Just because technology can do something, doent meant its always right

[Ed.Kloonk]

One thing to consider is that people are not all the same.
Some people may not see the ocular detail that others can, and if people assume everyone else must 'see' the same as they do, then you will always get pointless arguments.

I knew a guy that had a gaming rig set up with three monitors. He had it running at 60Hz. The outer monitors caused him to see flicker in the periphery so he had to beef it up to 120Hz.

It had nothing to do with buying new hardware. Honest. 

[tom66]

One thing to consider is that people are not all the same.
Some people may not see the ocular detail that others can, and if people assume everyone else must 'see' the same as they do, then you will always get pointless arguments.

Sure.  People with better than 20-20 vision exist.  Apparently, there is a small group of people who may even have a 4th cone cell, "tetrachromacy", which means they can see beyond the typical s.RGB / Rec. 2020 limits.

But, I will keep repeating myself, if that test I uploaded shows as grey on a 4K monitor with normal vision, you will not benefit from much beyond 4K, as you have hit the high pass filter of the eye.  It is all roll off at that point.  It's a bit like audiophiles claiming to hear jitter.

[magic]

Give me a double blind test, with text and I will demonstrate by ability to discriminate between different PPI displays perfectly beyond your assumptions.

I could easily win this bet by lying about my assumptions because you have no idea what my assumptions are

Truth is, I'm quite indifferent to the whole drama. As the point of diminishing returns is approached and exceeded, the length of Internet discussions will only increase and the arguments on both sides will get increasingly absurd, despite the point of diminishing returns being approached and exceeded. Well, at least you claim to have conducted blind tests, good for you so far

[Bassman59]

Interested to see where monitor tech goes. I have a 27” 4k and a 27” 5k next to each other and the 4k one looks horrible now. More pixels really does help with text sharpness and eye strain.

I have a Dell 1920 x 1200 24" display connected to my iMac's 27" 5k display. I used to think that the Dell was a fine display, but it's actually utter crap.

[bd139]

Yeah. Gets expensive realising how shit that decent monitors are 

[tom66]

The £200 (each) I spent on my 4K monitors goes up on the top of some of the best upgrades I have done to my PC.

It's a major productivity improvement.

[Cerebus]

Anyone saying “digital is better than film” Can sit for hours and type many paragraphs, and say all they like about it, but they clearly don’t understand physics and how film works.

Film is better. Period. It’s physics, not an opinion. Dynamic range is almost infinite too

OK. Physics then. Here's the density versus exposure characteristic curve for Kodak Ektachome E100G from Kodak's official datasheet:



See how the density curve flattens completely at both ends? Where is your "almost infinite" dynamic range? Not there. What we see is a dynamic range of a little over 1000:1 in density and a little under 1000:1 in exposure, with highly non-linear tails. The physical reality is the exact opposite of what you claim.

I've no objection to people having strong opinions. If you'd said that your opinion was that you just prefer film (as actually I do), fine, but to claim that film is better "because physics" when it's very clear that you don't even begin to understand that physics is beyond the pale.

[tggzzz]

You're confusing photographic nostalgia with reality.

Prove it.

If you take the celebrities and the money points out of your argument it looks like:

My late friend, Bob, was cameraman for the Joe Bloggses and was friends with Dave from the pub, and did promos for the Stinky Pinks (He lived next door to them) and also The Dumbells.  He worked extensively with the Gordon Bleus, and when he told me something, I’d take his word for it over anyone alive, as he REALLY knew his stuff. He was no “ amateur photographer“, you can Google him if you like.

Film is better. He’s got cans of unseen footage, many many stacks of which I lifted with my own hands when he moved house. Each can was worth a MINIMUM of circa £2 to any number of media outlets, and he had around 200 of them.

I’ll take his word on film being best, apart from it being my own informed view too. Colour range of natural substances cannot be anywhere NEAR “emulated” by pixels.

Google him, he was cleaner for the local council estate, and friends with Bill, Mike, ex boyfriend of Shelley… yes I’m name dropping, because he’s a legend of snuff video production, he KNEW his stuff back from when he began.

