Some more P45+ samples (in raw)

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Just to pint out, the Aspen images were taken under realistic conditions, I made a shot with both Alpha 99 and the Hasselblad from the position giving the best view (in my opinion), I could not change FoV (Field of View) without affecting perspective by moving around. The MFD exposure was with my Sonnar 150/4, the sharpest lens I have. The Alpha was made on a 70-400/4.5.6 APO G lens. The Alpha exposure has a tighter crop, neutralising much of the 39 vs. 24 MP advantage.

Regarding "tilt" and "scheimpflug" I think they are most helpful in many situations. I am waiting for my "Flexbody" to find out.

Best regards
Erik

Yeah, in that crop example I see a difference too. Subtle but it is clearly there.

The Rodenstock HR lenses (I have the 40 and the 70) are really amazing and take the backs (I presume any back) to another level in regards to resolution edge to edge. Also like mentioned the technical cameras offer something different in regards to workflow in the field. The tilt capability helps a lot in getting the proper depth of field with the large medium format sensors. I have a lot of shots that would have been really mediocre had I used a medium format slr instead due to the limited depth of field. With the Arca I can use the lens at an optimum aperture, f8, and get very large depth of field by using tilt. This is a huge asset in Landscape and studio use. With the smaller medium format sensors like the one in the Leica S, the Pentax 645D and the P40/IQ140 it is not as necessary although it helps but with the larger sensors of the 50-60-80mp backs I honestly believe it is critical to have. I think that applies to the P45+ also.

I had not used medium format in basically ten years and back then it was with film (6x7) which I felt was a touch smoother in the depth of field transitions from focus to out of focus. (film grain helps). High resolution medium format digital sensors make it very obvious when focus and or technique is not perfect.

What I have found with my phase back is that im loving the tech camera workflow but I really like the color depth and malleability of the files. The shadow detail and color fidelity in the shadows is superb. I also love the fact that I can still make a great 30x40" print even when I significantly crop the image.

I now im looking for a printing solution that can fully do justice to those files. THIS looks like a good product 

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

A lens that is not diffraction limited at medium aperture is not a good lens. I measured MTF on a Sonnar 150/4 and it started loosing sharpness at around f/11.

The best lenses usually are diffraction limited at f/5.6. That is probably the case with Rodenstock HR lenses. The Hasselblad guy you spoke with seems not so competent with regard to optics.

Diffraction is a property of light and not of lenses. Light passing trough a small hole bends, depending on wavelength and size of the whole. When you stop down the lens improves because aberrations go down with increasing f-number, diffraction increases. At a point the increase of diffraction dominates over the improvement, at that point the lens reaches optimum performance. Very good lenses reach this at larger apertures.

That said, diffraction is not always bad, it is benign to sharpening, as it can be approximated with a gaussian. Diffraction also helps reducing aliasing. Color aliasing sometimes goes away at f/16, or so, the reason is that you loose resolution/edge contrast.

Best regards
Erik

I think you should do some further tests; the effects of diffraction are usually minimal compared to improper focus. Focus using the hyperfocal distance and stop down an extra 2 stops. From many years of experience shooting CF lenses diffraction has never been an issue. I recently spoke to a Hasselblad technician that seemed to think so as well stating that none of the CF lenses were ever diffraction limited.

[Paul Ozzello]

Hi,

A lens that is not diffraction limited at medium aperture is not a good lens. I measured MTF on a Sonnar 150/4 and it started loosing sharpness at around f/11.

The best lenses usually are diffraction limited at f/5.6. That is probably the case with Rodenstock HR lenses. The Hasselblad guy you spoke with seems not so competent with regard to optics.

Diffraction is a property of light and not of lenses. Light passing trough a small hole bends, depending on wavelength and size of the whole. When you stop down the lens improves because aberrations go down with increasing f-number, diffraction increases. At a point the increase of diffraction dominates over the improvement, at that point the lens reaches optimum performance. Very good lenses reach this at larger apertures.

That said, diffraction is not always bad, it is benign to sharpening, as it can be approximated with a gaussian. Diffraction also helps reducing aliasing. Color aliasing sometimes goes away at f/16, or so, the reason is that you loose resolution/edge contrast.

