Here is a test image from one of my film cameras on a test ballistic missile launch last Friday morning of the Minuteman III at Vandenberg AFB.

Ok, this looks nothing like a missile, reason is that I cannot post that on here, or at least that particular launch.

To get my lenses in focus, I use either the moon or one of the planets to focus on infinity. Infinity focus is the maximum focus you can get on a lens.

The lens I used on this shot is a 200 inch lens which is equivalent to 5080 millimeter lens. It is a fixed focal length and fixed apeture of F-8. So to change the exposure, you cannot open or close the F-Stops on these kind of lenses. On the camera, there are what is called DSO (Degree Shutter Opening). The wider the DSO is, the more light is allowed to expose the film. So we have to use Formulas to calculate the exposures.

This photo is done with a 35mm Motion Picture camera using a 1000 foot roll (304.8 meters) of color negative film. We normally shoot at about 100 frames per second but on this particular camera it can go as fast as 300 frames per second.

So getting away from all the technical mumbo jumbo, I was focusing on the moon and I ran a few feet of film but I advanced it by manually rotating the shutter. That is why the exposure is a bit off and there are some artifacts from film fog and some over exposure.

The Red numbers on the side are what we call timing lights. That allows the engineers to know the exact time in each frame. In case of a mishap, they can go frame by frame and note the exact time of the problem, all the way down to the millisecond. Then all the rest of the footage from different cameras and different tracking sites can be examined at that same exact time to look at the accident from different angles. All timing is GPS based by satellite, so the time is true time and all cameras on all the different tracking sites are synchronized.

Ok I think I bored you all!!! Anyways Enjoy the picture. I have plenty more and I will post them at a later time.

TNS

Noble Savage, call me mad if you want, but I enjoyed inmensely all the technical info. Being in love with film photography (slide film, particularly slow Kodachrome and Velvia), all that info is like wine to me, I enjoy it slowly and with pleasure. Lucky you that have access to such technology. By the way, what kind of film was used, and who develop the "humongous" lens...
Thanks for sharing this.
Cheers.

That was interesting, thank you. Great picture, too!

Bill

Hi Aaron,

Thank you very much for sharing this pic and the techie mumbo-jumbo. I always enjoy both, as I have an interest in photograpy from well before my teens . Especially now I finally picked up the thread again after a few years of nothing, it is absloutely great to read about photography and technique related to it!.
I still have all of my technical books on photography..

Warmest regards, Wim

Thanks Wimg!!! That is what this forum is for!!! Just a lot of people get a digital camera and they really do not know the fundamentals of photography nor do they know the elements of film. People want instant images and not have to deal with processing the film and then scanning it in to put it on the computer. Digital is very convenient and it really can give some outstanding images that can rival conventional film. When push comes to shove, film is far superior than digital, especially when it comes to enlarging images from 11X14 on up.

High Speed Digital Video is way behind the curve compared to Motion Picture. We are experimenting with some high speed digital video cameras and they cannot compete with Motion Picture. Not only in resolution but also frames per second and the amount of footage it can hold. So far 70mm digital is no where near useable. The CCD are not only not large enough but the technology is very far behind to include storage and frames per second. Give it about 8 years and then I can see our section going to video or at least a majority of our shooting. The problem is that the higher the resolution, the more storage the camera requires. The storage is not necessarily the issue, it is the buffer. The camera can only hold so much in the buffer before it has to dump it into the solid state memory stroage or the RAID drives. Once that happens, then all the footage that is stored in the buffer reaches its maximum capacity then it has to move it to storage. Well the camera cannot shoot anymore if it is dumping the footage to the storage. That is the major issue with the Digitial High Speed Video. Motion picture film is not only superior due to the resolution but also more practical due to the amount of film that can be shot but also the frames per second and also the hard copy of the film cannot be lost due to a technical glitch. It is perfect for archiving when it is stored in the right controlled environment.

As you can tell, digital has a very long way to go before it can replace film 100%. One good thing is that digital photography (still and Mopic) is in its infancy. It can only get better but until then, it definitely has major limitations!!

I too, enjoy tech talk when it comes to photography!! I am glad that this forum is here!!!

