audio and photography parallels??

I'm attending Brooks Institute of Photography for my MS. I use multiple
format cameras. Nikon F5, Nikon D1X (digital) and a Horseman LXC 4x5. I
also shoot underwater photography. Digital is still in its infancy and
improving at a rapid rate. However, it has it limitations especially in capturing
very bright objects such as sunsets. It does not hold detail in very bright
subjects. Many student use digital camera in undersea photography and when
they expose for ambient light and there's part of the sun in the image, the
sun is always blown out.

I find the analogy of digital vs. analog in audiophile components true in
photography, as well. As digital images have that "sterile, or digital edge" to
them and lack the "warmth" or realism that film still has. However, with digital
photography's technology rapidly improving, it may be just a matter of time.
But didn't they say that about digital music?

Additionally, image manipulating software such as PhotoShop, allows the
digital photographer to rely on manipulating the image to achieve the disired
effect. Shooting film makes the photographer more sensitive to the subject,
scene and composition of the image. Quicker isn't also superior.

Ross

Rives- Bit depth is fairly simple to understand. Imagine a photograph as a 3-D chessboard with each square representing a single pixel (just for the sake of simple explanation). A color is represented as a combination of zeroes and ones (just like all other digital information). The more bits of information (the more ones and zeroes), the more colors that can be represented, and the greater the nuance/subtlety between shades/tones/colors. So on our three dimensional chessboard the bit depth is simply how many layers of zeroes and ones, beneath each square, that are used to represent a single square (pixel) of color. The greater the bid depth, the more colors that can be represented, and the greater the nuance and subtlety which can pe achieved.

An inexpensive scanner will not create as nearly as detailed and, to use an audio term which may be a good paralell, 'liquid' an image as a high-end scanner capable of greater bit-depth and optical resolution.

To clarify something which I'm not sure you are necessarily understanding judging from what you said in your post; a 35mm may as easily produce a 100mb file as it may a 5mb file, depending on how you scan it. Just as with the sample rate in digital audio domain, there is a point where your eye may no longer distinguish further detail at a given viewing distance from an image, and where scanning to a higher resolution may have little, if any effect at improving an image (again, for a given size and viewing distance). If I a recall from my college days, the measurement of the size of the dot/pixel/film grain at which your eye visually blends into a smooth detail is called the "circle of confusion". You can create a 100mb file from a 35mm slide with an inexpensive scanner and it will not render the nuances or details in shadows and highlights that a more expensive scanner which is capable of greater bit depth is able to with the same slide and the same 100mb file size.

Marco

Hi
I think Marco covered it all pretty well. As a photographer who is in the process of making the change to digital, I think it's interesting to note that when I need to make a critical judgement of an image, I always prefer to look at in "analog" form- i.e a print or a transparency.
Digital backs are improving by leaps and bounds, and although the price is still absurd - about the cost of a new pair of Lamm ML-2's, the quality is narrowing the gap considerably.
Regards
Carl

Marco: I know what bit depth is--what I meant was, what bit depth do you need in photography in order to go analog to digital and back to analog and not perceive any difference. In audio, 24 bit (PCM) is probably beyond the noise floor of any A/D so to go beyond that doesn't make sense. Most people say the ceiling is about 21 bits, maybe 22 bits, so digitize to 24 and know those last 2 bits are noise, but feel comfortable that we have captured all that we realistically can. In photography there must be a similar "ceiling"--I just don't know what that is.
Carl's remarks remind me of DLP, LCD, and D-ILA projectors of about 3 years ago. Blacks were struggling, but getting better, and the price was falling as well. Today, well CRT still has the best blacks, but the gap has narrowed.