Scanning Film
In contrast to digital photographs, color negatives and slides consist of multiple film layers that respond to light differently. As a consequence, transparent originals (especially positive slides) feature a very high dynamic range.
| Material | Dynamic range (F stops) | Object contrast |
|---|---|---|
| photograph print | 5 | 1:32 |
| color negative | 8 | 1:256 |
| positive slide | 12 | 1:4096 |
When digitizing photographic material with an image scanner, the scanner must be able to capture the whole dynamic range of the original, or details are lost. The manufacturer's declarations concerning the dynamic range of flatbed and film scanners are often slightly inaccurate and exaggerated.
Despite color negative having less dynamic range than slide, it actually captures considerably more dynamic range of the scene than does slide film. This dynamic range is simply compressed considerably.
Read more about this topic: High Dynamic Range Imaging
Famous quotes containing the word film:
“Perhaps our eyes are merely a blank film which is taken from us after our deaths to be developed elsewhere and screened as our life story in some infernal cinema or despatched as microfilm into the sidereal void.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)