Digital BW, The Print

One could do the same thing with film, but it would definitely cost more in 
film and development.  How many frames of film are you willing to take, 
develop, scan, clean up, align (because alignment in the scanner isn't 
perfect frame to frame) and THEN stack?  The same workflow would take less 
time when using digital capture because you avoid the development, 
scanning, dust clean-up, and most of the alignment pain (assuming you were 
using a halfway decent tripod).

One of the great things (for me -- your mileage may vary) about digital is 
not giving a second thought to the cost of film or development when I want 
to bracket something.  This applies not only to exposure bracketing but 
focus and DOF bracketing as well.  When I shot film, bracketing always 
involved hearing the sounds of cash registers in the back of my mind.  I 
did it, but I was conservative about it.  I am no longer conservative about 
bracketing at all.  (And, by the way, I have been known to stack focus- and 
DOF-bracketed images in Photoshop as well.)

I do have a film scanner (a Nikon LS-4000) and it does an incredible 
job.  But in my experience you have to take this very good scanner out of 
automatic mode and, essentially, bracket exposures in order to grab the 
full dynamic range out of a wide-latitude negative.  As I mentioned this is 
essentially the same technique as shooting multiple exposures digitally in 
the first place, only at this point you are limited to whatever the film 
captured at the time of shooting.  Anyway, in my own case I was shooting 
and scanning slide film (usually Provia) to minimize grain, and in that 
case the scanner in "auto" generally captures the full latitude in one 
scan.  In order to get effective latitude then I had to use split ND 
filters at shooting time.

So now I'm getting better results, I don't have to use split ND filters, I 
don't have grain, I don't pay for film, I don't spend all weekend 
developing and scanning it, and I don't have to deal with dust unless I've 
let the sensor get dirty.  Again, it's a huge improvement in quality of 
life as much as anything else.  I'm supposed to be enjoying myself taking 
pictures right?

At 02:40 PM 9/10/2003 -0400, Austin Franklin wrote:
>Hi Greg,
>
> > While I don't have the scientific data to back it up (and you might -- if
> > so, please share) I'd tend to think that one could extract significantly
> > more effective latitude by the bracketing and stacking technique
> > discussed
> > in this thread using a digital camera than one could ever get with
> > film.
>
>But...why couldn't you simply do the same thing with film?  Take multiple
>exposures at different exposures, and scan them, and combine them in PS?
>
> > Even with the best-exposed negative, no scanner currently made
> > (short of a
> > drum scanner -- maybe) is going to extract the full dynamic range.
>
>But...that's simply not true.  You can extract the FULL density range (don't
>confuse dynamic range with density range) of any B&W or color negative film
>on a respectable film scanner.  SOME slide films may be at the limits of mid
>range film scanners, but today's mid range film scanners are pretty good.
>
>What film, specifically, do you think a decent scanner can't scan the full
>density range of?
>
>Regards,
>
>Austin