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Author Topic: Moving from 35mm to Medium Format. Need guidance (Sorry for yet another thread!)  (Read 46734 times)

synn

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Hi Mr. Smith,

If you read my posts, I use Pocket Wizard Plus IIIs. They help me sync at 1/320s with my D800 with my Quadras.
It is physically impossible to sync any higher with this camera (Without doing silly HSS stuff) with ANY trigger.
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Hulyss

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Hi Phil,

The "Skintone issue" is not specific to one lighting condition. I shoot with a variety of lighting setups and it is consistent.

I thought of buying a Sigma DP3 in the past (My friend has an DP2 which is ace), but Sigma has zero dealer or service support here, not to mention resale value. That goes for the SD series and DP series. Simply not a good way to invest my money.

:) About DP3 Merril Files, if you have 12k$ to invest, you certainly not waste your money by spending 700$ on this oddity. I will post you some files here later in the day (From ginger girl to brown hair girl).
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synn

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:) About DP3 Merril Files, if you have 12k$ to invest, you certainly not waste your money by spending 700$ on this oddity. I will post you some files here later in the day (From ginger girl to brown hair girl).

If they had an interchangable lens version of this camera or at least, a version with a longer lens, I'd be all over it. But as it stands now, it is not versatile enough for my needs.

Another pet peeve (May be irrational) that I have is the 3:2 ratio. I absolutely despise it. Almost all my images are cropped to either 4:3 or 5:4.  I just "See different", when I work with a 4:3 camera, be it my Bronica ETRSi or a micro 4/3 camera. This is another thing that pushes me towards MFDB.
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Christoph C. Feldhaim

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...
This is another thing that pushes me towards MFDB.
...

MFDB equipment will also help you get up and keep physical stamina, unlike these paperweight compacts .... ;)

Hulyss

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If they had an interchangeable lens version of this camera or at least, a version with a longer lens, I'd be all over it. But as it stands now, it is not versatile enough for my needs.

Another pet peeve (May be irrational) that I have is the 3:2 ratio. I absolutely despise it. Almost all my images are cropped to either 4:3 or 5:4.  I just "See different", when I work with a 4:3 camera, be it my Bronica ETRSi or a micro 4/3 camera. This is another thing that pushes me towards MFDB.

I work like you. All my pictures are cropped (and composed) to fit  1:1 or 4:3. Anyway I will post some examples and you will see :) Maybe SIGMA will come one day with a DP with interchangeable lens... But the Dp3 is more versatile than I thought at first. Well... I see that you like Wide Angle shoots for your models and this is not the strength of the DP ;)
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synn

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I work like you. All my pictures are cropped (and composed) to fit  1:1 or 4:3. Anyway I will post some examples and you will see :) Maybe SIGMA will come one day with a DP with interchangeable lens... But the Dp3 is more versatile than I thought at first. Well... I see that you like Wide Angle shoots for your models and this is not the strength of the DP ;)

Haha I year ya!

just a 24mm equivalent and a 135mm equivalent would be enough for me to get started! And if I may dream, a full frame Foveon sensor too...

Looking forward to your sample images! :)
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synn

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MFDB equipment will also help you get up and keep physical stamina, unlike these paperweight compacts .... ;)

Good point, haha.

I lift 4 days a week and carry a ton of gear by myself to the gigs (My assistant is a fragile person), so I am not too worried about the heft of the gear. :)
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eronald

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Hi Edmund,

I think you're doing a great disservice to both those gentlemen with that snide remark. Yes, they have been in touch with me, but because I initiated the conversation. They have given me a lot of useful information and at no point have pressurized me into buying anything from them. I consider them a great asset to this forum.

Dear Synn,

 I cannot think of a better place to way to buy MF than Doug or Steve, who will certainly do their utmost to find something that works for you. Apparently there is such a thing as a colossal squid, and an honest dealer, although the honest politicians seem to have gone completely extinct. Unfortunately though even they will not be able to sell you a sense of humor. As most of us know, the Medium Format forum on one of the other sites is subtitled "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here. (Dante)". Now, I need to go see a man about a dog. May I wish you an enjoyable day?

Edmund
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jerome_m

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Hi Jerome,

I don't have the D800 with me (Only took the V1 for the trip), but I will check this setting when I get home.

