Digital BW, The Print

Ken writes:

> Does anyone know of a reasonably unbiased source
> comparing digital capture and film scans, with high-res
> examples?

I've never seen a comparison that wasn't trying to prove that one is better
than the other.

Furthermore, there are so many variables in such comparisons that they are
usually meaningless, and even when expertly done they are questionable.

And still furthermore, neither method of image capture is generally superior
to the other.  It depends on what you want.  Digital has never been troubled
by grain, for example, and film has never lacked resolution.  Digital is
plagued by thermal noise in long exposures; film is plagued by reciprocity
failure under the same circumstances.

They are both analog processes, and neither is perfect.  Neither process has
been completely perfected, either: digital is in its infancy and has a very
long way to go before it is perfected (although it is already limited in
some aspects); film is quite mature and improvements are much smaller and
more incremental, but in theory it could do easily ten times better than it
does now (I just hope someone is still working on that).  Both will
presumably be much better in the future than they are now or have been in
the past.

> Right now I mostly use 35mm scanning on a Nikon
> 4000ED (into portability), not a pro scanner but
> pretty good.

There are an awful lot of pros using high-end Nikons and other "desktop"
scanners.  There are even pro labs using them.  Better a well-done scan from
a high-end CCD scanner than a careless scan from a drum.  Cheap scanners can
be limited, although I think that even a scan from a modest desktop scanner
can be more than sufficient for most purposes if done with care
(particularly for color negative film, which doesn't press scanners as hard
as transparencies or B&W).