What's the Resolution of 35mm Film?

35mm film is usually scanned for 4 by 6 or 5 by 7 prints, or jpgs for online distribution. But that's not where the limits of its resolution are. So where are they, and how do we get there?
Links mentioned in this episode:
[0] / analog
[1] www.filmscanner.info/en/Epson...
[2]www.fujifilm.com/products/pro...
[3]www.fujifilm.com/products/pro...
Gear used:
Canon EOS R
Sigma 18-35mm f1.8
Canon 100mm f2.8 L Macro
Canon 35mm f1.8 RF Macro
Adobe Lightroom
OBS
Davinci Resolve 16 Studio
My tremendous accent
Music
OBOY - Exhibit
Mikey Geiger - Terra Trance

[@jeremykeller211]

Please note: resolution is a characteristic of a lens. The presenter is talking about accutance, an attribute of film.

[@aksting]

The funny part of this realization of true 35mm film resolution is that, only just now have full frame digital cameras come close to the same true resolution as film. The difference has been that it has been close enough and more convenient to get the images and make real time adjustments for digital.

[@davidbcg286]

Also, the ISO flexibility is way higher in digital.

[@rowjangdaminecrafter6090]

Yeah, actually, digital has been absolutely destroying and even matching some medium films in terms of resolution for at least a decade. Furthermore, the lenses produced for digital cameras are much sharper than those typically produced for film (excluding some of the modern lenses that are backwards compatible with some more modern 35 millimeter film cameras, but that is really a moot point since 35mm has such a low resolving power anyway). The only 35mm film stock that really comes close, in my opinion, is Adox cms 20 2; but that's a highly specialized film that limits you to black and white and Iso 20, making it completely unusable in 90% of situations. This is not to say that 35mm film is not fun to shoot or a valuable medium, In fact it is quite the contrary. However it is frankly ludicrous to claim that digital has only now caught up to film when we have had such high resolution sensors for so long. Furthermore, recommending taking a macro lens and an extension tube to get a 300+ megapixel scan of a 35mm negative (about 8 megapixels at most) is even more ridiculous and a huge waste of time.

[@NormSpupsEntertainment]

Great video mate! gotta love pushing the limits of various mediums. I like your presentation and editing too, very relaxing

[@AndrewRoyal137]

Exactly what wanted to know! Dig your presentation style. Informed, interesting and wry

[@PhilOsGarage]

A good illustration of why film is still hanging around. Interesting video, thanks for uploading

[@nerwanisnoone1937]

This was a great vid, deserves more views.

[@xcvs8859]

This was hilarious! And informative. Great video!

[@PTUsher]

Fascinating video, just sorry I haven’t seen it sooner! Loved your philosophy on pushing the limits to see if we can - and if we should... “Nerd town“ haha! Sounds like my kind of place. Thanks so much for putting this test together and sharing :)

[@lajosnagy1340]

No idea what happened to the notifications, only seeing your message now! No worries, thank you for watching it. I know it's a very niche topic :)

[@PTUsher]

Lajos Nagy always a pleasure :)

[@monumentalvibes849]

This was great! So much information and an obvious understanding of the fundamentals. I’ve been shooting with 6x7 and I’m super happy with the resolution. I was sad it wasn’t as good as imax but after acquiring some actual film prints of interstellar I was surprised to find I could only get about 6k out of it as it must lose a LOT of clarity when transferred from the negative

[@hartgetzen7867]

Don’t forget clarity loss from motion blur. Was your sample from a static, locked-down shot?

[@joakimblomgren5118]

Excellent good explanation, Thank you very much. :)

[@AgentSmith911]

I hope more old TV shows, movies and music videos that were originally filmed in 35 mm film will be converted to digital, maybe 4K or 8K. But sadly, a lot of the original material has been lost. Thanks for the information.

[@RetroFan]

Movies shot on 35MM make most of the true 4K Blu-Rays, where modern movies shot digitally are often presented in fake 4K. People were sold the lie that digital is better than film.

