Aptus 65 Long Exposure Performance?

[Easton]

Question in Short form:

How is the Aptus 65’s long exposure performance?



Same question in Long form: (for those who like reading  )

I’m very close to purchasing a used Aptus 65 which I’ve been offered for a very good price. However I’ve just found (in very vague patches) across the net that the Aptus backs have poor long exposure performance. Can users elaborate on this a bit further?

Here’s a few quotes I’ve found online:

“Low light, or long exposures, forget-about-using-an-Aptus. Just not it's thing really…”

“I have had some issues with long exposures and the Aptus . If the scene is well lit I usually have no problems with noise. If there are dark shadow areas the noise shows up at the 1/30th or longer exposures”

This concerns me a lot! For my style of shooting there is A LOT of light painting and rig shots, which are done from 5 – 20 second exposures. I then pull a lot of the shadows out later in post.

In other words - my bread and butter is done with long exposures and pulling out shadow details!

I have never really ever gone past 30 seconds before, so I’m fine with the Aptus’s limitations.

My question isn’t regarding whether the Aptus can do long exposures (I heard it only goes up to 30 odd seconds?), but more about how well it performs at long exposures. Especially shadow details.

I realize the Phase One backs perform long exposures really well, but unfortunately – everything has a price.

A P30 refurb (what I’d assume to be the equivalent of an Aptus 65) is going to cost twice as much as the Aptus 65.

In fact, even a P21+ refurb is going to cost more than the used Aptus 65. Even with a bit of noise in a long exposure Aptus 65 file, I could probably downsize the image to 18 megapixels and it might end up looking fine!

So everything has a price. Long exposure, shadow detail performance is obviously very important to me, but if it holds up very well at 5 – 20 second exposures than I can’t justify paying twice the money for a P30 refurb.

I picked up my 5D Mark II on Friday and did some extreme shadow/detail testing over the weekend comparing it against the ZD back. Both are 14-bit colour depth and both are 22 megapixels, but the ZD pulled shadow details out tremendously better than the 5D2.

However the ZD really starts choking at long exposures, especially in the shadows. I don’t even want to shoot beyond 1 second on the ZD back because of that.

I’m concerned the Aptus 65 will be giving me the same sort of grief. But to go P30 refurb, I gotta pay twice the amount!

Hope to hear some experiences from you with the Aptus 65's (or any Aptus for that matter) at 5 - 20 second exposures!





Offtopic (don’t want to make a second thread) but how do you check the actuation count on the mamiya ZD back?

Thank you all again  

[michele]

Hi Easton, before I bought my P45+, I have tested a Leaf 7, Hasselblad H3DII 39, ZD back and of course the P45+...
PhaseOne, as you know, it's very very good with long exposures; but it's out of you budget. The ZD it's very poor beyond 5 seconds... Hasselblad it's at the third place, and when you open up the shadows it's not a beauty. Leaf is pretty good, you can open up the shadows and it's a plesure, also at 20 seconds but at 50 ISO. Remember that if you process the Leaf's raw files with adobe camera raw you can get a good resault but not with long exposure, in fact you'll find a lot of losting of pixels and noise... With 20 seconds long exposure, you really need Leafcapture, but I think it's very good. Yeah, PhaseOne goes to 1 hour... But in the real world Leaf it's pretty darmn clean, just as PhaseOne is..
Unfotunatly I don't have the raw fils test anymore, but you can try to find out something more in the leaf website, they have some samples from the 65...
My best

[Dustbak]

My experience (A17), if long exposures are important to you the Leaf is not your best option. The times I did exposures ranging from 10 to 30seconds they were bad. The Aptus is a fantastic back but this is an area in which it simply is not great. You better use your 5DII for that if you get an A65.

A P30 refurb should be pretty close in price with an A65. Twice the price is absurd (unless you get the A65 for an absurdly low price).

Leaf Capture does generate better files than ACR with long exposures.

BTW, I find my CF39 (and CF39MS) much better with long exposures than I ever got out of my Leaf Aptus. Granted, I got rid of the Aptus a year ago so my view can be dated.

[Easton]

Thanks to you both!

Hmm - this does make my decision really hard.

And it's more that the Aptus 65 price is fantastic, rather than the P30 being a bad one.

I'm glad I found out about this before buying, even if I do end up getting the A65 it's better that I know about it now.

[rueyloon]

It's not pretty on the aptus65 for long exposures. I'm using one now and if I need cleaner images, I'll go with my 5D.
And if there is any other light source in the pictures, you'll get "pixel bin spillage", I'm not sure what's the technical term
it will result is a vertical streak of light, rendering the images quite useless. And if you do multiple long exposures in quick
succession you might even see a ghost image from the previous shot. It happened to me only once.

cheers

[Easton]

Wow - this is very serious. I'm glad I asked about this. It would seem to be like an archilles heel in what is otherwise a brilliant back, but my work depends alot on this area.

[bcooter]

Thanks to you both!

Hmm - this does make my decision really hard.

And it's more that the Aptus 65 price is fantastic, rather than the P30 being a bad one.

I'm glad I found out about this before buying, even if I do end up getting the A65 it's better that I know about it now.

It's not just the money, it's the time.  Even if it requires taking a trip to someone that will let you test an Aptus, Phase, Hasselblad, against a D3x and Canon, you'll never know if it really works for you and if it doesn't you'll spend endless hours trying to find a fix, calling dealers, talking to tech people only to eventually start again at ground zero.

If you work with outside retouchers, make sure you can deliver a raw file that they know how to process without conversion or special software.  99% of all retouchers (regardless of the file format) will process in photoshop.  Even if you send a tiff that is exactly the color and tone you want, every retoucher needs a raw file to reprocess and change areas and range of the image, especially in the type of work you do.

