Like many 30-somethings, I came of age during a time when photography was transitioning from film to pixels. Entire years of my life were captured with early consumer and professional-grade digital cameras, and now I’m left feeling like that was a big mistake.
In the late 1990s, I moved from capturing memories on film to floppy disk. I bought a Sony Mavica FD-83 digital camera and pretty much dropped film entirely, capturing most of my memories at 0.8 megapixels or roughly 1,024x768. I could fit 6 or 7 pictures on a floppy disk and could often be found with a hip pack full of floppies on my waist at any given time.
I felt so cool. I felt so modern. 1,024x768 matched the resolution of my CRT monitors. Matching is great. A “mega” pixel sounded big, and so, 0.8 megapixels must have been good enough. My memories were accurately captured. I’m realizing now, as 4K and 5K monitors are standard, that I was so wrong. Most of my memories can’t even fill up half a screen without turning into a blocky, pixelated mess.
Transport yourself to 1999. Internet was primarily dial-up, where if your mom picked up the phone while you were browsing on America Online, you’d lose the connection. Most photography sites on the web didn’t even exist yet. Aside from consumer electronics magazines, there wasn’t really a place to turn to find out what a megapixel was, much less what that meant for printing and screen resolution. 4K monitors and televisions seemed like an insane idea. Even full HD (1,920x1,080) seemed insane when a flat, 17-inch CRT monitor at 1,024x768 seemed just peachy. How much better could it get?
By the time I went backpacking through Europe in 2004, I had upgraded from my Mavica, but my Sony Cybershot DSC-P8 was still only pushing 3.2 megapixels.
It’s in this environment that many of my generation entered digital. I bought the Digital Mavica for $800 in 1999 based primarily on seeing other people with Mavicas and the ease of copying files to the computer with a floppy disk. At that time, USB hadn't made its way into most computers and cameras yet, and a previous camera I tried, the Casio QV-10, required a terrible serial connection to the computer and very unreliable software to work. JPG and floppy disks were transformative when it came to workflow. Even if I had sprung for a $5,500 Nikon D1, also available at the time, I’d only be getting 2.7 megapixels. Much of my early professional work for newspapers was shot on a Nikon D2H, a 4.1 megapixel-body that seemed to look just fine on the toilet paper that passed for newsprint in those days, but whose images don’t really hold up on a 27” iMac with a 5K Retina display today.
Most of my professional work over my career has been shot with a 12-megapixel Nikon D700. That’s not enough to hold an 8K screen at full resolution. Even my main-squeeze Canon EOS 6D (and most other prosumer/professional cameras out there) can’t hold up at 8K resolution, which would need north of 30 megapixels. Am I repeating history by continuing to stick with such a “low-resolution” camera? Collectively, the cameras at the top of this post don't even equal the resolution of an older iPhone, but I shot so much work with them all.
By the time my kids dig through the digital shoebox of photos left behind after my death, they’ll only be able to witness my formative years at postage-stamp resolution on their 16K screens seamlessly integrated into their walls. It’s those days that I go through a batch of photos and print them all at 4x6, so there’s at least something around to document the era, but I’m still quite a few years behind on my printing.
What more could be done to ensure that photographs withstand the test of (resolution) time? These are the questions that keep me up as a photographer.
True.
Rich people problems. Most don't have any computer at all, let alone a 4K monitor. They'll have to do without seeing 100MB photos from the ski trip in Chamonix in 24K I guess.
I bought one of those Mavicas in 1999, as i neared 40. I relegated it to shooting for a company website. Then as digital imaging decimated the value of old film cameras, I bought them. As the masses moved from 35mm to digital, i moved from 35mm to medium-format.
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As a result, most of my older son Jean-Luc's childhood is recorded on 2.25" square negatives that produce a 32 megapixel image when scanned. I learned manual exposure like the back of my hand, as well as lighting, developing film, chemical printing, negative scanning, Photoshop.
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I've no idea if i was being a contrarian or a visionary, bit these have been the most creatively prolific years of my life, and I learned a lot.
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Photo:
Grand Canyon
6cm x 9cm negative
December 2012
The disappointment with digital is pixels. And noise. I love the satisfaction of choosing PanX PlusX or TriX for the incumbent grain and the quality of a beautiful analog image with pleasing contrast, deep blacks with detail and creamy whites. The control and character of choosing a film and particular lens, IMHO, will never be surpassed by Digital.
