Can you see a difference in small prints between an MFDB and a DSLR?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Measurements is a necessary base for equipment discussion, nice A/B testing is even better, it's the only thing that can put a difference in context. Is it large or is it small? If a difference is "small" or "large" is a very personal thing, the same objective difference some will call huge and others will call so small it's irrelevant.

Hi,

That's why many of the better measurements are also output normalized to a measure of relevancy, JND (just noticeable difference), Delta E, SQF, etc. etc.

Of course, increasing the viewing distance can solve all disputes ...

Cheers,
Bart

[ondebanks]

Photography is not about touching or handling the gear and pressing knobs... it is about the final image. It is about vision.

When it comes to MF the reason I'm using it is not so much about image quality but from other factors: I just like making pictures with my view camera.

Shhh! be careful, Torger! Don't you know that tho_mas has decreed that you are forbidden to contemplate any other aspect to photography than the final image?! Taking "other factors" into account - are you mad? And where, may I ask, is your vision as you footle around with your view camera, "liking making pictures"? Get a grip, man!

Ray 

[KevinA]

It's like asking people how good their eyes are… isn't it? …he doesn't ask "can you see A difference?"… he asks if one can see the difference that exists... it is admitted in the enquire that there is a difference and the question is if one has good enough vision as to spot it….

Ah right then tripped up by semantics.
So measuring it for 20 20 vision is clearly the answer. Do Phaseone/Hassy issue eye test charts with their cameras so you can check your worthiness?

[bcooter]

Thre is one thing to think of regardless of format and equipment is where you buy and the relationship you have with a dealer.

I know the two large all brand camera dealers on both coasts can be good, but they also have a lot of turnover in their ranks.  Nothing is more frustrating than calling Bill (no one's real name) and hearing he is moved to another dept, or gone.    

The two dealers that advertise on this page along Yair with Leaf products, will either find the  best deal you can get and have almost on the minute followup service.

I've bought from Steve Hendrix at  C-1 for a long time and I'm sure not their best customer, given my Phase backs as 7 years old, I recently bought an S2, (not the latest model) and one 120mm lens, two contax adapters.  

The only reason I write this if you mention Phase or Leica everybody screams price, but if your working in production, and have an issue with your equipment a fast fix and dealer attention goes a long way to saving money.   I'm not against the loner system, though when we're green lighted on a project we are given little time to prepare.   If your going to have a software or equipment issue I can promise you it will happen two days before you board a plane.

So price is relative and quality, well there is no quality if the camera doesn't work.

IMO

BC

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I may agree. On the other hand the only time since 1980 equipment has failed for me was two years ago in Idaho Falls the day after debarking the plane. I had two small failures:

1) The legs of my newly delivered RRS tripod came loose. It was caused by incorrectly applied Locktite in assembly. Easily fixed.

2) A screw got loose on the tripod mount of my Sony 70-400/4-5.6, locking it up. I removed the tripod assembly later that night at the hotel and removed the loose screw. Fixed the problem permanently back in Sweden.

I always try to carry a reasonable backup for everything, except the long zoom and the tripod.

Regarding cost, I think it differs a lot. Professionally there are big operations and small operations, I guess. It may also be a question of priorities, I have corresponded with a guy who owns an IQ 180, but drives a 10 year old Bronco.

The P45+ I have is pretty nice.

Best regards
Erik

The only reason I write this if you mention Phase or Leica everybody screams price, but if your working in production, heck even if your going on holiday and have an issue with your equipment a fast fix and dealer attention goes a long way to saving money.   I'm not against the loner system, though when we're green lighted on a project we are given little time to prepare.   If your going to have a software or equipment issue I can promise you it will happen two days before you board a plane.

[Rob C]

Eric,

Equally, if one can see a difference doesn't mean it exists.

Eric, maybe you don't fully realise just how true that is!

Rob C

[EricWHiss]

Eric, maybe you don't fully realise just how true that is!
Rob C

Eric or Erik K?