Sorry and all that, but he was an authority on film and that’s how I see it. 

This is a stream of emotions with nothing factual or relevance in a temporal scale.

Facetious mockery doesn’t negate a thing. You lose any credibility automatically from that churlish response.

Ditto ignoring the points and resorting to giving strawman responses

[TimFox]

When comparing film with digital imaging, remember that sampling in film is spatially random (with a continuous MTF), while digital image capture produces a spatially periodic discrete image.  Of course, if you then digitally scan the film (as I do), you produce a periodic discrete image, which can oversample the MTF of the film.

[Cerebus]

The MTF can be anything but random, in a way that works in your favour, with a little chemical manipulation. Thus it's possible to get really sharp looking images from a film like Tri-X that's got grain you could sand wood with by either using an acutance developer, or sporadic agitation during development, or highly diluted developer and long process times, to alter the transfer function and the grain formation along actual image edges on the film.

This stuff is all becoming a lost art. I bet in 20-30 years time the only people who will know this stuff are going to be the modern equivalent of the people who were, 30 years ago, resurrecting photographic processes and chemistry from the Fox-Talbot era of photography.

[thinkfat]

Anyone saying “digital is better than film” Can sit for hours and type many paragraphs, and say all they like about it, but they clearly don’t understand physics and how film works.

Film is better. Period. It’s physics, not an opinion. Dynamic range is almost infinite too

OK. Physics then. Here's the density versus exposure characteristic curve for Kodak Ektachome E100G from Kodak's official datasheet:



See how the density curve flattens completely at both ends? Where is your "almost infinite" dynamic range? Not there. What we see is a dynamic range of a little over 1000:1 in density and a little under 1000:1 in exposure, with highly non-linear tails. The physical reality is the exact opposite of what you claim.

I've no objection to people having strong opinions. If you'd said that your opinion was that you just prefer film (as actually I do), fine, but to claim that film is better "because physics" when it's very clear that you don't even begin to understand that physics is beyond the pale.

This is Ektachrome, it's a slide film. You should probably look at an Ektar 100 datasheet to make a fair comparison. Slide film is known to be quite finicky regarding exposure, because the usable range is quite small compared to negative film. Also, the density range is not that important, you can influence that with the developer used, time and temperature anyway, the usable exposure range is what defines dynamic range.

[ebastler]

This is Ektachrome, it's a slide film. You should probably look at an Ektar 100 datasheet to make a fair comparison. Slide film is known to be quite finicky regarding exposure, because the usable range is quite small compared to negative film.

Hmm... OK, three usable decades of exposure range there. Still less than a digital camera with a reasonably large sensor (i.e. not a phone camera), I believe. And once you create a print on paper, your dynamic range is gone anyway?

[Zero999]

One thing to consider is that people are not all the same.
Some people may not see the ocular detail that others can, and if people assume everyone else must 'see' the same as they do, then you will always get pointless arguments.

I knew a guy that had a gaming rig set up with three monitors. He had it running at 60Hz. The outer monitors caused him to see flicker in the periphery so he had to beef it up to 120Hz.

It had nothing to do with buying new hardware. Honest. 

I don't see how 60Hz would cause him to see flicker, unless they were CRTs. LCDs don't flicker, even when run at low refresh rates, unless the backlight driver is faulty, or badly designed.

[thinkfat]

This is Ektachrome, it's a slide film. You should probably look at an Ektar 100 datasheet to make a fair comparison. Slide film is known to be quite finicky regarding exposure, because the usable range is quite small compared to negative film.

Hmm... OK, three usable decades of exposure range there. Still less than a digital camera with a reasonably large sensor (i.e. not a phone camera), I believe. And once you create a print on paper, your dynamic range is gone anyway?

That's just where the datasheet spec ends, but practically, you can add another decade of exposure latitude and still get a reasonable response (i.e. density increase). Translated to camera "stops", you get around 13 to 14 "stops" of dynamic range. Each "stop" means half or double amount of light. A "reasonably sized" camera sensor would be APS-C, and there you have to look at the top-of-the-line models from Sony or Nikon to find a match.