TriX was fun, wish I had shot more of it.
It's not too late ;)
Great article! Personally I switched to digital only at the 8Mix generation, and even than with a low weight travel body (Canon Rebel). I earned lots of flak from others for the "hassle" of dealing with the film. I carried approx 50 rolls of film for a vacation trip, and on the airports that always turned into a nightmare. Every roll was taken out of the canister, swapped for explosives. Some wanted put it through the x-ray, I carried a leaflet with my rights to convince the officer that I have a right to keep my film outside of the xray machine. I planed 20-30min extra for that at every airport. But, I can scan the films now to a bigger resolution. Trade off: lots of work, and real existing deterioration of the film material. Most of my film were slides, E6 process, Fuji was my favorite, Agfa was second. Kodak never scanned well, so I dropped it totally early in the game. All my 30-40 year old film show a visible loss of detail in highlights.
i never tried it, but there's some software out there, even free ones, that use fractal upscaling, bicubic interpolation, and terms like that. Apparently they do a great job in resizing images without loss of quality. check them out !
This is the reason that Pentax took forever to enter the DSLR arena. As a Pentaxian, I remember people telling me that Pentax is doomed, as the only manufacturer which had not yet gone digital. I would reply, “that is because they cater to real photographers.”
I remember when some colour labs started doing digital printing of images, —they would scan the negative then inkjet print— and seeing the clear difference; loss of detail and DR. I would always insist on classic printing, even if it meant next-day, instead of one-hour.
When Pentax finally came out with their first digital camera, Pentax *ist D, —which I always pronounced as, “Asterist Dee”, much better than, “Starist Dee”— I remember complaining that they ought to have done better, that 6MPx is not nearly good enough. I remember a fellow photographer, with his “Professional” Canon camera, (at 6MPx), telling me how great it was, that he shoots weddings and product photography with it, and that he can do 10×8 inch enlargements just fine. I remember looking at some of his work, and thinking that the images lack details. I remember doing some basic calculations, and thinking that I would need 18Mpx or better.
I remember trying the *ist D, —6MPx— and thinking, “I'm sticking with film for now.” I remember trying the K10D, —10Mpx— and thinking, “still sticking with film.” I remember trying one of the Sigma cameras with a Foveon Sensor, thinking that digital might have finally caught up, but not buying it because of an uninformed salesman. (I have questions, and if the salesman was that stupid on trivial issues, he certainly could not have helped me with more complex questions. I came this close to being a Sigma professional).
I remember trying the K-7 —14MPx— and still being somewhat disappointed. I remember seriously re-considering the Sigma. By this time, almost all my photography friends had gone digital. Several of my fellow Pentaxians had jumped ship for Nikon, and, yes, even Canon. 😉😆😁 (You see, Pentax was doomed, because Canon and Nikon had more MPx). Some loyal Pentaxians had taken to the Pentax DSLRs. I was the among the last bastions of film.
I remember trying the K-5 —16Mpx, slightly below my 18MPx estimate—and declaring, “Digital has finally arrived!” When I was going to purchase it, I heard rumours about the upcoming K-5 II, and held off. When the K-5 IIs came out, I had a little turmoil in my life at the time, so did not purchase anything just then, but it was to be done when the dust settled….
By the time the dust had settled, I heard about the upcoming K-3, —24Mpx— so I held off. When it came out, I tried it, then bought it, and I am still using it to this day.
I think of myself as an early adopter of technology, but I do not jump on bandwagons. I will not adopt a technology which I do not think is ready for prime time. Early digital cameras were great for journalists who had deadlines, and who would not be printing in high-res, or those doing product photography for online sales, but it was not for the majority of the professionals in other genres.
…And, yes, I heard; Pentax is doomed. Been hearing it for decades. 😆😁😀😄
I wrote the "Pentax is doomed" article a while back. It's been a while since so I guess I'm still wrong on this one ;)
No, Ricoh is ruining the company and they themselves are barely still in business
I doubt your descendants will be so superficial as to care about the resolution of handed down family photographs.