Could be true... we all have our biases. Some people see things in clouds.  At least I make real photos and look at real prints with my own gear, and not just download things from the internet or interpret other people's results.  It's a complete tangent, but I did read this interesting book called the "Hidden Brain" that talks about how hidden biases influence people's decision making.

[Rob C]

Eric or Erik K?

Could be true... we all have our biases. Some people see things in clouds.  At least I make real photos and look at real prints, and not just download things from the internet.

Oops!

I meant to address the reply to the chap whose post I quoted: AreBee!

Mea culpa.

Rob C

[bcooter]

Hi,

I may agree. On the other hand the only time since 1980 equipment has failed for me was two years ago in Idaho Falls the day after debarking the plane. I had two small failures:

1) The legs of my newly delivered RRS tripod came loose. It was caused by incorrectly applied Locktite in assembly. Easily fixed.

2) A screw got loose on the tripod mount of my Sony 70-400/4-5.6, locking it up. I removed the tripod assembly later that night at the hotel and removed the loose screw. Fixed the problem permanently back in Sweden.

I always try to carry a reasonable backup for everything, except the long zoom and the tripod.

Regarding cost, I think it differs a lot. Professionally there are big operations and small operations, I guess. It may also be a question of priorities, I have corresponded with a guy who owns an IQ 180, but drives a 10 year old Bronco.

The P45+ I have is pretty nice.

Best regards
Erik

My point is prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

I also have had few equipment failures, usually with electrics like lights, or anything wireless seems to have drop offs and issues, but cameras are all pretty good.

Most of it comes down to peace of mind.

I know my medium format cameras front and back, (well except the Leica) and I don't expect issues, but when you hire a new tech, he can't connect, I'm standing in studio with 10 people going over a creative brief, the last thing I have time for is to say excuse me and stand in front of a computer training someone or trouble shooting.

With the dealers on this site, they usually can be reached anytime and have tech people that will help your tech people.

The point I'm making is I can't call olympus and ask why the wi-fi doesn't work, or how to set it up.   It's a google, youtube thing and that takes time.

The project we're doing at the moment has 21 minutes a setup.  Honestly and that includes video.   That time frame seems insane in 2006, normal in 2014.    

To segway to last night Oscars "Dallas Buyers Club" was shot in two weeks, which probably is 40 setups a day, so no one is immune to time/money compression.

If we waste 45 minutes with a down system I've lost two shots, or ran over on talent and location and crew, not to mention that's not the best look to stand around and say try this, or try that.

I'm not selling medium format, because I use everything and I'm not advocating upgrading to a new anything every 12 months, but every time someone talks about specialty equipment the first scream from a forum is price and like I say price is relative.

These forums are cost,  chart, pixel staring, DXO rating crazy over everything.  

With all of this technical and cost comparison few discussions move to the long game of how long you can use a system, how well it works under pressure, what kind of dealer or manufacturer support you receive and will whoever you buy from/whatever you buy, how long will it be supported?

I dread buying new stuff in the digital world.  Every menu is a learning curve, every new camera usually requires a software/computer/drive interface change or upgrade, every new system is less intuitive to you than the one it replaced.

Maybe that's why I still keep my Contax and have no plan to replace my original RED 1's.    I can walk over to either camera open a case and close my eyes and put it together and know who to call if a problem "could" happen.

IMO

BC

[EricWHiss]

Maybe that's why I still keep my Contax and have no plan to replace my original RED 1's.    I can walk over to either camera open a case and close my eyes and put it together and know who to call if a problem "could" happen.

That is a really good place to be where the gear becomes transparent to the work, becomes one part of you.   It's also great to be confident you know the look each lens will have, and on.  This all is so hard when the 'obsolescence' period of a product is 2 years or even less.  People that shot film cameras expected to be using them for a career with the help of some service and repairs, but with digital it isn't possible. They won't even have the chips or circuit boards in 5 to 7 years.