[@sarpsarp8987]

I thought videos were not films. If something is filmed, then it isn't a video.

[@RetroFan]

@@sarpsarp8987 They’re called music videos even when shot on film.

[@user-kx5rm1dz5m]

@@RetroFan digital 4k camera Sony Venis or Arry Aklesa or Red Raptor are completely superior to their 35 mm film, film is an atavism

[@RetroFan]

That's false. 35MM film is capable of greater output than 4K resolution. Plus, film is natural and looks better. There's a reason that even today there are movies still shot on film! You'll notice most true 4K blu-rays are the older movies while modern movies have tended to be upscales.@@user-kx5rm1dz5m

[@tiitulitii]

Thank you so much for deep deliberation! See also the video: HOW TO DO IMAGE STACKING IN AFFINITY PHOTO FOR BETTER IMAGES

[@Frisenette]

8:41 you need more than 2 pixel rows to represent a line pair. If the line pair is not perfectly aligned with the pixels (which they never ever are), or is not a line pair, but something more complex and with colour, you will need more than three pixels to do the same as the film.

[@johanvanhuyssteen9217]

Great video thanks for uploading. Do you have a link to further reading or a tutorial how to utilise super resolution scanning? Have you tried it yourself? Thanks for your time, I appreciate it.

[@gerhardbotha7336]

Thanks! Does this hold true for larger formats like 120?

[@cdavey7654]

I'm looking forward to shooting some CMS 20 II PRO - 800 L/mm film with my Canon EOS-1n and a recent Sigma 70mm Macro Art lens (fairly high resolving) and then 'scanning' it with the same lens on my 61MP Sony a7RIV - might even try a pixel shift version just to see if I can tell any difference, haha... It's fun trying stuff out and seeing how good of quality one can get! 🙂

[@ahmadalazme3106]

how big can you go with v850 ?

[@lfraser7128]

You mention about scanning film resolution, would there be similar performance with traditional optical enlarging?

[@jb-xc4oh]

No, it all depends on the optical quality of the enlarger lens and the flatness of the medium you are projecting the image onto. Whenever I enlarge 8x10 or larger prints I use a vacuum easel.

[@andrewdewar8159]

Hi, the American U2 spy plane still has a huge film camera on it with a big strip of film I saw on KZbin, the strip of film looked like a positive, not a negative and it was a few inches wide. Do you think they are using film because it is way higher resolution than a digital sensor ?

[@PrebleStreetRecords]

Exactly, yeah. Kodak and others still make Aerographic film, which is specially designed to have incredible resolving power. A sadly discontinued stock was Kodak Aerochrome, which was IR-sensitive to make manmade structures stand out from foliage (which would look pink). Normal 35mm film already has fantastic resolving power, but larger formats like 120, 4x5 and 8x10 scale that up even more. The U2 Camera used 18"x18" film. A really good technical film like Rollei RPX 25 can resolve 260 lines/mm, or about 26,000dpi, meaning the U2 camera negatives were technically about 219,000MP. Of course, you start running into way more practical limitations. Even if you have a huge sheet of film, the lens might not be able to resolve the detail, and you even start running into the limitations of physics. This example is EXTREMELY ballpark and ignores 99% of what goes into optical engineering, but: my 4x5 Graflex has a maximum aperture size of 28.2mm (127mm lens at f/4.5), and RPX 25 is sensitive to light as low as 300nm (per its data sheet), meaning it has a maximum angular resolution of 0.000744° (ignoring glass quality, etc), which means it can resolve 57,768x70,443 "points" in the lens' field of view on a 4x5 negative. However, the negative itself can resolve 104,000x130,000 dots. So even with everything else being perfect, the film exceeds what my lens can even "see". For reference, the U2 Camera has a stated PRACTICAL angular resolution of 0.0022°, which is the same as looking out the window of a passenger plane and being able to see a phonebook.