Best regards
Erik

My whole point is that measuring MTF and using optimum f-stop is completely pointless if you can't properly focus the lens and get the required depth of field. In all my years shooting film improper focus and insufficient depth of field have always been more detrimental to image quality than diffraction.

The image you posted is improperly focused and doesn't have enough depth of field and you would improve your overall IQ by worrying less about diffraction.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I don't know which of the three images you are discussing. The image with flower in the foreground, the schack in the middle and mountains in the background was shot at f/22 (or possibly f/16) which happens to be the minimum aperture of the lens, the focus in that image is on the flower in the foreground. If you check it's focus it is critically sharp.

I absolutely agree that out focus is worse than having some diffraction, but that is not the same as being ignorant of diffraction. To get perfect (or optimal) sharpness you need to look at DoF but also at diffraction. Sometimes things will not go hand in hand, than you may need to go into Scheimpflug or combining several images for sharpness.

The flower in the foreground image was shot on a Distagon 40/4 FLE. That lens has severe curvature of field and needs to be stopped down to about f/11-f/16 to be usable. It seems that the aberration the lens has is very benign to sharpening, however.

Going beyond f/11 you start loosing resolution in the center, but you also get rid of aliasing artifacts. Going beyond f/16 you loose sharpness, but you can compensate with more sharpening which increases noise. So you add noise reduction and loose some detail...

My guess is that folks who have been shooting MF digital have similar experience.

By the way, I would expect the flower, shackle and mountais image to make an excellent A2 print.

Best regards
Erik

My whole point is that measuring MTF and using optimum f-stop is completely pointless if you can't properly focus the lens and get the required depth of field. In all my years shooting film improper focus and insufficient depth of field have always been more detrimental to image quality than diffraction.

The image you posted is improperly focused and doesn't have enough depth of field and you would improve your overall IQ by worrying less about diffraction.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Having a Hasselblad V series without complete EXIF data it is not easy to know which aperture was used for each image. In general, I normally shoot the Distagon 40/4 at f/16 or so, because it has a lot of field curvature (that is center and edges have different plane of focus). I have the Distagon 40/4 FLE, the Distagon 40/4 FLE IF is a newer design with much less curvature of field. The Sonnar 150/4 is a lens I rather use with f/8. The Planar 120/4 has also problems with field curvature, so I mostly use it at f/11.

This are measured MTF data on a Sonnar 150/4, I think:


The image below shows a small section of the f/8 and f/22 exposures from the above series, I would suggest that the loss of sharpness is significant:

f/8	f/22

What I see in the images above is that the f/22 image is slightly fuzzy. The f/8 image also shows some structure on the paper of the Dollar bill.

The second image shows the same shot with 135 full frame digital, Hasselblad at f/32 (?) and at  f/8.



Shooting in real world conditions is more difficult to reproduce than under lab conditions. Anyway, it seems in the second sample that the need of stopping down excessively may eat into the advantage of larger formats, in this case I would say that the left side image (Sony Alpha 99) is preferable to Hassy, if DoF is important.

The conclusion I drew from this shoot and others was that I bought a second hand Flexbody. I have not used it, yet, as I discovered that it won't work on the P45+ without a wakeup cable. The Flexbody set me back 900€ (around 1170 $US) but is cheaper than any T/S lens from Nikon or Canon.

Best regards
Erik

My whole point is that measuring MTF and using optimum f-stop is completely pointless if you can't properly focus the lens and get the required depth of field. In all my years shooting film improper focus and insufficient depth of field have always been more detrimental to image quality than diffraction.

The image you posted is improperly focused and doesn't have enough depth of field and you would improve your overall IQ by worrying less about diffraction.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

The flower in the foreground was the main subject. I tried to get long DoF, so the image is probably shot at f/16 - f/22, no EXIF data on the V-series Hasselblad. I generally shoot the Distagon 40/4 at f/11 - f/16, as it has a lot of field curvature (the same with 120/4 Macro Planar), the other lenses I shoot wider if possible.