[Theodoros]

That is a really good place to be where the gear becomes transparent to the work, becomes one part of you.   It's also great to be confident you know the look each lens will have, and on.  This all is so hard when the 'obsolescence' period of a product is 2 years or even less.  People that shot film cameras expected to be using them for a career with the help of some service and repairs, but with digital it isn't possible. They won't even have the chips or circuit boards in 5 to 7 years.

That is related with people "buying the film with the camera", which wasn't the case in the past… IMO, that will change Eric, it won't be long before we'll be able to replace the sensor only and even replace the processor in our cameras… (possibly in our MFDBs too…). The problem with MF, is more that discontinued brands won't have their lenses advanced to future sensor demands…. unless if they are brought back yo life of course.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi Eric,

As it happens I also look at my own pictures with my own gear, but you have posted pretty serious observations on my technique and therefore I have chosen to check out images by professional testers.

Just to make a point, I have posted something like 50 images available as raws. (Last time I checked the exact number was 104, but I guess that about 50 of them are properly referenced, and if you cannot find them they don't count).

Why I post raw images? The reason is mainly that an image without information on processing is about useless.

There are some other guys, sharing experience and images generously. Tim Ashley, Marc McCalmont, Tim Parkin are some guys who helped me with both images and constructive critique on my writing. I also had some very good comments from Doug Peterson and from Steve Hendrix who also seems to be a very good guy. Doug also published a lot of raw files comparing the IQ-250 with larger sensor CCD models.

I actually shot two images yesterday that will be good subject for prints, a lot of fine detail. Significant advantage to the P45+ this time, question if it is visible in print.

Best regards
Erik

Eric or Erik K?

Could be true... we all have our biases. Some people see things in clouds.  At least I make real photos and look at real prints with my own gear, and not just download things from the internet or interpret other people's results.  It's a complete tangent, but I did read this interesting book called the "Hidden Brain" that talks about how hidden biases influence people's decision making.

[Torbjörn Tapani]

Erik, Ming Thein has a recent series of posts about pushing print limits where he says with proper processing and printing he can see the difference between 16 and 36 mpix in a 8x12" print, that's basically A4 size. Of course he is in the business of selling prints so you might wanna read the blog with critical eyes, but I found it interesting at least.

[AreBee]

Rob,

Eric, maybe you don't fully realise just how true that is!

I meant to address the reply to the chap whose post I quoted: AreBee!

In that case yes, I do realise how true my statement is. Do you consider otherwise?

Regards,

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I have some pretty good stuff, that I will post tomorrow.

Best regards
Erik

Erik, Ming Thein has a recent series of posts about pushing print limits where he says with proper processing and printing he can see the difference between 16 and 36 mpix in a 8x12" print, that's basically A4 size. Of course he is in the business of selling prints so you might wanna read the blog with critical eyes, but I found it interesting at least.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

These are taken from:

- A 24 MP DSLR image cropped in height, the sensor has OLP filter, Sony 70-400/4-5.6G at f/11 (image size after crop 19.6 MP)
- A 39 MP P45+ image, no OLP, Zeiss Planar 120/4 at f11 (? no exif data), stitched fro two images (Image size after stitch and crop 42.5 MP)

The reason the P45+ image was cropped stitched was that the subject did not fit into the frame using the 120 Planar and I didn't want to use the much wider 80/2.8 Planar. Stitching like this I do quite often.

The images were processed similarly in Lightroom 5.3. An additional sharpening of 15% at radius 2 done in PS CS5. The images were cropped to half size and than printed from Lightroom at 760 PPI (my mistake should have been 720) in A4 size, so this corresponds to A2 for the uncropped images.

Sharpness differences were not very obvious visually, but very obvious using a 5.5X loupe. Also, DoF is significantly deeper on the DSLR image (70 vs 120 mm lens used), most of the image is visibly sharper on the DSLR.

Scans were made at 300PPI, the screen dumps show these scan side by side. Scanning was at 300 PPI and most computer screens are around 100PPI, so the 300PPI corresponds to 3X magnifcation. The second one was downscaled 33% and corresponds pretty well the print on a 24" (1920x1200) screen, the details are same size on print and my screen.

