Godfrey, > Even Kodak said there's not much usable IMAGE data in film much past > the 6000-8000 ppi scanning capability of todays high-end drum > scanners, Peter. There's more noise and grain data, of course, if > that's what you want to extract. Drum scanners of this order can > obtain more than 16 stops of useful tonal range data, if it were > there. It isn't.
well I have direct experience with some high end scanning equipment such as AGFA XY-15 or Crossfield Celsius. But this is not important I'm just mentioning it that I am aware what are these monsters capable of. Moreover these are not recent anymore... ;-) > I'm in the process of doing a K10D dynamic range measurement > analysis, similar to what I did with the *ist DS a year or more back. > First order look at the results seems to show that at maximum it nets > 11.5 stops of DR in RAW capture mode, but whether there's anything > useful about that last stop and a half is debatable. I never saw > anything useful beyond about 9 stops out of B&W film with even the > most exotic processing chemistry and technique, most of the time 6-7 > stops was about the useful limit for negatives. I have done no direct comparisons between shooting the same scene with analog and digital yet. Eventually I will do it and I will be interested in the picture as a whole, not just resolution or dynamic range (or any other isolated parameter for that matter). For the time being my primary camera will be either MZ-S (or another M-series body ;-)), because it's proven technology and I am familiar enough with it (lack of artificial look also playing significant role) but I certainly won't keep my ist-Ds in the closet. Time will tell... Cheers, Peter -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