Your second sentence makes me concerned, though. I do not shoot or is there an option for me to shoot anything in "Auto" mode for my portrait shoots. My main lights are all manual and the SB 900 was only a supporting light (Hair light) that was triggered in SU4 optical slave mode. I prefer not to use any auto settings for portraits as the results are always inconsistent. My lightmeter and manual settings never fail to deliver the right results.

Indeed I was confused when you said you used the SB-900. If you use an external lightmeter, custom setting b6 won't change anything. Your only option is to put your D800 on iso 100 and the external meter on iso 200, but you will quickly be limited by the max sync speed in sunlight. There is no way around this but strobes twice as powerful or the fastest sync speed of a central shutter.
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Iliah

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> The D800 has more DR in the shadows than in the highlights.

There is no such thing as dynamic range in shadows or highlights. Dynamic range can't be split. There is a midtone split, which is exposure meter calibration. It is all about how the exposure is set, that is how you compensate exposure.
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Ken R

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> The D800 has more DR in the shadows than in the highlights.

There is no such thing as dynamic range in shadows or highlights. Dynamic range can't be split. There is a midtone split, which is exposure meter calibration. It is all about how the exposure is set, that is how you compensate exposure.

You can set 18% gray as your zero stop by metering for it, setting the camera for that exposure and then see until when you can get detail in areas above and below that in a single exposure. Of course you will start loosing color accuracy and information before the "cutoff" but I am sure it can be done.

Here is a "test" someone did given it is with cameras in video mode and set at 800 iso I believe so it does not give the still cameras absolute max performance but it gives the general idea
« Last Edit: November 13, 2013, 08:18:44 am by Ken R »
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Iliah

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> You can set 18% gray as your zero stop by metering for it

What 18%? JPEG? I thought we are discussing raw here.
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eronald

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> You can set 18% gray as your zero stop by metering for it

What 18%? JPEG? I thought we are discussing raw here.

Maybe the tools are now too complex for their target audience

Edmund
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Ken R

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To test the DR you can use a DX-1 102-Db 18 Step Grayscale chart from DSC Labs: HERE , read about a test on the Arri HERE

I do not know how DxO does there testing for raw Dynamic range.
« Last Edit: November 13, 2013, 10:01:17 am by Ken R »
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Iliah

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What is dynamic range that you can test it with a step wedge? Especially with no black trap? You know, just couple of days ago SONY reps claimed A7r has 14+ stops dynamic range as measured by independent DxO test, while Kodachrome had only 5. If you do not apply filters to marketing talk they will exploit your innocence  to the fullest.

Here is what happens. The tone curve applied while converting to JPEGs raise the metered point to something close to 18%. This does not mean it is 18% in raw (that is that does not mean your midpoint in raw is exactly 2.45 stops below saturation).

Photographically useful dynamic range starts somewhere 20 dB (3 stops) higher than engineering dynamic range. You can check it shooting grey typeface on a gray sheet of paper to see where the camera stops resolving the type. You will also see that the larger is the font the deeper you can go into the underexposure without loosing resolution. At 3 stops above black the resolution is about 70% of the resolution in midtones for digital backs, and rapidly declines after that point.

You may want to look at http://www.rawdigger.com/houtouse/lightmeter-calibration and http://www.libraw.org/articles/Canon-5Dmk2-headroom.html
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eronald

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The DB guys are setting their metering low to supply clean highlights, and prevent saturation, the dSLR guys are setting their metering high to provide some pushability, and have warped hilite data.

Edmund


What is dynamic range that you can test it with a step wedge? Especially with no black trap? You know, just couple of days ago SONY reps claimed A7r has 14+ stops dynamic range as measured by independent DxO test, while Kodachrome had only 5. If you do not apply filters to marketing talk they will exploit your innocence  to the fullest.

Here is what happens. The tone curve applied while converting to JPEGs raise the metered point to something close to 18%. This does not mean it is 18% in raw (that is that does not mean your midpoint in raw is exactly 2.45 stops below saturation).

Photographically useful dynamic range starts somewhere 20 dB (3 stops) higher than engineering dynamic range. You can check it shooting grey typeface on a gray sheet of paper to see where the camera stops resolving the type. You will also see that the larger is the font the deeper you can go into the underexposure without loosing resolution. At 3 stops above black the resolution is about 70% of the resolution in midtones for digital backs, and rapidly declines after that point.

You may want to look at http://www.rawdigger.com/houtouse/lightmeter-calibration and http://www.libraw.org/articles/Canon-5Dmk2-headroom.html
« Last Edit: November 13, 2013, 11:14:50 am by eronald »
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Doug Peterson

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To test the DR you can use a DX-1 102-Db 18 Step Grayscale chart from DSC Labs: HERE , read about a test on the Arri HERE

I do not know how DxO does there testing for raw Dynamic range.

