costs 700 euros/dollars. You can see the panorama, along with a photograph of it on stage behind 88 musicians, at
http://www.davidphenry.com/Paris/paris462.htm

—David Henry

By: fotosniper

fotosniper — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:39:58 +0000

D lighting on film? umm thats, umm how do you say, IMPOSSIBLE!

By: I should be shooting

I should be shooting — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:15:26 +0000

Actually, I’m pretty impressed that the 400 ASA film looks as good as it does blown up to building size. And for a heck of a lot cheaper, too. My Leica fits in my pocket – I get shots with that old thing that I just couldn’t get with my large DSLRs.

Also, I would never do a comparison test with hand-held cameras, even at 1/250. Nice dent in the F5 prism, now that’s a camera

By: Nobody Special

Nobody Special — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:45:15 +0000

Good points. But I should have mentioned that 90% of my portfolio is Transparencies in 35, 6×6 and 6×7. Archival to me means that with proper ‘average’ care, my images from 25 years ago are as good as the ones from 25 days ago. I don’t have the same amount of ‘worry’ that goes with long-term, digital storage.

Scanning equipment of some type will always be available to help with the ‘dinosaurs’ like me and the ‘hard positives and negatives’ we still have. By then, digital data storage will be perfected (I assume) but for now – it feels better – and I really don’t need the post processing – there isn’t much (if any) room for mistakes with a transp. which slows me down and helps me to concentrate – I like that.

By: Stig

Stig — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:11:06 +0000

Does this blow up test really tell anything? Not much. If the comparison should be valid I think the testers shall use the best possible film – say Vevlia 50 exposed at ISO 40 – compared with the best possible setting on the digital camera. How will film look against digital if bout were exposed at ISO 3200 or 12600 – like matching a Ferrari against a Skoda.

In addition one also needs to shoot bout studio and oudoor/field images – using shaping/controlled light versus ambient.

Since the D700 has the best RAW files (proved by DXO labs at http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/DxOMark-Sensor/Camera-rankings) it is the right camera against the F5. This will give the information they search for. And my guess is that the 24 mp sensor, and more, indeed is needed if digital shall take on Velvia.

By: David Campbell

David Campbell — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:26:57 +0000

This exercise is merely comparing a digital sensor with a digital scan of film.
Which type of film scanner was used?
It is also a very crude comparison – a high quality print at A3 size critically examined would have been appropriate.
This video is entertainment and not a serious comparison.

By: oogabooga

oogabooga — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 04:18:08 +0000

OK, I watched the video in length now. They’re in a studio with all the lighting they’d ever need and they use ISO 400? Everyone knows digital outperforms film at that speed, so that pretty much negates the entire experiment.

They didn’t even tell us what brand of film they used. They’re using top-of-the-line digital equipment, so it needs to be compared to top-of-the-line film, not a top-of-the-line film camera.

By: oogabooga

oogabooga — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 04:07:23 +0000

I just have to say, the guy in that video is holy-crap-ugly.

By: Micah

Micah — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:05:01 +0000

If film goes the way of the dodo, what will you print it with? Will you always be able to find an optical printer or a film scanner?

Where there’s a will there’s a way, but it may not be easy in the future.

Just some food for thought about what makes something “archival”.

By: Nobody Special

Nobody Special — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:10:37 +0000

Ouch!!!

Lots of ‘excited’ comments here. The digital showed less grain and more detail – okay – so? I mean, how would the images look at a fourth of that size? Unless I missed hearing, was the image JPEG or RAW, was there post=processing and how much? Was the film processed at the ‘five and dime’ or with fresh chemistry?

Even at a fourth size, the images would be what – 20′ x 30′? So in short, how real-world relevant is the test? Even more so, would the digital image be ‘harsh at let’s say, 2′ x 3′? Looks like a waste of ink and ‘paper’ to me. BYTW, I still prefer film, then scanned when I need to; for storage; and to keep away from equipment obsolescence; (which is ridiculous) and because unless I want to have ridiculously ginormous enlargements – what’s the point?

By: lyr

lyr — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:39:47 +0000

Sorry, maybe I made some mistakes in my explanation, english is not my native language.

But if you want to discuss more about that topic (analog vs digital or data vs reality) here is a mail you can use: lyr_ayegans at hotmail dot com

Regards,

By: John M. Roberts

John M. Roberts — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:22:34 +0000

For my interests I was not impressed with the comparisons. Had they used a finer grain slide film then that would have been a better balance. I have no doubts that at higher ISO’s, digital would be preferred. At this stage I would reach for my digital then my 35 film camera. I’m not yet letting loose of my med. and large format film though. I am most curious to see a comparison of a 67 medium velvia 50 sample to digital side by side in 30×40 inch prints. I have seen some very impressive large digital prints. When I upgrade from my entry level dSLR I will do some tests. Till then, I’d love to see some side by side examples if you have any links to share.

By: r-dog

r-dog — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:15:02 +0000

Wow. To me it looks like that photog chase jarvis’d those pictures. They’re all CJ like. Hmm, but you’re right. Oh Ok, I forgot.

By: SeriousDude

SeriousDude — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:26:37 +0000

Seriously. The D80 is nothing but a soccer mom camera and the D90 is a gimmick. Plus, have you seen the test results for the D90? So. Soft. I swear, if Nikon doesn’t roll out something groundbreaking like the D3 I’m going to jump ship…

By: r-dog

r-dog — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:20:56 +0000

That can’t be true, there is no way nikon is putting 1080p on the new f7, that makes no sense. They’ll just stick with the 720p and keep the 1080 for the d3x. Also, those pictures don’t look like they were taken with anything but a d80. It’s odd to see model shots with a d80 since it is a soccer mom camera. And that model looks like a whore

By: SeriousDude

SeriousDude — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:11:50 +0000

New battery grip?

http://www.landbigfish.com/images/store/swatches/PBB-BladeBait.jpg

By: Chevypower

Chevypower — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:33:44 +0000

what the heck????????