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Anonymous
Hey /p/, I was talking with my cousin and we got to wondering what the effective pixel resolution of 35 mm film was... I understand from Google that there's a monumental difference between lab and audience purposes, so for the purpose of this question we'd obviously be talking about audience-perception. You can only enlarge a 35 mm shot up to a certain point and then the quality becomes noticeably worse, but is there a sort of "natural" size print for 35 mm film? If so, I'd think that some resolution camera could match it (assuming lens and other components are equal).

Right? Bah, some Wiki Answers page ranged from 3 megapixel to 20+ megapixel ranges to meet 35 mm and I was wondering if you guys could shed some light on the matter.
>> Anonymous
>>229341
What he said, but it also varies a lot with film quality. Beyond that, it also depends on your optics.
>> Anonymous
It's highly dependent on the film, processing, and reproduction method used. A high quality, low ISO slide film (Velvia, Provia, etc) processed by a competent lab and scanned by a competent tech on a quality drum scanner can readily produce images with upwards of 20mp of usable resolution. Cheap 800 ISO negative film processed at the corner drugstore and scanned in an automated machine will be lucky to produce 4mp of useful data, and will look like crap too.
>> Anonymous
>>229344
>>229343
>>229341
Right, I got the impression going into this that with analog you could produce significantly better products if you were competent, but digital sort of dumbs that down somewhat. So if the optics and gear is all top notch and you don't screw up the ISO and shutter speed, then wouldn't a ~20 megapixel camera produce similar-quality images to 35 mm film without the risk of having incompetent people develop and scan?
>> Anonymous
Fun story about developing:

I went out and took some photos one night of the metropolitan area around me from a mountain. Good shots, I thought, but not really worth much trouble to get developed properly where it would cost a bit more. I took it to the local Costco to get the film developed, a few bucks each roll, and when I came back they had news for me!

"I'm sorry, one of your rolls was blank."
"Blank? Like no photos, or...?"
"Well, not that there were no photos, but they were all exposed to direct light or something..."
"Ah... Yeah, that's fine........."

It seems they opened that roll of film in regular light. Sort of sucked because when I was going through the photos I think it turned out that one or two of my preferred photos was on that particular roll.
>> Anonymous
>>229347
Similar quality in terms of raw resolution, yes, but the images would look very different overall. Most slide films tend to have a color balance, contrast, and grain profile that is different from digital and somewhat hard to replicate in photoshop. So if you want the look of a 20MP digital image, shoot with a 20MP digital camera, and if you want the look of a 35mm slide, shoot 35mm slide film.

There really isn't much "risk" of incompetent people developing or scanning as long as you go to a real photo lab (or do it yourself). Consistency is vital to pro labs, so any one that isn't on top of things will go out of business very quickly.
>> Depressed Cheesecake !wFh1Fw9wBU
Read this article, it'll answer your questions:

http://stepheneastwood.com/tutorials/Tutorials_Canon_Film_Test.htm
>> Anonymous
you can resolve 4000 dpi from a very high quality photograph, tripod on broad daylight with good optics etc.

4000dpi printed in 300dpi works out to be a 13 times enlargement at 18.9x12.6 inches
>> Anonymous
>>229378

4000 dpi on a film frame that is 1.41 inches by 0.94 inches works out to 3780x5640 (if one dot = 1 pixel)

So a little bit higher than a 50-megabyte scan, but pretty damn close. I think those values are almost exactly what the 1Ds MkIII shoots.
>> Anonymous
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Most 20-to-40-year-old slide film I've been digitizing is equivalent to just 2-3MP of effective resolution - the grain is clearly visible on 3000x2000 images. Only a couple rolls are sharper (pic related: the sharpest one I could find).

Modern high-quality, low-speed film like Provia is certainly better; I could make the grain visible only by shooting a fragment of the frame at 1:1 magnification on a 10MP olympus (taking the 2x crop factor into account, this means that the grain will only be visible on 40MP scans of the entire frame, so it's probably comparable to ~15-20MP on digital)

But then again, it's hard to compare the resolution of film and digital cameras because they behave differently. Digital always has even resolution, while film is sharper on high-contrast objects and less sharp on low-contrast ones where the grain is more visible.

Camera-Specific Properties:Equipment MakeOLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.Camera ModelE-500Camera SoftwareAdobe Photoshop CS3 WindowsMaximum Lens Aperturef/3.5Color Filter Array Pattern702Image-Specific Properties:Image OrientationTop, Left-HandHorizontal Resolution300 dpiVertical Resolution300 dpiImage Created2008:08:01 11:04:00Exposure Time1/80 secF-Numberf/9.0Exposure ProgramAperture PriorityISO Speed Rating100Lens Aperturef/9.0Exposure Bias0 EVMetering ModePatternLight SourceOtherFlashFlash, CompulsoryFocal Length35.00 mmColor Space InformationsRGBImage Width3015Image Height1958RenderingNormalExposure ModeAutoWhite BalanceManualScene Capture TypeStandardGain ControlNoneContrastNormalSaturationNormalSharpnessSoft
>> Anonymous
>>229424
How are you digitizing it? Granted grain will often be visible on 35mm scans, but a lot of what people complain about as grain is actually noise installed by the scanner. Judging by the severe lack of sharpness in the photo you posted, I'm guessing you're not using an Imacon.