It is not the “resolution,” but the appearance of it on their 16k screens. Either they get something quite small, which is quite sharp, or something screen-sized, which looks like a ghastly, out of focus, blur.
When your kids dig through the digital shoebox you leave behind, the memories these images bring back will be far more important than the number of pixels they contain.
Almost all of the serious and professional photographers that I know waited until 2004 or 2005 to switch to digital, because only then did they feel that the quality of digital images was equal or better to that which 35mm film provided.
I think perhaps those who switched earlier than that were probably just "regular people" who liked to take photos, or not-so-serious photo hobbyists. But the people who are extremely serious about their imagery mostly didn't switch until '04 or '05, so they didn't really screw up a decade's worth of photos.
For me it was 2003. Early that year I bought my last film camera, a Nikon F100 and by November I was shooting with a Canon 10D. I guess I'm saying it was a confusing year for me.
I never went back to film after that.
And at the risk of drawing the ire of those that measure such things, I'd say 12 MP is enough to equal or surpass 35mm film quality....based on my experience with prints made from both.
Here's how crazy it was. In 1977 I traveled through asia and india. I took 10 rolls of film an olympus om1, 35 and 135 lenses.
I restocked in Deli with 5 more that I found in a real camera store. Sent them back home by Kodak mailer. Most made it back. No other film available that wasn't in a street stall in the heat with dust on it.
Manual camera, every single shot counted. A few out of focus, but 90% awesome. Each a gem.
Ironically, film's a little easier than that to find today in Delhi. Even in Hanoi, I was recently able to find a store selling good B&W film (and okay, they did look like Vietnamese hipsters. But I'll take it). I also travel with a MFT digital camera, and of course my phone, but I always like way more of the film photos, and do more with them. Maybe that's just me, but you have to do whatever works best for you.
A coupe of posts have asked, in essence, "Where is the AI enhancement we see on TV police shows?" If you yearn for CSI-Miami-like capabilities, you might take a look at http://topazlabs.com and see some examples of what Topaz AI Gigapixel can do. It won't take that 0.8MP image from your Mavica and make it into a 16 x 20 (or an 8K image), but it might help with some of those 3MP images.
Wasim, great article. But I’m not sure that we screwed up anything. We worked with what we had at the time, CCD noise and all. It really was a transitional and transforming time in photography and unlike some YouTube personalities, I don’t believe we need shoot our dogs photos with 60MP plus cameras to preserve their memory. I love the images and memories that I was able to capture of my family, even with my D1x.
This site needs more articles of this quality, less of the “ten things I learned from shooting ****, or second hand links with Alex commentary.
That is a good reason to print your best work on 200 year paper
Years ago, when I was in a nostalgic mood I bought a decent negative scanner and started scanning my film in 1200dpi. I was always convinced that all my pictures were razor sharp. It seems they weren't. Most were anything but tack sharp, they only appeared to be so in a normal photo print. There is a difference viewing pictures at 10x12 cm pieces of paper or seeing them at a higher resolution on a big screen.
The same for my first digital camera. A Minolta Dimage 7i. They are somewhat usable at this time and age. When I started using them, I had a much smaller and cheaper monitor. I'm not sure what I had at the time but I could have still been a CRT monitor. Nowadays on a 40 inch 4k monitor, every defect is immediately visible.
Picture taken with Minolta Dimage 7i
Regarding sharpness I made the same observation: In the beginning of film scanning and posting to the web I came to realize just how many of my slides were not optimal, but lacking a way to compare, when I projected these to the screen or to the wall, my eyes somehow were "satisfied." The digital revolution brought us the ability to compare our results with these of world's top photographers with a best equipment, and inspired to improve. It is a great time for the hobby (or profession.) Terabytes of storage, great monitors, could storage, all this is a complete game changer, and the image processing revolution is still in full swing.
If my kids will ever "dig through the digital shoebox of photos" that I left I sincerely hope that they will be interested in the contents rather than the number of megapixels. A good photo will always be a good photo no matter what resolution or how many pixels it has.
