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Author Topic: My journey into MF digital, starting with a P45+ on a Hasselblad 555ELD  (Read 48037 times)

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Question is how much is fake and how much is real. What I can see is that I tried to lift some shadow detail, and that detail is smooth in the Alpha 99 image but has a lot of noise in the P45+ image. Now, it could be that the lens on the Sony has more vailing flare, making shadow smoother, or something else. As exposure is pretty much ETTR I would expect that the image having better DR would have cleaner shadows.

Hi Erik,

Indeed. what one would ideally like to establish is the sensor's capabilities, which leaves the influence of the lens used. in the mix.

Quote
Just to make clear, noise would distribute the signal over many values. Say that lowest real signal would correspond to the data number of 16 and we have a readout noise of 16 electrons, that would spread the signal down to perhaps 5. My guess is is that readout noise on the P45 sensor is about 16. Phase One gives a DR of 12 EV in the spec sheet. So their data says that dynamic range goes from +3EV to -9EV as +3EV represents saturation.

QED! Traditionally the Phase One sensitivity of their sensors has been overstated (as evidenced by the DxO scores), presumably to allow more highlight headroom.

Cheers,
Bart
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ErikKaffehr

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Hi,

Just as a side note, the DxO mark data is an almost exact match for the data given in the data sheet by Kodak.

DR 71.4 dB -> 12 EV
FWC 60000
Readout noise 16 electron charges

FWC/read noise -> 60000 / 16 -> 11.8EV (but all figures are approximate)

Erik

Hi Eric,


The DxO Mark evaluations seem to be pretty accurate though.

Cheers,
Bart
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Erik Kaffehr
 

32BT

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Re: Small update: diffraction
« Reply #62 on: June 30, 2013, 05:02:15 am »

Hi,

I just shot a diffraction series:

Erik,

That f22 shot seems to have solved the color-aliasing problems quite nicely, while at the same time the integrity of the luminance signal seems quite intact. Did you try sharpening even more for comparison?
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ErikKaffehr

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Quite happy with this image!

First exposure of today's shoot, before setting up anything, all based on experience. Hasselblad 555 ELD, P45+ and 50/4.


https://maps.google.com/maps?q=58%C2%B038'51%22+N+17%C2%B06'33%22+E&hl=sv&ie=UTF8&ll=58.647498,17.109168&spn=0.005214,0.013443&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=63.728771,110.126953&t=h&z=17

Best regards
Erik
« Last Edit: June 30, 2013, 02:00:20 pm by ErikKaffehr »
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Erik Kaffehr
 

ErikKaffehr

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Some info on lenses added
« Reply #64 on: July 03, 2013, 01:13:56 am »

Hi,

I added some info my lenses.

Sonnar 150/4 very good for distant scenes
Macro Planar shows that it is not intended for distant scenes

Planar 80/2.8 quite OK
Distagon 50/4 quit OK

Best regards
Erik
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Erik Kaffehr
 

ErikKaffehr

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Comparison with 24MP full frame
« Reply #65 on: July 03, 2013, 03:35:18 pm »

An interesting comparison.

I found that 120/4 Macro Planar worked best for this composition and did a comparison shot with my Sony Alpha 99 SLT using Sony 70-400/4-5.6. macro Planar at f/16 and Sony lens at f/11. Sony image upsized in PS CS5 to same width.

The Sony 24MP smokes the Planar/P45+ in the corners while it may be the other way round at the center?

The Macro Planar 120/4 is the weakest performer I have for the Hassy/P45+, but it was the best match for this composition. I also have a Sonnar 150/4 that is really excellent, but it was to long for this composition. The Macro Planar is not optimized for long distances. It's a macro lens, I am pretty sure it excels in the close up range.


Best regards
Erik
« Last Edit: July 03, 2013, 10:56:17 pm by ErikKaffehr »
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Erik Kaffehr
 

ErikKaffehr

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Shadow detail
« Reply #66 on: July 03, 2013, 11:53:43 pm »

Note: I found out that the subject is much less demanding than I originally have thought. The reflections in the water are totally clipped and exposure is essentially on brightest clouds. Shadow goes down to perhaps -6EV, so range is about 9EV.