I work on the focusing technique. Mostly I use a PM3 viewfinder and Zeiss 3X monocular, that is 9X magnification. Infinity focus on the camera seems OK. I also think the focusing screen is OK, but achieving perfect focus is not easy. To that comes the DoF aliasing game.

In my view, the flower has much better sharpness on the P45+ image than on the Sony image. Keep also in mind that the images have different pixel dimensions.

Hi, I downloaded the images and looked at the iiq files in C1Pro7 and all files on LR5.

The P45+ files do look softer. I think lens diffraction is in play. Did you shoot at f16? Either that or the lens quality and focusing is not up to snuff.

I could see for a fact that on the P45+ shot with the high peaks in the background and the wooden shack in the foreground the lens was focused on the foreground grass and flowers. That made everything else behind that much softer. On the Sony shot everything is more in focus. Also on the P45+ shot the light changed and all the foreground is in shadow (which could be brought up easily) and in the sony shot that same area is perfectly lit. That makes a huge difference.

[Paul2660]

Eric,  Thanks for posting the comparisons.

I am curious what you found out on the Dynamic range between the P45+ and A99.  My main issue with the P45+ over the years I shot it was that limited DR especially in the highlights area.  I found that exposure bracketing was necessary most of the time.  Shadow areas were somewhat recoverable, but if highlights were showing near to blown, odds are they were not recoverable.  I also had trouble with the P45+ sometimes pulling out details in shadows, where details sometimes were smeared or not very clear.  The A99 IMO should have the the edge in the DR area but it would be interesting to see your results. 

I mainly used the Mamiya AFDIII, the DF with various Mamiya lenses. 

Have you used yours on a exposure past 30 minutes yet.  The P45+ has some amazing capabilities in the longer exposures.  The only limitation I found was the 69F temperature limit for 1 hour and low humidity.   

Paul Caldwell

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

What I can see, the Alpha 99 has a wider dynamic range. In my view DR is essentially something that affects the darks. The idea is that you expose for the highlights, that is highest possible exposure without clipping highlights, than you handle highlights in postprocessing. The highlight slider in Lightroom is quite effective, past -50 it is said to kick in some local tone compression techniques.

Exposing for highlights makes for dark images. It is quite often I use a graduated filter in Lightroom, large amount of highlight compression and than increase exposure. In short, my recipe is:

- Expose for the highlights
- Use graduated filter in LR (or ACR) if possible with some negative exposure and excessively negative "highlights"
- Use highlights-slider aggressively
- Adjust exposure
- Use "blacks" slider to get some clipping in deep shadows if needed
- Readjust exposure

I often use "raw digger" to evaluate an image. The normal histograms are not very reliable.

The two enclosed images show the raw histogram from RawDigger indicating some clipping in the clouds and the original and processed image. If you use Capture One, try to use linear curve instead of film curve they have as default.


See this page for DR comparison between P45+ and Alpha 99, but be aware of the images not being comparable, DoF is different: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/76-my-medium-format-digital-journey?start=8

I have also shot some tests with a Stouffer wedge, but those results were hard to interpret. How much is sensor and how much is processing? How much DR can you tweak from an image?

Best regards
Erik

Eric,  Thanks for posting the comparisons.

I am curious what you found out on the Dynamic range between the P45+ and A99.  My main issue with the P45+ over the years I shot it was that limited DR especially in the highlights area.  I found that exposure bracketing was necessary most of the time.  Shadow areas were somewhat recoverable, but if highlights were showing near to blown, odds are they were not recoverable.  I also had trouble with the P45+ sometimes pulling out details in shadows, where details sometimes were smeared or not very clear.  The A99 IMO should have the the edge in the DR area but it would be interesting to see your results.  

I mainly used the Mamiya AFDIII, the DF with various Mamiya lenses.  

Have you used yours on a exposure past 30 minutes yet.  The P45+ has some amazing capabilities in the longer exposures.  The only limitation I found was the 69F temperature limit for 1 hour and low humidity.  

Paul Caldwell

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi Paul,

I am not in long exposures, so I have not tested really long exposures.

