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Author Topic: IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film  (Read 17597 times)

Jonathan Wienke

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« on: December 23, 2004, 01:36:21 pm »

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It's interesting reading people's opinions, theories, and experiences.  It would be a lot more interesting (and convincing) to hold sample prints in one's hands and see the differences.
You can click here to download and print a 1Ds images shot with the 70-200/2.8L IS zoom. Download it, print it, and draw your own conclusions.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2004, 04:22:20 pm »

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I know of no where that I can download samples of the same scene shot under the same conditions using different cameras.
I'll try to post my 10D vs MF samples whwen I can. I'm afraid it won't be for a few weeks as I'll be away (photographing some of the time, I hope).

Eric
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-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

abagail97

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #2 on: December 25, 2004, 04:31:46 am »

Hello Jose, I bought LivePicture rescently on ebay ($31), it vanished from the face of the earth in the late 90's just as I was about to pay several thousand dollars for it, and would dearly love to make contact with other users. I will be ordering Josh's book in the new year. Do you have details of the user list that you mentioned, and I would be very interested in any tips you could pass on. Seasons greetings and best regards.

Jason Berge.
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Jack Flesher

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2004, 10:54:59 am »

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This was about cost- the upshot tbeing that IF you already have a MF film camera, and IF you are on a limited budget, AND you want to retain excellent image quality for large prints, THEN it would be wiser to buy one of the newer scanners, scan the film and wait until 22MP camera prices fall into a reasonable range.
First off, let me compliment you on posting a well stated POV and clear question  

As for cost, I think it really depends on how much you use the camera:

120 chrome emulsions run about what, $4.50 per roll?  Last time I processed a roll of E6 120 it cost me about $7.00.  Assuming you get 10 6x7 frames per roll of 120, then the per-shot cost comes out to be around $1.15 per frame.  Assume you bought a new 1Ds for $7500 when they first came out two years ago, and assume you were going to sell it today, you'd get about $4000 for it used.  At 1.15 per frame, youd only have needed to shoot about 3050 images total in those two years to "break even" on your $3500 loss on the 1Ds.  Anything over that and you're ahead with digital -- and 3000 frames in two years is not a very difficult feat.  Factor in the time spent scanning the images you want to print, and that number drops even lower.  I don't think we need to factor in the cost of an MF scanner, since if you ever shot MF film, you will likely want to get a scanner to digitize those (plus all your other historical film) images anyway.

EDIT:  I just did a quick comparison for myself on P25 MF capture to scanned 4x5 costs.  Figuring a $35,000 investment for the P25 and camera system with a few lenses would depreciate to half that, or $17,500 in three to five years, I'd have to shoot only 3500 4x5 images to break even...   Add in my time spent scanning the 4x5 keepers, and that drops further.  Factor in the conveniences, and I can now even justify the obscene initial outlay    

Anybody want to buy a great 4x5 system?    :laugh:  :laugh:  :laugh:
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drew

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2005, 05:16:03 am »

I like Roger Hicks. I like a lot of what he writes about traditional 'wet' photography. However, his opinions on digital equipment do not seem to be based on any objective testing that I have ever seen, although he has recently become a Nikon D70 owner. Some might point out that he sports a large white beard and wears a monocle and many will draw their own conclusions from that.
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Ray

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2005, 09:37:51 pm »

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MF lenses can be used, although you'll get a narrower FOV since the 1Ds sensor is smaller than MF film. But you're also using the sweet spot of the lens.
There's an interesting perspective here. A 90mm lens is a 90mm lens is a 90mm lens, whatever its image circle. From the perspective of the 35mm user, an MF 90mm lens will behave like any other 90mm lens designed for 35mm (apart from loss of automatic functions of course); same FoV, except the edges should be sharper.
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jeffok

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #6 on: December 23, 2004, 07:42:11 am »

I read with interest the review of the P25 back vs Ids MkII. Now, allow me to be a bit controversial and provocative here and then you can let me have it ...

I'm assuming here that in comparing apples and oranges, Michael is doing this from the perspective of a pro landscape photographer looking for the best tool. I can't imagine who else might be trying to make a decision between these two very different machines. Yes, I suppose that spending $30,000 on a back gets you better image quality than an $8,000 camera. Not very relevant to the 99.9% of folks who will never have to make this weighty decision. But interesting nonetheless.

