Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Alan Goldhammer on November 15, 2010, 08:00:02 pm
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Thanks to Mark Segal and Nick Devlin for an interesting and well thought out test of the cameras in question (and the Leica and Canon as well). Interesting findings and proves to me that the differences in digital and film are significant and must be taken into account. We don't have the luxury of stopping a lens way down the way one does with film and depth of field issues can manifest themselves if one is not careful. As for me, I'm going to see how much a Leica M-9 costs.
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Fyi, I have both the M9 and a P65+ back (with H2 camera and lenses), and I can say pixel for pixel the M9 files next to the 65+ files are all as good and sometimes superior. Leica has the best glass I've seen in all my years in photography. One is only limited by print sizes with the 18 megapixel files from the M9. And the portability of the M9 and small lenses is unparalleled. Eleanor
Thanks to Mark Segal and Nick Devlin for an interesting and well thought out test of the cameras in question (and the Leica and Canon as well). Interesting findings and proves to me that the differences in digital and film are significant and must be taken into account. We don't have the luxury of stopping a lens way down the way one does with film and depth of field issues can manifest themselves if one is not careful. As for me, I'm going to see how much a Leica M-9 costs.
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Yes, an interesting report. I've never owned a Canon DSLR, but I'm aware that the Galbraith web site has demonstrated serious auto-focus problems with the 1DsIII. I don't know if the testers focused with the auto-focus or manually, but if it was with auto-focus, that might explain a bit of the problem. I've also read that most DSLR zooms (and in particular, those from Canon) demonstrate some serious sample variation, and wonder if that might be part of the problem.
Alan...I think I remember your contentious tenure on the L-Camera forum...are you sure you want to think about Leica again? ;-)
JC
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I think the biggest reason for the differences between the Leica and 1Ds III images was the choice of lenses. The 24-105 is a good enough lens, but doesn't hold up to glass like the 50mm Summilux, especially in the corners. Also keep in mind that at f/8 the 24-105 is only two stops down from wide open. The samples they posted are consistent with my experience for corner performance on that lens.
However it's undeniable the impact the AA filter on the 1Ds III has compared to the M9.
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Phase One lenses; 75mm~150mm zoom – Price: $3,890
Phase One lenses; 45 wide-angle – Price: $3,500
120mm Mamiya macro lens – Price: $2,290
Pentax lenses: 45-85mm zoom
Pentax lenses: 45
Pentax lenses: 120mm macro
Leica 50mm f/1.4 Summilux M Aspherical Manual – # Price: $3,695
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM – # Price: $1,059
Can't find the Pentax prices but the story is pretty clear that the quality of the glass is a clear factor as well as comparing primes and zooms.
Cheers,
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Hi,
A zoom lens is always a bit of compromise. Although good zooms can really be excellent it's quite typical of zooms to fall of at either the short or the long end.
That said, I'm a bit of sharpness freak myself, but still find zooms much more convenient than fixed focals. I have several different lenses with overlapping range and it is seldom I use my fixed focals. On the other hand my fixed focals are not really world champion class.
Best regards
Erik
Phase One lenses; 75mm~150mm zoom – Price: $3,890
Phase One lenses; 45 wide-angle – Price: $3,500
120mm Mamiya macro lens – Price: $2,290
Pentax lenses: 45-85mm zoom
Pentax lenses: 45
Pentax lenses: 120mm macro
Leica 50mm f/1.4 Summilux M Aspherical Manual – # Price: $3,695
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM – # Price: $1,059
Can't find the Pentax prices but the story is pretty clear that the quality of the glass is a clear factor as well as comparing primes and zooms.
Cheers,
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Can't find the Pentax prices but the story is pretty clear that the quality of the glass is a clear factor as well as comparing primes and zooms.
check http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums -> The Photographer's Marketplace -> Marketplace Archives -> Sold Items
for example recent transactions (November)
Pentax FA 645 400mm f/5.6 ED IF <= USD $1150
Pentax FA 645 35mm f/3.5 AL IF <= USD $1300
Pentax FA 645 45-85mm f/4.5 Zoom <= USD $600
Pentax FA 645 80-160mm f/4.5 Zoom <= USD $500
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Another great review.
I own the 1Ds Mrk3 and the 24-105. It is a good zoom but no match for a leica prime.
I must say I have been using 3 zeiss ZE primes (21mm, 35mm and 50mm MP) on the 1DsMrk3 for six months now and they take the camera into another league compared to the 24-105 zoom.
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I'm going to add my oar into this one, having owned and shot extensively with a 1Ds mkIII and 24-105L, you kinda crippled the 1DsIII from the beginning and unfairly. It's a good 'all rounder' travel lens, it's certainly not a prime beater, even the lowly canon 50mm 1.4 which I also own, nevermind the Leica.
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Thanks to the authors of the mini-review/essay for a good job. Very informative, even though I do not use medium format, I find these pieces very interesting. It certainly took Pentax a long way to "land" the 645D, but it seems that it will cause a significant stir. I have a soft spot for Pentax, I used to have a P30 with a 50mm lens in the old days; the advert for that camera was something like "you don't need luck, you need a Pentax"...
As for 1DsIII, well, yes, the 24-105 is far from being a stellar lens: I used to have one with the 5dMKII (same sensor), and it did not take me long to swap it for a 24-70 L, with the concurrent improvement.
But let's not forget that, in the end, in the printed result, the differences will be neglegible, as stated in the article; even with the 24-105 lens.
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I'm going to add my oar into this one, having owned and shot extensively with a 1Ds mkIII and 24-105L, you kinda crippled the 1DsIII from the beginning and unfairly. It's a good 'all rounder' travel lens, it's certainly not a prime beater, even the lowly canon 50mm 1.4 which I also own, nevermind the Leica.
Agreed - the comparison is totally unfair but more importantly its irrelevant (might make MF owners feel good though, and I cant help but wonder if this was the intention). Crippling the Canon with a mediocre (and it is seriously mediocre lens [READ: BAD] compared to say something like the 85mm F1.2L) zoom was ALWAYS going to lead to said results. On top of that the Leica was fed with a 5 star lens to further widen the gap. All this ultimately proved is that stacking the deck will make one camera look very bad and one look very good. Cant help but wonder why they even bothered with this comparison. It is interesting however, that the differences so clearly visible on screen narrow so significantly in print.
I have shot with a 1DSMKIII extensively - well over 100,000 frames in more than four continents in all kinds of conditions with everything from a 17mm TSE to a 300mm F2.8L Is and just about everything in between and I can tell you that sample image in the review is just plain BAD. If that was my test image it would get deleted as it is not at all representative of what this camera is capable of - the 1DSMKIII is capable of so much better. Which leads me to either poor technique (unlikely given the reviewers experience) or poor autofocus or poor lens or a combination of the above.
That said - the MF comparison was very interesting and thoroughly enjoyable - thank you so much for this. The Pentax has certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons in terms of price. For anyone shopping for a 40MPX camera (which includes me) the Pentax simply must be on the shopping list. As someone who is seriously seriously considering the Leica S2 the Pentax has given me a lot of pause for thought - this review has only strengthened my desire to test one. Thanks to the reviewers for their efforts in the MF review (but guys, please go put a better lens on the 1DSMKIII!)
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A couple of thoughts to stir the pot.
I shot frames down to f16. I think the comparison frames were at f11 (at least the ones I based my conclusions on on-screen). The focus-plane issue was present in the entire series. I agree that two-to-three stops down is the right place to shoot. Unfortunately, difraction really does start to kick in visibly not long thereafter.
The 45mm test was the Phase 45mm versus the Pentax 45-85mm zoom. I don't own the fixed 45mm
The 75mm Pentax lens cost me $175. Seriously. That said, I know that the "list" prices on the Pentax gear will be more along the lines of its competitors when they return to our shores. This isn't a price-for-quality issue. That might be true with the Leica S lenses, but they're a whole other kettle of fish.
The 50mm 'lux at f8 is no better than my more modest (and pre-dropped) 50mm 'cron, nor frankly a 50mm CV. By f8, the 50mm CV f1.5 I tested was really a fine lens. I might just throw my f1.1 on the M9 and re-shoot this for kicks when I play with the S2 later this week.
I agree that the Leica is inconvenient for many applications - which is why people turn to the Canon and similar 35mm systems.
And lastly, you're right, it wasn't a fair test. I should have averted to the fine-print in Canon's EF lens brochure, where they clearly state: "The EF 24-105 is not suitable for photography of highly textured subjects. Under near-ideal conditions this lens is limited to producing a fraction of the resolution of which the Canon 1-series cameras are capable. By purchasing this lens at a list price of over $1,000, users agree to and accept the terms of Canon's "Inferior But Nonetheless "L" designated Lenses Policy" found at Appendix "B" to this brochure".
Our bad.
;) ;D
- N.
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Nick, how did you check for alignment of the backs of the cameras (all 4) with the brick wall. When I occasionally am inspired by a brick wall or a wall of books, I find that getting level is easy, getting the film plane parallel to the wall is very hard, and requires tricks like clamping a straightedge to the back of the camera and measuring the distance to the wall from each end. Which naturally, I don't do, using the eyeballs instead. So really the vertical line through the middle of the picture gives accurate comparisons, the horizontal line does not.
scott
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Scott, we checked only by eye (again, the way photographers work.)
That said, I've heard a more plausible explanation for the focus-plane issue, which I might look into and update the review with.
- N.
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I found both the review and the mini-shootout enormously informative and well-written. I have the greatest respect for both Nick and Mark.
(I took the comparisons with Canon and Leica as primarily for entertainment.)
The comments about the ergonomics of the Pentax sounded very plausible to me. I used Pentaxes for about forty years (many 35s up to the 67II) before switching to Canon for digital. I sold off all my Pentax gear shortly before Pentax showed signs of taking digital seriously (alas!). One thing I always loved about the smaller and MF film Pentaxes is that the controls were just the ones I wanted and just where I wanted them, which seems to be the case with the new baby. And all my lenses were just great.
The 67II felt like an oversized SLR (I called it my "Pentax on steroids"), which made it very tempting to hand-hold it a lot, which lost a lot of IQ. I suspect the 645D will offer similar temptation. But with a tripod I expect it will have a lot of appeal for those landscape shooters who need to catch shots quickly before the light changes.
When the price gets down closer to $5000 in a few years, I just may get back into MF!
Thank you Nick and Mark!
Eric
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You make a good point. If the company markets the lens as a high-quality lens, well, then it should be treated and used as such. However, perhaps it is a good lens for what it is: a 4x f/4 zoom that goes from fairly wide to telephoto with IS. Basically twice the range than any other lens in the comparison. I had this lens but sold it because it wasn't quite there for me. A 35 or 135 would not have changed the podium position, but it might have put the 1Ds on the same lap.
Thank you guys for doing this. I'll be upgrading next year and this helps. I still wish there was a MF with live-view...
Dave
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And lastly, you're right, it wasn't a fair test. I should have averted to the fine-print in Canon's EF lens brochure, where they clearly state: "The EF 24-105 is not suitable for photography of highly textured subjects. Under near-ideal conditions this lens is limited to producing a fraction of the resolution of which the Canon 1-series cameras are capable. By purchasing this lens at a list price of over $1,000, users agree to and accept the terms of Canon's "Inferior But Nonetheless "L" designated Lenses Policy" found at Appendix "B" to this brochure".
Our bad.
;) ;D
Serious users are advised to ignore the "L" designation (which the marketing department made us put on it).
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Yes, an interesting report. I've never owned a Canon DSLR, but I'm aware that the Galbraith web site has demonstrated serious auto-focus problems with the 1DsIII. I don't know if the testers focused with the auto-focus or manually, but if it was with auto-focus, that might explain a bit of the problem. I've also read that most DSLR zooms (and in particular, those from Canon) demonstrate some serious sample variation, and wonder if that might be part of the problem.
Alan...I think I remember your contentious tenure on the L-Camera forum...are you sure you want to think about Leica again? ;-)
JC
John, I've tested my 1dsIII and that particular lens with Lens Align and it looked fine. That said, in principle I fully agree with you about sample variation between lenses of the same model - especially zoom lenses.
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Another great review.
I own the 1Ds Mrk3 and the 24-105. It is a good zoom but no match for a leica prime.
I must say I have been using 3 zeiss ZE primes (21mm, 35mm and 50mm MP) on the 1DsMrk3 for six months now and they take the camera into another league compared to the 24-105 zoom.
Am I correct that when you do this you buy additional sharpness at the expense of auto-focus and auto-exposure functions?
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Agreed - the comparison is totally unfair but more importantly its irrelevant (might make MF owners feel good though, and I cant help but wonder if this was the intention). Crippling the Canon with a mediocre (and it is seriously mediocre lens [READ: BAD] compared to say something like the 85mm F1.2L) zoom was ALWAYS going to lead to said results. On top of that the Leica was fed with a 5 star lens to further widen the gap. All this ultimately proved is that stacking the deck will make one camera look very bad and one look very good. Cant help but wonder why they even bothered with this comparison. It is interesting however, that the differences so clearly visible on screen narrow so significantly in print.
I have shot with a 1DSMKIII extensively - well over 100,000 frames in more than four continents in all kinds of conditions with everything from a 17mm TSE to a 300mm F2.8L Is and just about everything in between and I can tell you that sample image in the review is just plain BAD. If that was my test image it would get deleted as it is not at all representative of what this camera is capable of - the 1DSMKIII is capable of so much better. Which leads me to either poor technique (unlikely given the reviewers experience) or poor autofocus or poor lens or a combination of the above.
That said - the MF comparison was very interesting and thoroughly enjoyable - thank you so much for this. The Pentax has certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons in terms of price. For anyone shopping for a 40MPX camera (which includes me) the Pentax simply must be on the shopping list. As someone who is seriously seriously considering the Leica S2 the Pentax has given me a lot of pause for thought - this review has only strengthened my desire to test one. Thanks to the reviewers for their efforts in the MF review (but guys, please go put a better lens on the 1DSMKIII!)