TNS

The film I used for this particular shot is 35mm motion picture film. Here are the specifics:

Kodak Vision VMD
Daylight Film
ISO 250 at exposure index 19
This is ECN-2 Processing, different than C-41
1866 Pitch (perf spacing)
1000 Foot Roll on a Core (Must be opened and loaded in complete Darkness)
Most if not all of our mopic film is Ester based

My wife and her section sends out all ECN process film to Burbank for processing. We do not shoot enough ECN process film to buy a continuous processor. The chemistry has to constantly be tested and scratch tests need to be done daily. more maintinance than what it is worth. Cheaper to contract out that portion of the processing.

Now for all of the C-41 process film, that is done in house by my wife and her section. They have a Colex C-41 processor that handles our Highspeed 16mm, 35mm and 70mm motion picture film and continuous still film. Anything that is process C-41, they take care of. This is cost effective because it is constantly used, chemistry is cheaper, easy to maintain and it is cheaper to do it in house than to contract it out.

The C-41 mopic film that we use is Kodak Portra 160NC Color neg film. ISO 160 and comes in 100 foot, 400 foot and 1000 foot Rolls. Most are on a core not daylight reels, so loading and unloading film has to be done in total darkness.

Depending on the camera, all the pitch are different. For example, the cameras that use the 100ft 70mm 160NC cannot use the 70mm 160NC on the 400 foot and 1000 foot rolls of film. Each size is made for a different camera due to the size of the magazine and the pitch. Sprocket spacing is different from one model of camera to another. So Kodak has to custom make our film with the correct pitch or else it will jam up and break the movements thus causing hundreds of thoussands of dollars in damage. The cameras we use range anywhere between $95,000 to 1.5 million dollars each.

Film is not cheap either. The 1000 foot roll of 35mm film runs around $1,000 a can. So mistakes are very costly!!! The 35mm film on the Mopic cameras cannot be used in a standard 35mm SLR camera. The pitch is different and so is the processing unless it is the C-41. If it is the C-41, the film would work but because the pitch is different, it will jam up your camera.

In fact the Kodak 160NC Portra is the same Kodak Portra you can buy at B&H photo in the propacks, its whats called professional film. The grain is wonderful (minimal) colors are vivid and sharp. In fact this is the kind of film my wife prefers when she shoots portraits, weddings and what not. Speed in not essential and thats why the 160NC images are great for blowing up to larger prints. They also make the Portra in VC, which is very vivid full spectrum film while the NC is more into the natural true colors rather than full spectrum.

BTW here is a Picture of the Camera we use

TNS

And here is one with all the cameras on the mount with my buddy tracking airplanes for practice. The lenses that go on these cameras are large telescopic lenses that range anywhere from 50 inches (1270mm) all the way up to 230 inches (5840mm). Like I said earlier, these are fixed apeture lenses that are mostly mirror based. To have a lens of this magnitude with the elements made of glass would be so heavy that you would need a crane to put it on the arm of the mount. BTW we do have a few that are all glass innerds. The companies that make these lenses are ones that most of you all have never heard of because they are speciality lenses like Jonel, Brasher. Photosonics and Loris.

The mount pictured is identical to mine and it weighs in excess of 14,700 pounds and for all of you metric fiends, thats around 6,667 KG. We have to tow this bad boy using a 5 or 10 ton tractor trailor with a 10 kilowatt generator. 10K is a lot of juice that can run the electricity for a few houses.

Enjoy

TNS

When I asked about then lenses I was thinking exactly about this, the weight of such lenses, and I supposed that the mirror type would be the best solution. I don't want to carry one of those with "all glass innerds..."

Let me thank you a lot for all your info, TNS. Just amazing, amazing, amazing.
(and thanks for the time dedicated to such a long answer...)

Cheers!

I may have asked you this before, but have you ever had the chance to film at the other end of the trajectory?

Personally, no but I have people in my section that has done it in the past. i expect some oppertunities in the very near future as the missile defense system is tested routinely for accuracy.

The people on the other end at the Kwajalein Atoll & Wake Island, they belong to the RTS (Ronald Reagan Test Site). They are the ones getting pelted by the missiles we fire over here. They track and aquiure the telemetry and thats how they test for accuracy. I have some imagery of the MRVs coming down on the targets. Its rather cool looking.