Regarding shadow detail, I posted a P45+ image here:

http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/MFDJourney/DynamicRange/DR3/

The raw histogram is here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/MFDJourney/DynamicRange/DR3/20131003-CF044228.png (absolutely minimal clipping in the clouds)

The stones in the foreground are quite noisy. I don't have a comparison image with the Alpha 99, but I would guess it would have less shadow noise.

Best regards
Erik

Eric,  Thanks for posting the comparisons.

I am curious what you found out on the Dynamic range between the P45+ and A99.  My main issue with the P45+ over the years I shot it was that limited DR especially in the highlights area.  I found that exposure bracketing was necessary most of the time.  Shadow areas were somewhat recoverable, but if highlights were showing near to blown, odds are they were not recoverable.  I also had trouble with the P45+ sometimes pulling out details in shadows, where details sometimes were smeared or not very clear.  The A99 IMO should have the the edge in the DR area but it would be interesting to see your results. 

I mainly used the Mamiya AFDIII, the DF with various Mamiya lenses. 

Have you used yours on a exposure past 30 minutes yet.  The P45+ has some amazing capabilities in the longer exposures.  The only limitation I found was the 69F temperature limit for 1 hour and low humidity.   

Paul Caldwell

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

My whole point is that measuring MTF and using optimum f-stop is completely pointless if you can't properly focus the lens and get the required depth of field...

Then do your own test with proper focus and DOF. Show us how it should be done. Sheesh!

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I actually think Paul has a point that correct focus and proper DoF is more important than diffraction. Diffraction responds well to sharpening.

On the other hand, excessive stopping down may not give enough DoF, but you still give up some sharpness. Sharpness is really the benefit I see from MF. So I would say that diffraction is always worth consideration but is not excessively evil. There is also a conception that diffraction would apply less to MF than smaller formats and I don't think that is the case.

A good side of stopping down is that Moiré is reduced, and that is of course a consequence of loosing fine detail contrast at smaller apertures.

Paul doesn't really say which image he refers to, most of the images were shot with small apertures, partly because of need for DoF but also because the 40/4 has a lot of field curvature. So it is quite possible that the unsharpness Paul sees is caused by diffraction. Lab tests give more consistent results than real world pictures, but for some reason folks seem to prefer outdoor shots, which are problematic. Here in Sweden we often have some clouds. Sun moves which changes shadows.

Best regards
Erik

Then do your own test with proper focus and DOF. Show us how it should be done. Sheesh!

[Fine_Art]

Hi,

What I can see, the Alpha 99 has a wider dynamic range. In my view DR is essentially something that affects the darks. The idea is that you expose for the highlights, that is highest possible exposure without clipping highlights, than you handle highlights in postprocessing. The highlight slider in Lightroom is quite effective, past -50 it is said to kick in some local tone compression techniques.

Exposing for highlights makes for dark images. It is quite often I use a graduated filter in Lightroom, large amount of highlight compression and than increase exposure. In short, my recipe is:

- Expose for the highlights
- Use graduated filter in LR (or ACR) if possible with some negative exposure and excessively negative "highlights"
- Use highlights-slider aggressively
- Adjust exposure
- Use "blacks" slider to get some clipping in deep shadows if needed
- Readjust exposure

I often use "raw digger" to evaluate an image. The normal histograms are not very reliable.

The two enclosed images show the raw histogram from RawDigger indicating some clipping in the clouds and the original and processed image. If you use Capture One, try to use linear curve instead of film curve they have as default.


See this page for DR comparison between P45+ and Alpha 99, but be aware of the images not being comparable, DoF is different: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/76-my-medium-format-digital-journey?start=8

I have also shot some tests with a Stouffer wedge, but those results were hard to interpret. How much is sensor and how much is processing? How much DR can you tweak from an image?

Best regards
Erik

Erik, thanks for the link. It seems to say in the histogram that the P45 has about 1 ev advantage over the Sony A99. +3 to -8 vs +3 to -7. It's also interesting that the slope of the darkest evs are completely different for the same shot.

On the picture, the P45 blocks up to black much faster than the A99 on the darkest tree trunks despite the 1 ev advantage. Any idea why that might be?

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Thanks for the observation!

