I frequently make prints quite a bit larger than 13x19 with an Epson 9600 from 6x7 scans from a Pentax 67, and would be curious to hear from those who have made 20x24, 24x30 and 30x40 prints from the 1Ds whose baseline is medium format film. If we are one more generation away from the sensor size needed to get what I want, I need to figure that out before plunking down the $8000 for the 1Ds. OTOH, there have been a number of comments here and on other boards that suggest that the 1Ds at 11 MP has already maxed out the capabilities of the best lenses Canon has to offer, so a bigger sensor may not translate into better large prints in practice. Fuji has shown a prototype of a 21 MP digital back for med. format cameras that is supposed to ship late 2003 or early 2004. It will be almost full frame for 6x4.5. Is this the answer if you want the ability to do large prints?
I think there are many aspects in the query that can be very subjective. Eg Do you consider whether digital has already surpassed same-format film? How do you rate, say, Hasselblad+H20 images in comparison to your 6x7 film? I think for many people H20 images are considered preferable to 6x6 film. 6x7? Personally what I am fully satisfied with is that for rectangular images (the H20 is square, thus requires cropping) 1Ds images are fully comparable to H20 used on a Hasselblad, provided prime lenses are used on both. There has been an in-depth comparison between an H20 and a 1Ds, but that was flawed resolution-wise by the use of a zoom on the 1Ds, a prime on a Hasselblad. I recently had the opportunity to quickie-compare an H20 image and a 1Ds image, both taken by excellent primes. My comparison is also flawed, color/tonality-wise, but it does show that resolution is not an issue. Logical actually, since both sensors are roughly 4000 pixels long using 9 micron-square pixels. Equally good lenses should give equal results. The earlier review says more about color and tonality (basically depends on how you process your images). Is there something around the corner that will be an H20/1Ds killer? Most definitely yes. Both the Fuji back and the already announced H25 should do that quite resoundingly. But! even the existing H20 @ $21,000 makes the 1Ds look dirt cheap. IMHO adding more megapixels to 35mm format sensors will give fairly marginal resolution improvements, since away from f8 with primes the 1Ds sensor is not really the bottleneck. It's the 35mm lenses. Larger sensors, like the new Fuji and H25 should show significant improvements with excellent MF lenses. Relative improvement H20 to H25, I anticipate, will be similar to 10D to 1Ds. If things are done properly, it really just comes down simple arithmetic. Decide what is the limit, sensor or lens in the specific usage. Yes, does depend critically on f-stop used. Get the lp/mm for the weaker one, multiply by the length of the sensor. Divide by 4 or 5 (depends what you want in your print; 5 or 4 lp/mm). Presto: largest handheld razor-sharp print size in mm. My resolution comparison H20/1Ds can be found at:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums....5098152The comparison for tonality and color link is also available therein.
