Hi studio. I have done it.. but I have an S5pro which has very accurate ISO settings (go check DXO) the other DSLRs lie a bit about ISO ie they say ist 3200 when its only 2400. I don't know about the D7000. I think it may be a bit more accurate but You should test it out.. as to the process . yes it works quite well if you have lenses of the same aperture other wise you will need mental maths !! note also that there is the issue of T vs F. So even if a lens has the same F-stop the T-stop may actually be different. If you want the most accurate exposure you should calibrate the lens with the camera using an exposure meter. then you will know for sure. Yeah its a shame the T-stops are not given with the nikkor lenses.
Film vs Digital
(113 posts) (45 voices)-
Posted 2 years ago #
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studio460 said:
Thanks for your reply, bjrichus, but I actually wasn't referring to the metering at all. What I mean is, if you shoot the identical scene with the identical lighting, using the same lens, at the same f/stop, for any given ISO, how closely would the resulting exposures match? In other words, can DSLRs serve the same purpose that a Polaroid back served when used to test exposure on a medium-format camera?Maybe a better way to ask it is this: are modern ISO ratings on DSLRs, a close enough analog to their film ISO counterparts? Is ISO100 on a D7000 equally as sensitive as an ISO100-rated film? It's an ISO standard, so I would assume the answer is yes. Again, there will differences in the characteristic curve: digital may see better into the shadows (longer toe); film should retain more highlight detail (extended shoulder). But in general, if the ISO did their job, than at minimum, Zone V should be represented at about the same place in both media, right?
I wrote two long responses about what I found with my set up and deleted both after much re-reading and editing. If my experience is typical, what you are suggesting mostly holds true *in theory*.
Not all gear performs equally and (as you obviously know), film and digital act differently. If you are shooting medium/large format film and want to use a DSLR to be a Polaroid, considering that you won't be shooting through the SAME lens (I am assuming you have the two cameras side-by-side), then I'd be interested in finding out how close you get. I guess I am chickening out on saying it's going to work... as it SHOULD work (mostly), but your mileage may vary...
Posted 2 years ago # -
Film has waaay more dynamic range then any digital camera. With negative film even if you under or overexpose you can still recover detail out of a shot. Kodak's new Portra 400 and 160 films can be pushed/pulled several stops with no problem. For example you can shoot Portra 400 film at 1600 or 100 etc.
Posted 2 years ago # -
NikoDoby's statement on film latitude versus digital is very important, and obviously very true. I do feel though that the ability to chimp through the images just taken and reset if you are over or under is significant. Also the ability of digital cameras to adjust from shot to shot the ISO is an edge film just does not have. Also the extinction of Kodachrome is also a warning sign to those who still use film and love it. I had switched to Fujichrome and then to Fujicolor due to the greater latitude, but needing to send my work to a pro lab who I trusted and then worry about it getting lost was for me a real problem. Today I would scan any image valuable enough before I sent it out for further work.
Posted 2 years ago # -
DaveyJ Also the extinction of Kodachrome is also a warning sign to those who still use film and love it.
Bogus.
Kodachrome used a convoluted development process unshared with anything else. The only thing it is a warning sign to is that fringes get trimmed. The standard chemistries are in no immediate danger.Posted 2 years ago # -
+1 with Drab. Negative film will give you much more exposure room than slide film will too. Slide film behaves more like a digital camera.
Posted 2 years ago # -
>> Bogus.
Kodachrome used a convoluted development process unshared with anything else.Agreed, it was a white dinosaur that was not all that healthy even before digital came along.
>> The only thing it is a warning sign to is that fringes get trimmed. The standard chemistries are in no immediate danger.
I guess the operative word there is "immediate." The five liter E-6 chemistry is gone (guess that must have been a 'fringe' too ;-), wonder how long the others will last?
Posted 2 years ago # -
You have to wonder though how long companies will be allowed to make the chemicals to develop film. Most of those chemicals are not very environmentally friendly.
Posted 2 years ago # -
NikoDoby said:
+1 with Drab. Negative film will give you much more exposure room than slide film will too. Slide film behaves more like a digital camera.Ive been saying that for years to the nutcases at the local community college. With B&W/C41 you lose detail in the blacks quicker than the whites. With E6 and digital it is the opposite as it peaks the histogram more often than your darks...
Also I like the fact that B&W/C41 film is more controllable and easy in high contrast situations, while the other 2 are much pickier.
I assume B&w, like wet plate, will never die (at least not in this half century) because their market isn't shrinking all that much. Consumers and most pros have already switched so that has mostly left serious amateurs, students, and niche pros to continue doing film which isn't shrinking too much. Also with the rise of digital making good instant pictures easy, many of the noobies have been sucked into camera nerdism and traditionalism creating a small but growing "retro" market. Oddly toy cameras are pretty trendy now like the diana
Posted 2 years ago # -
NikoDoby said:
Film has waaay more dynamic range then any digital camera. With negative film even if you under or overexpose you can still recover detail out of a shot. Kodak's new Portra 400 and 160 films can be pushed/pulled several stops with no problem. For example you can shoot Portra 400 film at 1600 or 100 etc.this is why they should up the bit rate or have an addon firmware that provides many of the color profiles and gamuts found in software like photoshop...
