Back when I got my first digital camera, my thoughts were that it would only really be used for web images. If I wanted something of higher quality, I would use my 35mm SLR. After all, I could always scan the photos and get really high quality digital images.
This last little project with my old photos has proven this completely wrong. The film photos I have are sharp and beautiful. However, when I scan them, the image doesn’t have anywhere near the crispness and color of the paper version. I’ve tried scanning both the photographs and the negatives, with neither having much difference. As a last result, I tried using my Nikon D50 to copy one of the pictures – a photo of a photo. This still wasn’t much help.
I guess this is the old "copy of a copy" effect. It could also just be that my scanner isn’t of the quality I might have wished. Regardless, this is what I know. I can take a high resolution digital file from either my Nikon D50 or even my little Nikon S1, and get some very good paper prints. However, I can’t seem to get good digital images from 35mm shots. I’m afraid that’s just one more advantage of digital over film.