Josh, thanks, glad you liked the MF stuff. I fully agree with you that the 1DsMk3 is capable of much better than the test shot we posted, because I know from experience it is. It's a mystery to me still why that happened, which is why I reverted to that issue in the conclusion of my part of the review. I would beg to differ with you however on the POTENTIAL quality of this lens. I put "potential" in caps because there is sample variation with these lenses, especially zooms. Alignment is so important. The one I own happens to be a very good one, and I've made a very large number of tack-sharp photos with it. Check on this website, you will see reviews of this lens prepared independently by Bill Caulfield-Brown and me. I was wondering for a while whether I should have posted the test shot we made at the Brickworks, but decided to do so, because that's what we shot, under ideal conditions, and that's what we got. It wasn't convenient to hold-up the rest of the rest of the review to reshoot that one item, which was not the center-piece of the article to begin with.
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Fyi, I have both the M9 and a P65+ back (with H2 camera and lenses), and I can say pixel for pixel the M9 files next to the 65+ files are all as good and sometimes superior. Leica has the best glass I've seen in all my years in photography. One is only limited by print sizes with the 18 megapixel files from the M9. And the portability of the M9 and small lenses is unparalleled. Eleanor
Totally agree. Just completed working up a 2-shot pano I took with the M9 and 50mm from Jackson Hole. I've printed the image at 20x40 and am pleased with that was I would have been had I shot it with my Cambo WRS/P45+.
Don
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Could you better explain your comments about C1 and the inability to get a good raw conversion and the use of the highlight and shadow sliders. I am newer to C1 than I am to LR but I haven't found any instances where I said "gosh I wish I were using LR for this RAW file".
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Nick and Mark, thanks for taking the time (and inevitable flak) for writing this report. I do find it interesting that most of the respondents so far are more concerned with the Canon and Leica than the Phase and Pentax! Nick, if you haven’t used one of the manual focus A 645 lenses, I would encourage you to do so. Not only may the A lenses solve the “quantized” or stepwise focus problem you mentioned in a previous report, but they also feel much better in the hand. I have a couple of 645 lenses in the A and FA versions; the lenses may be identical in optical performance but the FA versions lost a lot of solidity with the addition of AF. I much prefer the A 120mm macro over the FA version. The focus ring is remarkably solid and precise; additionally, the lens hood is integral rather than the reversing plastic one with the FA. As a side note: I’ve used that lens a great deal and as tempting as it is to use f16 to increase DOF, diffraction is really taking a toll at that point.
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Funny you mention the "A" lenses. I have one on the way (the 200mm) and am also borrowing a couple of 67 lenses to try out as well (the 90-180 and 135 macro).
I know what you mean about the focus-feel. All AF lenses feel a bit 'looser', which must have something to do with the need to be able to accelerate and decelerate them rapidly during auto-focusing.
- N.
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I am newer to C1 than I am to LR but I haven't found any instances where I said "gosh I wish I were using LR for this RAW file".
for example try really high ISO raw file and compare NR from ACR 6.x/LR 3.x w/ C1 v5.x... albeit this is more for dslr and not for mf.
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for example try really high ISO raw file and compare NR from ACR 6.x/LR 3.x w/ C1 v5.x... albeit this is more for dslr and not for mf.
Perhaps, on DSLR high ISO noise reduction but the article refers to the shadow/highlight sliders on a P40+ low ISO files. I'm using the same P40+ back and C1 works very, very well with the files.
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And lastly, you're right, it wasn't a fair test. I should have averted to the fine-print in Canon's EF lens brochure, where they clearly state: "The EF 24-105 is not suitable for photography of highly textured subjects. Under near-ideal conditions this lens is limited to producing a fraction of the resolution of which the Canon 1-series cameras are capable. By purchasing this lens at a list price of over $1,000, users agree to and accept the terms of Canon's "Inferior But Nonetheless "L" designated Lenses Policy" found at Appendix "B" to this brochure".
Our bad.
;) ;D
Sorry but that is an immature response. Whether or not Canon designate a lens as whatever or sell for whatever price, you were trying to show what a 1Ds mkIII can do and you didn't come close because you seemingly have a chip on your shoulder about what this lens should be and are judging the camera based on it.
What your test of the '35mm' DSLR's has told me is that a prime is better than what is known to be an inferior zoom for all its price. Right.
I'm no canon fanboy, not in the slightest, heck I've sold my mkIII, but this comparison between the M9 and 1Ds mkIII says nothing and trying to pretend otherwise would IMO damage the hard work of the MF comparison.
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"Am I correct that when you do this you buy additional sharpness at the expense of auto-focus and auto-exposure functions?"
Zeiss ZE-lenses are manual focus lenses. They do however communicate electronically with the camera body because these are in "native" Canon EF-mounts. Auto-exposure works normally and also auto-aperture works like in any modern slr-lens.
J
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Could you better explain your comments about C1 and the inability to get a good raw conversion and the use of the highlight and shadow sliders. I am newer to C1 than I am to LR but I haven't found any instances where I said "gosh I wish I were using LR for this RAW file".
In the particular case of this file, in C-1 it wasn't possible to open the indoor portion enough without blowing the highlights of the outdoor portion, even using both sliders and the Curve tool. In Lightroom I was able to accomplish this easily. Both are very good programs. I think this is another instance of the fact that depending upon the situation, different programs show-up different kinds of capabilities.
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In the particular case of this file, in C-1 it wasn't possible to open the indoor portion enough without blowing the highlights of the outdoor portion, even using both sliders and the Curve tool. In Lightroom I was able to accomplish this easily. Both are very good programs. I think this is another instance of the fact that depending upon the situation, different programs show-up different kinds of capabilities.
Or perhaps shows how program familiarity -- or lack thereof -- can affect test results. Just sayin...
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Re: the Canon 24-105..
I don't see any mention in the article or these forum posts as to whether you turned off the IS? I believe most people (including Chuck Westfall) feel IS is detrimental when the camera is tripod mounted:
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/image-stabilization-on-tripods
??
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Thanks for reporting o your mini-shootout (and the earlier review of the Pentax 645D)
Honestly, this was REALLY helpful to me as I have been weighing up a P1 or the Hasselblad H4D-31 - and the Pentax ticks so many boxes it's fast heading up my list. The one thing "missing" for me is the option for tethered shooting on the Pentax - which you have noted. However, this (less than clear) text from Pentax Japan suggests it might be coming??
The PENTAX Digital Camera Utility 4 software (included) is designed to facilitate the filing and viewing of recorded images, as well as to handle the development and editing of RAW-format files. It even allows the editing of JPEG-format images. A remote-access application will soon to be added to this software, allowing you to control your PC from a distance using the 645D.
http://www.pentax.jp/english/imaging/digital/medium/645d/feature_6.html
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Totally agree. Just completed working up a 2-shot pano I took with the M9 and 50mm from Jackson Hole. I've printed the image at 20x40 and am pleased with that was I would have been had I shot it with my Cambo WRS/P45+.
Don
+1!
Bill
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Thanks to Mark Segal and Nick Devlin for an interesting and well thought out test of the cameras in question (and the Leica and Canon as well).
Yes, the comparisons were interesting. The shadow detail in the test shots with the two MFDBs looked good after post processing, but it is difficult to judge dynamic range. Too bad they didn't include a DR shot with the Canon to see if the difference between MFDB and good dSLR is as great as some MFDB proponents claim.
Regards,
Bill
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Or perhaps shows how program familiarity -- or lack thereof -- can affect test results. Just sayin...
Always possible, despite the inherently speculative nature of a comment predicated on the possibility that you may not know what you don't know. But in the final analysis, it doesn't take a PhD in the imaging sciences to operate either of these programs, especially with all the training, reference material and practice we have available to us. It does happen though Jack, that in certain cases some things just work very well and others less so. Every application has its place, as well as its strengths and limitations. I'll leave this tangent at that.
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Is it possible that, rather than the camera backs being out of alignment with the brick wall, that the sensors are out of alignment within the camera body?
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Re: the Canon 24-105..
I don't see any mention in the article or these forum posts as to whether you turned off the IS? I believe most people (including Chuck Westfall) feel IS is detrimental when the camera is tripod mounted:
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/image-stabilization-on-tripods
??
Yes, indeed IS was turned off. I've been hoisted on that petard in the past and this time made sure first thing after putting the camera on the tripod that it was OFF. It is true that with this lens - and others - if IS is ON when the camera sits on a tripod, it can impair sharpness.
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Is it possible that, rather than the camera backs being out of alignment with the brick wall, that the sensors are out of alignment within the camera body?
Yes it is likely that the alignment problem is within the camera rather than between the camera and the wall. Have a look at the up-date comment we posted at the end of the article. We think it possible that the sensors are not perfectly aligned with the optical axis of the lenses.
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Hi,
I'd just call your attention to this article: http://www.josephholmes.com/news-medformatprecision.html
I enjoyed the articles very much, well written and interesting. I wouldn't expect the old Pentax lenses to hold up to the digital sensor but they obviously do.
Just three comments:
- I have observed that depth of field is incredibly short, at the pixel level, when shooting digital. This applies also to medium apertures.
- There is also field curvature, it's not given that the optical image projected by the lens is entirely flat.
- In recent testing I have done it has been my experience that foliage and treetops are far more critical than brick walls or book shelfs. My Sigma 12-24 is quite decent on both book shelf and brick walls but the image has serious problems at edge and corner shooting real world subjects.
Best regards
Erik
Yes it is likely that the alignment problem is within the camera rather than between the camera and the wall. Have a look at the up-date comment we posted at the end of the article. We think it possible that the sensors are not perfectly aligned with the optical axis of the lenses.
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Yes it is likely that the alignment problem is within the camera rather than between the camera and the wall. Have a look at the up-date comment we posted at the end of the article. We think it possible that the sensors are not perfectly aligned with the optical axis of the lenses.
Mark,
Could this be the reason why you ended up moving to MFDB, your 1Ds3 had a misaligned sensor?
This review is really short on hard facts. Okay! The two of you had lots of fun comparing cameras. No harm in that. But I can't help wondering, after your taking the plunge to move into the ultra-expensive MFDB system, if there remains a need to justify that expensive move.
The subconscious can play interesting tricks. Getting you to produce an incompetent result, when using your 'rejected' 1Ds3, is not difficult for the subconscious ;D .
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Thanks Guys!!
In regards to throwing the Canon and Leica M9 into the mix, I enjoyed reading it. While other readers may not be too happy with it, or consider it fair, I appreciate the comparisons just the same--one cannot own all of the tools to compare and my main concern with MF digital at this point-in-time, is sharpness and DOF (cost as well).
If I travel to shoot specifically for landscapes and find that I get superior results when shooting my Nikon and stitching, I cannot help but question why should I invest in MF digital for this purpose? I have yet to receive the "WOW" from my MF digital landscape kit, but before I sell it off, I will be asking my vendor to take it all back and to please tweak all of its components for the "wow." I feel there is something missing in my expensive landscape kit and the experts should have a chance to test it, tweak it, and charge me for the necessary time to bring it all together (if possible).
I do have one request in regards to your mentioning of testing 67 lenses with the 645D: I would be interested in seeing how the 100 F4 SMC Macro performs. I have a beautiful-performer of this lens, plus the 55mm, zoom 55-100mm, and 165mm LS in my kit. I will ship any or all of these lenses to you free of expense and liability for testing if you are interested. (Please PM me if you are interested.)
The biggest reason I have held onto my 67II kit is because of its superb performance in regards to sharpness and DOF. If I eventually buy into the Pentax 645D line, I will want to use my 67 lenses.
I understand this is the first generation of the 645D and I do not expect it to be stellar, but I am willing to contribute into their Research & Development (R&D) fund more-so, than anyone else at this time. I have made my living as a photographer for over 30 years, and I do not plan on stopping anytime soon, but I have grown disappointed with some of the industry and have lost a bit of trust in their concern for professional needs and simplicity of design.
Pentax has made me hopeful, and it is easier for me to trust their future with my dollars mainly because of the "WOW" factor I repeatably receive through their equipment and their timing into the MF digital market. Pentax IMHO, seems to have waited on the sidelines, observing others R&D before they went to their own drawing board, and this I like! It is a smart business model and one that I think will eventually pay-off.
Kind regards,
Darr
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INterestingly, the Pentax is offered for sale here in the UK at about £9,000 - clicky (http://www.parkcameras.com/17169/Pentax-645D-Digital-Medium-Format-Body.html). I've just had an email from Hasselblad, offering me a H4D-31 plus 80mm lens for £8,995 plus VAT (local sales tax at 17.5%). I can't help but think this new Hassy price has something to do with the new Pentax.
Edit: spelling
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Mark,
Could this be the reason why you ended up moving to MFDB, your 1Ds3 had a misaligned sensor?
This review is really short on hard facts. Okay! The two of you had lots of fun comparing cameras. No harm in that. But I can't help wondering, after your taking the plunge to move into the ultra-expensive MFDB system, if there remains a need to justify that expensive move.
The subconscious can play interesting tricks. Getting you to produce an incompetent result, when using your 'rejected' 1Ds3, is not difficult for the subconscious ;D .
Ray, are you a shrink or a photographer? :D
Yes of course the review is short on "hard facts". We made photographs, we presented the methodology, the data and the results. What more do you want? We should be camera designers and engineers too?
My subconscious doesn't play interesting tricks when it comes to shelling out over 20000 bucks on a camera system. I'm not wealthy and it was a huge decision. It had absolutely nothing to do with the performance of my 1DsMk3, which on the whole I happen to be very satisfied with and I still use it extensively. Ray, I don't need to "justify" any expenditure to myself AFTER I made it; only BEFORE. And if I made a mistake, well I made a mistake. It's completely foolish to wrap oneself in delusions - better to recognie reality and get over it, but in this case there is nothing to get over. I didn't make a mistake on either purchase. Yesterday I printed a 60 inch pano I shot of the Toronto skyline from a boardwalk around a bend on the waterfront with the Phase-One. It was a stitch of three shots, put together seamlessly in CS5. The total file size is just over a Gig. The pano is stunning if I dare say so myself - for a shot like that NO DSLR would have achieved that kind of detail and clarity for such scene. But at my son-in-law's Halloween party I used the 1DsMKIII because there's no way I could have captured the combination of spontaneity and image quality I got for those kind of photos using a medium format camera. Horses for courses. Each has its place in the spectrum. That was my perception before buying the MF, and remains so now.
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Hi,
I'd just call your attention to this article: http://www.josephholmes.com/news-medformatprecision.html
I enjoyed the articles very much, well written and interesting. I wouldn't expect the old Pentax lenses to hold up to the digital sensor but they obviously do.
Just three comments:
- I have observed that depth of field is incredibly short, at the pixel level, when shooting digital. This applies also to medium apertures.
