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Author Topic: Downgrading my MF  (Read 36654 times)

torger

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #80 on: October 16, 2013, 07:36:28 am »

The new Sony A7R got me pretty excited, and with the latest metabones adapter it seems to be possible to use with my Canon TS-E II. Could be a really good landscape camera. I'll most probably save the money to spend on something like a Schneider Digitar 60mm to my Linhof Techno though :)
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Ken R

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #81 on: October 16, 2013, 07:54:09 am »

The new Sony A7R got me pretty excited, and with the latest metabones adapter it seems to be possible to use with my Canon TS-E II. Could be a really good landscape camera. I'll most probably save the money to spend on something like a Schneider Digitar 60mm to my Linhof Techno though :)

The new Sony seems like it will be the best landscape camera made to date. Small, light and can take a wide range of lenses. Pending extensive image quality testing of course but it should prove to be excellent.

Regarding the medium format look check this out: http://maxmax.com/nikon_d700hr.htm   and   http://maxmax.com/olpf_study.htm
The slightly brown gray tones are eliminated when the OLPF (or AA filter) is removed from the sensor. The D800E still has an OLPF, in fact it has two, one displacing light in one direction and another displacing the light in the opposite direction to counteract the effect of the first one.

Also IIRC most of the MFDB's made do not have micro lenses and none of them have an OLPF.
« Last Edit: October 16, 2013, 08:08:16 am by Ken R »
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Steve Hendrix

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #82 on: October 16, 2013, 09:27:53 am »

Steve,

 Actually, this is turning into one of the better discussions here, partly because of your contribution :)

 Here is an interesting 35mm image by DigiLLoyd which as he says looks very like MF, maybe necause of the Zeiss lens, or maybe just because some parts are out of focus :)

http://diglloyd.com/blog/2013/20131007_4-Zeiss-Otus-55f1_4-medium-format-look.html

Edmund




The other day someone looking at one of our P65+ Contax units and made the comment to me that they had mounted their Contax lenses on their Nikon D800 system, "but it wasn't the same". I guess that's not surprising, and I didn't have the opportunity to get a lot of detail on what was meant by that. But, this is not unusual. The medium format "look" is elusive to many, I believe. And though I have asked in detail many times, most who feel there is a difference struggle to clarify it in words.

Bernard has glowingly mentioned the Sigma 35/1.4 lens on his Nikon. I shoot both medium format and 35mm (but mostly 35mm due to my spontaneous and low light shooting style). I own the Sigma 35/1.4. That lens is my favorite 35mm lens - it has something. I can compare it to another lens of equal sharpness, but there's something about the way it resolves - it's just right, at least for me. That's not very helpful when describing it to someone else, but it's there, or at least I feel it is and that's what matters.


Steve Hendrix
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pjtn

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #83 on: October 16, 2013, 07:47:33 pm »

The new Sony seems like it will be the best landscape camera made to date. Small, light and can take a wide range of lenses. Pending extensive image quality testing of course but it should prove to be excellent.

I have to admit this little camera has me quite excited. Working with such a small and well integrated camera would be terrific. If it can at least match or get near the D800 it will be an awesome camera.

Strangely though, I find it hard to take it serious too. It's just so small. When I think of a landscape camera, large 8x10" machines come to mind. Of course this is just my conditioned brain but it certainly is a funny thing to think.

I've been testing out Apple's Aperture today and find the interface absolutely fantastic! Shooting something like this little Sony would mean I could use Aperture.

I'm less and less sure about holding onto the P25+. Does it actually have any advantages over these new 36mp sensor cameras at all?
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #84 on: October 16, 2013, 09:31:38 pm »

Bernard has glowingly mentioned the Sigma 35/1.4 lens on his Nikon. I shoot both medium format and 35mm (but mostly 35mm due to my spontaneous and low light shooting style). I own the Sigma 35/1.4. That lens is my favorite 35mm lens - it has something. I can compare it to another lens of equal sharpness, but there's something about the way it resolves - it's just right, at least for me. That's not very helpful when describing it to someone else, but it's there, or at least I feel it is and that's what matters.

Indeed, that lens has something special to it!

Cheers,
Bernard

Fine_Art

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #85 on: October 16, 2013, 10:00:38 pm »

Indeed, that lens has something special to it!

