About that MFD look…

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

There was an interesting discussion about that MFD look in one of the discussions about the newly launched PhaseOne XF cameras. One of the discussions was weather the MF look could be reproduced by stitching. So I made a small experiment. I shot a subject with both my Planar 120/4 with a P45+ back  and my Sony Alpha using my Sony 70-400/4-5.6G at 120. With the Sony I shot three images that I stitched in LR6. Two apertures were used f/11 and f/16.

Raw images will be posted later.

Best regards
Erik

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

DNG files are here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/MFDLook2/

Note, Phase One DNG have original IIQ embedded, it can be extracted by Adobe DNG Converter.

Best regards
Erik

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

These two images were shot using a:

P45+ and a macro Planar 120/4



And a Sony Alpha 99 using a Minolta 100/2.8 macro:


Click on the each image to see an actual pixel view.

This time, now stitching was involved.

Original raw images here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/MFDLook/

Best regards
Erik

[eronald]

Here is an old but good example of the MF look. Well, maybe the LF look

Edmund

[voidshatter]

The MF look is a marketing word to persuade people buying. When the focal length and working aperture are both at the ratio of crop factor between different formats, there is no difference in the look except resolution and SNR.

For example, 14mm f8.0 in 135 format should look the same as 7mm f4.0 in M43 format.

[synn]

So is the full frame look. Or the 4x5 look. Or the 8x10 look.
Hell, all I need is a cellphone and instagram!

[BernardLanguillier]

So is the full frame look. Or the 4x5 look. Or the 8x10 look.
Hell, all I need is a cellphone and instagram!

I personnally see a look in some MF images that is hard to emulate perfectly without stitching/using MF lenses, but the available math shows it can only result from technological differences in lens construction. The math could be an over-simplification of reality though. The reality is that simple physical models than can be solved by humans on a sheet of paper are often unable to simulate realistically the behavior of complex systems such as lenses.

But anyway, the first condition to get similar looks is to use a device that can generate a similar amount of DoF, which clearly excludes very small sensors such as mobile phones. FF DSLRs are good candidates since the available lenses have a much wider aperture.

Now, you can also be speaking about the look of your images in terms of colors, tones,... that is mostly impacted by the color filtering and raw converter, which is yet a different topic.

In the end, photographers end up using what makes sense for them in terms of results taking into account cost. My opinion remains that it is highly unfortunate that the MF platforms, except Pentax, were turned into a luxury segment preventing access to many photographers who would otherwise be able to benefit from these different creative options. The good news is that second hand prices have gone down tremendously and that the look is becoming more widely available for those willing to deal with the limitations of those devices.

Cheers,
Bernard

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I would agree that lenses have different characteristics. In the samples I posted out of focus rendition is very much different between the two lenses on the tree trunks image, but the two flower images are very similar, in my view.

Would be interesting to compare the three Planars I have for my Blad, they are made for different subjects

- Planar 80/2.8 is a general purpose lens
- Planar 100/3.5 is very sharp and is intended for things like arial photography
- The Macro Planar is intended for close up.

Best regards
Erik

Hi,

two important things in this look-thing are (besides other things):

– magnification: the same object in reality have a different size on sensors/films of different sizes, even if the angle of view is identical.
– different lens types have different "renderings" even if they have the same focal length and are built for the same format.

Paul Rudolf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rudolph_(physicist)), who calculated for example the first anastigmat lens "Protar", the Planar, the Tessar, the Plasmat, ... described his lenses in scientific publications very often under the aspect how the render 3D space to 2D images.

Depending on what I want, I use formats between 8x10 inch and 24x36 mm and different lenses of the same focal length for each format. Some stuff you can mimic, but not everything. If you really admire the work of another photographer, you should try to work with the tools he/she used. You might learn something. From there you can try to mimic the "look" with other cameras.

Best,
Johannes

P.S.: Does anyone know whether it is save now to upgrade form OSX 10.9 to 10.10 if I want to use my Epson 9880 and 9890 printers. In January I had the issue that I could not print all paper sizes with 10.10 on the 9880. A3 worked A2 didn't. These are real problems.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

My impression is that Zeiss has done a very good job on giving the Otus a very good OoF rendition among other things. Also, many large aperture lenses were not very well corrected at full aperture, but many lenses are now pretty decent even at full aperture.

MF lenses used to have smallish apertures like f/2.8 which is easy to correct well. Modern lenses are often constructed with many more air to glass surfaces than older lenses.

The Distagon 55/1.4 has 12 elements in 10 groups while the older Zeiss Planar 50/1.4 has 7 elements in six groups. Add to that some aspehrics and glass with exotic dispersion characteristics.

Best regards
Erik

I personnally see a look in some MF images that is hard to emulate perfectly without stitching/using MF lenses, but the available math shows it can only result from technological differences in lens construction. The math could be an over-simplification of reality though. The reality is that simple physical models than can be solved by humans on a sheet of paper are often unable to simulate realistically the behavior of complex systems such as lenses.

But anyway, the first condition to get similar looks is to use a device that can generate a similar amount of DoF, which clearly excludes very small sensors such as mobile phones. FF DSLRs are good candidates since the available lenses have a much wider aperture.

Now, you can also be speaking about the look of your images in terms of colors, tones,... that is mostly impacted by the color filtering and raw converter, which is yet a different topic.

In the end, photographers end up using what makes sense for them in terms of results taking into account cost. My opinion remains that it is highly unfortunate that the MF platforms, except Pentax, were turned into a luxury segment preventing access to many photographers who would otherwise be able to benefit from these different creative options. The good news is that second hand prices have gone down tremendously and that the look is becoming more widely available for those willing to deal with the limitations of those devices.

Cheers,
Bernard

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Yes, the 120 has flat field at close up. At infinity it has a lot of field curvature, so it needs to be stopped down to f/11 for decent corners.

The 100 is very sharp at infinity, but it is totally spoiled by astigmatism at close up. As I said before Zeiss says that it is intended for aerial photography and things like that. It has very little chromatic aberration at infinity.

Zeiss used to say that the 100/3.5 is preferred for repro for subjects larger than one square meter and the 120/4 for smaller ones.

In the tree trunk images I noticed that the background leaves have a ring type bokeh on the 120/4, which is said to be caused by overcorrected spherical aberration. I also shot the 100/3.5 on that subject but missed correct focus, so I didn't publish those images. What I could see on my front focused image was that the background bokeh was ring/donught shaped on that lens, too.

I didn't shoot the Planar 80/2.8 on that subject.

The area of focus was very sharp with both lenses.

Best regards
Erik

Hi Erik,

as far as I know the are optimized in sharpness for different magnifications. And the 100 and Makro have a flatter field. To achieve this they have a longer focal length.

Best,
Johannes

p.s.: In my opinion: The best photographs ever made with the Makro Planar and the Hasselblad were "Japan Kultur des Essens" by the german photographer Reinhart Wolf, http://www.abebooks.co.uk/Japan-Kultur-Essens-Reinhart-Wolf-Angela/1298097831/bd