- There is also field curvature, it's not given that the optical image projected by the lens is entirely flat.
- In recent testing I have done it has been my experience that foliage and treetops are far more critical than brick walls or book shelfs. My Sigma 12-24 is quite decent on both book shelf and brick walls but the image has serious problems at edge and corner shooting real world subjects.
Best regards
Erik
Erik,
I really appreciate these observations - I think because they also correlate with a recent experience I had photographing fall foliage. The leaves were the problem. I think they were moving more than I noticed and possibly the shutter speed wasn't high enough. Well, there's always next Fall! Meanwhile brick walls usually remain quite still which is great for testing cameras, but incredibly boring for photography - unless they have "character" of course.
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INterestingly, the Pentax is offered for sale here in the UK at about £9,000 - clicky (http://www.parkcameras.com/17169/Pentax-645D-Digital-Medium-Format-Body.html). I'f just had an email from Hasselblad, offering me a H4D-31 plus 80mm lens for £8,995 plus VAT (local sales tax at 17.5%). I can't help but think this new Hassy price has something to do with the new Pentax.
Interesting. Phase-1 recently also reduced the price for the P40+/645DF combo. Medium format digital is "coming of age" in the sense that it is beginning to walk the technological and commercial path of much other high-tech equipment: "more for less" as a function of time. This will be a particularly difficult scene for both the producers and purchasers, because the market for this stuff remains very thin in terms of camera sales world-wide per year. A company like Leica will continue to need to charge premium prices because they are providing custom fine-tuning and extremely exacting QC on every unit of camera and lens they ship. The others will be faced with serious dilemmas about the balance to be struck between volume, price, quality, R&D and new models to meet the evolving demands and expectations of the market. Competition has both its costs and rewards.
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Erik,
I really appreciate these observations - I think because they also correlate with a recent experience I had photographing fall foliage. The leaves were the problem. I think they were moving more than I noticed and possibly the shutter speed wasn't high enough. Well, there's always next Fall! Meanwhile brick walls usually remain quite still which is great for testing cameras, but incredibly boring for photography - unless they have "character" of course.
Hi Mark and Nick,
Regarding this asymmetrical lack of sharpness. What makes you think that the issue you are seeing is the result of a back alignement issue instead of being a camera positioning issue?
In the absence of live view, it is my experience that critical camera alignement is very challenging with 6 micro class photosites. Even with liveview it isn't easy.
Cheers,
Bernard
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INterestingly, the Pentax is offered for sale here in the UK at about £9,000 - clicky (http://www.parkcameras.com/17169/Pentax-645D-Digital-Medium-Format-Body.html). I've just had an email from Hasselblad, offering me a H4D-31 plus 80mm lens for £8,995 plus VAT (local sales tax at 17.5%). I can't help but think this new Hassy price has something to do with the new Pentax.
Can someone please explain to me how the retail photographic industry continues to exist in the UK?? They rape their customers like Vikings on a weekend cruise, in a day-and-age when Fedex puts B&H at everyone's fingertips. This is shameless and pathetic, and you guys just shouldn't take it anymore.
I'll personally smuggle you a 645D for return airfare to London, for a lot less ;)
- N.
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Thanks Guys!!
...
If I travel to shoot specifically for landscapes and find that I get superior results when shooting my Nikon and stitching, I cannot help but question why should I invest in MF digital for this purpose? I have yet to receive the "WOW" from my MF digital landscape kit, but before I sell it off, I will be asking my vendor to take it all back and to please tweak all of its components for the "wow." I feel there is something missing in my expensive landscape kit and the experts should have a chance to test it, tweak it, and charge me for the necessary time to bring it all together (if possible).
...
Pentax has made me hopeful, and it is easier for me to trust their future with my dollars mainly because of the "WOW" factor I repeatably receive through their equipment and their timing into the MF digital market. Pentax IMHO, seems to have waited on the sidelines, observing others R&D before they went to their own drawing board, and this I like! It is a smart business model and one that I think will eventually pay-off.
Kind regards,
Darr
Darr,
I know what you mean about the "wow" factor. And also about the power of the pano (from 35mm). The moral of our story so far is that MF is very demanding, and it's hard to make it much better than 35mm. When it works, it can yield spectacular results, but whether the margin is worth it is very much an individual question.
Michael wrote an article here many years ago showing convincingly that a 1Ds (Mark I) matched 6x7 film quality, for all purposes save significant enlargement. This remains true, and has been made (slightly) truer by the larger FF sensors (though I remain convinced that sensors with larger photo-sites give nicer results, somehow). This puts MFDSLRs into the rare-air of 4x5. Few needed it before, and few were willing or able to acquire the skills to perfect the art. The same may be true of digital MF....with the added twist that we are much more at the mercy of the ghosts in the machine.
As for the 67 lenses, thanks for your generous offer. I would take you up on it, except I just today received three 67 lenses from friends of mine for testing (90-180, 135 macro and 165 f2.8). I'll include the results in a future article on the 645D. I plan to shoot the 165 in-studio on the weekend.
Cheers,
- N.
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Darr,
I know what you mean about the "wow" factor. And also about the power of the pano (from 35mm). The moral of our story so far is that MF is very demanding, and it's hard to make it much better than 35mm. When it works, it can yield spectacular results, but whether the margin is worth it is very much an individual question.
Michael wrote an article here many years ago showing convincingly that a 1Ds (Mark I) matched 6x7 film quality, for all purposes save significant enlargement. This remains true, and has been made (slightly) truer by the larger FF sensors (though I remain convinced that sensors with larger photo-sites give nicer results, somehow). This puts MFDSLRs into the rare-air of 4x5. Few needed it before, and few were willing or able to acquire the skills to perfect the art. The same may be true of digital MF....with the added twist that we are much more at the mercy of the ghosts in the machine.
As for the 67 lenses, thanks for your generous offer. I would take you up on it, except I just today received three 67 lenses from friends of mine for testing (90-180, 135 macro and 165 f2.8). I'll include the results in a future article on the 645D. I plan to shoot the 165 in-studio on the weekend.
Cheers,
- N.
Thanks Nick!!
I cannot wait for the results...my fingers are crossed! :)
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Can someone please explain to me how the retail photographic industry continues to exist in the UK?? They rape their customers like Vikings on a weekend cruise, in a day-and-age when Fedex puts B&H at everyone's fingertips. This is shameless and pathetic, and you guys just shouldn't take it anymore.
I'll personally smuggle you a 645D for return airfare to London, for a lot less ;)
- N.
You can ask that question more broadly - my general observation about prices based on any window-shopping I've ever done during my many visits to London was simply to call a pound a dollar and the numbers remain the same. Beats me how our friends in the UK manage. The cost of just about everything there looks really high to us when converted into devalued dollars.
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Hi Mark and Nick,
Regarding this asymmetrical lack of sharpness. What makes you think that the issue you are seeing is the result of a back alignement issue instead of being a camera positioning issue?
In the absence of live view, it is my experience that critical camera alignement is very challenging with 6 micro class photosites. Even with liveview it isn't easy.
Cheers,
Bernard
Hi Bernard, yes - our initial thoughts too were along these lines, but we weren't really comfortable with that as a conclusion, because EVEN for MF, when your lens is set at f/8 or f/11, and you're 5~6 meters from a flat subject, and you've taken considerable pains to align the camera as parallel to the wall as you could get it - with some pretty sophisticated gear - you'd want to think that the DoF would be MORE than sufficient to cover-off any minor mishaps of camera alignment. But once you realize that errors in front of the lens are measured in cms and those behind in micro-millimeters in terms of their impact on sharpness, it does seem more reasonable to suspect lens/sensor rather than camera/wall. I'm not coming down hard on one explanation or the other - it's simply that the lens/sensor aspect does seem more plausible in the circumstances.
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Ray, are you a shrink or a photographer? :D
Mark,
I don't believe in strict categories of compartmentalization ;D .
Yesterday I printed a 60 inch pano I shot of the Toronto skyline from a boardwalk around a bend on the waterfront with the Phase-One. It was a stitch of three shots, put together seamlessly in CS5. The total file size is just over a Gig. The pano is stunning if I dare say so myself - for a shot like that NO DSLR would have achieved that kind of detail and clarity for such scene.
I'm curious to know why no DSLR could have achieved that kind of detail and clarity. The P40 has approximately double the pixel count of the 1Ds3, and less than double the pixel count of the A900 and D3X..
A stitch of 3 x P40 images should be roughly equivalent to a stitch of 6 x 1Ds3 images, depending on camera orientation.
Now I accept that the lack of an AA filter on the P40+ (I'm presuming it has no AA filter) might result in some marginal increase in apparent resolution with nose pressed against the print. Perhaps the ventilation grid on an airconditioner sticking out of the wall of an apartment on the Toronto skyline might have more clearly defined edges.
If that's the case, that would be no big deal for me. What's the size of your printer, Mark?
I have a 6ftx2ft print clipped to a board in the living room of my new house. I'm not sure whether to paste it on the new plasterboard, or mount it so it can be easily removed if/when desired.
It consists of 5 stitched images from the Canon 5D of the Himalayas, with camera vertical. The detail is so good from close up, I get the impression if there were a climber on one of the mountain peaks waving an Australian flag, I'd be able to see him. (But maybe not ;D ).
Because the image is so impressive, I've been wondering if I should make it larger. My Epson 7600 can manage only 24" wide prints, so anything larger would have to be segmented with an obvious division.
I see two ways of managing this, and I'm not sure which would be more effective. One is not to attempt to disguise the segmentation, as opposed to creating an imperfect seamless join.
The other is to create a realistic representation of a window frame (photographing the existing windows in my house), and use that as a more natural division of the segments in order to create the effect that one is looking out of a window and seeing a view of the Himalayas. What do you think?
Because of the resolution limitations of the 12.8mp of the 5D, I would be reluctant to make a print larger than 3ft x9ft (from 5 x 5D stitched images). For that, I would want a camera with at least the resolution of a 5D2 or D3X, or even an MFDB.
However, if the situation permits taking multiple rows of images for stitching purposes, I can't imagine needing more resolution than a 5D2 can provide, for my purposes.
Cheers!
-
Mark,
I don't believe in strict categories of compartmentalization ;D .
I'm curious to know why no DSLR could have achieved that kind of detail and clarity. The P40 has approximately double the pixel count of the 1Ds3, and less than double the pixel count of the A900 and D3X..
A stitch of 3 x P40 images should be roughly equivalent to a stitch of 6 x 1Ds3 images, depending on camera orientation.
Now I accept that the lack of an AA filter on the P40+ (I'm presuming it has no AA filter) might result in some marginal increase in apparent resolution with nose pressed against the print. Perhaps the ventilation grid on an airconditioner sticking out of the wall of an apartment on the Toronto skyline might have more clearly defined edges.
If that's the case, that would be no big deal for me. What's the size of your printer, Mark?
I have a 6ftx2ft print clipped to a board in the living room of my new house. I'm not sure whether to paste it on the new plasterboard, or mount it so it can be easily removed if/when desired.
It consists of 5 stitched images from the Canon 5D of the Himalayas, with camera vertical. The detail is so good from close up, I get the impression if there were a climber on one of the mountain peaks waving an Australian flag, I'd be able to see him. (But maybe not ;D ).
Because the image is so impressive, I've been wondering if I should make it larger. My Epson 7600 can manage only 24" wide prints, so anything larger would have to be segmented with an obvious division.
I see two ways of managing this, and I'm not sure which would be more effective. One is not to attempt to disguise the segmentation, as opposed to creating an imperfect seamless join.
The other is to create a realistic representation of a window frame (photographing the existing windows in my house), and use that as a more natural division of the segments in order to create the effect that one is looking out of a window and seeing a view of the Himalayas. What do you think?
Because of the resolution limitations of the 12.8mp of the 5D, I would be reluctant to make a print larger than 3ft x9ft (from 5 x 5D stitched images). For that, I would want a camera with at least the resolution of a 5D2 or D3X, or even an MFDB.
However, if the situation permits taking multiple rows of images for stitching purposes, I can't imagine needing more resolution than a 5D2 can provide, for my purposes.
Cheers!
Ray, these discussions reach a point where making inferences about image quality by comparing superficial data sets simply isn't useful. You need to see the results to appreciate it, and likely me - yours. However, in principle, when you are working with a sensor which provides twice the data, 16 rather than 14 bit depth, no AA filter and other design features - Phase-One's "secret sauce" unique to that product, you are going to get a set of raw images which tolerates more cropping and allows less stitching with larger print sizes at higher output PPI than you can get from any DSLR, and all this added together makes a difference to what you see. You know what - I believe Phase One is organizing one or more of their PODAS Workshops in or not too far from where you are between this year and next. You should check-out their offerings and sign-up for one of them. It will give you a pretty thorough hands-on understanding of what their brand of MF can do and why. You are under no obligation to buy anything they put in your hands to work with. Some attendees do and others don't. It's a great learning experience.
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Ray, these discussions reach a point where making inferences about image quality by comparing superficial data sets simply isn't useful.
Mark, I guess you haven't tracked Ray's MO. He's never used a MFDB but is quick to discount any advantage over DSLRs. He's trying real hard to resist the medium format force...I suggest you resist getting into the arena with him.
As far as the test and results...congrats. Although in the grand scheme of things you would have been better off leaving the 1Ds MIII results out of the loop because of the lens used. Heck even a relatively cheap 50mm F1.4 would have out performed the lens used...
Also, I'm inclined to agree that ultimately, the corner/edge sharpness may come down to the sensor alignment. Depth of Field is one thing (and I agree that F8 should have been enough) but Depth of Focus is super critical. I have an older Canon Rebel that could simply not bring anything into focus on the far left side of the frame (right side of the sensor)...regardless of the subject distance. Rather than try to get it fixed, I just got another upgraded Rebel (that was fine).
The bottom line in terms of IQ is the total system...which includes lens, sensor and ISO, and raw processing. Any of the elements can impact IQ.
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Mark, I guess you haven't tracked Ray's MO. He's never used a MFDB but is quick to discount any advantage over DSLRs. He's trying real hard to resist the medium format force...I suggest you resist getting into the arena with him.
As far as the test and results...congrats. Although in the grand scheme of things you would have been better off leaving the 1Ds MIII results out of the loop because of the lens used. Heck even a relatively cheap 50mm F1.4 would have out performed the lens used...