Here is some hefty shadow detail:





And the whole image:



Best regards
Erik
« Last Edit: July 06, 2013, 02:19:22 am by ErikKaffehr »
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Stefan.Steib

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Hi Erik

The Makro planar is a pretty decent performer at infinity. We use the lenskits for the 120mm Hartblei superrotators and
I have compared it to a lot of other lenses.
The point is, you need to focus "exactly" on target. it is not forgiving the slightest mis/front/backfocus .
Same as the 4/40 IF Distagon. It´s a beast and with my Canon´s I normally use LV to get the full resolving power from it.
But that is valid for all VERY SHARP lenses. I would even state that the lesser ones are more forgiving.

Regards
Stefan
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julienlanoo

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You re doing what i should have done, Bravo!
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ErikKaffehr

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Stefan,

I will retest. I think I have missed focus.

On the other hand, the MTF curves are ugly at infinity but very good at close up range. So what I see is what I expect from the MTF curves. But I was looking at the pictures this morning and decided to retest.

It seems that the 120/4 is one of the lenses I use the most.

Best regards
Erik



Hi Erik

The Makro planar is a pretty decent performer at infinity. We use the lenskits for the 120mm Hartblei superrotators and
I have compared it to a lot of other lenses.
The point is, you need to focus "exactly" on target. it is not forgiving the slightest mis/front/backfocus .
Same as the 4/40 IF Distagon. It´s a beast and with my Canon´s I normally use LV to get the full resolving power from it.
But that is valid for all VERY SHARP lenses. I would even state that the lesser ones are more forgiving.

Regards
Stefan
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Erik Kaffehr
 

ErikKaffehr

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Hi Stefan,

I looked at the images and shot an aperture series also today. I still find that the 120/4 needs to be stopped down a lot at infinity. Today I was using a PM5 prism, I'm trying to get an eyepiece corrected for my vision. I will probably also get a Zeiss Tripler as recommended by Joseph Holmes and Lloyd Chambers. I like the Hartblei loupe, but waist level viewing does not work for me for different reasons. Accurate focusing is an issue, right now, but anyway I find that corners are far worse than center on a decently focused image, at large apertures. Now, I am pretty sure that the problems is field curvature, and that also means that what you focus on will be sharp.

What I see is totally consistent with Zeiss/Hasselblad MTF data.

Best regards
Erik




Hi Erik

The Makro planar is a pretty decent performer at infinity. We use the lenskits for the 120mm Hartblei superrotators and
I have compared it to a lot of other lenses.
The point is, you need to focus "exactly" on target. it is not forgiving the slightest mis/front/backfocus .
Same as the 4/40 IF Distagon. It´s a beast and with my Canon´s I normally use LV to get the full resolving power from it.
But that is valid for all VERY SHARP lenses. I would even state that the lesser ones are more forgiving.

Regards
Stefan
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Erik Kaffehr
 

Stefan.Steib

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Hi Eric

yes you need to stop down the 120 Macro, but at best aperture (f11) it is pretty good.
See here:   http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/hartblei_120_4_pc_n10/4

The good part of being a bit soft wide open is: it´s perfect for portraits too.

These older lenses were never designed to be used wide open. Totally different philosophy than todays digital lenses.

Regards
Stefan
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ErikKaffehr

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Hi Stefan,

I'm normally shooting at f/11-f/16, to gain enough DoF. On the other hand, when I test a lens I am looking for weaknesses and trying to learn how to work around them.

I don't agree with your comments fully.

1) I also arrived at the conclusion that the 120/4 is best used stopped down to f/11 (or even f/16)

2) The Sonnar 150/4 I have is an older lens than the Macro Planar and it is perfectly sharp across the field at f/4, so I don't think that this is a generation issue

3) The simple explanation for the behaviour of the Macro Planar is that it is designed close up work. Field is nearly flat at close distance and curved at infinity. Check Zeiss MTF curves. Ugly at infinity, very nice at 5:1!