Cheers,
Bernard


It does an excellent job on the transition from sharp to OOF. It's similar to Minolta lenses with the anomalous dispersion glass. The focus dissolves away like mist. Other lenses show hard outlines which I personally don't like.
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David Eichler

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #86 on: October 17, 2013, 01:07:24 pm »

"...though I love working a camera that has a shutter knob and an f stop ring."

+1.  Really can't stand the controls on the SF digital slrs I have tried, and I assume that would be the case on MF dslrs as well. An aperture ring on a lens
is perfectly placed for operating with the other hand too. I don't like having to set shutter and aperture with one hand when shooting handheld. On a tripod, not so much of an issue.
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #87 on: October 17, 2013, 02:29:44 pm »

Hi,

I don't see your point on AD-glass. You mean the lenses have no color fringing (axial chromatic aberration)? Which lenses would that be?

I have owned and still own a lot of Minolta glass, but I did obviously not have all of them.

Best regards
Erik


It does an excellent job on the transition from sharp to OOF. It's similar to Minolta lenses with the anomalous dispersion glass. The focus dissolves away like mist. Other lenses show hard outlines which I personally don't like.
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Erik Kaffehr
 

Fine_Art

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #88 on: October 17, 2013, 04:25:01 pm »

Hi,

I don't see your point on AD-glass. You mean the lenses have no color fringing (axial chromatic aberration)? Which lenses would that be?

I have owned and still own a lot of Minolta glass, but I did obviously not have all of them.

Best regards
Erik



The ones that try to copy the Leica look from their experience making lenses for Leica.

"Some glasses have a peculiar property called anomalous partial dispersion. Their use in long focal length lens assemblies was pioneered by Leitz. Before their availability, calcium fluoride in the form of fluorite crystals were used as material for these lenses; however the low refraction index of calcium fluoride required high curvatures of the lenses, therefore increasing spherical aberration. Fluorite also has poor shape retention and is very fragile. Abnormal dispersion is required for design of apochromat lenses.[5]" - wiki

Your 300 and 400 white Gs are examples. Same with the 600, the 200 macro, the stf, the 85G, the 135 2.8. I personally (maybe wrong) think the 50 macro and 100 macro have the same look.
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FMueller

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #89 on: October 17, 2013, 11:22:24 pm »



I think digital has brought in the age of oversharpening.   Nearly every lens review talks about corner to corner sharpness, rarely about the look and character of a lens.

+1!!!

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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #90 on: October 18, 2013, 12:19:05 am »

Hi,

According to Hubert Nasse of Zeiss, AD glass is used to correct the secondary spectrum. You can correct for two colors using an adequate combination of flint and crown glass, but there remains what is often called the secondary spectrum. With correctly chosen combination of AD glasses the secondary spectrum can be reduced.

I own both the 300/4G and the 400/4.5G. The 300/4G has a lot of axial chromatic aberration while the 400/4.5 has very little. I also own a 100/2.8 Macro, that lens has significant fringing at apertures larger than f/8, check third column of images on this page: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/49-dof-in-digital-pictures?start=1

Virtually all modern lenses use some AD-glass.

As far as I know the lenses Minolta made for Leica were the 16/2.8 fisheye, 24/2.8 wide angle and the 75-200/4. Of these I only had the 24/2.8MD, a good lens, but that was in film times.

Best regards
Erik

The ones that try to copy the Leica look from their experience making lenses for Leica.

"Some glasses have a peculiar property called anomalous partial dispersion. Their use in long focal length lens assemblies was pioneered by Leitz. Before their availability, calcium fluoride in the form of fluorite crystals were used as material for these lenses; however the low refraction index of calcium fluoride required high curvatures of the lenses, therefore increasing spherical aberration. Fluorite also has poor shape retention and is very fragile. Abnormal dispersion is required for design of apochromat lenses.[5]" - wiki

Your 300 and 400 white Gs are examples. Same with the 600, the 200 macro, the stf, the 85G, the 135 2.8. I personally (maybe wrong) think the 50 macro and 100 macro have the same look.
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Erik Kaffehr
 

ErikKaffehr

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #91 on: October 18, 2013, 12:28:54 am »

Hi,

The hard outlines you see with some lenses may come from over corrected spherical aberration. Under corrected SA gives good bokeh on background while overcorrected SA gives good bookeh on foreground.

