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Analogue vs. Digital PhotographyRecently I have started to revive an old hobby of mine: analogue photography. Of course, in my younger days it was just called photography since there was no other kind. Today, you are considered either outdated or excentric if you are seen with an analogue camera. I have no doubt that the future of photography is digital. The question is: when is the right time to switch? Newsflash: I have posted a follow-up which can be found here. |
My experience with digital photography started a few years ago when my analogue camera system got stolen. I then got a digital view finder camera as a replacement. Producing images in a computer-readable format has been a major enhancement to my life and my capability of sharing images with friends and family. But there is another way to produce digital images: scanning negatives and positive slides using a film scanner. Both film scanners and second hand cameras are widely available these days, sometimes for very little money. Is this the better way? Or is it time to go all digital? In this article I am comparing both options, using the two contestants in the following picture:
| The Contestants Canon Powershot G2 Olympus OM-2 |
Obviously, this is a tricky one given that we are comparing a developing and striving technology with one that is no longer maintained. At face value, you could compare a full frame digital camera (EUR 3500) with a second hand purchase of an analogue 35mm camera from Ebay (EUR 100 max), plus second hand film scanner from the same source (EUR 400). Even when throwing in maintenance by a specialist and plenty of 35mm films and their development, the analogue system wins hands down. However, some people would argue that a low end digital SLR for EUR 700 will do the job nicely in which case both worlds emerge with a similar price tag.
Of course, once you have recovered from the initial investment, the running bill speaks much in favour of digital. So much that you adopt a new style of photography: if in doubt, take a few pictures more, since it costs basically nothing. You end up with a huge number of files, and you can afford to pick the very best for further processing. You no longer wait for the perfect moment, the perfect light, the perfect picture. You adopt a style of commercial production, similar to what professionals have been doing all along. I do not want to pass judgement, but you should be aware of how it is changing your style of work. Sometimes, when looking at old books about photography, I get the feeling we have lost something.
It is sometimes amazing what type of equipment has been developed for some of the analogue systems with the professional user in mind. In the case of the Olympus OM system I can think of adaptors for microscopes and telescopes, changeable focussing screens, off-the-film metering (particularly useful for flash photography in difficult circumstances like macro and micro photography), lenses, and many more. Some of them have become meaningless in the digital era (like camera backs holding film for 250 exposures, camera backs projecting data like date and time onto the film, winders, motors).
Most digital camera systems including the more professional ones have not or not yet developed the same amount of accessories. On the other hand, accessories for the analogue camera systems may not always be available on the second hand market, or only at a price.
To me, this point goes clearly and entirely to the analogue system, at least, if you choose the right one. Which is surprising, since digital cameras are in fact powerful micro computers which should enable them to adapt to the human nature better than anything before. However, as in all computer software, there is a tendency to offer more and more options and features, which make the machine harder to use. I personally find it much easier to work out shutter speed and aperture, focus, and done. With an all-electronic camera I have the option to choose an automatic program (out of 20), zone and other settings I do not fully understand. My experience is, left to standard settings the results are often suboptimal. In particular auto focus is a big problem that can either not be switched off or with greatly reduced usability.
The software complexity is also reflected in the number of dials and knobs and electronic menu items on these camera models.
Then there is the topic of delay. Sometimes a camera is ready to take a picture only multiple seconds after switching on - and why do you have to switch it on in the first place? And when pressing the shutter release, it can take up to a second before the picture is taken. As a workaround, there often is an intermediate position from where the shutter delay is significantly reduced - but still noticeable when the object of interest has moved out of the frame by the time the picture is taken.
Note how I said "all-electronic camera" above rather than digital camera. The reason is, that the late analogue models sold in the nineties typically were micro computers, with auto focus, and consequently showed the same flaws as modern digitals. The analogue cameras I would consider a usable alternative are basically camera generations developed in the 70s and 80s.
Finally, let us look at size and weight. The Canon EOS-1D Mark II weighs 1565g including batteries, excluding standard zoom lens. Compare that with the Olympus OM-1 body that brings 510g to the table. The size difference is even more striking.
Again, it has to be said that some lower end digital SLRs are significantly lighter (although by no means small), whereas some analogue systems like the Nikon F2 and definitely some of the all-electronic cameras of the nineties, were big and/or heavy. What I am trying to say, is: suum cuique - to each his own. To some people, size and weight are not a big deal. To me they are, and whilst the Olympus fits nicely in my hands and face, the big monstrosities do not.