[@andrewdewar8159]

Thanks so much for this detailed explanation. I would love to know more about the physics of photography. Optics was a special topic when I did elementary physics. There are not many youtubes that actually can explain it properly. @@PrebleStreetRecords

[@julesfisher3551]

This shows that professional 35 mm film lenses capable of great images on film, will be good for 100mp full frame cameras. I use to used a CONTAX and Zeiss lenses with Fuji 50 ASA or Kodak 64 ASA reversal film. You could project these slides on a wall 3m x 6m and not see any grain or issues. Pin sharp.

[@c.augustin]

If I didn't already have an Olympus Pen F with 80 MP hi-res pixel-shift mode, I would buy a used E-M1 Mk. II (same 80 MP hi-res mode, better dynamic range) and the very affordable Olympus 30mm F3.5 Macro for the job. In practice, the 80 MP are more than even 6x9 negatives can provide. I have visible grain structure in my "scans" of 4x5 Ektar negatives. In the end I scale the scans back to around 40 MP after spotting and some general editing. I would go for an Epson V850 in I would be into 8x10, because then getting an evenly enough lit light-source is nearly impossible (hard enough for 4x5).

[@TheMadisonHang]

can someone use a microscope and zoom in on the film?

[@studioatlanta]

I owned a one hour photo lab from 1987-1989 just south of Atlanta, Ga.

[@smalltimer4370]

CMS 20 II PRO - 800 L/mm

[@hectorcarmona9583]

Fujifilm xt5 does pixelshift the result being 160 megapixels. And now i am getting ideas lol

[@sarpsarp8987]

Do films have resolution or not? Some say films don't have resolution. I am confused.

[@tiitulitii]

Analog is not digital. I.e., there are no pixels in an analog signal. ... There was a time, when you could watch the same tv programme in analog and digital. Side-by-side visual comparison proved that the old analog channel was more pleasing and natural looking. This was ofcourse not the case in the USA! ... Even today, you can compare the output of record and cd players, and be in the opinion that CD sound quality is missing depth because a digital signal is not 'living'. And, analog musical instruments and synthesizers are still preferred for the same reason in comparison to digital simulation.

[@thecaveofthedead]

Yes. Film has resolution. Resolution is _how much detail is resolved_. If film had no resolution it wouldn't form an image. The resolution is not made up of little rectangular pixels. It's made up of tiny grains of silver or dyes. They measure the resolution of both film and digital in how many lines it can resolve - i.e., how small can parallel lines be before you can no longer distinguish them - before you can't see the gaps anymore. That's what he means by Fujichrome Velvia 50 being able to resolve 160 lines per millimeter. He then points out that a digital camera would need 80+ megapixels to resolve the same number of lines per millimeter. Thus that's the equivalent maximum digital pixel resolution of Velvia. But he also points out that it was very unlikely you'd actually achieve this maximum resolution with a normal film setup. He's also talking about scanning at much higher resolution so that the individual grains have sharp edges on the screen - say by scanning at 300mp. This won't increase the detail that the film captured (that maxed out at 80 odd megapixels) but would theoretically capture the last ounces of character from the film for a super-fine print.

[@TheMadisonHang]

its, atomic!

[@1redgate8]

In the end it is about the actual photograph...the end.

[@Farbroe]

God that intro scared me! Hurt my ears too, adjust sound levels next time you make a video

[@socksonfeet8125]

what dpi are magazines and newspapers? every pro photographer gets their images shrunken down to 8x10 or less and whatever low dpi magazines use. so film is still fine if you get published. every modern magazine i see still has the same print grain that magazines from the 80s and 90s have. let not talk about how grainy and low res newspaper prints are lol.

[@Swingkid14]

Every digital camera I've owned over 12 megapixels has in bigger prints being far better than my Leica, Olympus, & analogue Nikon . I print mostly 50x70cm fine art prints

[@Frisenette]

You are comparing a poor scanner to your camera. If you are optical printing, you can get superb results that shame any digital camera. But if you at sloppy; don’t use a good grain magnifier, use a triplet enlarged lens etc. then you will not get the best results.

