Digital BW, The Print

Hi Jerry,

For once I agree with you! I bought a 6 MP Nikon D100 recently (despite all
the things I've said about lack of pixels in digital cameras in the past),
and I have been amazed at the pictures I've produced with it (and so have
most of my photographic friends). It is so much easier to produce a good
18x12 from the D100 (with some upsampling to give 240ppi) than it is from my
Nikon LS4000 scanning Provia 100F (taken on a Nikon F100) and printing at
360 ppi without upsampling. I use the Raw file output, and process with
Nikon Capture 3.5.1 (better than Adobe Camera Raw in my tests).

Why are they better? Well, having no film grain or grain aliasing, no
'pepper grain' microbubbles in the film, no dirt on the film, no film
processing deposits, no scanner depth of field problems, etc, certainly
helps. It seems to me that number of pixels/sensors is just one parameter to
be considered (6000:24000 for D100:F100/LS4000:), but the 'quality' of those
output pixels is equally important. Don't ask me what goes on in the
processing algorithms of Nikon Capture, but the end result is very nice.
Nikon Scan does not do the same for the four-times-as-many pixels from my
scanner.

Perhaps another reason why I get better pictures is the fact that I can use
much faster shutter speeds with my D100, just by switching to a higher ISO
setting (manually or automatically), and since I only occasionally use a
monopod, I guess using the higher speeds is reducing camera shake
significantly. The extra noise from the higher ISO's is often liveable with,
or if excessive for my taste, is easily removed by Neat Image (a very nice
little program).

In the space of just 3 months and one two-week holiday in the Canaries with
my D100, I've switched from supporting Austin to agreeing with you. Well I
never!

Bob Frost.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry Olson" <jerryolson@...>


> Austin, I don't care about arithmetic, numbers or bayer patterns. I only
> can tell you what my eye sees. That's
> good enough for me.  Before I got my D60 camera, many people said it
> couldn't possibly equal film at 12x18 inch film print. I think you were
> among them. Well it can. And I will not get into a debate with you as
> you will only say that's impossible. Sorry, but it is possible and my
> prints prove it to anyone who has seen them.