In this department the verdict is clear and unambiguous: digital wins. The whole process of exposing, developing and scanning sensitive film charged with static electricity is just asking for trouble. Everybody with some experience in this field will confirm that retouching the digital images with a suitable image processing software is a necessary part of the process. Yes there are film scanners that allow the automatic detection of dust particles in the infrared spectrum, but in my experience it doesn't always work or produces artefacts. And there is still the issue of scratches. Sometimes you receive the negatives or slides from the laboratory already scratched. There is nothing more annoying, and according to Murphy's Law it is always your best negatives or slides that are affected.
The previous section about dust and scratches has already touched on the subject of how the pictures are processed from exposure to the eventual digital data file on your hard disk. And as pointed out in the previous section, the process starting from the analogue camera is pretty tedious. First you expose very thin layers of light sensitive material, leading to layers of translucent colour compounds and colour filters embedded in a film after a complicated chemical development process where any of the parameters has an impact on the resulting colour balance, gradation, the grain structure and the definition of the image. You then scan the film, transforming the colours shining through into electrical currents that are measured, corrected and used to build up an electronic representation of the image. The scanning process copes with a lot less of the contrast and colour space inherent in negatives and slides.
Now if you think the digital image process is much easier, think again. There is an enormous amount of software processing going on to turn the electrical information from the digital sensor into meaningful images. The precise nature of the hidden algorithms is probably a trade secret, but look at the number of options available in software transforming images from RAW format to any standard file format. At minimum you transform the Bayer pattern, apply logarithmic gradation curves, adjust the white point, saturation and levels, and throw in sharpening and statistical noise reduction algorithms for good measure.
The point made in the previous section is, that the digital process is all in software which does not allow dust to come into the picture (unless it was present on the sensor at the very beginning). For the same reason, the all digital process is much easier to automate, which greatly reduces the effort per picture and leads to a much better consistency of the results.
As far as the truthfulness of the results is concerned, I would not bet money on any of the two. You are, however, entitled to your own opinion as to which of the results you find more pleasing to the eye. In my particular scenario, looking at the section about image quality below, I would personally opt for the analogue scans.
So what are features specific to one technology and not the other? One fairly obvious feature in favour of the digital process is the meta information stored with digital images, like shutter speed, aperture, orientation and many others. They are, for instance stored in the so-called EXIF data which is part of many image file formats.
So finally we turn to the subject of image quality. Let's only talk about film grain and digital noise specifically, and then look at sample images for the rest.
Film grain and digital noise are often compared as similar concepts in their respective worlds. As a photography enthusiast, I have to reject this idea. Digital noise really is just that: noise. Film grain, on the other hand, can add to the image. Maybe it is just an expectation of my visual cortex after years of conditioning, and future generations will see it differently. But to me, film grain sometimes adds to the picture, and it is difficult to create artificially (and still look like the real McCoy). Admittedly, there are also situations where film grain looks bad.
One point in favour of modern digital cameras: they show hardly any digital noise sometimes up to speeds of ISO 800. So for crisp, grainless and noiseless pictures at high film speed, digital has the edge.
In the rest of this section I would like to present the difference in image quality that can be expected from both types of photography. Of course, I can only make a statement about the devices and the material I have at my disposal. You'll have to adjust the results when transferring them to other scenarios.
For the comparison I use the following scene which provides sufficient detail and contrast. It also has the distinct advantage of being quite repeatable - weather permitting. In the following I present you two shots of the same scene, one taken with a 35mm camera and the other with a digital camera. This also shows that at low resolution the image quality is close.
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As an analogue camera I was using an Olympus OM-2 with a Zuiko Auto-S 1.8/50mm standard lens. The OM-2 was certainly one of the top camera models in its time. For scanning the negatives I used a Canon FS-4000 US film scanner. It is still a good choice, although it has been surpassed by other models that feature higher resolution, higher image density, and much lower scanning times.