4) The curvature of field cause a gradual defocus when you move away from the focused point. What you focus on is sharp. I think I have a pretty nifty demo of that here:
http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/74-zeiss-macro-planar-120-on-sony-alpha-99-with-an-arax-tilt-adapter

5) So if you shoot at close distance or repro, the lens would work perfectly fine at any aperture. If you can focus accurately on subject and use selective focus the lens would work fine at any aperture.

6) You can check the MTF data from Zeiss.

7) With selective focus bokeh also plays a role.

The tangential and sagittal curves are quite close which indicates that both astigmatism and lateral chromatic aberration is well corrected. The curves at infinity are very bad. The probable cause is that the focal plane is curved. But if you look at the second set of curves at close up range the curves are very good.

Regarding the Distagon 40, it seems that there are at least three generations. The original 40/4, the 40/4 CF (FLE) and the latest 40/4 FLE IF. The FLE adds a floating group which corrects for field curvature. The FLE control is implemented as an extra focusing ring. The FLE IF is a newer design with internal focus.

The DPReview article you refer to tests then Planar on a 24x36 sensor, but I am shooting on a P45+ which covers a much larger area causing the field curvature being a much more  significant problem. When I shot my 120/4 on the Sony Alpha 99 I have seen less issue with field curvature and I could focus wherever I wanted, exactly, using LV manual focus.

To sum up, I use the Planar 120/4 macro extensively, but I need to stop down more than the other lenses I have.

I have shot a diffraction series on Sonnar 150/4 (see below), that lens performed best at f/5.6 and there was a significant drop of at f/16. But I still think that shooting at f/16 is OK and it is often needed for DOF.

[img]http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/MFDJourney/Samples/Diffraction/MTF_of_aperture.png[/png]

Sorry for responding so long, but I guess that this discussion may be of some interest to potential buyers.

Best regards
Erik

Hi Eric

yes you need to stop down the 120 Macro, but at best aperture (f11) it is pretty good.
See here:   http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/hartblei_120_4_pc_n10/4

The good part of being a bit soft wide open is: it´s perfect for portraits too.

These older lenses were never designed to be used wide open. Totally different philosophy than todays digital lenses.

Regards
Stefan
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Erik Kaffehr
 

ErikKaffehr

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A comparison...
« Reply #73 on: July 06, 2013, 02:40:05 am »

Hi,

The enclosed image was shot at f/11 (I think as I have no EXIF data) with the Planar 120/4. I think it is decently focused as it was a part of an aperture series and the f/4 image still has decent focus. The other image was shot with Sony Alpha 99 and a SAL 70-400/4-4.5G lens at f/8. The Sony image was uprezzed to the same width as the Hasselblad/Planar image using bicubic.

Hasselblad to the left Sony to the right, actual pixels.

Same camera position, light was changing a bit.

Best regards
Erik
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Chris Livsey

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I will probably also get a Zeiss Tripler as recommended by Joseph Holmes and Lloyd Chambers. I like the Hartblei loupe, but waist level viewing does not work for me for different reasons.

Erik, I have a Hartblei loupe (500c/m P20 back) and find it makes a huge difference to my focus ability. I was brought up on the reverse view so it is second nature but I can see why it would trouble others. I am curious as to why you would go from the 4x down to 3x? You will gain the comfort of 'correct" viewing but loose the extra magnification an interesting compromise the outcome is awaited with interest.

 I'm a Makro Planar fan as well and would be interested in how the highly praised H series 100mm and the 120 H Macro, of which I hear less, measure up in comparison.

Thanks for the continuing story.
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ErikKaffehr

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Hi,

I have the Hartblei loupe, too. The reason I am not so happy with it has a lot to do with viewing position.

I am not happy looking down. Also I am a short person and I need to rise the camera as high as I can to get above obtrusions, like bush, guide-rails and so on.