This will give you an engineering spec.

But I don't care if I can see detail in a shadow if there are nasty blobs of color, poor tonal transitions, and choppy luminance noise.

The engineering spec for DR does not care what the shadows look like aesthetically, nor does it take into account the positive effects of pairing hardware/software fine tuned together to produce pleasing end results.

According to DxO an IQ160 had the same DR when I was using it with Capture One v6 as when I was using it with Capture One v7. Technically they are right, but the more pertinent question of "how much could I pull out of shadows from an IQ160 file and still get good results" did change between the two software versions.

To evaluate the "photographically useful DR" of a system I suggest going and taking real world pictures with it, opening it in your preferred software, and seeing how much you can play with the file before it breaks apart :).

[Real World] > [Lab Tests] any day.

Iliah

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> To evaluate the "photographically useful DR" of a system I suggest going and taking real world pictures with it, opening it in your preferred software, and seeing how much you can play with the file before it breaks apart :).

More or less, but with a caveat - depends on how one meters. If one is to use film the practice is to know "the true sensitivity". It actually depends also on the development process, not just on the emulsion. Same with digital. The "sensitivity" stated is for out of camera jpegs and not for any postprocessing or raw. Each raw converter interprets the image depending on how the software developers see fit.

> [Real World] > [Lab Tests] any day.

Studio tests are very useful, and when finished, it is the time for location tests.
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TMARK

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Doug,

C1-7 gives me an additional stop with the M9.  1250 - 1600 is useable.

This will give you an engineering spec.

But I don't care if I can see detail in a shadow if there are nasty blobs of color, poor tonal transitions, and choppy luminance noise.

The engineering spec for DR does not care what the shadows look like aesthetically, nor does it take into account the positive effects of pairing hardware/software fine tuned together to produce pleasing end results.

According to DxO an IQ160 had the same DR when I was using it with Capture One v6 as when I was using it with Capture One v7. Technically they are right, but the more pertinent question of "how much could I pull out of shadows from an IQ160 file and still get good results" did change between the two software versions.

To evaluate the "photographically useful DR" of a system I suggest going and taking real world pictures with it, opening it in your preferred software, and seeing how much you can play with the file before it breaks apart :).

[Real World] > [Lab Tests] any day.
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eronald

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Doug, if you want to pull one more real stop out of the shadows with a DB, all you need to do is set the thing to base ISO or even pretend it is base ISO -1 stop. As we all know it really only has one ISO, and in fact that ISO is probably 1 stop under the advertised base ISO. Oh, and yes, it helps a lot to get a good well-calibrated sample of the back rather than a bad sample of the back; in fact this is the case for any digital camera. The story I always tell is my 1Ds, I had the sensor changed and miraculously it could then shoot well at 1250 ISO and I published a bunch of images taken that way. My P45+, the first one had black stripes all over the images, and a centerfold, the second was mostly ok apart from the fact that it lost a column a couple of times and needed recalibration; I sold it by now but there were no complaints from the buyer so I guess it is average. It's hard to fault the companies, they budget for the chips, they have to take them, but only a few are really good, most are average, and a few pretty bad - but they all have to be sold. In a way it would be nicer if they were visibly graded, and customers could choose whether they need an ISO 100 chip or an ISO 800 chip; or a 1 frame/s or .3 fps. This is what Intel does with processors, they grade them for speed and then sell them at different prices.


Edmund



This will give you an engineering spec.

But I don't care if I can see detail in a shadow if there are nasty blobs of color, poor tonal transitions, and choppy luminance noise.

The engineering spec for DR does not care what the shadows look like aesthetically, nor does it take into account the positive effects of pairing hardware/software fine tuned together to produce pleasing end results.

According to DxO an IQ160 had the same DR when I was using it with Capture One v6 as when I was using it with Capture One v7. Technically they are right, but the more pertinent question of "how much could I pull out of shadows from an IQ160 file and still get good results" did change between the two software versions.

To evaluate the "photographically useful DR" of a system I suggest going and taking real world pictures with it, opening it in your preferred software, and seeing how much you can play with the file before it breaks apart :).

[Real World] > [Lab Tests] any day.
« Last Edit: November 13, 2013, 02:08:50 pm by eronald »
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