With the Olympus OM-2, I took pictures at f 1:11 1/1000s and f 1:16 1/500s. At these settings, either the aperture or the shutter were at their limit, so without grey filters there was no other combination possible. Both settings produced a very similar result. The only visual difference seems to be due to a focal difference during the scanning process. To me, the scan of the f 1:16 version appears to be a tad sharper which can be seen when studying the grain structure.
| Olympus OM-2 f 1:11 1/1000s ISO 200 4000 dpi scan Original crop |
| Olympus OM-2 f 1:16 1/500s ISO 200 4000 dpi scan Original crop |
The negative scans were originally taken at 4000 dpi which equates to 20 mega pixels. To make the comparison fair in terms of sensor resolution, the scans were scaled down to 1475 dpi.
| Olympus OM-2 f 1:16 1/500s ISO 200 4000 dpi scan scaled to 1475 dpi |
As a digital camera I was using a Canon Powershot G2 - simply because that is the only model I own. The Canon G2 was one of the top models at the time, however since the digital camera technology is still evolving rapidly, it has fallen behind significantly. I am aware it is not comparable to a top-of-the-range digital SLR, but then again, we are comparing with a 30 year old analogue camera model. ;-)
To make the comparison fair in terms of digital noise, the digital images are compared at ISO 50 despite the analogue film being ISO 200. This is a legacy of the generation of the Canon Powershot G2. Modern digital cameras will show an equal image quality up to ISO 200 or higher.
| Canon Powershot G2 f 1:8 1/250s ISO 50 Canon Raw Original crop |
| Canon Powershot G2 f 1:8 1/1000s ISO 200 Canon Raw Original crop |
Interestingly, the Canon G2 exposed at f 1:8 1/1000s (ISO 200), which is one stepping more than the Olympus OM-2. In both cases the exposure appears to be correct, which indicates the ISO 200setting of the G2 in reality is closer to ISO 100.
For an optimum comparison I should probably compare a modern full frame digital camera like the Canon EOS-1D Mark II against a combination of the OM-2 and a Nikon CoolScan 5000 ED. If someone is willing to sponsor such a review, please come forward. ;-)
In all the sample pictures provided above, just compare the cock at the end of the large roof. Whereas it can clearly be identified on the 4000 dpi scans, it has completely disappeared on the digital image taken at ISO 200.
For the final comparison I made one further allowance. In order to take away the distraction of different colour temperature and contrast, I transformed the colour space of the digital camera images to match the scans. The question is not, which colour temperature is right, I just want them to look alike to focus on the other details. I also gave the digital camera images a very light unsharp mask to try and get the maximum out of them. Any more would have increased the sharpening artefacts to an unpleasant level. If you disagree with this type of image processing, please bear in mind that both the process of creating an image from a digital sensor and the process of scanning and scaling down a negative are already heavily software based.
| Canon Powershot G2 f 1:8 1/250s ISO 50 Canon Raw Image processing Original crop |
Let us now compare a few more image details. In the following pair of pictures, compare the detail in the brick wall in the background and the writing on the block of bricks in the centre.
| Olympus OM-2 f 1:16 1/500s ISO 200 4000 dpi scan scaled to 1475 dpi |
| Canon Powershot G2 f 1:8 1/250s ISO 50 Canon Raw Image processing Original crop |
In the next pair of pictures, compare the wall of the red building and the detail in the trees.
| Olympus OM-2 f 1:16 1/500s ISO 200 4000 dpi scan scaled to 1475 dpi |
| Canon Powershot G2 f 1:8 1/250s ISO 50 Canon Raw Image processing Original crop |
The comparison of images leaves only one verdict: despite doing everything to level the playing field and despite making a lot of allowances for the digital camera, the analogue camera wins hands down in this particular contest of image quality.
So where does all this leave us? I think, one thing is clear: digital photography is here to stay. I would use the digital camera in most situations, particularly when producing high volume, when taking non-critical pictures (eg. holiday snaps), when documenting something. In all those scenarios the large degree of process automation and the negligible price per shutter release make digital the obvious choice. Only for creative amateur photography would I consider using a suitable analogue camera system: the advantages in the area of haptics, usability, availability of accessories and (in some cases) the high resolution and the old fashioned look & feel of the images outweigh the disadvantages.
But even in the sector of creative amateur photography, time is running out for analogue systems. Already you can find reports on the web attesting superior image quality to the digital SLR, for example here. Only price, accessories and the usability aspects speak against the digital SLR at this point in time. Sure, there is no logical reason, why we shouldn't see a digital SLR at some point that is small, light weight and usable (compared to the chunky heavy weight fully automated and yet confusing to operate mini computers of today). On the other hand, prior to the digital revolution the analogue sector had already started to move into the wrong direction, so it is not likely the trend will reverse any time soon.
Let's enjoy our favourite analogue camera systems while they last. The era may be over sooner than we think.
Martin
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| Self Portrait Olympus OM-1n Ilford HP5 around 1981 |
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