As for the question about the weight of the lenses. If you look at the picture of the tracking mount, thee lenses are about 3.5 feet long and the width is larger than a watermelon in diameter. They usually weight about 130 pounds each. The All glass element ones weigh close to 400 pounds

I have done some work on some of the stuff that comes down at the other end. I have seen some cool videos, but they were just for documentation purposes. The stuff we used for analysis, it was often cr*p I wish it was recorded by high quality gear manned by skilled pros like your Although in the defense of the folks who got that data, installing the mount you show on an airplane woudn't exactly fly But I bet that forgetting to turn on sensors, recorders, etc., isn't something that happens often in your shop Btwy, I guess MRV isn't a taboo word anymore? :ph34r:

Hi Aaron,

Woooowwww! Quite some equipment that. Here I am with my 350D and a small bunch of lenses .

Only in the 35 mm slr world has digital become better than film now, although some of the medium format backs come quite close right now to MF films. I think they will be there in about 2 years time. Of course this is only true for prints, not for slides.

And of course not for filming, only for still pictures...

Warm regards, Wim

Well..... I dont think 35mm Digital Stills have gotten to the point of being better than film. It is very close but still not there yet. They cannot mimmick the tones in Tmax, or Tri-x, X-pan or even my favorite Tech-pan. Even using photoshop, I have yet seen someone getting on the money. Also, Digital is nice but what about longterm archiving? No one has tested CD's with images that has been put away for 40 or 50 years. In theory it should last but in reality, I am not confident that it will last. Formats are constantly changing, who is to say that Jpegs or TIFFS or even RAW images will be valid 20 years from now? Switching from format to format (lossy) will do nothing to preserve the data.

Technology today is throwaway. Once it is considered somewhat old, they stop support on it and then you are left with a useless coaster. how about the older Burnelli disks? JAZ drives. Also you have propriatery formats that will on work with some programs. I have seen companies drop things all together and you are left with nothing. Technology is great but This generation is not about anything longterm. Longterm is considered 5 to 7 years in these days. So that is one fo the reasons why I DO NOT think digital is better than film. Film cannot be replaced!! Just ask NASA after the Space Shuttle disentigrated in the atmosphere during re entry. They had very little data, especially with the pad cameras and the tracking cameras. They thought that Digital was better and that it could capture more and the quality was better.

That is not the case because the Imagery was so poor from the Digital Cameras, they had very little to work with especially when the engineers were going frame by frame. They blew up the images and they got a lot of Artifacts and digital noise. For them to see a piece of foam come off the tanks and strike the vehicle, it was next to impossible. For the next shuttle that went up, they replaced 3/4th of all the digital cameras with film cameras. Well, it was much easier to spot the problems with the foam issue from the main tank due to the fact that there were no issues with digital noise and artifacts. The imagery is able to be blown up further than the digital.

AS for digital medium format, they are much more than 2 years away from getting something to rival medium format film. They are in the 5 year plan, at the very least. The technology has been spent on perfecting the 35mm equivelant digital formats. They are close, very close but not quite. as for Medium format digital, they are starting to put more time and money into the technology but they are still working on 1st and 2nd generation CCD for that size. Give it some time and it will be close but until then, they are a great distance away.

I like to use digital but it is not appropriate for everything. i am sure you already know that. i believe there is a time and a place for digital and film. I think that film the the best media for archiving and for detail photography. There will ba e lot of people to diisagree with me but that is what I believe. I am in the market for another digital SLR so I do not despise digital!!! I just know the limitations of digital while I know the inconvienences of film. Just my 2 cents!!

TNS

I agree with you, TNS. Everytime I look at my old 5x7 film photographs (many years ago, taken with a trusty Pentax 57), I'm sure digital technology is still far from that. You can blow up those slides to 3x real life with no quality loss. If I had the cash, I would sell all my film-based Nikon system to switch back to 5x7 or even 4x5.
At my work (journalism) the photographers use Canon SLR and I have to say that the technology already advanced a lot. News agencies jumped ahead from film to digital because of the speed to develop/transmit. Most modern digital SRL, IMO, still have trouble rendering certains colors correctly (red), high contrast pictures and flash photography (for publication standard quality, I mean).
Cheers.

