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It makes me shake my head every time I see a claim that digital isn't matching 35mm SLR quality yet. Practically speaking the 6-8mpel DSLRs are darn near equivalent to 35mm in quality, so long as you get one with a high-quality sensor and optics. The 12-14mpel DSLRs the pros are using now exceed 35mm quality; even the lowest-end "prosumer" DSLRs like the EOS-300D and D70 are very comparable in quality to shooting ISO 200 35mm film and better than shooting ISO 400.

I think the reason most people believe digital cameras are inferior to film is that there aren't many (I'd argue any) non-SLR-style digital cameras with high-quality sensors or optics. They almost always employ very dense sensors, and particularly in the new crop of more-than-6mpel cameras the sensors are so dense as to be extremely noisy. (Take a look at the Sony DSC-F828 and compare it to its lower-resolution predecessor; the F828 is a big step backwards despite its higher resolution and reasonably good optics.) Even some of the SLR-style digicams suffer from excessive noise, eg the Olympus E-1.

On top of bad sensors the tiny optics used in nearly all non-SLR digicams are at best mediocre. For instance, the 7mpel camera you show on your blog entry has a lens that is likely not a match for the worst SLR lens you ever owned, much less a quality SLR lens. That thing is limited more by its optics than its sensor resolution. That's the case for nearly all of the point-and-shoot style cameras; for the most part if you're buying more than 3mpel you're just wasting your money, the glass isn't up to anything more so you might as well get something that's not so noisy.

Lastly, if you're trying to get a quality image out of a digicam it pays to avoid JPEG -- which not only loses detail, but also introduces chromatic abberation at high contrast edges. Hold a JPEG of a shot up beside its RAW/TIFF counterpart and most people have no trouble seeing the difference in a 5x7 print (to say nothing of 11x17).

None of these is an inherent limitation in digital photography even with today's technology. Quality sensors do exist, quality lenses can be used, and you don't have to use JPEG. In fact, digital has gone way beyond photojournalism these days and is competing well even in the studio. If the quality were not competitive it would not be doing so.

There are certainly things that film does better than digital right now. Most digital cameras have only about a quarter of the lattitude of negative film, for instance, more or less comparable to slide film. That makes your exposure critical and makes some shots nigh impossible. Films have been developed over decades to have certain shade and color responses that you have to put in in post-processing in digital -- but of course that same post-processing flexibility ends up being digital's greatest strength.

Despite its limitations it's just wrong to say that the quality isn't there yet when compared to 35mm SLRs. On the high end it hit that point a couple of years ago and today it's not hard to find SLRs with better quality. What's not there yet is price parity. You'll spend a minimum of three times as much for a comparable digital back as you would for a film back, and that is a vast improvement over two years ago when it was seven or more times as much. On the other hand most shutterbugs make up for that in reduced film and developing costs in short order -- weeks, probably, and certainly within a few months.

Of course if you're doing serious studio work you're probably working in at least medium format, and that pushes the very edges of what is possible in digital photography today. But 35mm? Digital is not only competitive, it's already well on the way to making 35mm film an endangered species.

jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com

# posted by Jim Frost 9:17 PM

I knew I could count on you, Jim, but do see the contradictions you've introduced?

"Practically speaking the 6-8mpel DSLRs are darn near equivalent to 35mm in quality..." You're saying they're not. I said they aren't either. But then you add, "...so long as you get one with a high-quality sensor and optics." And beyond, "...What's not there yet is price parity. You'll spend a minimum of three times as much for a comparable digital back as you would for a film back..." And I said as much as well.

Never once did I mention studio work, or even anything close to professional quality or post processing abilities.

I noticed the same problem the last time. You're fixed on one plane of view and while I'm not there and I'm not going to take a guess, I can say with certainty that it doesn't apply broadly, i.e., to the vast number of digital cameras being snatched up by consumers. That's all that I'm addressing.

# posted by Bill 11:03 PM

"I can say with certainty that it doesn't apply broadly, i.e., to the vast number of digital cameras being snatched up by consumers." Bill, that's because consumers don't want SLR quality, they want digital camera convenience, and the reason they go for high megapixel cameras is that the megapixel rating has become a way of selling cameras the same way MHz ratings sell (or used to sell) computers.
In packaged computers from the likes of HP and Dell, the MHz rating was what people looked at, then after buying it they'd often find that the graphics card/harddrive etc. had been skimped on. Its the same with digital cameras that have high megapixel ratings, but surprisingly bad lenses/sensors.
The person selling the camera will still tell the customer that they *need* the 8MegaPixel camera, even if they are only going to use it for holiday snaps and drunken nights out; just like they tell someone who is just going to check their e-mail and do word-processing that they *need* a 3.8GHz "top of the line" computer.

# posted by Perros 11:55 PM

OKay, but now make your comment relate to the post...

# posted by Bill 3:51 AM

Both of you seem very authoritative when it comes to digital, SLR and dSLR. I migrated from Canon AE1 to Canon Rebel 2000 to Olympus 4mp point-and-shoot, finally to a Canon Digital Rebel.

The Digital Rebel is very very impressive in my opinion. I've taken over 9,000 pictures this last year with it and all of them are of utmost quality (unless I screwed something up myself, which is not the Rebel's fault). I've printed many photos (home or shutterfly.com) at 8x10 and they're flawless - consistently better than my previous film cameras.