Let's leave aside the obvious advantages of digital for a moment. Digital has many advantages but two of them are not resolution or dynamic range. Michael says that dynamic range is linked to noise. Sure it is. But I like to think more about how dynamic range is linked to resolution. The lower the resolving power of the chip, the less able to reproduce detail and the greater the tendency to lose detail in shadows and blow out highlights. This is where all digital cameras lose out (still) to MF film.

IMHO (and in that of many other photographers), a 22 MP back still does NOT have the resolution or dynamic range that one can still get from medium format film. From a cost/performance perspective, a $35,000 investment in a digital back, MF camera body and a good selection of lenses make no sense whatsoever unless you are a pro studio that requires a smooth, fast and efficient workflow and time is money. For the landscape photographer, it's a big stretch to see how this investment could be justifed no matter how many galleries your work appears in. A MF film camera will give you richer tonality, more resolution and require less time in photoshop. Not to mention at a fraction of the cost (assuming you do most of your work IN the camera, and not in photoshop).

Also, scanner cost/performance is improving so quickly that it makes more and more sense, FOR THOSE WHO NEED TO MAKE LARGE PRINTS WITH HIGH RESOLUTION, to keep their medium format cameras and scan the film in a good scanner.  The newly introduced EPSON GTX-800 flatbed scanner is a good example. ( Most of you haven't seen this scanner yet- it just appeared in Japan) This scanner has a dMax of 4.0 at a cost of about $600. Even a $2,000 Coolscan 9000 (dMax 4.8) is still more cost effective. You will end up with more resolution, broader tonal range at a lower total cost per picture. And perhaps even save time too.

BTW, I own a measly Canon 20D and love it. I am seriously going to be looking at the Mamiya ZD MF camera too. But for now, for landscapes, I believe that digital is still inferior to film in these respects.
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didger

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #7 on: December 23, 2004, 01:36:57 pm »

Thanks, Michael.  In view of the extreme disappointments I've had looking at 100% crops of my 35mm slide scans, I'm very inclined to aim for MF digital rather than 4x5 film.  I'm also not eager to do complex multi-layer Photoshop processing with 4x5 scan files.  Does Photoshop CS even run on a Cray and isn't that even more expensive than a p25 sensor?

I want to be able to go up to 30x40, not just 20x24, but in view of the fact that Galen Rowell suffered no loss of credibility with some of his huge prints from 35mm Velvia, I reckon my customers and I can probably live with prints that size from 22 MP digital (4x 35mm film res and no grain), though it won't be p25.  ZD will be hard enough to manage.
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didger

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #8 on: December 23, 2004, 03:03:23 pm »

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n every meaningful way, the 1Ds can match or beat 6x7 film, so a P25 with twice the pixels and better dynamic range isn't going to have any problem completely outclassing 6x7.
Well, quite some time ago I asked Michael if he felt that 1ds had reached MF level in every way and he said clearly no as far as absolute resolution for very large prints, but yes and then some every other way.  Now, as far as p25 vs MF film, that's about like 1ds vs 35mm film; no brainer.  

For me, however, it's Mamiya ZD vs 4x5 and I assume that for very large prints (30x40) with very good shooting, scanning, and production (and a lot of patience if you're not using a Cray) the 4x5 would ace out any 22 MP sensor.  However, real life is something else.  4x5 would have to be consistently phenomenally better and that doesn't seem likely.  In any case 50% of what I'm turning into being as a photographer happens after the exposure is made.  I don't see routine complex multi-layer Photoshopping of those huge 4x5 scans as a likely scenario until the terahertz dual G10's gets a little cheaper.

Unless I see some truly persuasive 4x5 arguments (and more importantly, real life proof) I'll bite the bullet and take some time out to make the money for ZD, once it's clear that it fulfills expectations.  It's hard to imagine that it won't and the issue of quality, price, and light weight of lenses is already quite clear.
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didger

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #9 on: December 25, 2004, 04:48:58 am »

I found my LP disks and manuals.  I have 2.5.  Was that the last release?  
I'm wondering what I'd be missing with LP that Photoshop CS has.  10 years of Photoshop development surely must have ended up being good for something.  I find the Photoshop selection tools particularly powerful and also very critical for my approach to image manipulation; magnetic lassoo, magic wand, add or subtract mode for all selection tools are particularly important.  Quick mask and all the powerful easy painting and gradient fill selection manipulations in quick mask are also essential to me.  The adjustment tools I use most often are curves, levels, hue/saturation, color balance.  Then there's the matter of plug ins like Color Mechanic.  Can you truly dispense with Photoshop altogether and retain the huge functionality or do you have to accept substantial compromises for the sake of the speed of LP?
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Jose Luis Gonzalez

