11MP from 35mm Film

Introduction

The claims surrounding the Canon 1Ds are many regarding it surpassing, or not surpassing, 35mm film. Some of the common claims and assertions are:

As a rule of thumb, a 35mm frame contains only 6MP worth, roughly
There may be more, but it's too grainy
The Canon 1Ds surpasses 35mm
The 1Ds can only shine with the best lenses

Eleven MP Image from Provia 100F

This was shot with an EOS3 with PB-E2 and 600 IS at f/4 on Provia 100F. Scanned on an Imacon Flextight Precision-II at 5760 ppi, 16-bit. The image was then cleaned up using NeatImage (Y only, Cr/Cb are unaltered) and then downsampled to 11MP (it's slightly taller than a 1Ds frame).

Here's an overview of the full frame.

Overview of full frame

Here's the full frame: 11MP image from Provia 100F (973k)

To me this is not much behind the Canon 1Ds in image quality. A visual inspection with a 22x loupe shows the scanner got it all. That's not surprising, since the final 11MP image represents only a 2900 ppi, or 50 linear percent of the original scan. The downsample is Photoshop 7 bilinear.

How Much is There?

Again, same film, camera, scanner, and cleanup as in the previous example. Only this time I include crops of the full image downsampled to various resolutions to find the limit. (For all practical purposes, 13 and 11MP is the same, it's just what I happened to end up at by downsizing to an even 55% linear.) Again, the downsampling was made with Photoshop, only this time bicubic. NeatImage as previously was applied to lumunance only, hence the appearance of some residual chroma grain noise in the full frame.

Here's the overview of the full frame.

Full frame overview

Here are the crops.

43MP full resolution scan, 5760 ppi

How do I know the scanner is actually resolving 5760 ppi? Simple: the specks of dust I've removed during spotting are rendered perfectly crisp and clear. Some as small as a single pixel. Also, I check my images on the light table with a loupe carefully, and this is all there is. The only minor issue is exactly how the extinction detail is rendered. I think the Flextight and NeatImage combination has done a great job based on what I can see in the loupe.

Conclusions

OK. So what did I learn by doing this?

The Canon EOS lenses won't resolve much beyond 11MP/2900 ppi. Perhaps a few, like the 180 Macro or 300/2.8 IS can do a little better, but the 600 IS is no slouch. Unfortunately I need a lens this long, but might also try the 500 IS.
Making a digital camera that resolves more than 11MP is pointless since the lenses won't be able to drive it.
If the 1Ds can capture it, then obviously film can capture it assuming it's finely grained enough.
The Canon 1Ds equals 35mm Provia 100F with a quality digital workflow. This isn't odd at all, if you think about it.
35mm film using my workflow can drive my Epson 7600, just barely. 4064x2708 at 220-240 ppi comes out roughly to 18x12 to 17x11. (To understand why I chose these numbers, see my Epson 7600 Resolution Test.) But a desktop size scanner like the Epson 2200 is probably a better match.
Lenses matter a lot, both for the Canon 1Ds and Provia 100F -- perhaps also the other new 100F films.
I may scan my 35mm at 3200 ppi since there's less than that anyway.
Provia 100F is very scanner friendly.

Jan Brittenson <bson@rockgarden.net> 6/29/2003