Also, I'm inclined to agree that ultimately, the corner/edge sharpness may come down to the sensor alignment. Depth of Field is one thing (and I agree that F8 should have been enough) but Depth of Focus is super critical. I have an older Canon Rebel that could simply not bring anything into focus on the far left side of the frame (right side of the sensor)...regardless of the subject distance. Rather than try to get it fixed, I just got another upgraded Rebel (that was fine).
The bottom line in terms of IQ is the total system...which includes lens, sensor and ISO, and raw processing. Any of the elements can impact IQ.
Hi Jeff, thanks, glad you enjoyed the article.
Ray and I have discussed MF previously so I do know where he is coming from and that is why I suggested he should enroll in PODAS - a great learning experience.
When we were preparing the article, we did discuss between ourselves leaving this 1Ds3 result out of the loop as you recommend, but for better or worse, we decided to tell it like we got it. And I tried to balance it with my comments about this camera and lens at the end of my section. That 24_105mm zoom can be a fine lens - despite the existence of sample variability which I'm sure you know well can affect particularly zoom lenses quite a bit, due to problems with alignment of the moving element sections. The sample I have is a very good one. My result in that test was disappointing beyond expectation, and purely out of curiosity it is something I intend to drill down to further as time permits.
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Hi!
Thanks for your suggestion on PODAS. I was considering to rent some equipment for doing my own tests, but it comes at a very significant expense. Taking part in PODAS would be a nice way to learn about MF digital, getting some nice pictures and meeting some nice ladies and gentlemen.
I will consider PODAS workshop next year. Of course there are some boundary conditions, like calendar, checkbook and so on.
Best regards
Erik
Ray, these discussions reach a point where making inferences about image quality by comparing superficial data sets simply isn't useful. You need to see the results to appreciate it, and likely me - yours. However, in principle, when you are working with a sensor which provides twice the data, 16 rather than 14 bit depth, no AA filter and other design features - Phase-One's "secret sauce" unique to that product, you are going to get a set of raw images which tolerates more cropping and allows less stitching with larger print sizes at higher output PPI than you can get from any DSLR, and all this added together makes a difference to what you see. You know what - I believe Phase One is organizing one or more of their PODAS Workshops in or not too far from where you are between this year and next. You should check-out their offerings and sign-up for one of them. It will give you a pretty thorough hands-on understanding of what their brand of MF can do and why. You are under no obligation to buy anything they put in your hands to work with. Some attendees do and others don't. It's a great learning experience.
-
Hi,
Regarding the print size limitation there are probably professional labs around who can make larger prints at reasonable cost. The lab I use here in Sweden has something called Lambda Prefix. The idea is that you make all the work and send a file ready to print to the lab. They print it using Durst Lambda and post it next day. It's without manual intervention so it's quite economical, like 70 USD for a 70x100 cm print.
The Lambda prints are very close to my Epson 3800, so I can use that for proofing. The Durst Lambda prints on photopaper using lasers, so the result is an old fashioned photochemical print. Gamut is significantly smaller than the Epson but the prints are great.
There are some comparable labs in Australia (where you live?), for sure.
Best regards
Erik
Mark,
I don't believe in strict categories of compartmentalization ;D .
I'm curious to know why no DSLR could have achieved that kind of detail and clarity. The P40 has approximately double the pixel count of the 1Ds3, and less than double the pixel count of the A900 and D3X..
A stitch of 3 x P40 images should be roughly equivalent to a stitch of 6 x 1Ds3 images, depending on camera orientation.
Now I accept that the lack of an AA filter on the P40+ (I'm presuming it has no AA filter) might result in some marginal increase in apparent resolution with nose pressed against the print. Perhaps the ventilation grid on an airconditioner sticking out of the wall of an apartment on the Toronto skyline might have more clearly defined edges.
If that's the case, that would be no big deal for me. What's the size of your printer, Mark?
I have a 6ftx2ft print clipped to a board in the living room of my new house. I'm not sure whether to paste it on the new plasterboard, or mount it so it can be easily removed if/when desired.
It consists of 5 stitched images from the Canon 5D of the Himalayas, with camera vertical. The detail is so good from close up, I get the impression if there were a climber on one of the mountain peaks waving an Australian flag, I'd be able to see him. (But maybe not ;D ).
Because the image is so impressive, I've been wondering if I should make it larger. My Epson 7600 can manage only 24" wide prints, so anything larger would have to be segmented with an obvious division.
I see two ways of managing this, and I'm not sure which would be more effective. One is not to attempt to disguise the segmentation, as opposed to creating an imperfect seamless join.
The other is to create a realistic representation of a window frame (photographing the existing windows in my house), and use that as a more natural division of the segments in order to create the effect that one is looking out of a window and seeing a view of the Himalayas. What do you think?
Because of the resolution limitations of the 12.8mp of the 5D, I would be reluctant to make a print larger than 3ft x9ft (from 5 x 5D stitched images). For that, I would want a camera with at least the resolution of a 5D2 or D3X, or even an MFDB.
However, if the situation permits taking multiple rows of images for stitching purposes, I can't imagine needing more resolution than a 5D2 can provide, for my purposes.
Cheers!
-
Can someone please explain to me how the retail photographic industry continues to exist in the UK?? They rape their customers like Vikings on a weekend cruise, in a day-and-age when Fedex puts B&H at everyone's fingertips. This is shameless and pathetic, and you guys just shouldn't take it anymore.
I'll personally smuggle you a 645D for return airfare to London, for a lot less ;)
- N.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that. Generally yes prices are higher for consumer durables in the UK - just compare the price of a MacBook Pro! Specifically on photographic equipment, firstly forget about high street chains like Jessops and Jacobs - they trade on consumer ignorance or apathy. The online market is quite competitive and I know their margins are not that great - if anyone is creaming it the distributors who control how low resellers can go. As you are no doubt aware, manufacturers fix prices in different markets according to what they think they can get away with - the margins they have to play with are pretty substantial. Traditionally they have been able to get away with high prices in the UK. Also, in the UK, MFD is sold in more restricted channels where discounting is less common as they know they are mainly selling to professionals who are looking at the reliability of product back-up as much as the initial purchase price. Also, the first price set by Pentax UK is a bit finger in the wind - the UK professional market is quite conservative and it will take some doing to shift people away from Hasselblad/Phase/Leaf.
A few other points:
1.I think the euro price set by Pentax is similar, taking into account current £/euro rate.
2.You should compare prices net of VAT with US prices net of sales tax - if you are doing well enough as a pro to contemplate MFD, you are likely to be above the VAT registration threshold and will therefore claim VAT back.
3.For a retail customer not sure this is as clear cut anyway. Just looked at B&H price for a Canon 5D2 - $2499 or £1567 @ 1.6 exchange rate. However, this presumably excludes sales tax. If I could get them to ship to me in UK I would presumably have to pay shipping, 17.5% VAT plus import duty. I could of course go over to US and try to smuggle it back but I would still have to pay air fare. However, I can buy 5D2 in UK online for £1561, VAT and shipping included if I pay by bank transfer rather than credit card.
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I would just like to note that with one lens tested on each camera it's not possible to tell whether lens decntring or sensor alignment is at fault. Perhaps if several lenses were tested on one camera and they all leaned the same way on the brick wall, you would be able to conclude that the sensor inside the camera is misaligned.
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Here is a sobering article, which we should all read:
https://www.lensrentals.com/news/2010.03.06/this-lens-is-soft-and-other-facts
Then we should all take a deep breath and think of every inspiring image we have seen in the last year, and remember that all of them were taken with some iteration of this 'flawed' technology :-)
- N.
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Here is a sobering article, which we should all read:
https://www.lensrentals.com/news/2010.03.06/this-lens-is-soft-and-other-facts
Then we should all take a deep breath and think of every inspiring image we have seen in the last year, and remember that all of them were taken with some iteration of this 'flawed' technology :-)
- N.
Thanks! It is nice to see this written by a guy whose business is camera & lens rentals--nothing like calling a spade a spade!
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Can someone please explain to me how the retail photographic industry continues to exist in the UK?? They rape their customers like Vikings on a weekend cruise, in a day-and-age when Fedex puts B&H at everyone's fingertips. This is shameless and pathetic, and you guys just shouldn't take it anymore.
I'll personally smuggle you a 645D for return airfare to London, for a lot less ;)
- N.
Last time I imported a second hand item from the US, import duty and Value Added Tax came to 20%.
I am contemplating jumping on a Euro-star and collect a lens from Brussels.
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Ray, these discussions reach a point where making inferences about image quality by comparing superficial data sets simply isn't useful. You need to see the results to appreciate it, and likely me - yours. However, in principle, when you are working with a sensor which provides twice the data, 16 rather than 14 bit depth, no AA filter and other design features - Phase-One's "secret sauce" unique to that product, you are going to get a set of raw images which tolerates more cropping and allows less stitching with larger print sizes at higher output PPI than you can get from any DSLR, and all this added together makes a difference to what you see. You know what - I believe Phase One is organizing one or more of their PODAS Workshops in or not too far from where you are between this year and next. You should check-out their offerings and sign-up for one of them. It will give you a pretty thorough hands-on understanding of what their brand of MF can do and why. You are under no obligation to buy anything they put in your hands to work with. Some attendees do and others don't. It's a great learning experience.
This brings up one of my favorite quotations:
Lord Kelvin [PLA, vol. 1, "Electrical Units of Measurement", 1883-05-03]
"To measure is to know."
"If you can not measure it, you can not improve it."
"In physical science the first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of Science, whatever the matter may be."
I think that quantitative and qualitative (subjective) testing both have a place. Indeed two of my favorite reviewers (Bjorn and Diglloyd) both do qualitative testing. However, quantitative testing helps us to understand what parameters are really important to image quality and how IQ is subject to the laws of physics. For example, the statement by Michael (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/h3d50ii.shtml#update) that MFDBs have six stops more DR than dSLRs in untenable from a scientific viewpoint as explained in detail by Emil Martinec (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=42158.0), who is a highly published physicist at the University of Chicago. Emil concludes:
"According to the engineering standard the MFDB is still well short of the D3x, however according to a standard more relevant to photography the back comes out slightly better (but less than 1/3 stop), mostly because of the larger sensor area collecting more light over the frame. The difference is not however the many stops DR advantage that some MFDB proponents claim."
I can already anticipate Jeff Schewe's comment that Emil has likely never used the Phase 1 D65+, so his opinion should be discounted. ;)
What the Phase One does have is megapixels, but it is not clear that those pixels are superior to those of a good dSLR such as the Nikon D3x. Diglloyd (a pay site, but well worth the modest fee), compared the D3x to the Leica S2 and concluded that their per pixel performance was similar if deconvolution sharpening was used with the Nikon to counteract the softening produced by the blur filter.
The P65+ may have 16 bit output, but with an engineering DR of 11.51 stops and a tonal range of 9 bits (DXO), those extra two bits are wasted recording noise. The lack of a blur filter improves apparent sharpness but can result in alaising. Why does Nikon go to the expense of using a blur filter (as does Canon and almost all other dSRL makers)? I understand that a blur filter would be prohibitively expensive for a MFDB, so it is really not an option there.
Regards,
Bill
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I think the biggest reason for the differences between the Leica and 1Ds III images was the choice of lenses. The 24-105 is a good enough lens, but doesn't hold up to glass like the 50mm Summilux, especially in the corners. Also keep in mind that at f/8 the 24-105 is only two stops down from wide open. The samples they posted are consistent with my experience for corner performance on that lens.
However it's undeniable the impact the AA filter on the 1Ds III has compared to the M9.
I'm wondering if there was any capture sharpening done in this example. The 24-105 is not that soft. I downloaded the center example and imported into Lightroom and found that with a bit of capture sharpening the example was as crisp as the Leica (almost).
Either there was no capture sharpening at all or only the default sharpening which is very soft was applied. In the Michael Reichmann and Jeff Schewe Lightroom 3 tutorial there is an excellent video on capture sharpening. For anybody who have seen this, it is very clear that using either no or just the default capture sharpening will be missing a lot of details. I suspect that the 1Ds mkIII example was not properly done wrt. the capture sharpening.
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Great post, Bill.
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I'm wondering if there was any capture sharpening done in this example. The 24-105 is not that soft. I downloaded the center example and imported into Lightroom and found that with a bit of capture sharpening the example was as crisp as the Leica (almost).
Hans,
Not sure how much sharpening Mark did on the published image, but I pushed it quite hard (in LR3) and didn't find it came to the level of the Leica at all. There's just not nearly as much detail to sharpen. As i said in the article, one shouldn't make too much of this facet of the test, but the files from the 1DsIII were sub-par, for whatever reason. This was not a technique issue at any stage.
Almost wish we'd have left that part out, because it is a post-script to the principal test, but has taken centre-stage because it's controversial, whereas the main review isn't.
- N.
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Almost wish we'd have left that part out, because it is a post-script to the principal test, but has taken centre-stage because it's controversial, whereas the main review isn't.
- N.
My feelings as well. I understand why the response has been so strong, but it really detracts from the main focus of the report.
Interestingly, no Phase users are objecting-had to add that tweak.
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This brings up one of my favorite quotations:
Lord Kelvin [PLA, vol. 1, "Electrical Units of Measurement", 1883-05-03]
"To measure is to know."
"If you can not measure it, you can not improve it."
"In physical science the first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of Science, whatever the matter may be."
I think that quantitative and qualitative (subjective) testing both have a place. Indeed two of my favorite reviewers (Bjorn and Diglloyd) both do qualitative testing. However, quantitative testing helps us to understand what parameters are really important to image quality and how IQ is subject to the laws of physics. For example, the statement by Michael (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/h3d50ii.shtml#update) that MFDBs have six stops more DR than dSLRs in untenable from a scientific viewpoint as explained in detail by Emil Martinec (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=42158.0), who is a highly published physicist at the University of Chicago. Emil concludes:
"According to the engineering standard the MFDB is still well short of the D3x, however according to a standard more relevant to photography the back comes out slightly better (but less than 1/3 stop), mostly because of the larger sensor area collecting more light over the frame. The difference is not however the many stops DR advantage that some MFDB proponents claim."
I can already anticipate Jeff Schewe's comment that Emil has likely never used the Phase 1 D65+, so his opinion should be discounted. ;)
What the Phase One does have is megapixels, but it is not clear that those pixels are superior to those of a good dSLR such as the Nikon D3x. Diglloyd (a pay site, but well worth the modest fee), compared the D3x to the Leica S2 and concluded that their per pixel performance was similar if deconvolution sharpening was used with the Nikon to counteract the softening produced by the blur filter.