Also, film tends to "compress" highlights, so that means even if the response is no longer linear, you still get a density increase and recoverable information, though you'd have to digitize the film with a good scanner to make use of it. A digital sensor will clip instead, hard.

And, yes, you lose that dynamic range once you print, that's why you "dodge" and "burn".

[Miyuki]

One thing to consider is that people are not all the same.
Some people may not see the ocular detail that others can, and if people assume everyone else must 'see' the same as they do, then you will always get pointless arguments.

I knew a guy that had a gaming rig set up with three monitors. He had it running at 60Hz. The outer monitors caused him to see flicker in the periphery so he had to beef it up to 120Hz.

It had nothing to do with buying new hardware. Honest. 

I don't see how 60Hz would cause him to see flicker, unless they were CRTs. LCDs don't flicker, even when run at low refresh rates, unless the backlight driver is faulty, or badly designed.

Sounds so
But some LCDs do backlight "magic" to appear sharper and do flicker
And plenty of even expensive ones do flicker when dimmed, but it is a different story 

[Bassman59]

Yeah. Gets expensive realising how shit that decent monitors are 

This is why I avoid looking at that new 5K Apple Studio Display when I'm in their store.

Seriously, though, I don't know why Apple couldn't take the existing 5K display that's in my iMac and put it in a nice case, without the camera or the nineteen speakers and whatever, and sell it for $800. They wouldn't be able to keep it in stock.

[Cerebus]

This is Ektachrome, it's a slide film. You should probably look at an Ektar 100 datasheet to make a fair comparison. Slide film is known to be quite finicky regarding exposure, because the usable range is quite small compared to negative film. Also, the density range is not that important, you can influence that with the developer used, time and temperature anyway, the usable exposure range is what defines dynamic range.

I picked Ektachrome precisely because there's no wiggle room, it always goes through E6 chemistry (unless you're one of the weirdos putting it through C-41 to get funky 'art' rather than accurate reproduction.). Otherwise some bright spark was going to argue about the minutiae of the chemistry used rather than the broad principle. The widest dynamic range you'll get out of any silver emulsion is somewhere between 1000:1 and 10000:1, limited by a D_max on the close order of 4.0 for continuous tone images (i.e. no fair citing lith film used in strictly black or white processes where Dmax is limited by how much silver you can afford).

[Bassman59]

This is Ektachrome, it's a slide film. You should probably look at an Ektar 100 datasheet to make a fair comparison. Slide film is known to be quite finicky regarding exposure, because the usable range is quite small compared to negative film.

Hmm... OK, three usable decades of exposure range there. Still less than a digital camera with a reasonably large sensor (i.e. not a phone camera), I believe. And once you create a print on paper, your dynamic range is gone anyway?

Doesn't anyone remember the Zone System? It boils total dynamic range down to f/stops, and that range is Zone 0 for pure black to Zone X (ten) for pure white. So, what, 11 f/stops of dynamic range, or as we engineers like to think, 11 bits. But "usable" dynamic range is somewhat less, so figure Zone II for deepest shadows to Zone IX. Still better than your 8-bit monitor display, right?

The point was that you visualized what the image would look like, and then choose your exposure (time and aperture) based on what you wanted to get. Or, as we used to say, expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights (for b&w negatives) so you ensure you capture your shadow detail. For transparencies (slide film), you expose for the highlights to make sure you don't blow them out.

[bd139]

Yeah. Gets expensive realising how shit that decent monitors are 

This is why I avoid looking at that new 5K Apple Studio Display when I'm in their store.

Seriously, though, I don't know why Apple couldn't take the existing 5K display that's in my iMac and put it in a nice case, without the camera or the nineteen speakers and whatever, and sell it for $800. They wouldn't be able to keep it in stock.

That is one thing that scares me. The sheer amount of those 5k iMacs I've seen shipped off to WEEE. They are still worthy of being repurposed as external displays.

As for the Studio Display, too late here. Been waiting for it for a few years. I had a pre-order in, cancelled that on retail release day and went and picked one up from the local store. The display is actually fractionally better than the last 5k iMac displays are - slightly brighter and higher contrast. Also the speakers are excellent, the camera is excellent (now they fixed the firmware) and it's a thunderbolt hub that actually charges the MBP properly unlike most of the 3rd party junkers.

