Spot the Medium Format Files

A C E

2 (4.3%)

A D E

7 (14.9%)

A D F

5 (10.6%)

A C F

1 (2.1%)

B C E

3 (6.4%)

B D E

6 (12.8%)

B D F

4 (8.5%)

B C F

4 (8.5%)

no idea, who cares?

14 (29.8%)

all of them

0 (0%)

none of them

1 (2.1%)

Total Members Voted: 45

[MH]

why is it that important for you that canon/nikon cameras are close to mf...?
i think the answer is that you do only small or medium jobs where you cannot put the rental for a digital medium format system on the calculation, or even buy one for yourself. so it must be very important that your 35mm system is close to that.

next time when i have a hasselblad in my hand i do a comparison with a canon 5d mark 2 and use a focal lenght between 20 and 35mm (on canon) to a equal hassi lens. there will surely be no doubt which pictures belong to which system.

[fredjeang]

why is it that important for you that canon/nikon cameras are close to mf...?
i think the answer is that you do only small or medium jobs where you cannot put the rental for a digital medium format system on the calculation, or even buy one for yourself. so it must be very important that your 35mm system is close to that.

next time when i have a hasselblad in my hand i do a comparison with a canon 5d mark 2 and use a focal lenght between 20 and 35mm (on canon) to a equal hassi lens. there will surely be no doubt which pictures belong to which system.

Well Michael, if you go on that lands...MF has got nothing to do with the level of the jobs involved.
There are tons of masters with worldwide reputation that hardly use MF gear and tons of MF gear users that shoot "their garden trees"...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Why luck?  It was obvious the files were quite different...

Gee... how was it "obvious" when only 7.5% guessed it correctly!? The only thing that is obvious is that the difference is so negligible (at least for this type of example) that only an extreme minority (if any) knew it, while most guessed it, some of which was then randomly correct.

[ced]

Maybe it is just a reflection of the level of most users on this forum.  I still say it was obvious...

[feppe]

Maybe it is just a reflection of the level of most users on this forum.  I still say it was obvious...

Is that natural, or does the smugness come bundled with the MFDB?

[JBerardi]

How about plain luck?

why did 92,5% of participants choose something different? 15% chose the canon files, that doesn't mean they are better, it only means the difference is hardly discernable and me personally, I'd rather spend the money and the time I save by shooting a 35mm solution on holidays with my family.

How about I knew what to look for and I found it?

92.5% of participants choose something different because you stacked the deck. You wanted to prove that the MF advantage doesn't really show through under certain output conditions, and you did. Not sure why that would have ever been in doubt in the first place, though.

And if we're speaking personally, I don't shoot MF; hell, I don't even shoot 35mm. I'm not an evangelist here. I have no doubt that your decision to shoot 35mm is a valid one. That said, one CAN tell the difference, even if it is vanishingly small in these examples.

[pcunite]

Why luck?  It was obvious the files were quite different, you can't justify giving your client somethng that you know in truth is of lower quality even if your client is happy.
That he doesn't pay you more for giving higher quality that is another question. 
The day will come when you will regret having given out a job that you knew could and should have been of a higher standard being a professional...

What a load of bunk, please tell the forum when you buy that new 80mp back, anything less is to dishonor your customer. Sorry to be to the point... it is a public forum.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi everyone,

In my view this is an interesting comparison. On the other hand the images are scaled down JPEGs, so the resolution advantage of larger sensor is eliminated. Would the MFDBs have an advantage in DR, it would not be possible to see it in JPEG. This is really an example of good enough. 

So this demo puts MFDBs in a perspective, but doesn't in any way demonstrate their full potential. For that we would need actual pixel images, preferably in RAW.

Best regards
Erik

Gee... how was it "obvious" when only 7.5% guessed it correctly!? The only thing that is obvious is that the difference is so negligible (at least for this type of example) that only an extreme minority (if any) knew it, while most guessed it, some of which was then randomly correct.

[bradleygibson]

... the images are scaled down JPEGs, so the resolution advantage of larger sensor is eliminated.

Perhaps the resolution advantage is eliminated, but there remain advantages to greater downsampling (averaging of noise to create a higher signal to noise ratio, for example).

What is interesting to me is that this "elimination" of MF's alleged advantage did not produce an approximately equal distribution of selections between medium and small formats.  Assuming the math was correct, self-selected respondents selected the small format images overwhelmingly at ~92%.  It would be interesting to know how the respective files were processed, as clearly something had an effect to skew the selection.

Said plainly, if tiny JPEGs are too small to see the "superior" image quality of MF, then why were the Canon images overwhelmingly favored at a rate in excess of 11:1?

Since the outcome between approximately equivalent choices (JBerardi and ced excepted, of course ) should essentially be random, it suggests one or more additional biasing factor(s) were in play.

[yaya]

What a load of bunk, please tell the forum when you buy that new 80mp back, anything less is to dishonor your customer. Sorry to be to the point... it is a public forum.

No disrespect to you but I trust ced to know about MFDB (and digital imaging in general) more than all of us put together, from developing it to using it in real life. I've personally learned a lot from the guy and if he says this is obvious then it is!