TNS, I think one recent study suggested that data burned on CDs may actually start degrading within 2-3 on cheap CDs and 3-5 years on higher quality CDs. So apparently, the long 50-100 year life spans are for commercially burned CDs only, not for consumer burned ones. CD/DVDs are also vulnberable to scratches. You just have to have multiple copies and burn new ones every few years. I think the best archiving material in that sense is tape. I don't worry as much about formats, as these are just software formats, so it should be very is to continue supporting them, unlike hardware formats.

Films are probably still superior to digital in many ways, even in the 5mm world, and specially if you compare things at the same price point. But unfortunately, for the average consumer like me, obtaining high quality prints is a much more difficult and expensive challenge than it is with digital printing. For me, at least, that has been the biggest driving factor in making me use my 35mm SLR less and less in favor of my digital mini point and shoot. Sooner or later, I will probably end up buying an entry or mid-grade digital SLR.

Beautiful picture.

Awesome stuff TNS!

Hi TNS, Solaris, Stylo,

Sorry for the very long ramble, but I think this is a very interesting topic .

I think we have to agree to disagree a bit. As long as you're talking prints, I am convinced digital slrs are well up to scratch when it comes to 35mm film, and I'll try to explain that here a little.

Are you talking film, prints or both? Amateurs will get about 20-30 lps/mm (line pairs per mm) from film, and good ones maybe 40. Professionals will get about 30-60 lps/mm, and very good ones maybe 70 or 80. The better APS-C digital slrs will get to 40 or even more lps/mm, and this is being conservative in my estimates. FF (full frame) digital slrs get to the 80 lps/mm mark at the moment, so right there with the best pros. Now, film latitude is about 9-11 stops for B&W film, and about 8 or 9 if you're lucky with colour film. That is from darkest dark to lightest light. Digital slrs manage up to 13 stops latitude at the moment, the better ones anyway, IOW, they manage more dark and light tones than the best film already.
There is one big difference: sensors have better latitude in the dark regions, while films have better latitude in the lighter regions. You can take this into account when taking pictures, though. It's like any new medium, you have to get to know it. Well, the best ones guarantee 25 years if I am not mistaken, but you can always store the images in a different way. Also, film is only of archival quality if all of the precautions were taken, and then it is very well possible that in 50 years time people do not know how to process film anymore either. Why not? Most software for processing images just add new formats, IOW, they are downward compatible with older formats, e.g., bitmap and paintshop images, and just add support for new ones. At the moment, you don't have to do that, yet. Also, it is possible to store images in a non-lossy way, like specific TIFF formats, or just RAW.
That is besides the point, IMO, and the same thing happens to film too, just at a slower pace, e.g., 110-format, APS-format, and there were quite a few other ones we don’t even remember anymore. And you mention yourself formats for which the camera has to be built especially, or rather, for which film has to be made especially. At the moment it can't, I agree, because you can't replace slide film yet. And I am only saying here that 35 mm and smaller size film, for still prints only, can be replaced by digital. We are talking here much larger format film, to start off with, and several years ago. Satellite imagery is all digital, and the quality and resolution is better than anything you could get from film. And some of the reasons for this are that it is digital in the first place: it can be manipulated much more easily than film emulsion. BTW, the same is also true for medical equipment. Without digital imagery many things wouldn't have been possible at all.
Maybe. I could well be too optimistic. But just read the stuff on the P45 digital backs, and the latest Hasselblad digital backs, etc.
As I said, I don't agree. I have been doing a lot of reading over the past two years on this subject, and I have come to the conclusion that with the advent of 6 and 8 MP APS-C sensors, the theoretical equivalent has been reached regarding what amateurs can achieve, and 12 and 16 MP FF sensors with what pros can achieve for print making from 35mm film. That's logical, as it is cheaper to do to move from smaller sized sensors etc. to bigger. They're at 45 MP now, and it isn't that much of a step towards the 60 or 80 MP required for medium format. No argument at all here, just disagreement on where the break point is . That's ok; the discussion keeps us all sharp .
I think any great advances my still come from using X3 (Foveon) type technology. I am also convinced that by the time we have 16MP 3X pixels on FF sensors, it’ll surpass anything we will have ever seen before. And the biggest problem with sensors at the moment is not so much the number of pixels, but processing and storing those pixels in an adequate time frame for them to be usable in picture taking now, and video filming at a later stage. The excellent images that satellites are capable of, are only so because of fairly slow scanning techniques rather than because of fast full sensor pictures.


