On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 21:12:19 -0800, "John Petrush" <petrush@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
jammed all night, and by sunrise was overheard remarking:
> At 2008 x 3040 pixel resolution, the Kodak DCS 560 surely matches the
> reproduction of silver-based units. The limit is to what sized output?
What's the limit for 35mm itself? If the digital you're shooting is
matching 35mm resolution, the answer is basically the same one, because
silver oxide film, while not electronic of course, is certainly of a
digital nature in terms of linear resolution -- your picture may be made
up of spots of silver oxide, spots of light, or spots of ink or dye, but
the fact of the spot isn't subject to debate.
Clearly, anyone with more than a passing acquaintance with 35mm film
knows there is no one right answer. Kodachrome slides I shot when I was
16 and travelled Arizona to Montana still look great projected across the
room on a screen, but I know I'll see the grain if I get up close and
personal, just like taking that jeweler's loup to an 8x10 print. And if
those 8x10s are like the Tri-X I used to put to ASA1600, no question that
8x10 is too large -- you can easily see the pixelization with the naked
eye, not much different than blowing up a digital shot too much.
> At
> 2K x 3K, an 8 x 10 inch print is the upper limit. After that, it becomes
> easy to see the differences between an emulsion original and a digital one.
>From the Kodak literature, it's pretty clear they're thinking of the end
product in selling these -- up to 16"x20" at 150lpi or whatever, they're
pointing out that, as is usually the case, especially in the commercial
world, it's the output medium that's likely to be the limiting factor.
> I routinely scan full-frame 35mm film at 2267 x 3400 pixles (2400 dpi) and
> print 8 x 10's. I need an 8x loupe to tell which is the silver-based image,
I take it these are both printed the same way?
> Scanning gives me
> all the flexibility and joys of "real photography" <g> with OM's with the
> added benefits of post-processing manipulation and printing digitally. The
> cost of a scanner and photo-quality printer is but a fraction of the price
> of the DCS Kodak/Nikon (or Canon) hybrid.
Yup. Today, you can think of film as a fairly cheap digital storage
medium if you're so wired you don't want to think of "analog"
photography anymore. As I pointed out above, it's really chemical vs.
electronic, not analog vs. digital. For the weight of one of these
super-digitals, I can carry a pretty good load of film, but unlike that
PCMCIA-based RAM card or hard disc, I get to keep the shots on the fairly
resilient, fairly cheap medium that is film. Of course, you CAN offload
the digital pix (18MB a shot for those "out there" cameras) to CD-R or
something, but you basically need to carry a whole electronic support
system (at those resolutions; I have a digital snapshooter with 24MB
Flash module that give me about 164 shots at highest quality, just the
thing for snapshots, though I still have to dump to CD-R now and then).
> Digital imaging devices might not follow Moore's Law, but it will be close -
> maybe 24-30 months instead of 18.
It's way ahead of schedule right now, at least on the consumer end of
things. I bough that aforementioned digital snapshooter last year, a very
good quality 640x400x24 last May for about $350, yielding me a rating of
about 878 pixels per dollar (pp$). Ok, now a quick scan of the same
on-line vendor's web site today shows me that, on the average, 9 months
later, I'm seeing generally 2500-3000 pp$. Good ol' Gordon suggested a
doubling of performance every 18 months (and he doesn't really factor in
price), I'm seeing a better-than-five times improvement in performance,
if you extrapolate this to November. On the other hand, as is ususally
with case with technology, gain is really a step-function, not a
continuoum. So if I bought at the end of the 750-1000 pp$ day, and we're
now just entering the 2500 pp$ days, this could be inflated. But clearly,
it's better than 2x over the course of 18 months, at least in the segment
of the market most of us are interest in (the guys with DCS 560s can't
afford to spend time on-line, they have to keep working to pay off those
bad-boys).
Moore's law would suggest that I get about 1800 pp$ by November of 1999.
Observation would say it's more likely to be at least 4000. That means
you get 1600x1200 CCD resolutions in P&S format cameras for under $500,
1980x1600 for under $800, and that as the rule, not the exception.
Come to think of it, that doesn't sound all so far-fetched....
--
Dave Haynie | V.P. Technology, Met@box Infonet, AG | http://www.metabox.de
Be Dev #2024 | NB851 Powered! | Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000, PIOS One
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