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I'm sorry, this wasn't the precise article that I thought it was. Here are the exact quotes: "20 years from now we can re-scan our film and get 2029-level imag

by teilo 16y ago

I'm sorry, this wasn't the precise article that I thought it was. Here are the exact quotes: "20 years from now we can re-scan our film and get 2029-level image quality." ... "You can't go back to a raw file and get more resolution. With film, you don't have to make a resolution decision until you scan it. With film, you can scan at any resolution. With film, you can scan it again in 30 years with whatever technology we have then, because you still have your original raw image captured alive and well." ... "Real Raw needs no noise reduction. Details and textures are always crisp and clear on film." From: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/real-raw.htm http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/real-raw.htm

jacobolus 16y ago
Okay, that third one is nonsense, but it seems to me that you are deliberately misinterpreting the other two. The meaning which seems obvious to me is: “You’ll get whatever resolution a 2029 scanner can pull out of a piece of film, and you are therefore not limited by the scanners of 2009, because you’ll still have the original negative.” Anyway, low-ISO film has very very good resolution, I expect often exceeding the resolving power of the glass. So making it higher than that (that is, adding megapixels) doesn’t help anything. If you want higher resolution than a 4x5 negative (and I’m really not sure why you would, since a 4x5 negative will let you print crystal clear images at poster size or larger, so frankly this is all pretty academic and kind of a stupid argument), try an 8x10 negative. I’m almost certain there’s no widely available digital back that comes close to the resolution you’ll get. (If you had more money than you knew what to do with you might be able to get some kind of neat custom part or something). * * * Anyhow, Rockwell is an anti-raw-format zealot (he just does jpegs), as well as a view camera user, which is why the article you are linking to is doubly biased and stupid. But so what? If you figure out what his opinions are, it’s pretty easy to discount them when reading his essays; and, for instance, the essay you link can mostly just be ignored altogether.

by teilo 16y ago

jacobolus 16y ago

Okay, that third one is nonsense, but it seems to me that you are deliberately misinterpreting the other two. The meaning which seems obvious to me is: “You’ll get whatever resolution a 2029 scanner can pull out of a piece of film, and you are therefore not limited by the scanners of 2009, because you’ll still have the original negative.” Anyway, low-ISO film has very very good resolution, I expect often exceeding the resolving power of the glass. So making it higher than that (that is, adding megapixels) doesn’t help anything. If you want higher resolution than a 4x5 negative (and I’m really not sure why you would, since a 4x5 negative will let you print crystal clear images at poster size or larger, so frankly this is all pretty academic and kind of a stupid argument), try an 8x10 negative. I’m almost certain there’s no widely available digital back that comes close to the resolution you’ll get. (If you had more money than you knew what to do with you might be able to get some kind of neat custom part or something). * * * Anyhow, Rockwell is an anti-raw-format zealot (he just does jpegs), as well as a view camera user, which is why the article you are linking to is doubly biased and stupid. But so what? If you figure out what his opinions are, it’s pretty easy to discount them when reading his essays; and, for instance, the essay you link can mostly just be ignored altogether.