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #10 on: December 26, 2004, 05:29:20 am »

Didger, in the drum sacanning days I used PS for color management ( assign, convert profiles ) , spotting just because spotting dust is faster in PS, now spotting is almost non existent so I use very seldom PS, but I know it quite well, if that can be said of PS!!
As I told you one can not compare LP and PS as far as image handling is concerned because the LP way is totally different, just an example the selection as you know it in PS just dont exist in LP, however LP is so much powerfull getting the same goals but in much more elegant and effective way. For the description of your needs one can easily tell that you´ll feel totally at home once mastered LP. If you have still the original user guide and tutorial start with it, but by all means get the Karson book it is the eye opener on the power of LP. Develop a dayly routine of working with LP just for one hour, and be constant, you can easily get caugth in the trap of thinking that PS is easier, it is not, it is  just that you already know it.
If I had to describe LP I´d say it is the ultimate tool to bring photography closer to painting, in the sense of being able to fine tune tone and color to the most sutile levels ( in the LP CD there is a pdf by Joe Holmes about color correction ).
LP was from scratch conceived as a photographer´s tool and it shows.
The best way for you to get convinced is just see it working in the hands of a experienced operator


In my opinion LP is the best imaging tool that there is, period. and it is a shame for all the owners it have had since Live Picture Inc. disapeared that they have not even attempted to carbonize the app to run native on OSX. though it does pretty well in Classic.


Jason. this is address of the Lp list owner
http://www.calverley.co.uk/LP-GROUP/default.html
once you get in the list, you can access the list archives

The last version is 2.6.2 but in my opinion the best is 2.5.1 it is  the one written by the original programmers, for 2.6 another team took charge and did not did it well, the fiasco was repaired trugh 2.6.1 and 2.6.2, but for me it s 2.5.1

Regards
Jose
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RobertJ

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #11 on: January 18, 2005, 01:19:24 am »

I really don't know what that guy's talking about.  It's pretty clear now that even the 1Ds Mark II can flat-out beat 645, and probably match 6x7: http://photo.nemergut.com/equipment/canon1ds/markii.html .

So he's wondering if a 22 megapixel medium format device can match 645 film?  Gee, I wonder...

T-1000
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Jonathan Wienke

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #12 on: January 18, 2005, 10:23:34 pm »

You're overlooking the obvious point that many people who would use MF lenses on a 1Ds formerly used them attached to a MF camera, and they aren't going the get the same FOV on the 1Ds as they did with that lens on a Contax 6x7.
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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #13 on: December 23, 2004, 08:59:37 am »

All I can add in response to this is that theory and practice are not the same thing.

Countless photographers have made the comparison between scanned film and digital (even conservative Popular Photo magazine), and come to the conclusion that scanning grain at higher and high resolution does not produce higher resolution images.

The reality is that since digital sensors have inherently higher resolution than film grain particles, along with essentially zero noise at normal apertures, that battle was over several years ago.

All it takes is the desire to make the comparisons for onself and a little work. Making judgements based on "theory" isn't appropriate, since so many people have already done the empirical tests for themselves. It's a bit like saying that bumble bees are too heavy to fly. Tell that to the bee.

As a rule of thumb, 6MP cameras (I'm talking DSLRs, not digicams) outperform 35mm film, 11MP+ cameras outperform medium format film, and 22MP MF backs outperform 4X5" film when it comes to overall image quality, including resolution. One can quibble over the details, (drum scans vs flatbed), film speed, DR, etc, but enough working pros and studios, as well as fine art photographers (including many on this forum) have done the comparisons and drawn their own conclusions from them.

There's little point in taking a position based on opinion rather than first-hand emperical evidence.

Cost is another story, though as we've seen with the drop in DSLR prices – now to under $1,000 for a high quality 6MP body, this is a constantly changing target.

Michael
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Bobtrips

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #14 on: December 23, 2004, 12:53:27 pm »

It's interesting reading people's opinions, theories, and experiences.  It would be a lot more interesting (and convincing) to hold sample prints in one's hands and see the differences.

It would be great to be able to download some sample crops from full-frame digital, MF digital and MF film and print them out.  

I'm never going to spring for a $5,000+ camera but I would spend a few dollars to experience the quality first hand.
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Jonathan Wienke

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #15 on: December 23, 2004, 02:29:38 pm »

Michael did exactly such a comparison between the 1Ds and 6x7 film and posted the results. Search the site for "ultimate shootout" and see the side-by-side comparisons for yourself. (That article is one of the reasons I decided to get the 1Ds, BTW) I don't have MF film gear and have no interest in buying some just to redo a comparison that's already been done to death.

