What it will come down to these days is the scanner. Then it will be a
digital to digital comparison, which will compromise your test.
So let's say that you want to compare like to like.
So what really needs to be done is to say take an LX, or an MZ-S or a
PZ-1p arguably the best film bodies Pentax made, and a K-1 get the best
lens that gives good results on both film and digital, I'd assume for
the task the original non weather sealed DFA 100mm f2.8 macro for the LX
and MZ-S, or the DFA 50mm f2.8 Macro, the newer versions will work
with the PZ-1p, and a sturdy tripod.
Make identical captures from an the same position, at various f stops
and shutter speeds.
Now you have to shoot slides, then negatives, and maybe B&W film and
compare it against the digital output.
But here's where it gets complicated. You cannot scan the film. You
have to wet it process it "wet" end to end. That means a well equipped
darkroom with an good sturdy enlarger, and the best enlarging lens
possible best paper, (I'd like to witness the food fight over just
that), for the negative color and B&W prints.
For digital the best Photographic printer, (see my comment on wet
process printer paper above), that's capable of Color and B&W possible
then do a blind test to compare the prints, and a printer paper at least
as good as the wet process paper, (hey another food fight yea)!
How do you compare the slides to digital files? Damned if I know.
Project the slides with the best possible projector and compare it to
the files projected by the best digital projector? That doesn't seem
fair as I don't know of any digital projector that comes close to a well
projected 35mm slide.
Compare the projected slide on a 5' screen to a 4k capable digital
monitor of the same size? Somehow that doesn't seem fair either, but
I'm not sure to which process it's less fair.
Once you've got a good handle on how good each process can be with an
identical lens then you can test the legacy glass, and the digital
glass, (I guess you'll have to invest in a PZ-1p if you don't already
own one), and know it's the lens and not the process.
Now on your last point, art is in your head. I don't mean that as a bad
thing. It's just not measurable by metrics. Which is why conmen seem
to have infested the art world. Sadly, when one man's art is another
man's junk, someone will be willing to produce junk and sell it as art.
I miss the good old days when an art forger needed some skills at least
as a draftsman.
On 3/27/2017 1:04 AM, Larry Colen wrote:
The whole time I've been shooting with dslrs an inevitable topic of
conversation has been comparison with film. I just realized, someone
could go out with a tripod, a K-1, and one or more film bodies, and
take each shot, with the same lens and get a direct comparison. They
could not only shoot at the same ISO, shutter speed, and aperture, but
they could also set adjust the settings on the K-1 to whatever they
felt was the best use of the camera's abilities. There are several
things I'm curious about:
differences of legacy glass on film vs digital
differences of modern glass on film vs digital
Apart from any difference in the technical quality of the images, what
about differences in the artistic quality of the images.
I don't think I even have a film body that will work with some of the
new glass, so my current lack of time to do anything like this is
pretty much moot. Although a set of comparisons like this might make
for a really fun PDML photo expedition.
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