I think that enclosed details explain part of the question. In the Phase One histogram you can that there are counts down to channel one while the Sony histogram has zero counts below 15 (or so), that is because the P45+ distributes the darks over many channels. it has something like 15 electron charges of readout noise. The Sony has something like 3 electron charges of readout noise (I guess).

What the histogram shows is not really that the P45+ has a one stop advantage but it indicates a wider subject illumination range. The probable explanation for that may be that light has changed, but my guess is that lens flare plays a major role. Some of he light bounces around in the lens and will lighten up the darks. The Zeiss Distagon 50/4 used has 8 lens groups while the Sony 24-70/2.8 has 13 groups.  Both lenses are T* coated, so I guess per lens reflections are similar. With more lens groups there will be more light bouncing around in the lens. Also the 24-70/2.8 is a zoom lens and I would suggest that the lens barrel may be less optimal for containing reflections than on the prime lens. So the lens flare reduces overall contrast.

I have seen this pretty clear on my unpublished Stouffer wedge shots. The Stouffer wedge has 14 stop range. The 24-70/2.8 showed excessive flare, so I used my 100/2.8 macro for those shots. The reason I did not publish the results from the Stouffer wedge was that they were hard to evaluate. There is a lot of information in the image, but it is hard to extract. Also, DxO-mark makes similar tests, in a scientific way.

The comparison here was not a scientific one. It was shot on a sunny day with clouds. What I did was to try to find a couple of reasonably ETTR exposed images and compare shadow detail. So it is an ad hoc experiment. The shadow areas in sunlit areas were quite constant, I would guess.

What I see is that I normally don't have problems with DR on either P45+ or Alpha 99, but darks are cleaner on the Alpha 99 (if you are really pushing darks). The Alpha 99 has wider dynamic range than the Alpha 900 I had before, but I could not observe it on real world shots. The only case I could see was duping Velvia in a "totally" dark room with all light leaks masked of. My guess is that flare dominates normal shots.

The situation may be slightly different if you are shooting in large dark area with some small illuminated area.

Another observation I made is that I have shot quite a few HDR images, but in general I just prefer pulling shadows and compressing highlights on an ETTR image.

These two articles may contain some interesting insight:
http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/61-hdr-tone-mapping-on-ordinary-image

http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/63-lot-of-info-in-a-digital-image

This image is a three exposure HDR:


While this one is made from the -2EV exposure by pushing shadows an pulling highlights (entirely processed in LR4):


The HDR image has less shadow noise, but it will always (or almost always) have some artifacts. I still shoot HDRs, it is just that I don't really use them that often.


Best regards
Erik

Erik, thanks for the link. It seems to say in the histogram that the P45 has about 1 ev advantage over the Sony A99. +3 to -8 vs +3 to -7. It's also interesting that the slope of the darkest evs are completely different for the same shot.

On the picture, the P45 blocks up to black much faster than the A99 on the darkest tree trunks despite the 1 ev advantage. Any idea why that might be?

[Paul Ozzello]

Then do your own test with proper focus and DOF. Show us how it should be done. Sheesh!

Wasn't it you who warned Erik about risking the fate of the guy who overheard medieval scholastic philosophers and getting his ass kicked ?!

 

Erik, I'm referencing the flower and the shack. "I wanted the flower in the foreground to be sharp and have a decent depth of field. My focusing accuracy is not perfect."

If you want good depth of field you should not focus on the flower and instead focus somewhere between the flower and the mountains using the hyperfocal distance instead, and add 1-2 stops. I'm not presenting anything new "sheesh"... :-)

As for pixel peeping... I really think the issue of diffraction is exagerated. Yes it can be seen gluing your nose to the screen at 100% but in print it will hardly be noticeable. If you want sharp focus you should always give yourself enough depth of field by stopping down without worrying about diffraction. Obviously if you have enough depth of field at f8 then don't use f16...

As for the wavy field, it's another non-issue in the real world - and a non-issue in the studio "focusing on a model's eyelashes..."

As for those three comparison shots with the yellow flower in the foreground something doesn't seem right. Have you had your body aligned and your lenses reset for infinity focus ? Often the foam for the mirror compresses or disintegrates and focus is off... I just had mine serviced and it makes a world of difference.