Yair

[geesbert]

although I have an idea who ced might be, I am not trusting anyone's opinion who doesn't disclose their name.

thankfully I don't have to be paid by ced or the like, but by companies who are used to commission professional work. The whole production environment really makes the difference between professional and amateur work. and they trust me 100% in choosing the right equipment necessary for the job.

[perjorgen]

Said plainly, if tiny JPEGs are too small to see the "superior" image quality of MF, then why were the Canon images overwhelmingly favored at a rate in excess of 11:1?

Are you serious? The reason that you got higher contrast at 11:1 is that sharpening is added to the Canon e.g. on the mushroom in the upper left corner on A and B there is a dark edge around head at the transition to the steem on A - that is not how mushrooms look like.

[fredjeang]

The files fooled MF daily users, not dslr's only users. Yes they where downsampled and as Erik pointed, a Raw comparaison would have probably make the differences easier to spot.

If some experienced, trustable and above-the-crowd-users have reached the obvious solution, is that the differences where obvious.
If only 2 or 3 people could see this obviousness, is that the differences are unsignificant in most of the commercial assignments.

And, the normally loud crowd of dealers in this forum stayed curiously very silent. Don't they like games ?...or, maybe they where not sure 100% to get the right files?

 

[David Grover / Capture One]

The files fooled MF daily users, not dslr's only users. Yes they where downsampled and as Erik pointed, a Raw comparaison would have probably make the differences easier to spot.

If some experienced, trustable and above-the-crowd-users have reached the obvious solution, is that the differences where obvious.
If only 2 or 3 people could see this obviousness, is that the differences are unsignificant in most of the commercial assignments.

And, the normally loud crowd of dealers in this forum stayed curiously very silent. Don't they like games ?...or, maybe they where not sure 100% to get the right files?

 

However, this completely misses on how the files stand up to post production... shooting.

Yesterday at an event in London, I spoke to a photographer who bought his first H3D39 second hand a year or so ago.  Much preferred it for fashion work.. felt he wasn't worried about losing highlights... shadow detail and so on.

Also found it much easier to work with for retouching.

All of those things can't be seen by a simple side by side comparison.

[geesbert]

Sorry, I seem to have closed this thread accidentally by browsing it on my phone. this thread has gained me a lot of insight, so I hope we can keep on with it for a bit.

[geesbert]

I think no one and definitely not me stated that DSLR files are as good (whatever that means) as MF files, my point is that as a commercial shootier in my field this quality advantage doesn't show.

What shows is that DSLR solutions are easier and quicker to work with, critical focus is easier achieved, compositional fine-tuning is way easier, financial and technical burden is way less and hardly anyone seems to notice the difference.

there is a lot of stuff that really improved my photography in recent years, e.g. using a dedicated 26" screen only for live view, or using those insanly expensive Fisso clamps to prop my subjects or using a second assistant just to keep the clients happy or swallowing part of the studio rental fee, just because  both me and my clients are more comfortable and many things more. the tedious workflow of MF certainly work in the other direction.

The argument, that MF files leave more room for manipulation doesn't really count for me. My shooting environment is very controlled, it just can't happen that I blow my highlights or kill the black.


Maybe I should disclose my workflow for these files:

Hasselblad: shot into Phocus, edited there to get the look I liked, exported to 16bit tiff, into lightroom.
Canon: shot into eos capture, edited in lightroom.

then I tweaked the colors to equalise them. I only used global adjustment and very little of that. downsampling and color space conversion by lightroom.

using Hasselblad DNGs in lightroom wasn't successful.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... why were the Canon images overwhelmingly favored at a rate in excess of 11:1?... it suggests one or more additional biasing factor(s) were in play.

Additional biasing factor = Canon files look better? Just saying

[bradleygibson]

Are you serious? The reason that you got higher contrast at 11:1 is that sharpening is added to the Canon

Yes I'm serious--I'm just putting the question out there, as it seems to have been missed in the discussion.  FWIW, I happen to agree with your answer.

[bradleygibson]

Additional biasing factor = Canon files look better? Just saying

[perjorgen]

Yes I'm serious--I'm just putting the question out there, as it seems to have been missed in the discussion.  FWIW, I happen to agree with your answer.

So boiling it down (and blatantly putting words in your mouth - sorry)

• If an equivalent post production (e.g. sharpening) was applied to the MF picture, there is a good chance that it would have been lost in the downsampling.
• It seems that there are two ways the pictures has been evaluated 1. The prettiest picture with the highest impact which favors Canon 2. The most natural picture that preserves tonality and fine low contrast detail which favors Hasselblad

The argument, that MF files leave more room for manipulation doesn't really count for me. My shooting environment is very controlled, it just can't happen that I blow my highlights or kill the black.

If you don't need to adjust you pictures that much and the resolution from the Canon is good enough then I agree that MF is overkill. But being able to shot straight into the sun and still get something meaningful out of the rest of the picture makes it fun to shoot MF

Maybe I should disclose my workflow for these files:

Hasselblad: shot into Phocus, edited there to get the look I liked, exported to 16bit tiff, into lightroom.
Canon: shot into eos capture, edited in lightroom.

then I tweaked the colors to equalise them. I only used global adjustment and very little of that. downsampling and color space conversion by lightroom.

I think it would be more fair to let Lightroom do all the processing as it can read Hasselblad 3fr and Canon raw files