Photo journalists were the first to adopt 35 mm film still cameras, for the simple reason it is much more convenient to carry around than medium format or even larger film equipment. Note that 35 mm film originated as a film format for amateurs, not for professionals!
Also, I never said medium format is there yet. It is only getting fairly close.
I would honestly implore you to do a little research on the current state of affairs with regard to medium format sensors. You'll find they are almost there.

You can get better ones than the ones with a 3-5 year shelf life, but they'll set you back more money, and they will have to be burnt at slower speeds than 50 or 60X . Not necessarily. I have quite a few tapes lying around that I can't read anymore, because no tape back-up machines will take those anymore. Certain QIC-type types come to mind. Great and fast in their hey-days, but long since disappeared. And reel-to-reel tape is getting scarcer all the time, as almost everybody has switched to the big cartridge formats (forgot their name). Also, tapes need a fair amount of maintenance, and degrade as well. The signal degrades with time, purely from being rolled up and being influenced by adjacent magnetism on the tape itself. Agreed. See the point I made above, in TNS's quote. Only when you want to make slides. And yes, film is superior, for prints (!), but only in sizes over 35 mm format.
I sold my analog equipment about 5 years ago, when this whole digital movement was getting under way with a vengeance, and I could still get a decent price for my stuff. Also, I just used it at the time for taking snap shots, and I figured I could do that with a cheaper, smaller camera as well. Since that time, however, I have been trying to keep up-to-date with the developments in the digital compact camera and slr world. In my view, it started really getting interesting about 2 years ago with the advent of cheaper 6 MP digital slrs. That was the point where I really started researching things more in-depth, while still saving for a digital slr.

I also wanted some first hand experience by then, so I got a Canon G5. Not a bad camera at all, actually creating better and sharper pictures than my 35 mm snap shot camera.

Towards the end of last year, the Canon 350D had come out, and was being sold over here at very good prices. There was also the 20D, and the Nikon D70s, and not long after, the D50. I focused on these cameras, because I thought FF was too expensive and the cameras too heavy, and because the other manufacturers were only minority players. I prefered to have a camera and lenses of a brand that were easily to obtain, including service for them, which is why I selected these two brands. And both brands have very good to excellent lenses anyway.

For ergonomical reasons, I ended up with a 350D. It is the one camera of all of those (actually including all other digital slrs in the same classes - I did try them all in the end ) that fitted my personal ergonomic preferences best.

In the mean time I have taken a bunch of photographs, and compared them to the photographs I have taken in the past. I used to develop and print myself, and I used a modified Zone System to achieve maximum tonal range in my negatives and prints. I would spool my own film, rolls of 5 exposures, and use 1 each for a single picture , and developed each individually for optimal tonal range.

I have compared some of my best pics, to some of the pics I took with the 350D, and I can assure you that the quality obtained with the 350D was an absolute stunner and eye-opener. The pictures were sharper and showed a longer tonal range than anything I have ever done before. Only my slides come close. Note: I say come close. Kodachrome 25 and 64 for those of you interested to know.

Ok, I think I used to belong to the group of better amateur photographers. I don't know whether I am now. Considering the quality of photographs I see here on FPN, I am not (yet), but once I have mastered the medium, I think I will be.

This also includes using graphics software like PhotoShop, IMO, whatever anybody says. Where you would develop and print and use a darkroom with film, this and a bunch of other software (and hardware) tools form the digital darkroom. And it looks like it has a learning curve just as steep as developing and printing the wet way .

Just to end this long ramble, I would like to point you towards two photographers, one of whom you are aware of at least, and tell me if you are still convinced that digital isn't there yet compared to 35 mm negative film and printing:
1. Bill Riepl: Stylophiles Online
2. Fred Miranda: Part of Fred's portfolio. TNS, note the B&W image called "Ghost town". Just make sure your monitor is calibrated properly beforehand, to see it in optimal splendour.
BTW, read his article on the main site, called “The ultimate sharpening technique”. I was stunned by the picture of the cactus, how it seems to jump of the page and has an awesome 3D quality to it.