I am not happy with sharpening, as I feel the images are over sharpened a bit, so I will reprocess the images. I will also post the raw images, probably today evening.

Best regards
Erik

[synn]

Could be that the V system lenses are not up to par, but I can tell you that my Credo files processed in Capture One Pro are sharper than that with basic adjustments.

[rgmoore]

Well, since you asked very nicely...  



Shot in the blazing hot equatorial sun at noontime, with a teeny weeny 400WS strobe and a speedlight. Unless the average Canon lens starts shipping with leaf shutter lenses, this isn't happening. (Yes, I know of ND filters. Tried them, hated them. At least not for me). Moot point anyway because I do not like the user experience of Canon bodies and if I don't like using something, I just won't use it.

All that aside, it's like what BC said in a post below. Choice of Camera gear is a very personal thing. It makes no sense to justify one's choice of gear beyond a certain point. Things get very silly, very fast.
I personally choose to shoot with MF for the user experience and the starting point that the files offer me. I enjoy this experience a lot more. During shooting AND in post production.

You've clearly had a very bad experience with MF and it's obvious you enjoy your 35mm experience a lot more and that's absolutely fine. But to extrapolate that experience to everyone shooting MF is rather silly.

Much like the list of photographers in the previous post who have moved from MF to 35mm, there's also a lit of photographers that did the opposite. I follow all of them as their styles inspire me. Names like David Hobby, Zack Arias, Frank Doorhof, Drew Gardner, Joey L and even local names like Wei Li and so on. They all have their (Very personal) reasons for it. Some published, some unpublished. I am pretty sure some of those reasons would make no sense to other people, but that's irrelevant.

As always, shoot with what you like. Numbers can only tell you so much.

p.s. Erik: Thanks for sharing this:



I am the first to admit that I get very impatient seeing a wall of text+charts and no pictures, but I am also the first to admire a beautiful photo. And this is definitely a very nice shot.
If I may suggest, please give DxO filmpack a try. It will make images like this really pop.

Synn,

I appreciate the names of the photographers who have added MFDB to their toolbox.  I looked up all of them;  Zack Arias, in particular,  writes about his experience in a very detailed and extensive manner.
Very much worth reading.  Expands the horizon.

Richard

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

As I said, the difference is very visible with a 5.5X loupe on the prints, but not very visible without magnification. Also, DoF is much shallower in the MFD image (both were shot at f/11) so the DSLR image has much better appearance on first look as much more detail is in focus. Stopping down the Planar to f/22 would help with DoF but it would probably eliminate the sharpness advantage.

Did you try scanning your A2 size prints, as I did? Else how do you know?

Best regards
Erik

Could be that the V system lenses are not up to par, but I can tell you that my Credo files processed in Capture One Pro are sharper than that with basic adjustments.

[EricWHiss]

Erik,
Most people aren't going to look at the print with a lupe, they are going to step back a bit and look at the whole thing with both eyes.  If you can't see a difference when viewing the whole of both prints side by side, I'd be surprised, but if you don't that does not mean much to me.  I can see a difference in images shot with my DSLR and my MFDB in prints 4 inches big as well as larger. It's not just sharpness but also overall look and feel.  The MFDB images have more life to them, more depth, but these qualities you can not measure, you can only feel. 

Also I know you have your own opinion, but I'm always wondering if something is amiss with your hasselblad system.  Your images almost always look soft to me.  I couldn't say but it's possible your focus screen is off calibration and you misfocus, or you have a bum set of lenses or something else.  I just can't imagine you'd have such soft images even with those old zeiss lenses.  Have you had your system checked out?   

Some of these old Zeiss lenses were also offered on the Rolleiflex platform so I am familiar with them.  I don't think the Rolleiflex ones were made to a higher quality than those that went onto Hasselblad but I guess that's one other potential explanation, though unlikely.  The zeiss 120mm lens is a pretty good lens actually so I wonder about your shots.  It's not as good at infinity as close up though. 

Lastly, I know you have left C1 for LR, but I'm convinced you will get a better file from C1 v7 for at least the Phase P45 files.