Film vs Digital (Again)

#1 Gordon Moat

Once again, Luminous Landscape shows why some call it Ludicrous Landscape. Too short, too simple, and leaves out too many aspects. Considering that most printing today is often digital in some aspect, regardless of film or digital source, failing to account for printing technology shows a lack of understanding. Basically, a disappointing article.

6:52 am - Saturday, July 23, 2005

#2 GARY POGODA

Thanks for the warning. I will NOT be reading that article, although surprisingly, I still have an opinion on the subject.

Since the advent of digital audio recording, there has been an ongoing debate within the recording industry as to which is better, analog tape or digital. The most obvious advantage of digital recording is the elimination of tape hiss (although there are now methods to put the tape hiss back into digital recordings, for sentimental reasons). A big disadvantage of digital recordings, at least with earlier ones, was their noticeably harsh sound compared to the warmth of analog tape due to tape saturation/distortion characteristics. Today, with advancements in digital recording techniques, including higher sampling rate (192 kHz vs. 44.1 kHz), and greater sample resolution (24 bits vs. 16 bits), that harshness has been eliminated. Even so, many professional digital recordings utilize front-end tube mics and preamps (tubes similarly have their own saturation/distortion characteristics) in an attempt to recreate the warmth previously imparted by analog tape. There are now even digital recording processors that can faithfully mimic tube and/or tape saturation.

So it is not a question of which medium is more accurate, but rather, which medium imparts the more pleasing characteristics. Based on this, it is my uninformed (since I did not read the article) opinion that, regardless of its resolution, film will always have a niche in photography due to the pleasing characteristics it imparts to an image ... that is, until digital can faithfully reproduce those characteristics.

1:45 pm - Sunday, July 24, 2005

#3 Lars Vinberg

While a comparison of physical resolution might be of interest from a scientific perspective, one has to ask what relevance it has for actual photography? Sure, my digicam has a very high photosite density in its sensor. Do the resulting images compare to my 8x10" Velvia chromes? Of course not. The reason is sensor size.

I would have expected more from Reichmann - surely he knows better? The article raises some questions regarding his agenda.

11:08 am - Monday, July 25, 2005

#4 GARY POGODA

I confess, your alluding to Reichmann's "agenda" piqued my curiosity, so I went back and read the article. I agree, his agenda was quite obvious, namely, to show off that gorgeous Norwegian Wood photo, although curiously, I did not see any bumble bees flying around in the branches ??? Maybe the image resolution was not high enough. He probably should trade in his P25 digital back for a P45 (or perhaps use film ).

4:47 pm - Monday, July 25, 2005