Stitching has been the answer to this issue for a long long time. I started to stitch 12 years ago with a D2x and the images shot then are still higher res than the best DSLRs available today and more than sufficient for very large prints of exhibiting quality. For those who were in Luminous-Landscape by then... I told you... :-)
This is why I'm comfortable carrying around an arguably outdated Canon PowerShot S100 as my "take everywhere" camera. I shoot mostly nature. If I see something I want in higher than 12-megapixel resolution, it's trivially easy to do a multi-row panorama, even handheld with bracketing since that camera is so small. I have a few photos in my portfolio that came out around 80 megapixels after stitching and cropping, that I wouldn't have without my trusty S100.
I did nor enter digital until the 6 megapixel threshold. My beef is I used too much TMax 400 film, which produces a much inferior scan than Agfa or Iflord film. This determination is made after handling and correcting thousands of images. It has something to do how the sliver halides cluster together that produces a tonal range that is ‘ugly’, more apparent in overexposed or over developed images. Sure, much of this can be fixed with post processing. Other film types do not require any post processing at all. My advice to today’s film users: Use medium format film.
BOOM!
This is the real reason why I disliked T-Max, and used Ilford, (and, yes, sometimes Agfa), and the real reason why I wanted to shoot medium format. I think that the T-Max design, with their T-shaped crystals, was a brilliant concept, in theory, but it broke down in practice.
The first few times I used T-Max, I thought, “What am I doing wrong?” I tried their recommended chemicals, I tried other chemicals…. Then after reading photography magazines,* concluded that it was the film, and went back to Ilford.
I wish digital photographers would get it; the “Medium Format look” is NOT ultra-thin DoF, but imperceptible grain, and high detail. The larger the negative, the less enlargement. The less enlargement, the finer the grain (in the print). The finer the grain, the better the detail.
Also, the larger the format the more line pairs possible† over the entire image. The more line pairs, the better the detail.
This seeking out of, “the world's first f/0.37 aperture lens to really separate the subject from the background for bokehlicious portraits,” as absolute rubbish. One gets a “fast lens” to shoot in dark places, not for ultra-thin DoF. I shoot portraits, and at f/4.0, my DoF is already too thin. Most of my portraits are at f/5.6 to f/8.0, (which also neatly falls into the lens' “sweet-spot”), with more than enough background blur, and subject separation.
* For the young ones: Magazine, noun; A collection of logs without the “web,” a precursor to a weblog home page, a printed version of a weeks, a months, or a quarters worth of blogs.
† For the un-informmed, Lens and film dependent. Any given lens can resolve a certain number of line pairs per unit distance across. Any given film can record a certain number of line pairs per unit distance across. The more line pairs per unit distance, the more details in the image. (Hence, the modern day race in the megapixel wars).
P.s.,, although Pentax entered the digital world at the 6Mpx threshold, I did not consider it until the 16Mpx threshold, and actually entered it at the 24Mpx threshold, where I am today.
4K is far from standard even in wealthy countries.
Another issue: digital isn't forever. Those old floppies are deteriorating faster than you think; so are your DVDs. Plus you need the hardware to read them. I'd advise transfering them to the cloud now and storing them in a format that people will be able to open in 50 years (probably jpg).
BTW, if you're storing your film properly, you shouldn't be seeing deterioration.
Cloud storage shouldn't degrade but it costs $$. Printing is about 100 years guaranteed but I don't think I'll be turning around with s receipt going I want my money back only lasted 96 years!!
Even in the days when rewritable dvd's were current and hard drives were very costly, I had lost quite a bit of material to corrupt DVD's. They are not reliable.
"Storing properly" means refrigerated. Is this really realistic for thousands of rolls of film in confines of an average home? Agencies and museum might be doing so, but not individuals. Digital can be and should be copied in several backups and refreshed. Information can be preserved without any loss. Not so with chemicals reacting with each other.
I still refrigerate my film targets to calibrate conversion from the film scanner. But that is basically not supported in the workflow using a digital camera and Capture One.
One of the things I like about Nikon is that all their lenses (right back to non AI) from film body days fit all the FX d** bodies lenses. Some of those old lenses are better than their modern replacements IF you have background in judging focus and doing manual exposure...
Posted to a wrong article? This here is about time-point of starting to use digital cameras versus holding on longer to film.
Well I am sure that those at the dawn of film photography also screwed up a whole generation of photos, perhaps more. Don't worry though, pretty soon there will be another group to screw up whatever new comes along.