In every meaningful way, the 1Ds can match or beat 6x7 film, so a P25 with twice the pixels and better dynamic range isn't going to have any problem completely outclassing 6x7.
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didger

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« Reply #16 on: December 24, 2004, 01:35:04 am »

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Digital capture is so much more convenient.
For me it's becoming far more than just convenience.  I'm discovering that the things you can do with Photoshop can change an image in so many "artistically" versatile and interesting ways, that convenient "Photoshoppability" is as important as any other variable (cost, resolution, portability) in juggling things to decide on a format.  Shooting and scanning 4x5 is not only very expensive, but those large file sizes (if you want to realize that huge resolution) are also very cumbersome to process if you routinely do very complex multi-layer manipulations in Photoshop.  If I switch from 1ds to MF digital, processing times will double and I'll need to upgrade from my G4 to a G5.  What do I upgrade to if I go to 4x5 scans, a Cray?
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Peter McLennan

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #17 on: December 24, 2004, 12:39:25 pm »

"Faith-based decision making"  Too funny!  Scary, but still funny.  "Faith: unquestioning belief"

Disclaimer: I just unloaded all my MF (6X7) gear.  

As Michael says, "The proof is in the print". I sit and look at 13X19 prints from 25 years of MF and recent stuff from my D70 and the difference is plain.  The D70 stuff  is better.  The images are cleaner, smoother and just as detailed.  

There's also a lot more of 'em.  At a over a buck a frame *just to purchase the film*, for me shooting MF film is OVER.

Man! are we lucky!

Peter
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didger

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #18 on: December 24, 2004, 01:07:33 pm »

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At a over a buck a frame *just to purchase the film*, for me shooting MF film is OVER.
Yeah, and for me MF and LF film ain't starting.  If D70 13x19 looks as good as folks are saying, then how good will Mamiya ZD look printed a whole lot bigger than that?
Maybe Michael ain't such a dummy or lying about MF digital.
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"Faith: unquestioning belief"
That's all there is.  We trust our senses, though they're great deceivers.  We trust the engineering of airplanes and bridges without any understanding it, etc.
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Jose Luis Gonzalez

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IDs MkII vs 22 MP back vs MF film
« Reply #19 on: December 24, 2004, 05:47:33 pm »

I´d like to add my two cents to this thread. I´ve been a pro for more 35 years, and through all these years I´collected quite a collection of the best gear that one can dream, from Leica Ms outfits, Hasselblads, linhof, Sinar p2 etc. all of them with the best glass. when the transition to digital postprocessing started I bougth a drum scanner to extract the last drop of quality from my chromes ( 10.000  ppi and 4.6 Dmax ) . From the moment that I got a D30 a few years back I knew that the status of photography as we knew it was to change very fast. I found out quickly that a D30 could match a 6x7 drum scanned( I must add that I´m a very competent scan operator) and printed to to 8x12 inches. As soon as the D60 came out and I got one plus the three TSE lenses, since then  my drum scanner is iddle, in fact I have it connected to a old laptop and installed in the armoured room where I keep all my cameras, rigth now it is more than a year that I have not used it. With the D60 and the TSE lenses I get flat stitched files of more than 16 Mp and even more when I attach it to my Sinar P2 and using my Hassel lenses. I get quickly shot tiles files of 9 images that give me more than 30 Mp files with zeiss quality. I´m getting a 1DSMk2 next month to simplify things a bit or if using the same stitching methods get much more bigger files than now.

In my opinion the digital images are vastly superior to film , specially  if you are like me a grain avoider. for me there is no way back. specially since last summer that under a retro attack  I took my Master Technika and three lenses to a outing. to make short it,  never more.

Didger. I understand that you are a Mac user, there is a simple and beautiful solution for the problem of handling big files with personal computers. it is called Live Picture a software that was discontinued a few years back, but still runs pretty well on OSX Classic, it was very advanced in its time, all the wonderfull tricks that you have learnt lately with layers and layers mask were  routine for us  LP users when Photoshop 3 even did not have layers, and in real time with any size image , and I mean  any size, with just 64 Mb of ram,. When it came out it was over 7000$ and now you can have it sometimes in ebay for as low as 25 $. It is a bit different working philosophy, but if you get to master it, you will not want anything else. I´ve been using it the last 11 years and plan to do it as long as I last :-) it is a very nice way of skipping the need for upgrading computers

Well I wish you all the best of ligth for the next year
Jose
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