Posted 2 years ago # -
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heartyfisher said:
Hi studio. I have done it.. but I have an S5pro which has very accurate ISO settings (go check DXO) the other DSLRs lie a bit about ISO ie they say ist 3200 when its only 2400.Exactly. That's what I was getting at. If the manufacturers' ISO ratings on their DLSR dentente positions accurately correlated to ISO-standard sensitivities which could be associated with equivalent film sensitivities (all reciprocity, and other film anomolies aside).
heartyfisher said:
So even if a lens has the same F-stop the T-stop may actually be different. If you want the most accurate exposure you should calibrate the lens with the camera using an exposure meter.Yes, T-stops are more accurate. But T-stops vs. f-stops won't be an issue--I'll be using the exact same lenses on both bodies.
Posted 2 years ago # -
studio460 said:
I'm sure I would've enjoyed reading those posts anyway.You would? Oh! Sorry. I'll try and remember to PM you when I delete something next time.
I wrote about how I used digital to check where shadows fall and to use the highlight id feature to check where the hot spots are, verify composition... The film result is ALWAYS going to look different, as others also point out - film has a different sensitivity curve and how you can have it go further at the extreme ends.
Posted 2 years ago # -
studio460 said:
Exactly. That's what I was getting at. If the manufacturers' ISO ratings on their DLSR dentente positions accurately correlated to ISO-standard sensitivities which could be associated with equivalent film sensitivities (all reciprocity, and other film anomolies aside).It's NOT that sensitive of a difference when comparing it to film for the reasons that have already been mentioned. You are over analysing it.
Posted 2 years ago # -
studio460 said:
... if you shoot the identical scene with the identical lighting, using the same lens, at the same f/stop, for any given ISO, how closely would the resulting exposures match?Considering camera metering and hand held meters should match, it should be the case . However , I did have some doubts a while ago after I saw some bird shots made at 1/5000 f5.6 @ ISO 100 with a 400mm f2.8 in late afternoon - 5pm . It is against all I know about sunny 16 from film days . Maximum exposure in summer at noon used to be something like f16/22 1/125 at ASA 100 ; I don't remember ever going above 1/22 & 1/125 . The above works out to be something like f36 1/125 @ ISO 100 ...
Maybe it is lens specific ?? Remember all the fuss about ISO boost in f1.2 & f1.4 lenses .
Posted 2 years ago # -
Paperman said:
>> I saw some bird shots made at 1/5000 f5.6 @ ISO 100
>> It is against all I know about sunny 16 from film days.Well, the sunny 16 rule is pretty old... maybe it's time we adjusted it, what with the earth getting closer to the sun an' all... ;-)
Seriously tho, what was going on in the bird shots? I know you're supposed to add a stop for snow or sand but in my experience, sometimes it's more than a stop. In the case of water birds, sometimes reflections off the water's surface will add a lot of light too if the sun's in the right spot.
Other things could explain this as well. A lot of digital photogs are really paranoid about protecting the highlights so the image may have been underexposed and corrected later in software. Or the photographer just didn't report the stats correctly.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Why is f5.6 and 1/5000 at 100 so unusual? It's 1/5000 of a second versus 1/125th. Most film cameras back in the day of sunny 16 couldn't go over 1/500 of a second. Was the bird in flight against a bright sunny sky? I don't get it?
Posted 2 years ago # -
kyoshinikon said:
this is why they should up the bit rate or have an addon firmware that provides many of the color profiles and gamuts found in software like photoshop...You can describe a 10 stop dynamic range with 128 bits if you want, but it is still only 10 bits worth of information. Do not confuse accuracy with precision.
So long as digital has a narrower gamut than the range of possible films any in-camera processing would be a shift (1->1024 now equals 124->1147) or stretch (1->1024 now equals 16->16384). Nothing new is created, no data is gained. Since the DR limitation of digital is a physical constraint (today) the only solutions are physical manipulations (bracketed HDR is an example of a physical manipulation. the use of a gradient density filter is another.).
Save the parlor tricks for the Coolpix line, please.
Super Shooter said:
Why is f5.6 and 1/5000 at 100 so unusual? It's 1/5000 of a second versus 1/125th. Most film cameras back in the day of sunny 16 couldn't go over 1/500 of a second. Was the bird in flight against a bright sunny sky? I don't get it?Ignore the fact it was 1/5000th, and don't draw upon the irrelevant fact (focal plane) shutters didn't go that fast back when the sunny 16 rule-of-thumb was popularized. That doesn't matter.