Since you have a digital back you can also take advantage of focus stacking...

My last piece of advice for taking better pictures... leave the 150 at home

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Regarding focusing I'm quite happy with camera adjustment as far I know. I have done a lot of tests. I normally use a PM3 viewfinder with an extra Zeiss Loupe. So it 9X magnification.

This image shows the resolution limits of my vision with the PM3, Hartblei Focusing Loupe and the PM3 + 3X monocular. As you can see, the lens resolves far beyond the yellow box. On high contrast edges I use the split image.



Regarding the flower and shackle image, as far as I recall I was focusing on the flower and than tried to put it to left f/4 depth of field mark and infinity at right f/4 DoF mark and using f/16 or f/22. So I would suggest it is a bit diffraction limited. Assuming that DoF marks are calculated on basis of 1/15mm CoC, f/4 would correspond 0.016 mm that is about 2.3 pixel widths on the P45+.

Diffraction at f/16 gives an airy diameter of 0.021 mm so it limits sharpness more than DoF. So you say I should ignore diffraction and complain about diffraction in my image.

I have not said that the field on the Distagon 40/4 FLE is wavy, what I said is it is curved.  The same goes for the 120/4 at infinity. That really means that if you focus anything a infinity, edges and corners will be unsharp.

If you look at the MTF data on the Distagon 40/4 FLE it is quite obvious, i transfers around 65% MTF (40 lp/mm) at f/8 on axis but just about 30% at 30mm of axis. That fall of sharpness is usually a result of field curvature.

Your comment of focusing on the eyelashes is a bit comic as all the samples I have posted are landscape mostly at infinity. Many of yours also fall in the same category as far I know.

Have you published any raw images of your own? Would be interesting to see what is your reference of sharpness. The reason I published these results is that raw images from MFD are scarce.

That comment of yours on the 150/4 lens is what I would call stupid. Each lens has a place.

Best regards
Erik

 

Erik, I'm referencing the flower and the shack. "I wanted the flower in the foreground to be sharp and have a decent depth of field. My focusing accuracy is not perfect."

If you want good depth of field you should not focus on the flower and instead focus somewhere between the flower and the mountains using the hyperfocal distance instead, and add 1-2 stops. I'm not presenting anything new "sheesh"... :-)

As for pixel peeping... I really think the issue of diffraction is exagerated. Yes it can be seen gluing your nose to the screen at 100% but in print it will hardly be noticeable. If you want sharp focus you should always give yourself enough depth of field by stopping down without worrying about diffraction. Obviously if you have enough depth of field at f8 then don't use f16...

As for the wavy field, it's another non-issue in the real world - and a non-issue in the studio "focusing on a model's eyelashes..."

As for those three comparison shots with the yellow flower in the foreground something doesn't seem right. Have you had your body aligned and your lenses reset for infinity focus ? Often the foam for the mirror compresses or disintegrates and focus is off... I just had mine serviced and it makes a world of difference.

Since you have a digital back you can also take advantage of focus stacking...

My last piece of advice for taking better pictures... leave the 150 at home

[Paul Ozzello]

Diffraction at f/16 gives an airy diameter of 0.021 mm so it limits sharpness more than DoF. So you say I should ignore diffraction and complain about diffraction in my image.

I don't think it's diffraction, diffraction would be visible across the entire frame but the flower and grass below are very sharp.

Your comment of focusing on the eyelashes is a bit comic

And yet no matter how many winks or smilies I add - you're still not laughing I was referring to how an ex-fellow member would have a difficult time focusing a Schneider lens on a model's eyelashes...

as all the samples I have posted are landscape mostly at infinity. Many of yours also fall in the same category as far I know.

Have you published any raw images of your own? Would be interesting to see what is your reference of sharpness. The reason I published these results is that raw images from MFD are scarce.

I shoot film and pixel peep with a 15x loop

That comment of yours on the 150/4 lens is what I would call stupid. Each lens has a place.

It's not stupid; it's advice many photography teachers give their students (shooting wide and moving in closer to your subject).

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

When you look at actual pixels on a normal screen (96 pixels/inch) it corresponds to a 37X loupe.

