Why Medium Format Digital?

[BernardLanguillier]

Yeah, but i'd look a bit daft with a 4x5 hanging from my neck :-)

Agree about the tools being being better, but still, the satisfaction is missing, for me. Doesn't make sense, I know.

It does make complete sense, the shooting experience is of course essential.

For me stitching is a fun technical challenge as part of a quest for technical excellence. I see it as the modern equivalent of 8x10 but I don't expect many people to share my addiction!

And it is also easy for me because I don't have any real obligation to succeed. This being said I can't remember the last time I couldn't manage to stitch an image in ways that I find indistinguishable from a single capture of the same scene. But I know what can and cannot be done.

Cheers,
Bernars

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

What I find a bit is that I am doing a lot more stitching and stacking with MFD than I did with 135. A couple of reasons:

1) With 135 I used zooms, so I could frame my subjects optimally, but with MFD I use primes

2) I shoot on a Hasselblad using viewfinder mask. The viewfinder mask shows different alternate views, so sometimes I feel that a different crop is better. The DSLR viewfinder shows only a single view. So, I would say that the viewfinder mask offers a different view.

3) I feel that MFD is more challenged regarding DoF, also I really bought into MFD to get better sharpness. So, to handle DoF I do a lot of stacking.

The last couple of days, the majority of my pictures on MFD were either stacked or stitched.

Best regards
Erik

For me stitching is a fun technical challenge as part of a quest for technical excellence. I see it as the modern equivalent of 8x10 but I don't expect many people to share my addiction!

And it is also easy for me because I don't have any real obligation to succeed. This being said I can't remember the last time I couldn't manage to stitch an image in ways that I find indistinguishable from a single capture of the same scene. But I know what can and cannot be done.

Cheers,
Bernars

[JimAscher]

For me stitching is a fun technical challenge as part of a quest for technical excellence. I see it as the modern equivalent of 8x10 but I don't expect many people to share my addiction!

And it is also easy for me because I don't have any real obligation to succeed. This being said I can't remember the last time I couldn't manage to stitch an image in ways that I find indistinguishable from a single capture of the same scene. But I know what can and cannot be done.

Cheers,
Bernars

And to add belatedly to this discussion, my use of the Fotodiox Rhinocam provides a high MP medium format output utilizing stitching at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated medium format camera, yet using medium format lenses.  (I use old Hasselblad lenses, which have larger image circles.)  In addition, with this setup I have greater flexibility in output through assemblage of different individual "takes."

[NancyP]

You wouldn't look daft at all with that 4 x 5 dangling off your neck - you'd look "vintage".
https://graflex.org/speed-graphic/
 

[David Mantripp]

You wouldn't look daft at all with that 4 x 5 dangling off your neck - you'd look "vintage".
https://graflex.org/speed-graphic/
 

I already look quite vintage enough, thanks very much!      Anyway, Bernard has now converted me to stitching so I can avoid the whole issue!

[Telecaster]

Speaking only for myself, stitching is antithetical to the way I approach photography and to the enjoyment I get out of doing it. Mind you, I have stitched—as exploration—but the process left me cold. What floats my boat is observing the found moment and capturing something of it in a single click. The photos themselves aren't that important to me…being there and observing is. If idealized artifacts were my thing the story would be different. Again, just my take on it.

-Dave-

[JohnBrew]

What floats my boat is seeing my vision achieved through stitching. I tried the free downloads of the two programs Bernard uses but failed to see any advantage over PS. Perhaps I should just buy the more advanced versions?

But I have to admit to being tempted by MFD. If it would just get a little less expensive...

[BernardLanguillier]

What floats my boat is seeing my vision achieved through stitching. I tried the free downloads of the two programs Bernard uses but failed to see any advantage over PS. Perhaps I should just buy the more advanced versions?

But I have to admit to being tempted by MFD. If it would just get a little less expensive...

Hi John,

If PS works for you I would definitely stick to that.

Cheers,
Bernard

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I also use PS for simple stitches as it is well integrated in Lightroom and works reasonably well. For more advanced stuff I use Autopano Pro. Same with stacking, Q&D I use PS, for more complex work Zerene Stacker.

Best regards
Erik

Hi John,

If PS works for you I would definitely stick to that.

Cheers,
Bernard

[yaredna]

You guys are killing me. :-)

Maybe I should buy a cheap 2004 era Canon 6mp EOS 10D and stitch about 12 images to equal the pixel count....

Or get a 1-pixel camera and stitch 100 million image (to overlap by 1pixel, stick with a 9-pixel camera). With the currrent state of the art, a 9-pixel camera with have a dynamic range of 23,000 stops, Iso sensitivity of 1340 googleplex, and a depth of field that extends from infinity to 3 meters behind the sensor.