It was worth the price. The pain went away after a couple of weeks 

Edit: only criticism is the box is fucking huge. It's currently just about lurking boxed under my desk as I'm in the middle of moving house 

[PlainName]

I don't see how 60Hz would cause him to see flicker, unless they were CRTs. LCDs don't flicker, even when run at low refresh rates, unless the backlight driver is faulty, or badly designed.

What if there is fast movement on the screen (as would be expected with games)? There would be discrete steps which might be perceived as flicker. I think peripheral vision is more prone to seeing flicker (certainly is for me with brake lights and roadworks) so the side monitors would be triggering.

[Simon]

Don't know what you mean by focal plane, yes we see with the centre of our eyes the most, I think from memory it is something like a 1.5 degree angle that has most of the ability with the rest being peripheral vision or pieced together and yes all of the screen needs to be of a resolution that the centre of the eye cannot see the pixels but what is that resolution? (angular resolution will do as it will be agnostic to the screen size/distance)

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/just-because-technology-can-do-something-doent-meant-its-always-right/msg4249858/#msg4249858

That is actually measured by scientists...

No they're wrong. Because at greater than 1m I can clearly tell the difference between the 4k and a 5k 27" screen at 157dpi and 218dpi which I sit in front of every day.

If I open the full London connections tube map to 1/4 of each screen in a PDF, I can read the station names on the 5k but not on the 4k. The information isn't even there on the 4k. On a 1440p screen I'd probably have to have it full screen.

Also there's no citation or conditions for your information. Perhaps that's an AVERAGE across the entire eye. Within the focal centre there might be 50x the resolution of 0.3mm and that's what is important.

Edit: here's a 14.2" 3024x1964 screenshot with the tube map at 254ppi which is 60-70cm away from me.

I can read the station names fine! (I have above average eyesight for ref)

Just look up the definition of good vision, I think it is something like you should be able to tell apart two dots that are 1mm apart from a viewing distance of 1m, I assume this is referred to the centre of the eye. So taking that down to say 333mm away which is as close most of us get to a monitor that is 0.33mm apart or 3 pixels per mm, about 75 ppi. This is what most FHD monitors end up being and you can see the pixels, so at 4k that is 6 pixels per mm, you will now struggle to tell the pixels apart although I'm sure there will be variations in constructions of different monitors at different resolutions that will be better than another close to it. Point is 8k would be totally pointless and I sit 0.5m from my monitors at least so 4k on my 600mm wide screen is just fine at 6.4 pixels per mm. at 1m away I will definitely not be able to tell dots 0.15mm apart and at 0.5m still not.

[bd139]

The whole point is there being pixels so small you can’t see the discrete steps in curves of text etc. that’s a different problem to not being able to see discrete pixels.

[Simon]

Yes and as I have just calculated for you at 6 pixels per mm we have pretty much achieved that with 4k, OK you can argue the toss that you see 5k better, it may just be a better quality panel, some of the FHD ones I have had at work had such thick lines between them that I could not help but see the pixels, but 8k, you want 13 pixels per mm on a 27" monitor?

I'll never be closer than 0.5m, and if at 0.5m I can tell two dots apart that are 0.5mm apart having pixels 0.15mm apart seems to do it don't you think? Fact is I am in front of a 4k monitor that is 27" and about 0.5m away and for all I care that could be magazine print, curves are curves as far as my eye is concerned but on a crap FHD monitor my head would be hurting. I usually use a font that is deliberately full of curves and non parallel lines, looks awful on FHD, on these 4k monitors this font that is totally not designed for screens looks just fine.

[bd139]

4k vs 5k is more display scaling than anything. 4k is 1.5:1 ratio where 5k is 2:1 which allows for integer scaling. Less blurry.

[Simon]

scaling of what? how is something 25% bigger a ratio that is 33% bigger? Yes integer scaling will be less blurry, but we are still taking about over 3 times what our eyes can pick out anyway so results will vary with the image.