The point of his anecdote was that the metadata of the digital shot shows the exposure being at least two stops outside the range one would have expected, leading Paperman to question just how well that digital camera's ISO ratings match with film ratings in real-world situations.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I didn't say anything about focal plane shutters. Back when sunny 16 was being used most if not all cameras used central or leaf shutters anyway. That wasn't my point though. As bhoveyga wrote the bird could have been on water, snow, or sand. How was the shot being metered? Paperman didn't give any details. So I still don't get how the digital shot was different than what he got on film.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Drab said:
The point of his anecdote was that the metadata of the digital shot shows the exposure being at least two stops outside the range one would have expected, leading Paperman to question just how well that digital camera's ISO ratings match with film ratings in real-world situations.
My sentiments exactly
Super Shooter said:
So I still don't get how the digital shot was different than what he got on film.I didn't say anything in that regard . You need to have shot in the film times to understand what I mean . All I'm saying is I never ever shot anything where there was more light than a 1/125 f22 ASA100 exposure ( EV 16 )on the brightest summer day at noon on beach ( almost what sunny 16 will work out to ) - and this was with a 4-5 element 50mm prime .Yet these days , I see exposures equivalent to 1/125 f36 @ISO 100 ( EV 17.5 ) with a 16 element 400mm and it is not even noon .
Posted 2 years ago # -
While I'm with you, Paperman, let's play devil's advocate.
How much of that 2, 3, even 4 stops was made up in printing? I'd love to test (properly with a nice set of gray target fields and a densiometer) because my gut feels the same way you do. BUT I no longer have anything but paid access to a darkroom (I scan) for printing, and I think I need to make a lot of prints to "prove" either side.
One can abuse the heck out of a small print w/o substantial quality loss.
So, back to the query which started this, I use my digital camera as a "Polaroid" for my 35mm film (B+W negative) camera all the time. It's accurate enough and since the head and tail of film are more forgiving I wouldn't see any minor error anyway.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I have to agree with you Drab as I initially stated that a clash between hand held meters ( which come from film times & SLRs ) and DSLR's metering would be unacceptable .
My suspicion is more lens specific ISO boost as previously discussed in forums. If anyone here had a 300/400/600mm fast tele lens , he could do the comparasion on SLR & DSLR bodies and let us know :-)
Posted 2 years ago # -
Paperman said:
My suspicion is more lens specific ISO boost as previously discussed in forums.A simpler test would be to mount any non-CPU lens on a digital camera w/o physical aperture coupling and lie to the body. This would prevent the Nikon firmware from "correcting" for anything. Using a revering ring is probably the easiest way for most people. Then you can perform the identical test on a film body and on a digital body. Both shot in manual mode, of course. Controlled lighting situation, no meter.
The problem I see (please correct me) is that one would need to test with subjects in zone 3->8 to stay in the most linear part of film's response. And since most people calibrate their negative development to zone 5, how much are you going to see? I guess that's really a parallel point. A film's ISO rating for the portion of its dynamic range captured by digital is very dependent on development processes/times. Unless we're talking zone 5 gray targets shot at rated ISO and developed with the manufacture's rated developer at the exact rated time and temp, the "rated" ISO is off.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Drab said:
So, back to the query which started this, I use my digital camera as a "Polaroid" for my 35mm film (B+W negative) camera all the time. It's accurate enough and since the head and tail of film are more forgiving I wouldn't see any minor error anyway.Thanks for your reply!
Drab said:
The problem I see (please correct me) is that one would need to test with subjects in zone 3->8 to stay in the most linear part of film's response. And since most people calibrate their negative development to zone 5, how much are you going to see? I guess that's really a parallel point. A film's ISO rating for the portion of its dynamic range captured by digital is very dependent on development processes/times. Unless we're talking zone 5 gray targets shot at rated ISO and developed with the manufacture's rated developer at the exact rated time and temp, the "rated" ISO is off.Exactly! Well-said, Drab!
All I wanted to know was a gross estimation of how closely Zone V would "match" on both media, given identical ISO ratings (e.g., ISO 100-400). I'd assume they'd be similar (at least for that zone), but since I've never done it before, I thought I'd see if anyone experienced anything unexpected.
Posted 2 years ago # -
for me nothing unexpected besides having to do mental maths as my lenses were of different apertures and the camera couldn't get down to iso 50 :-) .. my maths is not good so I decided if I were to do this often I would write a phone app to do these calculations for me :-) then I had to decide which phone to get that had the nice enough development kit to make the task fun. of course by the time I looked in to that and decided on an android phone, I had to investigate the best tools for my linux PC to do that. In the mean time I decided to rebuild my PC to install windows 7. For that I had to investigate the whole new bunch of harddisks now available and deciding if I would go for a SATA3 or a sata2 2TB disk.. so ... still have not written my app yet! LOL!
Posted 2 years ago #
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