So I went with the PM5 prism, but it has no adjustable ocular, try to get a lens made for it. The Zeiss 3X is essentially a telescope and magnifies the image additionally, so I could use it with my PM5 or with my Hartblei 4X. It is darned expensive, and I have not seen it. It has been recommended by Joseph Holmes and Lloyd Chambers. My understanding is that PM5 with the Zeiss is more like 9X. I will have it in one or two weeks and report back.

http://www.josephholmes.com/news-sharpmediumformat.html

Regarding the Hasselblad HC120 MacroII it seems to be in a different league than the Zeiss 120/4 according to MTF data. Let's say you check MTF 20 mm of axis at 40 lp/mm and at aperture f/8. 20 mm of axis is near corner on FF 135, but not even edge on a P45. Edge on P45+ is 24.5mm and corner is 30.6 mm.

InfinityMacro
Zeiss 120/4 Macro Planar30%55%
HC 120/4 MacroII65%65%

The Macro Planar has six elements while the HC 120/4 Macro has nine. The HC 120 macro has clearly some kind of internal focus/floating element design, that is normally needed to keep field curvature down over different focusing distances. Minimum focus distance (object to film) is 39 cm, this makes i clear that elements move while focusing. With non moving elements the minimum focusing distance at 1:1 would be 48 cm (it is always 4X the focal length).

http://www.hasselblad.com/media/2459990/hc120-ii%20v2.pdf

http://www.hasselbladhistorical.eu/pdf/lds/CFi120.pdf

Best regards
Erik




Erik, I have a Hartblei loupe (500c/m P20 back) and find it makes a huge difference to my focus ability. I was brought up on the reverse view so it is second nature but I can see why it would trouble others. I am curious as to why you would go from the 4x down to 3x? You will gain the comfort of 'correct" viewing but loose the extra magnification an interesting compromise the outcome is awaited with interest.

 I'm a Makro Planar fan as well and would be interested in how the highly praised H series 100mm and the 120 H Macro, of which I hear less, measure up in comparison.

Thanks for the continuing story.

« Last Edit: July 06, 2013, 04:09:34 am by ErikKaffehr »
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Stefan.Steib

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Hi Eric

Comparing a fully mechanical to an electronical controlled camera is tricky nowadays.
You need to push up sharpening until it matches the Sony , even if you don´t do anything the firmware in the modern DSLRs is already sharpening images,
not only linear but also according to their specific lens data, these lenses are all chipped.

The DPReview data were measured also on the full available shift amount means 44x56mm format.

at f11 the field curvature at infinity will not be visible anymore.

BTW - the flare that you mentioned with the Zeiss standard Hasselblad lenses I can confirm, we did 2! additional lightraps for our Superrotators as well as a complete
capsuling for the TS mechanism to improve that, and - gues what, there is none left. May also have a connection to our nearly round 12 blade aperture, the effects of the 5 shutter blades
of the Blads lenses are definitely well known and sometimes upright ugly especially in defocused areas.

The Hartblei loupe works best on the HCam, you look into the sliders direction straight to the motive. Works pretty good.

Greetings from Germany
Stefan

« Last Edit: July 06, 2013, 06:47:27 pm by Stefan.Steib »
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ErikKaffehr

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Hi Stefan,

Sorry, I missed the shifted test on DPReview. I think you are wrong that firmware would sharpen raw images. But I know that things happen that you normally don't see, some lens correction data is applied automatically, say in Lightroom. I have seen that on my Sony RX-100. Lens distortion is removed automagically in LR. Raw developer (Iridient) didn't do that.

I mostly compare the Macro Planar to my Sonnar 150/4. That lens is sharp corner to corner at f/4.

It is of course possible that my sample of the Planar Macro is a bad one.

Could you please explain the Zeiss and Hasselbald MTF curves? I don't think Hasselblad would publish MTF data for a bad sample. All MTF tests I have seen were similar, Zeiss, Photodo, Hasselblad. Both Zeiss and Hasselblad curves show a very high drop of for MTF at infinity. At close range the MTF curves are much better, similar to the Sonnar 150 at infinity.

