Universal digital back

[Jonathan Wienke]

Medium format digital backs currently available are commonly 20K+ just for the back. For large format digital, you'd need a NASA-sized budget to afford one, if such a thing is even available at any price. Ten years from now it's entirely possible such things would be commonplace, but not now.

[Graham Welland]

Betterlight have scanning backs for 4x5 cameras which are available in the Canon 1DsII price range on upwards new. Stunning if they suit your purpose.

You can also mount certain Leaf/Phase One/Kodak Pro+ backs using adaptors from the Kapture Group. These aren't going to full frame by any means but you do get movements etc.

[BJL]

For about $10,000, you might get a digital back mountable on a view camera, maybe 11MP 24x36mm or at best, 16MP 36x36mm. You could then get some Schneider "digital" view camera lenses, which have shorter focal lengths and smaller image circles more appropriate to these sensor sizes.

But it sounds like a difficult and expensive route, unless you really need the view camera motions. A decent large format capable scanner like one of the new Epson 4xxx series is probably a far cheaper and easier route for an amateur to get digital images from a large format camera.

[Frank Kolwicz]

Has there been any hint of a universal digital back like the rollfilm backs for press cameras? I'd love to be able to use a digital back on my Horseman 980 and my LF camera which are gathering dust these several years. I know stuff has come out for Hassleblads, but they are way over my head $$ (as is usual for Hassleblad).

How about an inexpensive 12-16 Megapixel univeral back using the kind of tech that's in the Canon cameras, the financial/performance equivalent of a DSLR?

[Frank Kolwicz]

Thanks for your reply, Johnathan, but what I'd like to see is the equivalent of the top of the line Canon digital camera performance in a universal MF rollfilm-like back, thus my reference to the Hassleblad. I did see something for 4x5, like a sheet film holder, at a comparable price to the Canon, but which requires a good laptop in the field or studio and is a scanning back.

It seems to that the miniaturization needed to put 16 Mp Canon-level performance into a 35 mm package would be pretty easy in a box the size of a rollfilm holder, especially given the fewer restraints on overall size.

Just wishful thinking as my Horseman and Kanham gather dust.

[Jonathan Wienke]

The primary cost factor is sensor size, not miniaturization. Making a full-frame 4x5 digital sensor is prohibitively expensive at this time. Anything in the 1Ds-MkII price range is either going to be much less than full-frame or a scanning back unsuitable for anything but static subjects.