With Tim Grey’s permission, I periodically reproduce one of his Q&A emails. If you aren’t already on his DDQ (Digital Darkroom Questions) email list and you are seriously involved in digital photography, I would suggest you go here and learn more. Tim used to be George Lepp’s digital guru before going to work for Microsoft. George Lepp is a first class nature photographer and he writes for Outdoor Photographer. I had an opportunity to participate in one of Mr. Lepp’s field seminars several years ago in Alaska.
The question and answer that prompted this post involves the ongoing “film versus digital” debate.

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From Tim Grey’s February 25, 2008 DDQ email:

“Do you think digital photography is nearing film quality? Another photo guru says that it would take a 25 megapixel camera to simulate mere 35mm film let alone medium-format film. Are we that far away? (My mother, well beyond 80 in age, just remembers photos from film being so much more vibrant and sharp and real. Well, me too.)”

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“Why do I feel like I’m walking into a controversy with this one?

There are, in my mind, two issues to consider here, one quantitative and one qualitative. The quantitative issue is that of how much information is contained in the image. From this perspective, I believe digital capture has exceeded film by most measures. The top digital cameras have actually gotten to the point that they are able to resolve more detail than the lens can provide. In other words, the limiting factor in terms of detail is now the lens, not the imaging sensor. The amount of information captured in a digital capture of about 20 megapixels (for a digital SLR) approximately equates to the maximum amount of information generally believed to be available in the top 35mm films. The specific details could be debated here, considering the results would vary based on the particular film, lens, and digital SLR used for testing purposes, but the bottom line is that we have gotten to the point that digital has matched or exceeded the amount of information you are able to capture in a single image compared to film. I think we’ve reached our destination when looking at top-end cameras, and this will continue to improve.

Of course, that doesn’t address the qualitative issue. Your comments here remind me of my experience years ago when I was working with professional nature photographer George Lepp (www.geolepp.com). I had heard so many photographers wax poetic about Kodachrome film, but had never photographed with it so I didn’t have any perspective on the film. But I had the impression that it was an incredible film and that the latest films didn’t stack up to this old favorite. However, George had a huge slide collection that went back many years, and included a wide variety of films. At the time George was shooting mostly with Kodak E100VS film, and I had grown accustomed to that look when sorting his slides. At times projects would call for pulling some older images, and those would often be Kodachrome. While the images were sharp and technically of the highest quality, there was an obvious difference in terms of the overall quality, which was a reflection of the film itself. It was a top film for its day, but the latest films were significantly better. What I’m getting at here is the perception that the older films were better than the newer films. This is something I put into the “good old days” category, which sums up the notion that things were always better “in the good old days”. It is often a matter of selective (or even romanticized) memories rather than reality.

So, I’d suggest if you really think digital isn’t as good as film captures, you might want to pull out some of those old film images and make a direct comparison. You might be surprised at what you discover. Just the simple fact that digital captures don’t have film grain makes a huge difference. That isn’t to say we could automatically assume digital is better than film. This is a qualitative consideration we’re looking at now, after all. The simple fact is that some photographers prefer the look of film. I don’t happen to be one of them (so I’m a bit biased, to be sure), but there are many of them out there. In fact, I continue to be a bit surprised by how many photographers continue to shoot film (and I even shot some film not too long ago, and you can read about that on my blog).

In the final analysis, I think it is fair to say that digital capture (at least in the top-of-the-line digital SLRs) has exceeded the quality of film. However, it doesn’t perfectly match the look of film, so some photographers are going to still prefer to shoot with film rather than digital. That’s just an increasingly small number of photographers.”

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You can learn more about Tim Grey at www.timgrey.com.