If you do all the retouching yourself, then that's a different mindset.

You can spend way too much of your life messing with digital cameras and though all are quite alike, some work in better scenarios than others.  Long exposures really depend on your lighting, your style of shooting, if you underexpose or overexpose.

Your work is quite nice and honestly I doubt seriously if you shoot with a 5d2 or a medium format back if anyone that hires you will notice or care, but I caution you not to get caught up in the black hole of digital learning curves.

I've done it, heck everyone I know has secretly thought that the next camera will be better, or offer something they can't live without and usually that's just not the case.   The only camera that you want (or multiple cameras) is the one that let's you get on with your art (and your life) without drama or problems.

In today's market I'm sure there are a lot of dealers that will let you really test a system, rather than just shoot a few frames in the showroom.  

Saving $5,000 today might sound like a good idea and any camera might be perfect for you, but if it's not that $5,000 will be just a drop in the bucket of the time wasted trying to make it work for your style.

[pixjohn]

I have shots lots of 15 - 30 sec exposure with the Aptus 75 at iso 50 and generated very clean files through LC 11. If your style is light painting and other types of long exposure I would  go with a Phase One to get longer then 30 sec. As stated above trying to save 5 cents now will cost you 25 cents in the long run. The Leaf camera's are great camera but you sound like you need a camera to fit your style of work.

[yaya]

Wow - this is very serious. I'm glad I asked about this. It would seem to be like an archilles heel in what is otherwise a brilliant back, but my work depends alot on this area.

Sending you a couple of images for your evaluation. You should be getting an email with a link shortly.

BR

Yair

[Easton]

bcooter, your words have given me a lot to think about.

I've reminisced all my major purchases thus far and it would seem that I always regret going halfway to save a buck. I always end up having to pay for it (even more) in the long run.

Though I don't see the Leaf or Phase One backs being superior or inferior to one another, it's just matter of looking at each of their strengths and weaknesses and seeing which of the two best suits my particular needs.

I didn't find out about the long exposure issue with Aptus backs until now, because the vast majority of photographers don't seem to rely on long exposure performance like I do.

A P45 refurb can be had now for about $13,000 USD. Which is a massive drop compared with 7 months ago when I was in the market and ended up (regrettably) purchasing the ZD back.

A P30+ refurb is about $12,000 USD, only $1,000 less.

I also hear that since the P45 came out later, that it can do the same long exposure performance as other + backs. Just missing the higher rez LCD, higher ISO performance etc.

The used Aptus 65 in comparison is about $5,300 USD. But no matter how well it is priced I cannot use it if it dosn't work in my bread and butter images.

I'm going to thoroughly test the Aptus 65 and P45 backs and do my own testing.

But this post has swayed me heavily towards the P45.

I feel like a yoyo - swinging back and forth! It's frustrating but it's a lot of money to me we're talking about, not to mention my retouching is my most important part of my style and work, and the digital files I get from a back is going to be really important for my line of work.

Yair thanks again for sending me the samples, the images you gave me are amazing. I will take some shots at the shop sometime and see how they go.

[Robin Balas]

bcooter, your words have given me a lot to think about.

I've reminisced all my major purchases thus far and it would seem that I always regret going halfway to save a buck. I always end up having to pay for it (even more) in the long run.

Though I don't see the Leaf or Phase One backs being superior or inferior to one another, it's just matter of looking at each of their strengths and weaknesses and seeing which of the two best suits my particular needs.

I didn't find out about the long exposure issue with Aptus backs until now, because the vast majority of photographers don't seem to rely on long exposure performance like I do.

A P45 refurb can be had now for about $13,000 USD. Which is a massive drop compared with 7 months ago when I was in the market and ended up (regrettably) purchasing the ZD back.

A P30+ refurb is about $12,000 USD, only $1,000 less.

I also hear that since the P45 came out later, that it can do the same long exposure performance as other + backs. Just missing the higher rez LCD, higher ISO performance etc.

The used Aptus 65 in comparison is about $5,300 USD. But no matter how well it is priced I cannot use it if it dosn't work in my bread and butter images.

I'm going to thoroughly test the Aptus 65 and P45 backs and do my own testing.

But this post has swayed me heavily towards the P45.

I feel like a yoyo - swinging back and forth! It's frustrating but it's a lot of money to me we're talking about, not to mention my retouching is my most important part of my style and work, and the digital files I get from a back is going to be really important for my line of work.

Yair thanks again for sending me the samples, the images you gave me are amazing. I will take some shots at the shop sometime and see how they go.

I work with an Aptus 65 (not the plus version, the old one) and I find long exposures to be a headache at 30sec and then using ACR to develop the files. So much that I swear and curse over my decision to buy one... However all is forgotten when doing my bread and butter work which is something completely different (boring stuff in a studio). You simply must avoid ACR based development and try to avoid 30sec, and you will get by fine, but why didn't I get the Phase one instead? Because of the stupid microlenses on that comparably priced modell which make life too miserable when using it on a LF camera. So if I had been doing the long exposures alot for a living, I would have gotten something else than the first generation Aptus backs, maybe the new ones are better? Or get a PhaseOne with a Kodak chip - but not the new one with the Dalsa chip. For most other tasks though the Dalsa chips are in my opinion better, and the Leaf hardware is phenomenal and simply makes my day.
MHO.

[pixjohn]

Leaf tells you to use LC for long exposures. ACR is not the software to use. I use a Leaf Aptus 75 shooting 15 - 30 sec at iso 50 and get clean files.