Thanks for mentioning the changes Hartblei made to the 120/4 macro lens group. The circular aperture is nice for sure. The internal reflections I have seen in my early tests were coming from the Arax adapter, but now I shooting on a Blad.

Initially I used the Hartblei focusing hood. I agree that it is nearly optimal. But I switched to the PM5, because I am not comfortable with the viewing position. Trying to improve my focusing technique.

It would be helpful if you posted a good image using the 120/4 at f/11 on full frame MFD. The image would preferably have fine detail in the corners (treetops are fine).

I have the following lenses:

50/4 Distagon CF/FLE
80/2.8 Planar CFE
120/4  Planar Macro CF
150/4 Sonnar CF

I still work on focusing technique.

Best regards
Erik

Hi Eric

Comparing a fully mechanical to an electronical controlled camera is tricky nowadays.
You need to push up sharpening until it matches the Sony , even if you don´t do anything the firmware in the modern DSLRs is already sharpening images,
not only linear but also according to their specific lens data, these lenses are all chipped.

The DPReview data were measured also on the full available shift amount means 44x56mm format.

at f11 the field curvature at infinity will not be visible anymore.

BTW - the flare that you mentioned with the Zeiss standard Hasselblad lenses I can confirm, we did 2! additional lightraps for our Superrotators as well as a complete
capsuling for the TS mechanism to improve that, and - gues what, there is none left. May also have a connection to our nearly round 12 blade aperture, the effects of the 5 shutter blades
of the Blads lenses are definitely well known and sometimes upright ugly especially in defocused areas.

The Hartblei loupe works best on the HCam, you look into the sliders direction straight to the motive. Works pretty good.

Greetings from Germany
Stefan


« Last Edit: July 14, 2013, 05:34:52 am by ErikKaffehr »
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ErikKaffehr

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Hi Stefan,

I have shot a new aperture series at my favorit castle (just being 10 km from my office makes it favorit) with Sonnar 150/4 and Macro Planar 120/4 and it confirms your observations. These images were shot on Hasselblad 555 ELD with a P45+ back. No electronics involved.

The aperture series is here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/MFDJourney/Lenses/SonnarVSPlanar.html

I am aware of the modifications Hartblei did on the TS lenses.

Best regards
Erik


Hi Eric

Comparing a fully mechanical to an electronical controlled camera is tricky nowadays.
You need to push up sharpening until it matches the Sony , even if you don´t do anything the firmware in the modern DSLRs is already sharpening images,
not only linear but also according to their specific lens data, these lenses are all chipped.

The DPReview data were measured also on the full available shift amount means 44x56mm format.

at f11 the field curvature at infinity will not be visible anymore.

BTW - the flare that you mentioned with the Zeiss standard Hasselblad lenses I can confirm, we did 2! additional lightraps for our Superrotators as well as a complete
capsuling for the TS mechanism to improve that, and - gues what, there is none left. May also have a connection to our nearly round 12 blade aperture, the effects of the 5 shutter blades
of the Blads lenses are definitely well known and sometimes upright ugly especially in defocused areas.

The Hartblei loupe works best on the HCam, you look into the sliders direction straight to the motive. Works pretty good.

Greetings from Germany
Stefan


« Last Edit: July 13, 2013, 03:59:06 am by ErikKaffehr »
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EricWHiss

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Bart,
Transmissive step wedges (as opposed to printed step wedges) cover more range (over 13 stops)  so are therefore more useful for DR testing of current digital cameras. I'm 'sorry' that you have been confused.  They are available from Stouffer for about $35 but perhaps other sources as well.   
Eric



Hi Eric,

Sorry, but shooting a step-wedge is not more accurate, although may be closer to variable conditions real live shooting situations (partly due to veiling glare), depending on the lens and lighting situation used. For a fair, unbiased review one usually tries to avoid as many variables (such as lens / lighting conditions used) as possible. Ignoring things like these variables is exactly what makes comparisons controversial.

The DxO Mark evaluations seem to be pretty accurate though.

Cheers,
Bart
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