Analog Films vs Digital Chip

[fastfashn]

My Dear Doctor,

You must know that you cannot reverse entropy. Energy is conserved, and if the picture you take is with a lousy lens then the picture will be limited by that lens. Detail cannot be recovered that does not exist.

Colors can be corrected to a degree, sharpness can be artificially enhanced, but why spend hours or days fixing something ruined because your lens is a hunk of lousy plastic when you could start out with something wonderful in the first place?

There is NO substitute for a good lens, no substitute at all.

-Dana Kincaid

"Posted by Dr. Elliot Puritz on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 1:30 am:

Hi Craig: I am not at all informed about the mechanics of digital photography, i.e., the resolving power and other attributes needed for digital lenses. Thus I find your comments extremely interesting, and worthy of thought. Do I understand that the lenses used on digital cameras need not be very refined, i.e., they need not be of terribly high quality because the software will do most of the work concerning color correction and "sharpness" ( I am aware of the various arguments concerning accutance and resolving power ). If so then the need for expensive lenses in digital cameras is obviated, and indeed, such highly developed lenses are a waste and need not be used. One cannot help wondering why Hasselblad H1 lenses still break the bank. One might also wonder if Leica will indeed develop an entire line of "D" lenses to fit on the R9 with the Digi back, and if such lenses will be more affordable. One might envision a "Digi Kit with back and lenses to fit on your R8 and R9 so that the Leica photographer can take full advantage of the digital space".

Thanks for the interesting information."

 

[Craig24]

Dana

The recording format, CCD, CMOS, 3200 film or 25 Kodachrome, has to be capable of "capturing" the information. On Pro D SLRs the much of the energy
is filterred out is it not. So educate me, why do you need a lens that can resolve 100 l/mm with a system than can only record 40 l/mm?

I'd put a rotten lens on a 10x8 camera but the idea does not work in reverse.

craig

 

[ellie]

Thanks Dana. I certainly would have thought the very same thing until the various posts about lenses used with digital cameras began to appear. One of our colleagues mentioned that Leica lenses can be used with Canon digital cameras providing an adaptor is used. That solution appears to be a very good one; I assume that the R lenses are the lenses in question. Given the possibility of a $7,000 R back, the Canon SLR digital is a bargain.

Thanks again.

Elliot

Elliot

 

[mattinasi]

> One thing I keep hearing is how the digital sensor cannot capture much resolution, in fact it has to be filtered, so why use good glass? I urge people to remember that there is more to an optical 'signature' than simple resolution. There are other lenses that resolve the same number of line pairs as a fine Leica lens, but they produce images that look different, maybe better, maybe not as good, but definitely different. I presume, though I have not proven it for myself, that even with reduced resolution the inherent differences in the signatures of different lenses will come through in digital images. Thus, using Leica lenses may make sense on a digital camera, even if the resolution potential of the lens is not realized due to the limitations of the digital sensor. All speculation on my part, I admit...

That said, I really believe that digital capture is so different from film capture that it is a mistake to try and use equipment designed for one medium in the other medium. There may be some economy in it for the short-term, but in the long term the digital systems will have their own lenses, designed for digital systems, not 35mm systems. The optics will be much better too (better for their digital purpose, that is), because with digital the image processing software can correct some aberrations that must be corrected optically in a film system - this will allow the lens designer to more successfully correct for optical aberrations that cannot be 'fixed' digitally. Basically, the constraints are different so the designs will be different. Also, if the sensors are smaller, the optics will be smaller, and that is a nice attribute!

- marc

 

[lct]

Marc Attinasi wrote Also, if the sensors are smaller, the optics will be smaller, and that is a nice attribute

What about DOF and bokeh Marc?

 

[fastfashn]

Why do TV cameras have great lenses? I mean, since TV sets, in general, only resolve about 300 horizontal lines out of a possible 720 - amd this isn't lines/mm, this is the TOTAL lines on a TV 12" to 53", no matter how big the picture tube is, why bother with much of a lens at all? The reason is that you need to get as much information as possible to that crummy sensor, whatever that sensor is in your particular camera, as possible.

You need to keep distortion to a minimum, have great DOF, durability, usability, color correction. The lens needs to focus smooooooooothly, zoom (if available) needs to work properly all the time, lens mount has to be rigid and durable.

If you need a great lens for the crummy old TV resolution, why would we need less for high resolution film photography, or digital? Even a 2MP digital camera has better resolution than a television.

"Posted by Craig J. Hoehne-Smith on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 2:55 am:

Dana

The recording format, CCD, CMOS, 3200 film or 25 Kodachrome, has to be capable of "capturing" the information. On Pro D SLRs the much of the energy is filterred out is it not. So educate me, why do you need a lens that can resolve 100 l/mm with a system than can only record 40 l/mm?

I'd put a rotten lens on a 10x8 camera but the idea does not work in reverse.

Craig"