You have a good discussion of the issue in this paper (on pages 36-40): http://www.zeiss.com/c12567a8003b8b6f/embedtitelintern/cln_35_bokeh_en/$file/cln35_bokeh_en.pdf

Best regards
Erik Kaffehr




It does an excellent job on the transition from sharp to OOF. It's similar to Minolta lenses with the anomalous dispersion glass. The focus dissolves away like mist. Other lenses show hard outlines which I personally don't like.
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Erik Kaffehr
 

Fine_Art

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #92 on: October 18, 2013, 02:58:53 am »

Hi,

According to Hubert Nasse of Zeiss, AD glass is used to correct the secondary spectrum. You can correct for two colors using an adequate combination of flint and crown glass, but there remains what is often called the secondary spectrum. With correctly chosen combination of AD glasses the secondary spectrum can be reduced.

I own both the 300/4G and the 400/4.5G. The 300/4G has a lot of axial chromatic aberration while the 400/4.5 has very little. I also own a 100/2.8 Macro, that lens has significant fringing at apertures larger than f/8, check third column of images on this page: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/49-dof-in-digital-pictures?start=1

Virtually all modern lenses use some AD-glass.

As far as I know the lenses Minolta made for Leica were the 16/2.8 fisheye, 24/2.8 wide angle and the 75-200/4. Of these I only had the 24/2.8MD, a good lens, but that was in film times.

Best regards
Erik


Take the protective filter off your 300 f4. I used to notice chromatic issues on the 300 f4 G and the 100 macro using the A350. I have not seen them since the A55. Maybe that is better micro lenses maybe it is the raw software RT.

The actual lenses minolta made for leica are not really the issue, it is the look they started to emulate that matters.

Edit: Actually I can see some magenta fringing if i look for it on the 300 f4G. Its only on extreme white to very dark edges -rare. Its also wiped out by the RT software.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2013, 03:49:05 am by Fine_Art »
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torger

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #93 on: October 18, 2013, 03:45:53 am »

I'm less and less sure about holding onto the P25+. Does it actually have any advantages over these new 36mp sensor cameras at all?

Sensor-wise in all aspects that can be measured -- no I don't think so. Subjective, possibly. Some will surely talk about a more pleasing look coming out from the P25+, or more robust files for heavy post-processing and other subjective things. Some really really dislike the 3:2 format compared to the 4:3 format of the P25+.

The P25+ should be pretty good at long exposures too afaik, don't know how good the Sony sensor is, long exposure performance is rarely tested.

But the P25+ can sit on medium format cameras, and you might like the look out of the lenses you get there, or the workflow and cameras. In general I think one should worry less about the sensor and more about the system as a whole, what lenses you can get and how you like to work with the camera.
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jerome_m

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #94 on: October 18, 2013, 04:12:03 am »

Sensor-wise in all aspects that can be measured -- no I don't think so. Subjective, possibly.

I all scientific research, when a difference is noted by does not show in the measurements, scientists start to question the measurements, not reality.
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torger

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #95 on: October 18, 2013, 06:23:26 am »

I all scientific research, when a difference is noted by does not show in the measurements, scientists start to question the measurements, not reality.

Things which relate to personal taste cannot be measured. We measure things that can be objectively described. I have not yet seen any clear description of what the "MF look" really is so that it could be objectively measured. That does not mean that we should disregard from our own personal taste, but we must know that it varies between people so what I see as real may or may not be appreciated by the next.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #96 on: October 18, 2013, 06:46:56 am »

Things which relate to personal taste cannot be measured. We measure things that can be objectively described. I have not yet seen any clear description of what the "MF look" really is so that it could be objectively measured.

Hi,

While those who claim such a 'look' cannot demonstrate or provide a clear description, I'm pretty confident that it's mostly MTF related, which can be measured if they would take the effort to do the proper tests. Another aspect is the reduced DOF due to the longer focal length required for a large enough image circle.

Of course there are also those who think it a good thing to keep a myth alive, as part of a justification for the inflated (also by low volume) price levels.