The P65+ may have 16 bit output, but with an engineering DR of 11.51 stops and a tonal range of 9 bits (DXO), those extra two bits are wasted recording noise. The lack of a blur filter improves apparent sharpness but can result in alaising. Why does Nikon go to the expense of using a blur filter (as does Canon and almost all other dSRL makers)? I understand that a blur filter would be prohibitively expensive for a MFDB, so it is really not an option there.
Regards,
Bill
Bill,
Good post! We sometimes need to be reminded of these basic scientific principles of observation and measurement which many people still seem to ignore even centuries after they were first espoused, and despite their having benefited so much from the fruits of such applied principles.
I was a bit surprised at Jeff Schewe's comment implying that one needs to use an MFDB before one can get an idea of the quality of its output. In fact, the remark is quite insulting, implying that some of us may not be smart enough to deduce and imagine the improved image quality one might expect from a larger sensor with a higher pixel count, especially considering the wealth of measurement that is published at DXOMark, which can inform and modify a subjective impression or deduction.
An example of deduction, for Jeff's benefit:
When my best DSLR was the 8mp Canon 20D, I bought a Canon 24mm TS-E, mainly for the purpose of stitching, in those days when stitching programs were not nearly as good as they are today.
I have a number of stitched images from that lens and camera, some of which I've printed big (like, 24" x 40" - not big by Jeff's standards, but appropriately big for the file size) and which hang on a wall. I'm impressed with the clarity and the detail and the subtle shading that is apparent from a close inspection.
On such occasions I remind myself that this is the sort of quality I could expect from a single shot with a 5D2, cropped to the same aspect ratio (except when the camera is horizontal and the aspect ratio is very wide in the 20D stitch - in which case the 5D2 could not compete as a single, cropped shot).
'But what about the pixel quality of the old 20D?', I ask myself. Perhaps the cropped 5D2 image would have better dynamic range, lower noise, superior color rendition.
Okay! Let's have a look at some real measurments. I refer to DXOMark's graphs comparing the 20D with the 5D2, and find, surprise! surprise!, that the 5D2 pixel is no better than the 20D pixel. The differences are so marginal, they are of no consequence in practice. (To see this, you need to go into 'screen' mode which compares pixel with pixel).
So there you have it. A simple process of intelligent deduction.
Of course, the 5D2 has a wealth of other useful qualities which the 20D lacks. This comparison relates only to basic image quality under ideal conditions that might allow for stitching.
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I think it's a well written review, the only thing that stands out as a problem is that it's hard to tell whether the 100% crops posted are actually 100%...
Starting with figures 19, 20 and 21, these are described as 100% crops. But looking at the UI features of Photoshop shown in the edges and corners, these are all different in each in each image, and all heavily shrunk from what one would expect to actually see onscreen. The UI elements in Fig. 19 and 21 are so shrunk as to be illegible.
If the UI elements are shrunk, the 100% crops shown in the screen capture would also have been shrunk, so what we are viewing on the website would be effectively less than 100%. Much less than 100%, for fig. 19 and 21.
Looking at Figure 3, Photoshop's ruler marks peek out from the left edge, and I'm not sure, but these also seem to show the effects of resizing, as the ruler marks are not pixel-sharp. (I just compared them to the rulers on my Photoshop)
So...? ???
I know Mike and the contributors here discourage people from judging image quality onscreen, but if you provided 100% crops in the review, these were provided for a reason (it is at least possible to judge sharpness onscreen, if not colour and contrast), so they should really be 100%?
(this has been hanging around in a separate thread for a whole day. Does nobody care about this "minor technical detail"? And am I the only one to find it odd that the "100% crops" of the 21mp Canon are larger (not just in overall size, but the size of objects shown) than the 40mp MF camera crops shown in Fig. 2-3? To be "fair", they did not mention "100%" until describing the Leica crop in Fig.7.)
(the 100% center crop of the 18MP M9 is exactly the same size as the Fig 2-3 center crops from the 40MP cameras. Fig 4-5 are a bit larger, about equal in size to the 21mp Canon corner crop.)
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Hey! Joseph. Don't spoil the fun ;D . These guys are still exited by possession of their new, expensive cameras.
Don't expect them to get too analytical and serious. Once you've splashed out a lot of dough on a really expensive system, there's a strange reluctance to be completely objective during comparisons with a much less expensive system.
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I just don't understand they are doing this. Do they really have anything to hide?
Here's a 100% crop from the Hasselblad H4D-60. I downloaded the RAW file and did the conversion myself using default settings in Phocus, so I know that this is a real 100% crop :P (EDIT: Phocus defaults to no sharpening. Please see my next post for a sharpened version)
(http://jodoforce.smugmug.com/Other/Demo/100/986340373_dinnY-O.jpg)
Here's a link to a 47mp crop of the 60mp image saved as a size 10 jpeg:
http://jodoforce.smugmug.com/...er/Demo/Job0008prv-crop/986356227_VyDee-O.jpg (http://jodoforce.smugmug.com/...er/Demo/Job0008prv-crop/986356227_VyDee-O.jpg)
(smugmug limits uploaded images to a maximum of 48mp)
Here's where I downloaded the raw file:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=44979.0
Finding a RAW file or 100% crop from an MF camera is harder than pulling teeth, but from that one sample I could find it does seem to live up to the hype. If some random guy taking test shots with his new MF camera can achieve this level of sharpness, surely Mark and Nick can do no worse?
And yet this "shootout" makes me wonder if any of the (very few) purported "100% crops" from MF cameras I saw on this site were actually 100% crops. ???
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:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Ah, the old "Electrical Units of Measurement" quotation.
Don't we just love it!
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Here's a 100% crop from the Hasselblad H4D-60. I downloaded the RAW file and did the conversion myself using default settings in Phocus, so I know that this is a real 100% crop :P
I do not know why your 100% crop looks so soft... does this look any better?
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Hans,
Not sure how much sharpening Mark did on the published image, but I pushed it quite hard (in LR3) and didn't find it came to the level of the Leica at all. There's just not nearly as much detail to sharpen. As i said in the article, one shouldn't make too much of this facet of the test, but the files from the 1DsIII were sub-par, for whatever reason. This was not a technique issue at any stage.
Almost wish we'd have left that part out, because it is a post-script to the principal test, but has taken centre-stage because it's controversial, whereas the main review isn't.
- N.
I agree on either leaving it out or have done it "properly" meaning a representative of what the 1Ds mkIII actually delivers.
But could you give us the exact capture sharpening parameters in LR 3 that was used in the article? That would be interesting to know.
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I do not know why your 100% crop looks so soft... does this look any better?
Like I said, I simply downloaded the raw file, I can't vouch for the technique or the equipment of the photographer. But I think you'll find that it is plenty sharp... with sharpening applied:
(http://jodoforce.smugmug.com/Other/Demo/eye-100-300/1096681827_GwVWs-O.jpg)
I think this shows that the underlying pixel quality is there, but also demonstrates the importance of knowing the sharpening parameters used. (in my case it was the defaults, 100% 1px in Phocus for the original crop. EDIT: NO, checked Phocus again, moved the sharpening slider around with no effect--I had left it unticked, which was the default. There was no sharpening on the original crop.) Hard to quantify the sharpening in the current crop--it is based on a 300% 1px USM, but heavily masked using my own Photoshop action to prevent oversharpening halos and blowouts.)
Note to KLaban: I do not vouch for the artistic or technical qualities of samples I simply downloaded. And I think nobody is interested in seeing a 100% crop of a hung-over eyeball--or a brick wall--except for the fact that they are 100% crops and may give one insight into the pixel sharpness of a particular camera. If they aren't 100% crops, as I suspect for the review article images, then they are just some very uninteresting images of small parts of a brick wall that has no artistic merit nor impart any useful information about the pixel sharpness of the cameras used to shoot them.
I know you're not interested in another eyeball but the last thing I want is to be labelled an MF slammer here for posting an unsharp MF image sample without sharpening!
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Joseph, the problem with your upload - apart from it being yet another hung-over eyeball - is it appeared soft when it would seem you were aiming to show just the opposite. Also there was no reference to the original which rendered the uploads meaningless. Was this a really tight face shot, a head and shoulders shot, a full length shot...
Ahem...
Here's a link to a 47mp crop of the 60mp image saved as a size 10 jpeg:
http://jodoforce.smugmug.com/...er/Demo/Job0008prv-crop/986356227_VyDee-O.jpg (http://jodoforce.smugmug.com/...er/Demo/Job0008prv-crop/986356227_VyDee-O.jpg)
(smugmug limits uploaded images to a maximum of 48mp)
Here's where I downloaded the raw file:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=44979.0
And still nobody seems to give a hoot about the resized images posing as 100% crops in the "shootout".
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Honestly? They both look like shite.
Is there anyone here who is actually capable of using a pee65 or aitch60?
Is there anyone here who is remotely interested in posting a half decent 100% crop of a hung-over eyeball?
Is there anyone here who is remotely interested in seeing a half decent 100% crop of a hung-over eyeball?
Keith, if you look closely at the first eyeball, you'll see that it was shot with one of those revolutionary 2 o'clock flash units, not ideal for beauty.
Rob C
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And still nobody seems to give a hoot about the resized images posing as 100% crops in the "shootout".
Not so, just waiting for a response from the author(s), they are the only ones who know what really happened. The crops were undoubtedly screen captures, thus 100% crops, but it seems like the images shown in the essay were resampled further. That would make them less useful as comparison material, to put it mildly.
The addition of the (M9, and the) 1Ds3 with an average zoom lens, is unfortunate because it distracts, and gives a wrong impression. Here (http://www.xs4all.nl/~bvdwolf/temp/7640_CO40_FM1-175pct_sRGB.jpg) is an IMHO more representative 1Ds3 example (full size), but also not the main topic of the comparison.
As always, a lot depends on (proper) capture sharpening, which makes such comparisons difficult when there is no possibility for quantitative evaluation. I can make a simple test target available that doesn't care about the seasons or wind, should there be an interest. It also gives an impression of the Raw converter's ability to avoid false color moiré, especially important for those shooting fabric.
Cheers,
Bart
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The addition of the (M9, and the) 1Ds3 with an average zoom lens, is unfortunate because it distracts, and gives a wrong impression. Here (http://www.xs4all.nl/~bvdwolf/temp/7640_CO40_FM1-175pct_sRGB.jpg) is an IMHO more representative 1Ds3 example (full size), but also not the main topic of the comparison.
Bart,
Was that shot with the 90T/S ? Nice frame, and it holds up to pixel peeping very nicely. Given my very short test of a 1Ds Mark III last year, it's what I would have expected.
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I think this shows that the underlying pixel quality is there, but also demonstrates the importance of knowing the sharpening parameters used. (in my case it was the defaults, 100% 1px in Phocus for the original crop. EDIT: NO, checked Phocus again, moved the sharpening slider around with no effect--I had left it unticked, which was the default. There was no sharpening on the original crop.) Hard to quantify the sharpening in the current crop--it is based on a 300% 1px USM, but heavily masked using my own Photoshop action to prevent oversharpening halos and blowouts.)
Thanks for the info... mine was ticked Phocus sharpening, I think at the default settings for portraiture. (I took it at a Hasselblad event with a 120 macro and an H4D-40). further sharpening in Phocus improves the hair and eyelashes but makes the nose look awful (I was short of DOF) - a case for masked sharpening like you used.
It prompts the question "Do you assess the camera or the expertly finished end product?"
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Bart,
Was that shot with the 90T/S ? Nice frame, and it holds up to pixel peeping very nicely. Given my very short test of a 1Ds Mark III last year, it's what I would have expected.
Yes, that's with the TS-E 90 mm @ f/7.1 . I used Capture One as Raw converter (extracted the most detail from the 1Ds3 Raws) without sharpening, and I used FocusMagic for the capture sharpening.
Cheers,
Bart
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It also prompts the question "Are we assessing the camera, the end product or the shortcomings of the people behind the cameras?"
Ah, Keith, if we exclude the last in the group, we may as well all go back to watching the tv. It's always the human element that throws the googly!
And how to assess the first two without the last?
As I have concluded in the past, nobody else can really do the testing for us. Unfortunately! Or maybe not; depends on what you want tested.
Rob C
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Hi,
Which of course gets us into proper sharpening. Sharpening affects noise, doesn't it? I guess sharpening methods differ a lot and FocusMagic may be one of the better ones in this regard. Would sharpening affect SNR and DR either in the physical or metaphysical (perceived) sense?
Best regards
Erik
Yes, that's with the TS-E 90 mm @ f/7.1 . I used Capture One as Raw converter (extracted the most detail from the 1Ds3 Raws) without sharpening, and I used FocusMagic for the capture sharpening.
Cheers,
Bart
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Would sharpening affect SNR and DR either in the physical or metaphysical (perceived) sense?
Hi Erik,
Depends on the sharpening method, and the noise spectrum. Random (white) noise has a power spectrum that goes from low spatial frequencies to high spatial frequencies. Deconvolution sharpening is usually restricted to a limited range, most likely the highest spatial frequencies, so the noise there will be boosted with the signal while leaving the rest alone. However, there are methods that specifically seek to boost the signal more than the noise, thus increasing the S/N ratio at the targeted spatial frequencies. The adaptive version of the Richardson Lucy algorithm is an example of such an algorithm, and FocusMagic also does a good job.
This manifests itself as a boost of the MTF curve especially at the highest spatial frequencies, near the Nyquist frequency, while lower spatial frequencies benefit much less. So with a proper algorithm, the benefits are greater than the drawbacks, and it results in visibly restored resolution.
Cheers,
Bart
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At last we have an example that does justice to the capture device.
Bart, thank you.
And more!
Would have also been interesting to know which optic was used, not that I'm about to swap over to C from N, or anything much else, to be honest about it; but interesting knowledge to have, regardless.
I did note the bricks.
;-)
Rob C
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Rob, see above.
As my wife used to say when I didn't know where I thought she'd hidden my things: Rob, have you tried looking under your nose?
Thanks!
Rob C
P.S. If I thought that the Nikkor 24mm tiltshifter could be as good, I'd be sorely tempted. But then, I always am. Tempted, I mean.
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At last we have an example that does justice to the capture device.
Bart, thank you.