[@Swingkid14]

@@Frisenette they are scanned in a professional lab on the highest resolution. I go to alot of photography exhibitions since the Hasselblad museum is in my hometown and film has its amazing look to it but when it comes to details etc it does not stand a chance. I even now a photographer who works with printing who claim his 10 year old micro 4/3 get better print than his mediumformat Hasselblad

[@Frisenette]

@@Swingkid14 the last is just obvious BS from a pure physics POV. No way a M43 a can out resolve a 6x6. If the Hasselblad camera is held steady and is focused right, it will always outdo even the best M43 with a big margin. A professional lab is not likely to have the best scanner. They prefer speed and robustness over quality any day. Also they value dependability and cost. So they are likely to use an old Noritsu or Frontier. Have you asked exactly what model they use? Even a drum scanner is not ideal. Especially not for 135 film. And especially if it hasn’t been expertly calibrated recently. A drum scanner is limited by its tiny aperture in resolving power. It’s just not tiny enough to scoop the last bit of detail from film. Any film. But in MF and LF it matters less because the film plane is huge already.

[@UlfErlingsson]

I fell asleep but woke up at the noise in the end, thank you for waking me up! Just kidding. Thanks for the video.

[@JoeWayne84]

Simply put film’s resolution especially for video is still far ahead of digitial in resolution… as far as photography we or getting close to no advantage in film when apc sensor sized cameras have greater than 85 megapixels…?

[@dtibor5903]

88 megapixels is not a real resolution because the film has particles. The real resolution is below. I never saw a sharp 35mm film scan above 12 megapixels, they have a lot of grain similar to an ISO1600 digital image.

[@JoeWayne84]

@@dtibor5903 320 pixels x 320 pixels is 0.1MP per square millimeter. 35mm film is 24 x 36mm, or 864 square millimeters. To scan most of the detail on a 35mm photo, you'll need about 864 x 0.1, or 87 Megapixels.

[@dtibor5903]

@@JoeWayne84 theories aside, I looked at many high resolution scans and I see no point of scanning any 35mm negative above 12-16 megapixels. They look soft and grainy at higher scanning resolutions

[@dtibor5903]

@@JoeWayne84 my old 6D outperforms most 35mm films in all metrics. I was able to very closely recreate the grain and colors of film using ISO1600 and by processing raw files in capture one.

[@dtibor5903]

@@JoeWayne84 Capture One renders noise very similar to film grain. It's very different compared to Lightroom

[@everything9118]

Haven't you slept since the last week?

[@dtibor5903]

Most cheap films don't have even a 12 megapixel resolution. And no, you don't need to print A0 at 300ppi, 100 ppi is just enough

[@JaysonSantos]

Finally someone out of the 300ppi mith box.

[@kunstsein]

@@violet_world9385 Fuji itself claims between 80 and 160 l/mm, 160l/mm being the best case scenario under optimal conditions i assume.

[@ReinoldFZ]

I have not used slides but being realistic negative film has detail similar to a six megapixel camera. A professional film between eight to ten megapixels, with a good lens and a good camera. Film compact cameras with zoom lenses usually are too dark and their lenses too compromised to get good technical results.

[@borisbulldog]

If you're a MAGA you can say whatever resolution 35mm film is and if you say it enough times other MAGAs will believe you. Facts are less important than feelings.

[@msStoDwa]

Are You working for radio station? doing podcast or making movie? Maybe trying to eat this mic? kind of microphone promo? There is a lot of small discrete good sound quality microphones. Try one. Ahh, You are talking about interesting things in interesting way, but I had to hide You and just listen what are You talking about.

[@philipv7555]

You're very cute.

[@chihab5249]

Hi. Here's a good idea, if you wanna talk for 15mins, write an article. This is so boring.

[@tiitulitii]

Boring???

[@banjogames2003]

Then don’t watch the video loser

[@reviewgodusa9613]

Nice. Another waste of a video. Just reading numbers. No tests or experiments

[@tiitulitii]

You cannot understand, if you don't listen.