Warmest regards, Wim

P.S.: TNS, if you think we should rather start a new topic with this message, feel free to do so!

Not a chance!!! The more talk the better!!!

I like to keep the discussion going!!!!

TNS

Wim, that is of course a completely valid point, but I think it applies equally well to most formats. Unless you keep on migrating to new media as your exisiting ones starts becoming obsolete. It is just a matter of time before today's CDs and DVDs suffer the same fate as 5 inch floppies



Of course, or you can just keep on making new copies as newer media comes along

Hi Aaron,

Cool, cool stuff. Thanks for sharing the pics and the info. I'll be looking forward to any other pics that you post in the future.

thanks,
Chris

Several years ago? That was only 2003. Also, optically, you can have a camera with 60MP but what is it going to record to? You need memory that is not available to the general public and if it is, it will be as much as a downpayment on a house!!!

You also have to figure that all that information needs to be stored in the buffer before it can be written to the card. High speed digital video running at 10,000 frames per second can fill 350 gigs in a matter of a few seconds. The better the resolution, the more storage it is going to need.

Satellite imagery is a bit different than what we are talking about. Imagery can be taken sequentially in shots or a feed of some sorts. The bandwidth is extremely large and there is no need to buffer like you would with a digital SLR. Yes digital is extremely nice and with superior optics and an unlimited bandwidth, you can get huge images beamed continuously to a control center for interpretation. Much different than highspeed digital or sequential imagers that is used for normal photography

The reconnaissance optics are so far superior to anything the world has ever seen and yes it is digital. now how close you can get is very much classfied and wont be known for quite some time if ever. With unlimited bandwidth, anything is possible.

Consider this, the Ikonos satellite is a semi commercial imagery satellite that provides satellite images for companies and the news media. The imagery is supurb and is fantastic. Go here and you can see Space imaging some of the satellite photos of different landmarks. The imaging is up to 1 meter which is pretty darn close. The old Corona project that the Air Force had was not as good but the images were shot using 5 different cameras. Stellar, Horizontal, Index and 2 Pan cameras. It used 70mm film and the starting resolution of the imagery was between 25 to 40 feet around the 1960's. The mission times were usually one day and then the film would be ejected back to earth. When the imagery was falling and parachute was deployed, a plane would catch the parachute and then bring it back to a base where they would process long roll and continuous processing. Later towards the end of the life of Project Corona, the payload would carry 3 to 4 times as much film along with superior optics capable of a 19 day mission and a resolution of 6 feet. That was 1972!!! If in 1972 there were to have imagery with a resolution of 6 (1.8 meters) feet and today a commercial imagery satellite like Ikonos with a resolution of 1 meter, I would hate to see what NRO can see!! I am sure that they are in the inches and millimeters for resolution.

So what my point? Digital has many limitations such as storage, memory, bandwidth and true color (some) expense and short life due to components and technology becoming obsolete. Film has limitations too and some of them are quite obvious, such as more bulk, processing, film expiration, archiving environment. There are issues that I have experience with digital that most people probobly have not and never will experience. Digital noise while trying to shoot at night. When I shoot for the flame of the missile when it is in flight, the digital imagery gets kind of funky and the colors are not true, either. It seems that the camera is trying to find a color to substitute or it is interperating it in a way that is not correct. For the most part, shooting digital stills, the images are the way they are supposed to be or at least pretty darn close. Larger formats are not close at all!!! With a larger CCD and a larger overall image, you need a lot of buffer storage to continue shooting continuous at high resolutions. That is one of the main draw backs to digital especially in the larger formats or in digital video. Bandwidth limitation and memory buffer/storage limitations are some of the major factors that makes digital unsuitable for all occasions. This is where film is needed and it excells in. Eventually we will get to that point but we are quite a ways away from there.


Digital is convenient to the point where I can download my images and send them to public affairs office for distribution to the media in a matter of an hour after the launch. We dont have to wait for processing and then printing, that can take several hours. So digital is great for doing my technical jobs at the satellite cleanrooms and I can easily adjust my white balance according to the lighting of the Clean room. Unfortunatly, lighting is neve simple because you usually have mixed lighting such as tungston, halogen and florescent to contend with. Under most circumstances, you could use a flash to help with the lower light and mixed light sources. In a satellite clean room with the payload there, using flash is disasterous. It can cause the solar array to deploy along with damaging sensitive sensors. So after the shoot you can do some color correction to balance the images out a bit. That makes things 100% easier!!!