You're welcome. But it was not my intention to hyjack the tread, just to show that there are no bad cameras when the proper technique is used, which obviously wasn't the case with the example in the original test. Lenses can make a lot of difference, as does proper Raw conversion and capture sharpening (especially with an AA-filter fitted setup).
Cheers,
Bart
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And with that, let's bring the discussion back on topic--not that the important people feel like participating, it seems.
Since no clarification from the writers is forthcoming, I'll assume the worst for now and suppose they shrunk the images because no more detail could be seen at higher magnification. ::)
Since the centre and corner crops of the Canon were taken from roughly the same location as the MF backs, I'll assume that FOV of the images were the same, so 100% crops from two cameras with the same MP count would have the same magnification.
So without further ado...
(http://jodoforce.smugmug.com/Other/Demo/1Ds3P40-small/1097839121_fQtCX-O.jpg)
Comparing the P40+ crop and the 1Ds3 crop, supposing the 1Ds3 crop was 100%, then if the P40+ crop were 100%, the P40+ would be a 13.3MP camera. Ya think? ;)
(http://jodoforce.smugmug.com/Other/Demo/1Ds3P40-equal/1097839120_zaZwQ-O.jpg)
If the magnifications were the same, the P40+ would be a 21MP camera just like the Canon...
(http://jodoforce.smugmug.com/Other/Demo/1Ds3P40-40/1097839122_u845E-O.jpg)
And finally, this is the size one would have expected the P40+ 100% crop to be if it's a 40MP camera and the FOV are the same.
And until I see a clarification from the people that matter, I'll suppose that's how the P40+ looks like at 100%. :D
(edit: P40+ crops resized using Photoshop standard bicubic (neither smoother nor sharper), for anyone who cares. The resizes were 125.6% to get up to 21MP size and 173.37% to get up to 40MP size. 13.3*(125.6%^2)=21MP, 13.3*(173.37%^2)=40MP)
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Joseph, as you amply demonstrated, it is difficult to compare photos on screen from cameras with different megapixels, especially with regards to resolution. Perhaps the authors of the article will explain their procedure for the crops included in the article. Without an explanation, it's probable that some people will draw misleading conclusions when comparing the crops. I suspect that this crop difficulty has much more influence on the perceived short comings of the Canon sample than does the choice of lens.
I also noticed that many of the photos have an embedded color profile for what appears to be Mark's monitor rather than sRGB, aRGB or ProPhoto. Using a monitor profile seems like an unusual choice. Perhaps the authors of the article could explain why they chose to use the monitor profile, or perhaps it was inadvertent.
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Hmmm...
I do not know why all this cropping with a Canon compared to a P40+ has any relevance to the Pentax 645D.
Can we stay on topic? Maybe a new thread addressing that isolated issue would produced many more comments and examples for the Canon users to compare. Just a thought.
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It WAS in another thread, but was completely ignored there. :-\
It is on-topic because a possibly valid proposition, e.g., the 645D is a great camera, is weakened by false supporting arguments. Now the whole article, which was almost certainly done in good faith, comes across as an exercise in self-justification.
Best,
Matt
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Matt, I don’t understand how the presence or absence of any report of the Canon affects the validity of the 645D/Phase comparison. If Nick and Mark were to edit out all reference to the Canon, would the comparison of the MFD cameras then be valid? Although you can suggest that Nick is motivated by self-justification that certainly wouldn’t be the case for Mark, who recently parted with considerable cash for the Phase. Oh, I forgot, it has already been pointed out that he unconsciously caused the Canon to perform poorly to reduce any cogitative dissonance over his Phase purchase.
Really this has gotten quite silly. Two guys test their cameras as well as they can, take the trouble to write a report for our free enjoyment and they get skewered.
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It doesn't affect the 645D/Phase comparison. It does affect the credibility of the authors. That isn't silly or irrelevant. If an article displays either poor technique or outright bias in one area, doesn't that alter your opinion of the rest? It's sad because the rest of the comparison is so well done. By leaving out the Canon bashing they would have done this site a great service by enhancing its credibility.
And I did not suggest that the authors were motivated by self-justification. Please read what I wrote.
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I can see why Michael gave up on the pixel-peeping reviews. :)
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Matt, I don’t understand how the presence or absence of any report of the Canon affects the validity of the 645D/Phase comparison. If Nick and Mark were to edit out all reference to the Canon, would the comparison of the MFD cameras then be valid? Although you can suggest that Nick is motivated by self-justification that certainly wouldn’t be the case for Mark, who recently parted with considerable cash for the Phase. Oh, I forgot, it has already been pointed out that he unconsciously caused the Canon to perform poorly to reduce any cogitative dissonance over his Phase purchase.
Really this has gotten quite silly. Two guys test their cameras as well as they can, take the trouble to write a report for our free enjoyment and they get skewered.
The point is not that they've stacked the deck against Canon. The point is that the 645D and P40+ 100% crops in the articles are not 100% crops. (More like 57%) They are useless for judging pixel quality. If you take a 57% crop and take that as the pixel quality at 100%, you're massively overestimating the pixel quality of both the 645D or the P40+. Forget the Canon. For all we know the 645D could have been massively superior to the P40+, or the other way round, we just can't see it. Of course, you could just take Nick and Mark's words for everything, in which case I don't know why they bothered to post any pictures at all.
(http://www.luminous-landscape.com/articleImages/1-Fig_19_45mm_center_sharpness.jpg)
"seen at 100% screen magnification..." the title bars in my Photoshop window are about 300% the size of this "100% crop" in each direction...
OK, this will be my last post in this thread until I hear back from Nick and Mark.
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I'm wondering if there was any capture sharpening done in this example. The 24-105 is not that soft. I downloaded the center example and imported into Lightroom and found that with a bit of capture sharpening the example was as crisp as the Leica (almost).
Either there was no capture sharpening at all or only the default sharpening which is very soft was applied. In the Michael Reichmann and Jeff Schewe Lightroom 3 tutorial there is an excellent video on capture sharpening. For anybody who have seen this, it is very clear that using either no or just the default capture sharpening will be missing a lot of details. I suspect that the 1Ds mkIII example was not properly done wrt. the capture sharpening.
For your information, all images were capture sharpened using Photokit Sharpener hi-res digital, leaving the contours and the pass through layers all at their default opacities.
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The lack of a blur filter improves apparent sharpness but can result in alaising. Why does Nikon go to the expense of using a blur filter (as does Canon and almost all other dSRL makers)? I understand that a blur filter would be prohibitively expensive for a MFDB, so it is really not an option there.
Regards,
Bill
The Leica M9 isn't MF, but it also has no AA filter. I think this is a matter of design philosophy (sizing-up the relative value of the trade-offs) and marketing. There are hardware and software approaches to this problem - when it occurs.
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For your information, all images were capture sharpened using Photokit Sharpener hi-res digital, leaving the contours and the pass through layers all at their default opacities.
One of the main differences between the MFs is the software they come with... If you were doing a comparative test between 400hp super-cars, would you insist on testing them all with mini tyres?
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Not so, just waiting for a response from the author(s), they are the only ones who know what really happened. The crops were undoubtedly screen captures, thus 100% crops, but it seems like the images shown in the essay were resampled further. That would make them less useful as comparison material, to put it mildly.
Yes, screen captures of the image magnified "a la Photoshop" to 100%. Because what emerges from this process is a JPEG which is then up-loaded to the internet, for sure there is much compression. Nonetheless, the impression you get from looking at the images on this web forum is reasonably similar in a comparative sense to the impression you get seeing the actual images on display at 100%. Not perfectly so, but decent enough to confirm what we told you in the text.
As for the 1DsMk3, i use it extensively with the Canon 24~105 L lens and I consider this lens to be FAR ABOVE average, as have other reviewers and users. We exercised our judgment about whether to include the FF stuff in an essentially MF review, and we decided on balance of the pros and cons to do it - some will agree that it has merit, while others will disagree - so be it. We have already been around this issue here, and in the article, so I really have nothing more to add on that matter.
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Hey! Joseph. Don't spoil the fun ;D . These guys are still exited by possession of their new, expensive cameras.
Don't expect them to get too analytical and serious. Once you've splashed out a lot of dough on a really expensive system, there's a strange reluctance to be completely objective during comparisons with a much less expensive system.
But my expectations of you were better than this. You are supposed to be a seasoned professional photographer who can see objectively without personalizing issues using phoney psyc-101 non-insights. Obviously, despite the content and context of this article you remain completely clueless about the mindsets brought to bear on its research and preparation. Comments of this ilk don't belong on this website because they contribute NOTHING to learning and understanding, and this site and forum are meant to be about that.
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One of the main differences between the MFs is the software they come with... If you were doing a comparative test between 400hp super-cars, would you insist on testing them all with mini tyres?
In Photokit Sharpener "hi-res" is one category for all images above a certain resolution level as explained in the documentation. There is no received theory or practice about the merits or techniques of adjusting opacities for different sensor formats. The pixel pitch of a P40+ back is pretty much the same as the pixel pitch of a Pentax 645D sensor is pretty much the same as the pixel pitch for the 1Ds3, Leica's being larger but needing less sharpening out of the box than any of the others.
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I also noticed that many of the photos have an embedded color profile for what appears to be Mark's monitor rather than sRGB, aRGB or ProPhoto. Using a monitor profile seems like an unusual choice. Perhaps the authors of the article could explain why they chose to use the monitor profile, or perhaps it was inadvertent.
The colour space of the original converted images is ProPhoto RGB.
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It WAS in another thread, but was completely ignored there. :-\
It is on-topic because a possibly valid proposition, e.g., the 645D is a great camera, is weakened by false supporting arguments. Now the whole article, which was almost certainly done in good faith, comes across as an exercise in self-justification.
Best,
Matt
Did it occur to you that people may have other things pre-occupying their time rather than giving you 24/7 instant answers on a totally voluntary undertaking such as a web forum?
As for the pseudo-psyc 101, see my comment to Ray; but he's been around here for a long time; being a Newbie with 2 posts, maybe we can steer you into a more productive mode of participation on this forum.
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If an article displays either poor technique or outright bias in one area, doesn't that alter your opinion of the rest? It's sad because the rest of the comparison is so well done. By leaving out the Canon bashing they would have done this site a great service by enhancing its credibility.
And I did not suggest that the authors were motivated by self-justification. Please read what I wrote.
There was no "Canon bashing". The technique used for all the images was identical in terms of the approach used to maximize image quality from all the cameras used. I too was surprised by the Canon outcome, because I use this camera all the time regardless of that the fact that I own a Phase-One; there are all kinds of situations in which it makes more sense to use a DSLR than an MF. If you read the article to completion, you would have seen the comment in the conclusion about the kind of performance I expect - and normally get from the Canon. We had a choice of either including what we got in that particular session or leaving it out. We chose to objectively report on exactly what was achieved then and there, but publish a qualifier along with it. By the way, would you mind your revealing your name and your credentials to be making speculative comments about poor technique or bias?
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Glad you're back Mark. I was biting my tongue the entire week that you were away and while the kids had their say.
What is it about the net that allows what are likely otherwise civil adults to posture so aggressively?
Michael
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In many ways the more relevant and more interesting comparison would have been between the Leica S2 and the Pentax.
There again I don't think it would be worth bothering, the differences in such a test would be minimal at 100% on screen and virtually invisible in print.
Absolutly! Those 2 cameras are natural competitors.
But now let's get serious for awhile.
And finally, I was thinking about that Pentax and I'm disapointed really.
-it doesn't cook
-it doesn't display my road on gps
-it doesn't have smile and sunset detection
-it doesn't integrate with my fancy I.phones, I.pods, I.pads, and does not have an apple logo anywhere
-it doesn't exists in pink color like the Kx
-it doesn't have a Lamborghini limited version
-and...it's cheap. :o
all that is not serious at all for such a brand.
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Glad you're back Mark. I was biting my tongue the entire week that you were away and while the kids had their say.
What is it about the net that allows what are likely otherwise civil adults to posture so aggressively?
Michael
An interesting question indeed, particularly about the underlying presumption. Inner self, outer self, what's the mask, what's the reality - not so clear. Perhaps requiring real names and full disclosure would help?
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Absolutly! Those 2 cameras are natural competitors.
But now let's get serious for awhile.
And finally, I was thinking about that Pentax and I'm disapointed really.
-it doesn't cook
-it doesn't display my road on gps
-it doesn't have smile and sunset detection
-it doesn't integrate with my fancy I.phones, I.pods, I.pads, and does not have an apple logo anywhere
-it doesn't exists in pink color like the Kx
-it doesn't have a Lamborghini limited version
-and...it's cheap. :o
all that is not serious at all for such a brand.
AH - at last! A breath of fresh air and a real perspective on the things that matter in camera design! Thanks Fred. :-)
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Glad you're back Mark. I was biting my tongue the entire week that you were away and while the kids had
Michael
First of all, i think it was a very nice and informative review -- thanks Nick, Mark, and Michael.
However, irrespective of whether joseph is a 'newbie' or not, he did seem to have a valid point that there is something wrong with the 100% crops. And after reading the responses it seems to me that the authors have not addressed this - right? it is fine if a mistake was made, but it would be good to confirm this. Anyway, I am quite interested in the results -- not everyone has the opportunity to work with such amazing cameras :-)
Thanks again for taking time to do such review.
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But my expectations of you were better than this. You are supposed to be a seasoned professional photographer who can see objectively without personalizing issues using phoney psyc-101 non-insights. Obviously, despite the content and context of this article you remain completely clueless about the mindsets brought to bear on its research and preparation. Comments of this ilk don't belong on this website because they contribute NOTHING to learning and understanding, and this site and forum are meant to be about that.
I see that I have upset you Mark. Sorry! But I did use smileys.
On a serious note, I do genuinely get the impression there's an element of self-deception amongst many photographers extolling the benefits of MFDB systems.
Take the issue of the AA filter for example. I remember well, a few years ago on this forum, when the question was first posed, 'Why do DSLRs need an AA filter but DBs don't?'
The answer that made at least some sense, but wasn't entirely satisfactory, was that experienced and professional photographers, who would be the sort of people most likely to use MFDB systems, could be expected to have the knowledge, understanding and competence to deal with moire and aliasing issues whenever they arose, using whatever software that was available to fix the problem.
However, most amateurs buying DSLRs, might think there was something wrong with their camera on first seeing a few examples of obvious cases of moire. They might return their camera as being faulty.