Best regards
Erik

I shoot film and pixel peep with a 15x loop

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I looked more at the image, I don't have EXIF data but I am pretty sure it was f/16 - f/22.

What I can see that there are central areas that are decently sharp. Edges are weak. Foreground is sharp. This is actually quite consistent with field curvature as it is indicated by Zeiss MTF data.

It is very well possible that the image is front focused (both you and Capture 1 think so).

The way I see it, we have field curvature, DoF, front focusing and may be other factors. What I also see is that high contrast detail (like mountain tops in center) are quite OK but low contrast detail (like forrest at edges) is quite blurred. I guess that may come from sharpening. I have pretty strong sharpening, with f/8 I normally use radius 0.8 and amount 45 (in LR) while at f/16 I found radius 1.3 and a bit higher amount optimal. Here it is 1.5, 61, and detail at 82.











Best regards
Erik

Wasn't it you who warned Erik about risking the fate of the guy who overheard medieval scholastic philosophers and getting his ass kicked ?!

 

Erik, I'm referencing the flower and the shack. "I wanted the flower in the foreground to be sharp and have a decent depth of field. My focusing accuracy is not perfect."

If you want good depth of field you should not focus on the flower and instead focus somewhere between the flower and the mountains using the hyperfocal distance instead, and add 1-2 stops. I'm not presenting anything new "sheesh"... :-)

As for pixel peeping... I really think the issue of diffraction is exagerated. Yes it can be seen gluing your nose to the screen at 100% but in print it will hardly be noticeable. If you want sharp focus you should always give yourself enough depth of field by stopping down without worrying about diffraction. Obviously if you have enough depth of field at f8 then don't use f16...

As for the wavy field, it's another non-issue in the real world - and a non-issue in the studio "focusing on a model's eyelashes..."

As for those three comparison shots with the yellow flower in the foreground something doesn't seem right. Have you had your body aligned and your lenses reset for infinity focus ? Often the foam for the mirror compresses or disintegrates and focus is off... I just had mine serviced and it makes a world of difference.

Since you have a digital back you can also take advantage of focus stacking...

My last piece of advice for taking better pictures... leave the 150 at home

[Paul2660]

Eric:

Love the meadow shot, where was that taken?  Was that a wide Zeiss as your overall DOF looks very good.  With the Mamiya's I was not able to get that type of coverage on either the P45 or IQ160. 

Back on the processing, I think you already mentioned the Film curve vs. Linear curve in processing out in Capture One.  I have often found that with the P45, the linear curve was much more forgiving especially on the highlights.  You don't see the same pop in the file that that can be processed back. 

Paul Caldwell

[ErikKaffehr]

Paul,

It was taken in the Sextener Dolomiten, Fichleintalsboden or more exacly here: 46°40'29" N 12°21'18" E

It is shot with a Distagon 40, probably f/16. As far I recall I tried to use the markings f/4 on the DoF scale. After the trip I got a second hand Flexbody but I have failed to make any real pictures with it yet.

Regarding Capture One, I still use Lightroom, I have used it since 2006 and have something like 68000 images in the database, needs a lot of incentive to switch. Sometimes I try C1, but I fail to get the results I want. One area where C1 is better than Lightroom is handling of aliasing artifacts, of which I see a lot. What I can see, RawTherapee may be superior to both LR5 and C1 in handling color aliasing.

A guess I may have is that C1 defaults "film curve", that makes the image to look overexposed  so exposure is reduced to compensate. P45+ histograms are nor reliable, while Sony Alpha 99 histograms are dead on. Now, the P45+ is 2007 vintage so we see the results of six years of development.

Anyway, I enjoy shooting with the P45+ ...

Best regards
Erik

Eric:

Love the meadow shot, where was that taken?  Was that a wide Zeiss as your overall DOF looks very good.  With the Mamiya's I was not able to get that type of coverage on either the P45 or IQ160. 

Back on the processing, I think you already mentioned the Film curve vs. Linear curve in processing out in Capture One.  I have often found that with the P45, the linear curve was much more forgiving especially on the highlights.  You don't see the same pop in the file that that can be processed back. 

Paul Caldwell