Cheers,
Bart
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jerome_m

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #97 on: October 18, 2013, 07:14:43 am »

Things which relate to personal taste cannot be measured.

Sure they can. There are actually complete field of research dealing with personal tastes, visual perception, social dynamics, etc... (just to name a few factors which may -or not- be at play here).

Quote
I have not yet seen any clear description of what the "MF look" really is so that it could be objectively measured. That does not mean that we should disregard from our own personal taste, but we must know that it varies between people so what I see as real may or may not be appreciated by the next.

Here you are shifting the argument. We were talking about differences, not of scale of value. It is quite possible that the factors contributing to the elusive "MF look" may be perceived as desirable by some persons and undesirable by others. I would even say that it is likely to be so.

But, quite frankly, I am not interested in discussing the matter further. It has been beaten to death already. I am quite content to know that there must be differences between formats, quite simply because if photography was independent of sensor size, we would all be working with an iPhone. We are not, even if more pictures are taken with an iPhone than with any other camera, therefore people using cameras more expensive / more inconvenient / larger than an iPhone must feel they have a reason. Whether that reason is sufficient to justify the other camera is their choice and their money, not mine.
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torger

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #98 on: October 18, 2013, 07:19:03 am »

Hi,

While those who claim such a 'look' cannot demonstrate or provide a clear description, I'm pretty confident that it's mostly MTF related, which can be measured if they would take the effort to do the proper tests. Another aspect is the reduced DOF due to the longer focal length required for a large enough image circle.

Of course there are also those who think it a good thing to keep a myth alive, as part of a justification for the inflated (also by low volume) price levels.

I think another important aspect is color rendition as given per default in the manufacturer's raw converter, ie Phocus for Hasseblad and Capture One for Leaf/Phase One. And then we're mostly talking skin color for the professional photographer working in a studio with controlled light.

I often read in these forums about photographers that need to struggle with post-processing to get a D800 skin color "look right" while they thought it was easy with medium format gear. I cannot myself comment on this as I shoot landscape and don't need to worry about skin color, as long as color separation is good I'm fine. But I've heard it often enough to think it's real.

Color is not an exact science, and even if it was there's a difference between watching the real scene and a photograph so the most accurate may not be the most pleasing. While scientific measurements that DxOmark do cover color in a few aspects, they cannot really measure pleasantness of default raw converter output. What we can see with DxOmark is a rough estimate of how good the sensor is at capturing fine color nuances which then the manufacturer can translate into pleasant color.
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torger

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Re: Downgrading my MF
« Reply #99 on: October 18, 2013, 08:05:32 am »

The meaning of sensor size is a bit over-rated I think. We're not talking 8x10" here, an MF sensor has only 1.3-1.6 times larger diagonal than a full-frame 135 camera. The largest medium format sensors just matches the smallest medium format film formats.

With current technology there's a limit to how much photons we can capture per area unit silicon so there must be a certain size to be able to capture a certain quality. Mobile phone sensors are so small that they have issues with noise, ie you cannot reach state of the art image quality with that sensor size. But as you step up in sensor size the photon capture advantage is reduced, and today the difference between a 36x24mm sensor and 54x41mm is negligible in that particular aspect. The difference between 36x24mm and 44x33mm is even smaller. So no, we cannot drop down to mobile phone sensor size (not yet at least), but 36x24mm is up there with as good as it gets.

But you get whole different lens lines with different design targets, different raw conversion etc so you get a different system with a different outcome, which you may or may not prefer. The whole system makes a difference with small contributions here and there, difficult to point out one single aspect as the most important.

As a tech cam user my arguments for using MF is only partly about image quality, it's about having more fun shooting, a camera and workflow that suits my style and personality. An evening out shooting 2-3 hours I get home with 2-4 pictures, but I rarely throw away any of them, I only make the effort to set up the camera if I think it's going to be a good shot. I like that, more time out enjoying photography in the nature and less time in front of the computer. I find the all-mechanical camera to be charming to use, I love having the tools with tilt and shift on all lenses, and use it all the time in my shooting style, which gives that strict upright perspective as we previously saw in large format landscape photography, a style I like. Close to the ground shots, slanting horizons and short depth of fields or other creative effects commonly seen in 135 landscape photography is just not my style.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2013, 08:08:26 am by torger »
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