This might be a plausible explanation in relation to the prosumer, cropped-fromat DSLR, but really doesn't explain why the significantly more expensive Canon 1Ds series of FF DSLR, aimed at the professional, also needs an AA filter.
The explanation that the primary reason why DBs (and the Leicas) do not have AA filters is because they would make the already-very-expensive camera or back even more expensive, sounds a much more plausible explanation to me.
Of course, marketing has a role to play here. If the disadvantages of not having an AA filter are perceived by many as outweighing the advantages, then work has to be done extolling the virtues of a lack of AA filter whilst downplaying the obvious disadvantages of moire problems.
This is what appears to have happened. That marginal, extra crispness of a good DB image where moire is not a problem, can also be easily confused with the generally higher resolution that the MFDB produces as a result of its greater pixel count.
When I first checked out the MaxMax site to see what a 5D image looks like when the camera's AA filter is removed, I was very disappointed in the degree of improvement. It was noticeable, but strictly for pixel-peepers in my opinion.
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The Leica M9 isn't MF, but it also has no AA filter. I think this is a matter of design philosophy (sizing-up the relative value of the trade-offs) and marketing. There are hardware and software approaches to this problem - when it occurs.
Mark,
Yes, but the M9 is not a dSLR and, because of the short lens to sensor distance, there might not be room for one. Remember, with the M8 there was not even room for an IR filter. One can reduce the color effects in Moire, but the actual aliasing is very difficult to remove. The old Kodak full frame dSLR also didn't have a blur filter and it was notorious for moire. As you say, there are trade offs. One can pay to have the blur filter removed from a dSLR, but few do.
Regards,
Bill
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I see that I have upset you Mark. Sorry! But I did use smileys.
On a serious note, I do genuinely get the impression there's an element of self-deception amongst many photographers extolling the benefits of MFDB systems.
Take the issue of the AA filter for example. I remember well, a few years ago on this forum, when the question was first posed, 'Why do DSLRs need an AA filter but DBs don't?'
The answer that made at least some sense, but wasn't entirely satisfactory, was that experienced and professional photographers, who would be the sort of people most likely to use MFDB systems, could be expected to have the knowledge, understanding and competence to deal with moire and aliasing issues whenever they arose, using whatever software that was available to fix the problem.
However, most amateurs buying DSLRs, might think there was something wrong with their camera on first seeing a few examples of obvious cases of moire. They might return their camera as being faulty.
This might be a plausible explanation in relation to the prosumer, cropped-fromat DSLR, but really doesn't explain why the significantly more expensive Canon 1Ds series of FF DSLR, aimed at the professional, also needs an AA filter.
The explanation that the primary reason why DBs (and the Leicas) do not have AA filters is because they would make the already-very-expensive camera or back even more expensive, sounds a much more plausible explanation to me.
Of course, marketing has a role to play here. If the disadvantages of not having an AA filter are perceived by many as outweighing the advantages, then work has to be done extolling the virtues of a lack of AA filter whilst downplaying the obvious disadvantages of moire problems.
This is what appears to have happened. That marginal, extra crispness of a good DB image where moire is not a problem, can also be easily confused with the generally higher resolution that the MFDB produces as a result of its greater pixel count.
When I first checked out the MaxMax site to see what a 5D image looks like when the camera's AA filter is removed, I was very disappointed in the degree of improvement. It was noticeable, but strictly for pixel-peepers in my opinion.
I would need to be shown concrete evidence that cost is an issue for an AA filter in a high-end camera system whatever the size of the sensor. The more likely explanation why it is almost so universally used in the sub-MF formats is that the manufacturers simply don't want to deal with torrent of complaints they would get from moire, etc. if there were no AA filter. By the time we get to MF the market is so thin, and the people buying them are so comparatively well enough equipped to handle this issue without complaining, that the manufacturers need not fear massive consumer reaction. I think there is a tendency in discussions to exaggerate the strength of these filters and the impact they have on the images. For all we know, it could be a very mild filtering which has only a modest impact on overall sharpness and easily enough compensated in Capture sharpening. So I'm not surprised by your observation on the 5D.
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First of all, i think it was a very nice and informative review -- thanks Nick, Mark, and Michael.
However, irrespective of whether joseph is a 'newbie' or not, he did seem to have a valid point that there is something wrong with the 100% crops. And after reading the responses it seems to me that the authors have not addressed this - right? it is fine if a mistake was made, but it would be good to confirm this. Anyway, I am quite interested in the results -- not everyone has the opportunity to work with such amazing cameras :-)
Thanks again for taking time to do such review.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed the review and got something useful out of it.
If people are making valid, constructive points it is irrelevant to me whether they are new to the forum or not. My concern is with the substance. The judgmental issue concerning the crops and how they display in the article is whether they provide a reasonably correct comparative picture of what we are describing in the text. Only the people who have seen the original images can make this determination with confidence. Sorry, but - inevitably- that's just how it is. We are of the view that we've provided valid comparative visual guidance with these images, and unless it can be proven otherwise, I'll leave the discussion of this tangent at that.
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Mark,
Yes, but the M9 is not a dSLR and, because of the short lens to sensor distance, there might not be room for one. Remember, with the M8 there was not even room for an IR filter. One can reduce the color effects in Moire, but the actual aliasing is very difficult to remove. The old Kodak full frame dSLR also didn't have a blur filter and it was notorious for moire. As you say, there are trade offs. One can pay to have the blur filter removed from a dSLR, but few do.
Regards,
Bill
Interesting points Bill. As you may know, Capture One has a Moire filter - the second to last tool of the Details panel. It allows us to adjust for the amount and the pattern, quite effectively.
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Mark and Nick,
I just want to say thank you for a very clear, very informative, and thoroughly enjoyable review and "shootout." You both did a fine job, and described very clearly what you were doing. For those of us who can read English, there were no problems at all. Please don't let the Monday morning quarterbacks and Pixel Partiers get on your nerves!
Cheers,
Eric
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Mark and Nick,
I just want to say thank you for a very clear, very informative, and thoroughly enjoyable review and "shootout." You both did a fine job, and described very clearly what you were doing. For those of us who can read English, there were no problems at all. Please don't let the Monday morning quarterbacks and Pixel Partiers get on your nerves!
Cheers,
Eric
You are welcome Eric; glad you enjoyed it and found it useful. And indeed, no sleep is being lost at this end of the conversation. We go into these excursions of technical curiosity kind of anticipating the full spectrum of commentary on the way out. :-)
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I would need to be shown concrete evidence that cost is an issue for an AA filter in a high-end camera system whatever the size of the sensor. The more likely explanation why it is almost so universally used in the sub-MF formats is that the manufacturers simply don't want to deal with torrent of complaints they would get from moire, etc. if there were no AA filter. By the time we get to MF the market is so thin, and the people buying them are so comparatively well enough equipped to handle this issue without complaining, that the manufacturers need not fear massive consumer reaction.
The Pentax representatives I had spoken with in March in Japan told me the same thing. They had first considered adding a AA filter to the sensor because of concerns with digital artifacts (moire being one of them) but testing showed that they could manage to control these through adequate processing and that the overall outcome was in their opinion superior for the landscape applications they are targeting.
Besides, we all know that the specification of a piece of gear (price being one of them) is a key consideration in the purchasing decision of many people, sometimes regardless of the measured performance of the equipment (high end Audio is a wonderful example where high spec and high price do most of the selling). I believe that many MF shooters would not even have considered the 645D had it had an AA filter, again regardless of the actual performance. They had no choice anyway. :)
Regards,
Bernard
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The judgmental issue concerning the crops and how they display in the article is whether they provide a reasonably correct comparative picture of what we are describing in the text. Only the people who have seen the original images can make this determination with confidence. Sorry, but - inevitably- that's just how it is. We are of the view that we've provided valid comparative visual guidance with these images, and unless it can be proven otherwise, I'll leave the discussion of this tangent at that.
Thanks Mark for your clarification. This seems fair enough.
I hope you and Nick can get your hands on a S2 too and do a shootout between the three :-)
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The Pentax representatives I had spoken with in March in Japan told me the same thing. They had first considered adding a AA filter to the sensor because of concerns with digital artifacts (moire being one of them) but testing showed that they could manage to control these through adequate processing and that the overall outcome was in their opinion superior for the landscape applications they are targeting.
Besides, we all know that the specification of a piece of gear (price being one of them) is a key consideration in the purchasing decision of many people, sometimes regardless of the measured performance of the equipment (high end Audio is a wonderful example where high spec and high price do most of the selling). I believe that many MF shooters would not even have considered the 645D had it had an AA filter, again regardless of the actual performance. They had no choice anyway. :)
Regards,
Bernard
This is very strange indeed, Bernard. If the cost of adding an AA filter is not a major issue, and manufacturers of MFDB equipment can adequately control the effects of aliasing in software, one wonders why manufacturers of top-end DSLRs cannot do the same.
Doesn't make sense to me, but of course I'm rational.
I would never buy anything on the basis that the high price alone indicated it was a superior product.
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Hi,
I have looked at a lot of Leica S2 sample pictures on Lloyd Chambers DAP site. In many cases color moiré is quit obvious on those images. Stopping down to f/11 eliminates the problem by and large. On the other hand, the Leica lenses seem to be close to diffraction limited at f/5.6. The moiré effects are ugly at actual pixels but I don't know if they would be visible in prints. The kind of areas they show up are thin details with relatively high contrast, tree branches, straws of grass and so on.
As a comment on what Bernard says, AA-filtered images require significantly more sharpening than non filtered images. The recommendation is like 300-500% at very small radius. That kind of sharpening also affects noise, which we can reduce by applying capture sharpening with some edge masking.
This may be one of the small almost mythical effects that possibly give MF an appearance of better image quality.
- Resolution (in terms of LP per picture height is higher)
- More modulation is transferred for a small feature of give size because MTF is higher at lower frequencies
- The image is smoother because less sharpening is needed
It may be that neither of the above factors is decisive but the combined advantages may turn into a significant improvement of perceived image quality.
Note also that none of the above factors is measured by DxO-mark! This may also explain why MFDBs perform so well at low ISO but far less optimally at high ISO. The sensor may be a bit more noisy than CMOS DSLR sensors on it's own. But, on DSLR we need to apply more excessive sharpening that amplifies noise. At higher ISOs the readout noise in CCDs may get obvious even with the small amount of sharpening needed MFDBs.
Best regards
Erik
The Pentax representatives I had spoken with in March in Japan told me the same thing. They had first considered adding a AA filter to the sensor because of concerns with digital artifacts (moire being one of them) but testing showed that they could manage to control these through adequate processing and that the overall outcome was in their opinion superior for the landscape applications they are targeting.
Besides, we all know that the specification of a piece of gear (price being one of them) is a key consideration in the purchasing decision of many people, sometimes regardless of the measured performance of the equipment (high end Audio is a wonderful example where high spec and high price do most of the selling). I believe that many MF shooters would not even have considered the 645D had it had an AA filter, again regardless of the actual performance. They had no choice anyway. :)
Regards,
Bernard
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As a comment on what Bernard says, AA-filtered images require significantly more sharpening than non filtered images. The recommendation is like 300-500% at very small radius. That kind of sharpening also affects noise, which we can reduce by applying capture sharpening with some edge masking.
Indeed. This is why very low noise at base ISO is one important characteristics of DSLR sensors. It does affect the ability to sharpen and therefore the perceived resolution.
It should be clear by now that perceived resolution is affected both by the native lack of softness but also by the extend to which softness can be compensated by sharpening without introducing unwanted side effects.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Mark,
Yes, but the M9 is not a dSLR and, because of the short lens to sensor distance, there might not be room for one. Remember, with the M8 there was not even room for an IR filter. One can reduce the color effects in Moire, but the actual aliasing is very difficult to remove. The old Kodak full frame dSLR also didn't have a blur filter and it was notorious for moire. As you say, there are trade offs. One can pay to have the blur filter removed from a dSLR, but few do.
The M8 did have an IR filter, though not an AA filter. (A mistake often made -- even the Wiki says there was no IR filter.) The filter was simply not strong enough, necessitating the use of the on-lens filters.
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Indeed. This is why very low noise at base ISO is one important characteristics of DSLR sensors. It does affect the ability to sharpen and therefore the perceived resolution.
It should be clear by now that perceived resolution is affected both by the native lack of softness but also by the extend to which softness can be compensated by sharpening without introducing unwanted side effects.
Cheers,
Bernard
That's absolutely true. Without sharpening entering into the equation, the P65+ has lower SNR, better tonality and better color sensitivity than the D3X, at base ISO. The D3X excels in comparison with the P65, only with regard to DR at the pixel level, and at normalised print sizes that don't involve interpolation of the D3X file.
If one attempts to increase the sharpening of the D3X image in an attempt to match the resolution of the P65+ image, then the gap that already exists between the D3X and the P65+ with regard to SNR and tonality will increase.
However, this difference is not nearly as 'marked' comparing the P645D with the D3X. At normalised print sizes, the SNR, tonality and color sensitivity is very closely the same, yet the DR of the D3X is a full stop higher.
To what extent increased sharpening of the D3X image might increase noise, and to what extent such increase in noise would be apparent on a print, remains to be demonstrated.
I've seen no such comparisons. But I have heard of a comparison at A3+ size between the Canon G10 and the P65+. And Michael can testify that experienced photographers could not tell the difference in the prints, apart from the shallower DoF of the P65+ because Michael had not used the appropriate F stops to equalize DoF.
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Interesting points Bill. As you may know, Capture One has a Moire filter - the second to last tool of the Details panel. It allows us to adjust for the amount and the pattern, quite effectively.
Mark,
I don't use Capture 1, so I have no experience with the tool. Nikon Capture does have such a tool, but it is nearly worthless. Did you employ the Moire filter in the images you posted? In looking at them I was not able to detect any Moire. Moire shows up most clearly when the subject contains regularly repeating details near the resolution limit of the sensor. Such details do not often occur in landscapes, but do show up in architecture and fashion photography with fabrics. I'm not sure about bricks :).
Those who subscribe to Digilloyd's DAP forum should look at his stunning image of the North part of the Golden Gate Bridge taken with the Leica S2. Moire is visible only in the grilles of some air compressors near one of the footings of the bridge (he posts the DNG file for download, but does not permit publishing of the images). The artifacts might not appear in a print, but could be removed with local editing.
