Highest resolution color film, slide or negative?

[Asher Kelman]

I'm contemplating getting a lens with very high resolution, a luminar or a photar, for macro work. With about 380 l.p. per mm, a great film is deserved or projection to 4x5 or both.

So what are the finest films, either slide film or negatives for use in 35mm, 120 or 4x5 format?

I'm interested in being able to make very large prints to take advantage of all that resolution.

Asher

[Drew Wiley]

That gets really involved Asher. You'll find a lot of arguments over on APUG. But a lot
depends on what you define as macro. In color neg films, it's unquestionably Ektar at
the moment. Chrome films often look sharper, but sometimes start showing granularity
in the deep shadows. I wouldn't worry too much about lenses until you start getting
around 1:1. Multi-use close-range corrected plasmats like G-Clarons and Fuji A's are
good choices unless you are talking about diamond rings or insects. You'll get a lot more mileage out of LF film per se than with a small camera and an extreme MTF lens. The film itself can only handle so much detail, so there's no substitute for more reasonable square inches of it. No general purpose color film avail to the public is going to be equivalent to some of the slow speed films avail in black-and-whiter. Klaus S. on this forum has quite a bit of experience in true macro plus a dedicated website I believe. Microscope photog is a whole different ballgame; but you probably already know about it from your medical backgrnd.

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

I confess guilty...

Well AGFA COPEX comes to mind with 600lpm resolution. But only the positive film is available in larger sizes (105x148mm maximum)
http://www.buymicrofilm.com/prodsource2.html
http://www.buymicrofilm.com/prodsource3.html

http://www.agfa.com/en/sp/solutions/...ment/index.jsp

[Asher Kelman]

Well, Drew and Klaus,

Between you there's an encyclopedic resource of knowledge. Thanks for the generous pointers. I realize that I'd need a lens worthy of the film just to test it! That's really funny!

I have a 50 1.2L, 1.4 and EF Macro 2.5 for the Eos 3.

or a 24mm T/S II or else a 70-200, both f 4 and 2.8L S. None of them is in the class of the Luminar.

I wonder if any of these are worth using in a test of the the Agfa film v. Kodak and Fuji film or is the only way to see the benefit of the Agfa film by having the

Asher

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

None of those have that resolving power from what I know Asher, so it would be quite boring for such a film since you would actually test your lenses - not that film.

Btw. ZEISS when they introduced their new rangefinder ZM 25mm Distagon lens used such film to prove that this lens could indeed do 400lpm. Unfortunately Zeiss does not have it on their site anymore.

There is another film of very high resolution btw. : SPUR (formerly known as GIGABIT film)
http://spur-photo.com/dat_ort_ure.pdf

[Sevo]

None of the mentioned films are colour, though - you'll have to settle for 140lp/mm in colour (with Provia RDPIII, at 1:1000 - the more real world figure for 1:1.6 is a mere 60lp/mm).

That is, forget about extreme resolution requirements for the lens, as you can't match them in colour film. You will have to increase the format if you want to increase the detail...

[Brian C. Miller]

I'm interested in being able to make very large prints to take advantage of all that resolution.

Large prints means large film, and the main question is how the lens performs at "macro" magnification. Aren't lens MTF charts made at infinity focus? So that means as the magnification increases, the resolution of the lens won't be "wasted" by using normal film.

So actually this becomes the usual question of what's best for finest grain. For B&W I vote Fuji Acros. For color, I'd have to say go with which film has the best color reproduction for your application. There are some natural colors which don't "fit" well on film.

[ic-racer]

I wonder if any of these are worth using in a test of the the Agfa film v. Kodak and Fuji film or is the only way to see the benefit of the Agfa film by having the

Asher

Not unless any of those lenses has a knife edge inside inside it that you can put on the film to do the test.

[Asher Kelman]

Not unless any of those lenses has a knife edge inside inside it that you can put on the film to do the test.

O.K., I'm open to that. LOL!

Asher

[Drew Wiley]

Somewhere in my old Sinar literature there's a picture of a setup using multiple 4x5 bellows and standards mounted to a structural steel beam for optimum stability that
was probably at least ten feet long, that in effect turned the Sinar system into a
true macro or perhaps micro device. Once you start fooling around with lenses in
reverse and so forth, there are all kinds of potential possibilites if the film is big
enough. Some of the new Zeiss Nikon lenses have remarkable MTF, but still can't
even begin to compete with larger film itself. The finest LF color films are going to be
ASTIA 100F (now discontinued), Velvia 100F, and Ektar color neg. I'd love to build
a true macro setup for my own use, but have too many irons in the fire already. In
fact, I'd love to just get my hands on one of those wonderful older Zeiss research
microscopes like I used in college, when the quality of the machining was at its peak.
Nowadays "micro" photog is tending to get very high tech, just like the scopes themselves. "Macro" offers more opportunity for traditional skills.