Now I get it... (I just filed a patent for the camera above, too late for all of you serial entrepreneurs...)

[alainbriot]

About 75% of my work is done through collaging (stitching) at this time, and 100% of my collages are done in Photoshop using photomerge.  The results are superb and I fail to see how other programs can improve on what I get from photoshop besides increasing the processing time and making the process unecessarily complicated.  Below is one of my most recent collages. This is one out of 45 collages created during my most recent expedition.  It consists of two handheld medium format captures combined in Photomerge in Photoshop CC 2014 using the Reposition setting and later optimized in photoshop using adjustement layers:



I have created collages with as many as 15 medium format captures using the same approach.

[Manoli]

About 75% of my work is done through collaging (stitching) at this time, and 100% of my collages are done in Photoshop using photomerge.  The results are superb [..] two handheld medium format captures combined in Photomerge in Photoshop CC 2014 using the Reposition setting and later optimized in photoshop using adjustement layers:

This is surprising.
According to reports on both this site and the Adobe forums, Photomerge is broken in the latest CC2014 release. Haven't followed the issue closely, but apparently Adobe have acknowledged this and are working on a fix.

[alainbriot]

It's not broken in my version.  They must have forgot to send me the memo!

[BernardLanguillier]

About 75% of my work is done through collaging (stitching) at this time, and 100% of my collages are done in Photoshop using photomerge.  The results are superb and I fail to see how other programs can improve on what I get from photoshop besides increasing the processing time and making the process unecessarily complicated.  Below is one of my most recent collages. This is one out of 45 collages created during my most recent expedition.  It consists of two handheld medium format captures combined in Photomerge in Photoshop CC 2014 using the Reposition setting and later optimized in photoshop using adjustement layers.

Hello Alain,

Glad to see that you have embarked on the stitching wagon!

No doubt, PS does work very well for small stitches made up of a few frames and on easy subjects with lots of features like the image you are showing here. The American South West is really ideally suited for stitching.

Per my experience, the value of dedicated application becomes more clear when you increase the number of images and have to deal with less contrasty subjects.

But again, great if PS works for you.

Cheers,
Bernard

[alainbriot]

I have been creating collages for years Bernard.  As far back as the mid 2000s.

And photomerge works great regardless of the number of images I have collaged together.

I've had this discussion before and invariably users of dedicated applications claim that they get better results. However, in my experience this has not proven to be accurate.

[Manoli]

It's not broken in my version.  They must have forgot to send me the memo!

Dunno .. link.

[BernardLanguillier]

I have been creating collages for years Bernard.  As far back as the mid 2000s.

And photomerge works great regardless of the number of images I have collaged together.

I've had this discussion before and invariably users of dedicated applications claim that they get better results. However, in my experience this has not proven to be accurate.

The very fact that PS has to load all the images simultaneously in memory to stitch them is a huge scalability/performance bottleneck Alain. The functional aspects is also much superior in the dedicated applications, but it may not impact the images you stitch.

But I am open to the challenge and will do some comparisons if I can find time this weekend with a pano containing a few dozen images.

I personally don't mind, I own licenses of all of them including all recent versions of PS. Very few of the many stitchers I know work with PS though.

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

Alain,

I just did a quick test on this smallish pano made up of 13 D800 images + Leica 180mm f2.8 APO (around 200 very sharp megapixels).



1. PS CS6 photomerge/collage mode:
- End to End pano creation from Bridge, 240 sec,
- save to fast TB2 Raid 6 array: 230 sec for 4.2 GB multi-layer file
-> total time: 470 sec
one obvious stitching error, horizon not automatically aligned correctly.

Photoshop used one core at 100% to perform the stitch and used 30 GB RAM.

2. PTGui Pro 10.06
- images aligment: 40 sec
- stitch including save to disk of a 4.2 GB multi-layer PS file: 25 sec
-> total time: 65 sec
No obvious stitching error, horizon correctly aligned.

PTgui used 4 cores at 100% (total 400%) but only 3 GB of RAM.

I was also able to use PS to do other productive work while PTgui was computing.

These results seem to validate my claims.

Cheers,
Bernard

[alainbriot]

Bernard:

For me the test is in my work.  I make a living selling fine art prints and I offer full money back guarantees for quality and none has ever been returned because of stitching issues even though I have demanding customers and high prices.

[alainbriot]

Manoli:

I just completed 45 collages with Photoshop CC 2014 and did not have any of the issues described in the link you posted.