I find pushing and pulling easier with film than I do with changing the ISO and EV settings on digital . When I say easier, I mean better results but that all depends on ISO, type of film and how many stops to push or pull. When I shoot Mopic, I normally shoot at the widest shutter opening and since the lenses are fixed apature, I need to push the film another stop to get it where I need it. Pushing and pulling on digital is quite a bit different but the principals are somewhat the same. I find the results are more acceptable on film than I do on digital. Working for the government is a bit different than the outside world. Normally, the only manipulation you can do to an image is restricted to what you can only do in a darkroom. This keeps the image true to form and archivable. Dodge/burning, cropping, adjusting the contrast and brightness and saturation and color correcting is about the most we are allowed to do. I find that this is a better way to go and you are assured an images that has not been toyed with, like adding or removing things that are and are not there. It takes a better photographer to make the shot count rather than shotgunning. I know that making the shot count requires less correction than doing it sloppy and hoping for an image out of hundreds that were shotgunned.



Just ask NASA after the Space Shuttle disentigrated in the atmosphere during re entry. They had very little data, especially with the pad cameras and the tracking cameras. They thought that Digital was better and that it could capture more and the quality was better.

That is not the case because the Imagery was so poor from the Digital Cameras, they had very little to work with especially when the engineers were going frame by frame. They blew up the images and they got a lot of Artifacts and digital noise. For them to see a piece of foam come off the tanks and strike the vehicle, it was next to impossible. For the next shuttle that went up, they replaced 3/4th of all the digital cameras with film cameras. Well, it was much easier to spot the problems with the foam issue from the main tank due to the fact that there were no issues with digital noise and artifacts. The imagery is able to be blown up further than the digital.

Thanks to TNS and all, I have found this a most interesting read.

I sort of straddle both camps here, in that back in the late 60's I worked for a while as a photographer before going on to computer science. The photographer in me likes the use of film cameras, whilst the computer guy loves digital.

In terms of longevity, I have some 8mm and Super 8mm films from back in the 50s and 60s, that I can still access using a dual gauge projector. The only restriction in that is the replacement of the lamp and/or projector should it fail. I have used the projector to copy the film stock to either video or now more recently DVD stock. Over the years I have got better at the conversion process and rather than degrading, the converted films today are better than they were when I first transferred them to Betamax way back when.

Which brings me on to another point, the stock that I shot on Betamax and then had to convert to VHS is now in a very poor state and the conversion to digital is going to induce another layer of degradation. So the electronic format is worse for long term in that I have better images from the 8mm stock than from the video format of 25 years later.

I also have a vast archive of slides taken in both 35mm and 645 on 120 film stock. They are all kept in a dry, dust free environment and they are as vibrant as when they were taken. As the TNS says, the amount of raw information on film stock far exceeds that which you can capture using current digital technology.

The biggest advantage of digital has to be the instantaneous nature of the medium, which is why the Press love it so much, but for long term archive, film still has the edge. Also in terms of real detail capture, film is still far and away better. I use both 35mm and 645 formats and I still don't believe that a digital camera can yet perform as well as the 35mm, yet alone the 645. I still think that the big issue in the professional world is price/performance. In the studio, the professional digital setup with all the editing and printing facilities can be cost effective in terms of the 'instant gratification factor'.

However, a neighbours son was getting married about 6 months back and the brides family had engaged a 'digital' photographer to record the wedding. Good setup I must admit, with a caravan to do all the processing, the albums were ready before the reception ended. I took along my Bronica ETRS and my trusty Vivitar Light machine to take some 'candid shots' as a back up and from the bridegroom's family as a present. I shot most of what the pros took albeit from a different viewpoint, plus a whole load more to boot. Nobody saw anything of mine until about a week later. I dropped off about 70 proof prints to my neighbour and left it at that.