With film printing, you always risk a dust mote on the film ruining an otherwise gorgeous print, or color calibrations getting hosed, etc. With digital, you have complete control - and that's a good thing for a novice or an intermediate user, like me.

I looked at the Sony F828 recetly in comparison to buying a second Digital Rebel. The F828 is pretty - like a trophy wife with fake boobs - but it doesn't have a shred of the same quality or dependability of the Rebel.

From a consumer perspective, using a point-and-shoot digital camera is fine for normal stuff - office parties, keggers, monster truck rallies, etc. I was happy with such a camera for 3 years.

What sold me on dSLR (the Rebel especially) is the fact that it helps me produce such fine pictures that it inspires me to always learn more, to perfect techniques, to get more professional in my own photo-taking and to take LOTS of photos.

At least MY tiny fraction of that $24 billion is going towards another dSLR - another Digital Rebel.

# posted by Jason in Oregon 10:05 AM

Well, I'm glad I came through for you Bill :-). I clearly misread your comment as applying to digicams as a whole, and not limited to only point-and-shoot cameras. Perhaps this is because you made your comparison to film SLRs, which I would say is not exactly a fair comparison. If you're going to make the film SLR comparison, you have to expect people to be thinking about digital SLRs. A fairer comparison would be 35mm film P&S cameras with their digital brethren, in which case both are limited first by optics.

As for the inconsistency in my comment of DSLRs like the 300D and D70 being "nearly as good," I make that qualification on two grounds. First, because of negative film's greater latitude. But more importantly because the film quality makes a big difference in the quality of a film SLR's imaging. If you're shooting ISO 100 stuff (or slower, if you can find it) you are going to see images that are slightly cleaner than the low-end DSLRs. Unfortunately such slow films are hard to use outside of a studio setting, so in practice ISO 200 and 400 are by far the norm and as such even the low-end DSLRs are extremely competitive. Moreover, quality DSLRs are walking all over film at higher ISOs.

When it comes to the P&S cameras your advice to stick with 5mpel is good, but I'd argue that you're over-buying even at 5mpel. The optics just aren't good enough for it to matter above perhaps 3mpel, although often the higher resolution cameras have other features worth paying extra for. I find that a clean 3mpel image prints up nicely at 8x10, to give you some idea of what you can do with such a camera.

As for the higher resolution cameras, I would absolutely skip the 7-8mpel P&S cameras that are out now regardless of the quality of their optics. I have yet to see one where sensor noise wasn't a huge issue, and that includes the one you pictured. To date the cheapest 8mpel camera I know of which produces clean images is the Canon EOS-20D, probably the best buy in DSLRs today (followed closely by the Nikon D70 which wins my "best value" award but which is only 6mpel).

jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com

# posted by Jim Frost 11:30 AM

Not an authority, Jason. Just a guy who's been around the block a few times. I'm pretty much happy with my CoolPix 5400 although I haven't done the firmware upgrade yet. And that's really all there is to it. Are you happy?

I don't disagree that digital cameras offer a great deal more convenience than traditional film counterparts. I do have a great deal of trouble with pundits who keep touting digital superiority carte blanche.

# posted by Bill 11:35 AM

I'd agree on the Canon quality but at somewhere around $1,500 currently, compared to the "Miles for Camera" cost of my CoolPix 5400, I'd hardly recommend it to almost anyone. ("Almost" being the operative word there.)

As I see it, the pundits have failed miserably at prioritizing digital cameras and often rely on pixel envy for their recommendations. The professionas already know what they're looking for. Most consumers just want to be able to say, "my megapixels are bigger than yours." We don't have the economy for that any more and, besides, nobody should be a dupe all their life. ;-)

# posted by Bill 8:19 AM

"As I see it, the pundits have failed miserably at prioritizing digital cameras and often rely on pixel envy for their recommendations."

I would argue that it goes beyond mere pixel counts. They're often failing to prioritize digital cameras consistently on any grounds.

Consider, for instance, PC Magazine's DSLR review from earlier this year. Having deeply investigated most of the cameras they reviewed a few months earlier I read with interest their take on the matter. They picked the Olympus E-1 as their Editor's Choice. Having been fairly pleased with my Olympus C2500L the E-1 was high on my list when I first started looking, but it fell from favor immediately due to its high price, poor lens availability, and especially high-noise images.

If you look at image tests (eg from www.dpreview.com) it's clear that the E-1 is a poor performer, yet PC Magazine inexplicably claimed "Our test images were very sharp and clear, with little noise and excellent color." Huh? Noise was the #1 reason the E-1 got panned by everyone else. There are much better cameras available at that price point, or even at much lower price points.

In fact, the Canon EOS-300D -- coming in at $800 (!) less -- produces far superior images. It has a poor lens in the kit, but the $800 difference gives you quite a lot of lens selection availability (even some of Canon's L series glass). If you wanted the higher end features offered by the E-1, but not the 300D, then the obvious things to compare it to were the EOS-10D and the Nikon D100, both superior in every regard to the E-1. (Note that the D70 was not yet available, and has since reset the bar for low-end DSLR performance.)

It's reviews like that which make it hard for me to believe any reviewer's recommendations. Given such unreliability it seems to me that the best thing to do is to go read the reviews that show you test results, not just talk about them. Make up your own mind based on what you see, and take the review content with a grain of salt.

jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com

# posted by Jim Frost 12:21 PM

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