Two days later, I was invited around to discuss my pictures. I found both sets of parents comparing my 10 X 8 proofs with the digital prints. The difference was shocking, in terms of depth, clarity and just sheer detail. They were of the opinion that pictures were pictures and the 'professional' pictures were not up to the standard of the 'amateur' so therefore the photographer had short changed them. I had a big struggle to explain to them that the pro guy had done a good job. His pictures were well arranged, presented and technically OK subject to the medium. Mine were 'better' subjectively, because of the medium I had used, 645 negatives printed to 10 X 8 are hardly pushing the envelope. What they had bought into was the instant gratification bit and not the quality. Quality is not just about resolution, but also dynamic range, which all equates to information - film just captures More Information.

Dumb question spot: I believe I read somewhere that because most image display devices are limited to 8 bit per colour channel, the capture devices are mostly 8 bit. If so are we then now limited to 16.7M colours? Makes a mockery of HDTV IMHO, but that is a whole new discussion.

OK, so Moores Law will still apply and the image capture devices are going to get faster/bigger/better and drop in cost every 18 months. Digital is still more convenient. I could take far better pictures of my pens with my 35mm camera, but I don't because the Ricoh digital is far more convenient. (Note to self, still need to buy a digital film scanner.)

I have the same query with digital in the sound area. I have always liked music, I am a very bad keyboard player and an even worse drummer, but I enjoy it! My big gripe is with MP3, I want all the music, which is why I stick with CDs played through a quality CD player, amplifier and speakers. MP3 is fine and the players are great, but I would rather carry my full size CD player and have the whole shooting match. To see my point, go into a Hi-Fi store with a CD of a favourite track and an MP3 player with the same track. Get them to play both back through a decent system and you will see what I am getting at. It is all about dynamic range and resolution.

Jim

Hey guys,

The only thing I was saying, apart from some general comments about the developemnt of digital, is that for prints, digital slrs up to 35 mm format, have overtaken the analog versions. Note: for prints, and only up to 35 mm format. No slides, no formats larger than 35 mm....

Medium format is getting there slowly, but again, only for prints, and isn't there yet, not completely anyway.

Warmest regards, Wim

Hi Wim,

Boy am I enjoying this discussion

I accept what you say about 35mm, but are we comparing like with like? By that I mean a digital camera image on a computer screen is going to be limited to 16.7m colours on a TFT screen, more on a good CRT but they are now are rare as Hen's teeth, well new ones anyway.

My only and main evidence for this are prints. If I shoot the same picture with a 35mm Olympus compact and my Ricoh 3.2MP digital, then the 6 X 4 prints from the film camera are more vibrant. (By the way all were processed at my local Asda-Walmart on their 5 pence a print overnight service, so not cheap.) Same with the story about the Wedding pictures, and that guy was using a Pro Grade Nikon digital SLR against my ETRS. However the prints in this case were processed by a pro lab as Asda can't handle 120

My feeling is that as far a raw resolution goes, the digital is about there. However, other issues like artifacts and noise do degrade the image and I am not convinced that the colour depth is there. I have a gripe with JPEG as a lossless format, the pictures depends on the quality created in the camera on the fly. To get around this you can use raw format, I have tried this on the my camera, but the resulting data file is HUGE. In practical terms this is not an option, for a one off Exhibition Photo, then yes, but that is going to not only need a good camera, but a reasonable computer and PhotoShop. OK for the professionals, but you could probably get as good a result using a 35mm SLR and a Professional Processor.

Either that or I have totally lost the plot here it's the voices in my head again, people tell me that the Emperor has new clothes, but I can't see them

Best regards,

Jim

As far as I know JPEGs are a Lossy format.

Also as for Digital overtaking film, I am not fully convinced of that. I see that people are going to digital because it is much more convienent and less pain in the rear especially in the steps it takes to get the end product. 35mm is extremely close in a lot of areas but not all. This is an issue that will be debated in photography for years to come. We can agree to disagree in this one, thats for sure.

for my job I work with all sorts of different formats ranging from 16mm, 35mm, 70mm high speed Motion Picture and still sequential imagers. I also work with digital still, HD Digital video, Beta, Beta SX, DVC Pro Ect ect ect

There is a place for everything and as long as we know the limitations of both digital and actual film, you can have the best of both worlds.

I love talking about this stuff, I find it interesting and fun.


TNS

Thanks TNS

Ooops yeah that is what I meant, I want it all not just the bits that somebody thinks I need

Jim