On the other hand, his shots of the mosaic on the church demonstrates strong Moire when the image is viewed at 100%. The Nikon D3 in that report demonstrated less aliasing, but the per pixel image was soft. The S2 aliasing might not be visible in a normal sized print because of down sampling of the large megapixel file. On the other hand, with a low megapixel camera such as the Nikon D70 (a 6 MP camera with a weak blur filter), aliasing is not down sampled and appears full strength in an 8*10 inch print. I had a number of prints ruined with that camera, which was my first experience with digital.
Opinions vary on the effect of aliasing. Even when it is not apparent as Moire, some think that the false detail it produces lends a harsh look to the image which may be misinterpreted as sharpness. Others disagree. Diglloyd's initial impression was that the D3x would be better off for landscape work without the filter. In an addendum, he demonstrated how much of the softness imparted by the blur filter on the D3x could be removed by deconvolution sharpening.
So in the final analysis, the Moire of the MFDBs can be removed by software when it is objectionable. The MFDBs require much less sharpening. The softening of the blur filter on the D3x can be mitigated with deconvolution sharpening, but the sharpening may produce artifacts.
Diglloyd is one of the few testers presenting 100% views of files and also supplies the raw files. Such data from MFDBs are rarely seen online. I have yet to see a MFDB shot of a properly exposed Stouffer wedge.
Regards,
Bill
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Diglloyd is one of the few testers presenting 100% views of files and also supplies the raw files. Such data from MFDBs are rarely seen online. I have yet to see a MFDB shot of a properly exposed Stouffer wedge.
I've never been to Stouffer Wedge. Is is pretty this time of year, or should I wait till Spring? That's when Adams made most of his best shots there, if I remember his biography correctly.
- N.
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As I recall Nick, it's located in MFT (Mountain Fiord Tundra), which means there's little light this time of year. Better wait till summer.
Michael
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I've never been to Stouffer Wedge. Is is pretty this time of year, or should I wait till Spring? That's when Adams made most of his best shots there, if I remember his biography correctly.
- N.
I've always found Stouffer Wedge much more impressive than the common Stouff Wedge, but Stouffest Wedge is the most spectacular of all. ;D
-E.
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Mark,
I don't use Capture 1, so I have no experience with the tool. Nikon Capture does have such a tool, but it is nearly worthless. Did you employ the Moire filter in the images you posted? In looking at them I was not able to detect any Moire. Moire shows up most clearly when the subject contains regularly repeating details near the resolution limit of the sensor. Such details do not often occur in landscapes, but do show up in architecture and fashion photography with fabrics. I'm not sure about bricks :).
Those who subscribe to Digilloyd's DAP forum should look at his stunning image of the North part of the Golden Gate Bridge taken with the Leica S2. Moire is visible only in the grilles of some air compressors near one of the footings of the bridge (he posts the DNG file for download, but does not permit publishing of the images). ..............
Regards,
Bill
Bill - no moire from bricks therefore no moire filter used on the images.
I have seen moire in a Leica M9 shot containing a metallic air conditioning compressor sitting on a roof. In that particular case, visible evidence of the moire was removed by de-saturating that one item.
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I've never been to Stouffer Wedge. Is is pretty this time of year, or should I wait till Spring? That's when Adams made most of his best shots there, if I remember his biography correctly.
- N.
You can wait 'til spring if you want, but Ansel would probably make test exposures is he were alive today and using digital. In The Negavive, he describes a series of exposures and developments he did with B&W negative film and evaluation with a densitometer. A prudent digital photographer should do the same. A Stouffer wedge is a convenient way to do this with a single exposure. Or, you can keep your head in the sand :) :) :)
Regards,
Bill
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Hi,
The comparison done by Nick and Mark indicate that P40 and then 645D are in the same territory regarding image quality. This is nice for anyone needing MF quality at Nikon D3X price. In addition Nick has found that old Pentax 645 lenses work well on the 645D, and those are available at a low price on Ebay. This is actually quite impressive!
So it seems that the P645 is a good alternative for the discerning photographer without a thick wallet, or anyone looking for an alternative to DSLRs with larger image size.
The pixel pitch on the 645 is similar to the D3X, so the Pentax has no advantage from large pixels and does not make a lower demand on the lenses at the pixel level, but many pixels always help.
We had another discussion somewhere else on this forum about DR, personally I'd suggest that DR is a bit overrated, partly because it heavily affects DxO-marks but also because it is frequently used to explain differences. In my view we have plenty of DR with digital. Highlight clipping is something else, but it is more related to proper exposure. Some cameras may leave more margin than others. The high DR figures reported on DxO-mark are achieved primarily by reducing readout noise. My opinion is that noise is normally dominated by "shot-noise" and the readout noise is pretty irrelevant at least in normal photography at low ISOs.
I have downloaded sample RAW images from Phase One P65+ from Phase One's website and was really impressed by the detail that could be extracted from the shadows. Phase had a similar image shot with a Canon 1DsIII. No question the Phase image was much better. D3X may have been significantly better than Canon, I don't know.
As said many times before, we really need prints to make good comparisons. Having RAW images for download is a great service.
My understanding is so far:
- The content of the image is more important than the execution.
- Stunning photographs can be made with any decent equipment, or at least any equipment up the task
- A better system may help with image quality in prints.
- Higher resolution allows for larger prints.
- MFDBs lack AA-filter. This improves perceived sharpness. AA-filtered images need more aggressive sharpening which increases noise
- Lack of AA-filtering leads to artifacts, but it seems that it matters little in real world images. Stopping down to f/11 or beyond seems to take care of color moiré, based on Lloyd Chambers findings on the Leica S2.
Actually, I'm slightly interested in the 645D. I have a lot of Pentax 67 lenses which I think could be used with an adapter. The price of the 645 is something I could afford, if I really wanted.
On the other hand:
- I don't print larger than A2, and found that APS-C is perfectly OK for that size. So my full frame DSLR is good enough for my printing and may have some reserves
- I'm pretty much in using zooms and having a lot of lenses. I'm not really sure that i would like to go back to fixed focals
Someone suggested that taking part in a PODAS workshop is a great idea to find out more about medium format. It is also something I am considering.
Best regards
Erik
You can wait 'til spring if you want, but Ansel would probably make test exposures is he were alive today and using digital. In The Negavive, he describes a series of exposures and developments he did with B&W negative film and evaluation with a densitometer. A prudent digital photographer should do the same. A Stouffer wedge is a convenient way to do this with a single exposure. Or, you can keep your head in the sand :) :) :)
Regards,
Bill
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My understanding is so far:
- The content of the image is more important than the execution.
- Stunning photographs can be made with any decent equipment, or at least any equipment up the task
- A better system may help with image quality in prints.
- Higher resolution allows for larger prints.
- MFDBs lack AA-filter. This improves perceived sharpness. AA-filtered images need more aggressive sharpening which increases noise
- Lack of AA-filtering leads to artifacts, but it seems that it matters little in real world images. Stopping down to f/11 or beyond seems to take care of color moiré, based on Lloyd Chambers findings on the Leica S2.
Hi Erik,
That seems like a fair summary. On the subject of AA-filters, there seems to be quite a bit of general ignorance (not with you) going round, also witnessed by some comments in this thread.
Aliasing is evil, period. It is an unwelcome artifact. Large amounts of money and effort are spent in various industries to avoid it, e.g. sound engineering and other signal processing settings. All discrete sampling at regular intervals will produce aliasing when there is finer detail than the sampling aperture and interval can resolve unambiguously. For that, more than 2 samples per cycle are required to avoid aliasing. More oversampling will help to improve the result even further.
There are several reasons why one may get away with one's aliased output, but without preventitive measures there will always be aliasing present. We can do several things to reduce the risk of it showing as a clearly visible artifact. By understanding the mechanisms in play, we can optimize the situation in our advantage. In general we need to reduce the amplitude of the aliasing component in our images, and that is only possible before it occurs.
MF camera's in general have some characteristics that can help to reduce the risk of aliasing, but they are not immune to the issue. In fact the absence of an AA-filter (optical low-pass filter, OLPF, for lowering the amplitude of aliasing) increases the risk, as e.g. fashion photographers know only too well.
Characteristics that do help are for instance the (>33%) higher on-sensor magnification for a given FOV when compared to e.g. 24x36mm sensors. By imaging fine detail larger, it is less likely to be smaller than the Nyquist frequency beyond which aliasing occurs. The lower spatial frequencies of the subject matter will also generate a higher MTF response, and thus create a stronger signal to overpower aliasing.
Other helpful factors are less DOF, or more diffraction. Less DOF than with smaller sensor arrays will automatically mean more OOF detail. OOF detail will lose some of its higher spatial frequency content amplitude, and defocus thus acts as an OLPF of sorts. A somewhat similar effect can be achieved by closing down the aperture far enough to generate visible diffraction blur at the pixel level. The higher on-sensor magnification and larger number of pixels will allow to create output with less magnification, so the blur introduced this way won't be as noticeable.
Larger files make it a bit easier to attempt and hide the aliasing in postprocessing, although this will always mean that real resolution is sacrificed, because signal and aliasing cannot be separated once their signals are merged. Some loss of resolution is more acceptable when one has some to spare ...
So, attributing the choice of manufacturers to include AA-filters to attempt and avoid public outcry is too simple an explanation. The outcry should be the same for MF users who spent a lot more money on their equipment, if it were not for some mitigating circumstances as outlined above. What's more, cost of large AA filters is exponentially higher as size increases. Try finding Lithium Niobate filters with an adequate (>60mm) diameter to cover an MF sensor array, and you will see. Growing, cutting, polishing,and assembling 2 of those crystal layers is hard. It will be much more expensive than adding a more acceptable size LCD on the MF backs. Again, manufacturers exploit the probability that there are more tethered shooters with MF backs, so they can save a few dimes on a decent LCD for judging sharpness. There is no doubt that they will certainly avoid AA-filters for cost reasons, if they already do it for LCDs.
The absence of AA-filters on most MF sensor arrays is a costsaver for manufacturers, and there are some circumstances why they can get away with it. Unfortunately for fashion photographers, they need to shoot their subjects in focus, and from some distance, which makes it a bad scenario to avoid a lot of damage control/postprocessing.
Cheers,
Bart
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Aliasing is evil, period. It is an unwelcome artifact. Large amounts of money and effort are spent in various industries to avoid it, e.g. sound engineering and other signal processing settings. All discrete sampling at regular intervals will produce aliasing when there is finer detail than the sampling aperture and interval can resolve unambiguously. For that, more than 2 samples per cycle are required to avoid aliasing. More oversampling will help to improve the result even further.
There are several reasons why one may get away with one's aliased output, but without preventitive measures there will always be aliasing present. We can do several things to reduce the risk of it showing as a clearly visible artifact. By understanding the mechanisms in play, we can optimize the situation in our advantage. In general we need to reduce the amplitude of the aliasing component in our images, and that is only possible before it occurs.
MF camera's in general have some characteristics that can help to reduce the risk of aliasing, but they are not immune to the issue. In fact the absence of an AA-filter (optical low-pass filter, OLPF, for lowering the amplitude of aliasing) increases the risk, as e.g. fashion photographers know only too well.
Characteristics that do help are for instance the (>33%) higher on-sensor magnification for a given FOV when compared to e.g. 24x36mm sensors. By imaging fine detail larger, it is less likely to be smaller than the Nyquist frequency beyond which aliasing occurs. The lower spatial frequencies of the subject matter will also generate a higher MTF response, and thus create a stronger signal to overpower aliasing.
Other helpful factors are less DOF, or more diffraction. Less DOF than with smaller sensor arrays will automatically mean more OOF detail. OOF detail will lose some of its higher spatial frequency content amplitude, and defocus thus acts as an OLPF of sorts. A somewhat similar effect can be achieved by closing down the aperture far enough to generate visible diffraction blur at the pixel level. The higher on-sensor magnification and larger number of pixels will allow to create output with less magnification, so the blur introduced this way won't be as noticeable.
Larger files make it a bit easier to attempt and hide the aliasing in postprocessing, although this will always mean that real resolution is sacrificed, because signal and aliasing cannot be separated once their signals are merged. Some loss of resolution is more acceptable when one has some to spare ...
So, attributing the choice of manufacturers to include AA-filters to attempt and avoid public outcry is too simple an explanation. The outcry should be the same for MF users who spent a lot more money on their equipment, if it were not for some mitigating circumstances as outlined above. What's more, cost of large AA filters is exponentially higher as size increases. Try finding Lithium Niobate filters with an adequate (>60mm) diameter to cover an MF sensor array, and you will see. Growing, cutting, polishing,and assembling 2 of those crystal layers is hard. It will be much more expensive than adding a more acceptable size LCD on the MF backs. Again, manufacturers exploit the probability that there are more tethered shooters with MF backs, so they can save a few dimes on a decent LCD for judging sharpness. There is no doubt that they will certainly avoid AA-filters for cost reasons, if they already do it for LCDs.
The absence of AA-filters on most MF sensor arrays is a costsaver for manufacturers, and there are some circumstances why they can get away with it. Unfortunately for fashion photographers, they need to shoot their subjects in focus, and from some distance, which makes it a bad scenario to avoid a lot of damage control/postprocessing.
Bart,
That's a very clear explanation of the issue. Thanks for that. (However, I think some folks might argue that a little bit of 'evil' sometimes adds spice ;D ).
I notice that people quite frequently make the comment that one can take worthwhile pictures whatever the camera that is used. That is of course undoubtedly true, but it's really so obvious that it hardly needs mentioning.
Some people were producing marvelous pictures long before the camera was even invented, and some of these pictures are prized far more highly than any photograph that I know of.
There's a well-known photographer on the internet who claims to earn his livelihood from his website, who once made the comment that 'the camera doesn't matter'. Now what's his name? Err! err!... you know I just can't think of it. Let me do an internet search.......ah! Ken Rockwell.
He had a valid point, as long as you didn't take it too literally.
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Bart,
Just to put things in perspective. There was an article here on Luminous Landscape on the price of the Canon 1Ds, stating that an aliasing filter of full frame dimension did cost around 1000 US$ at that time. The Mamiya ZD had an optional AA-filter. I think it cost about 2000 $ above the alternative IR filter. For sure, prices must have gone down since (the Sony Alpha 850 has an OLP filter and costs around 2000 $). But it's certainly not a cheap part.
Another question, the "staircase effect" we always see on diagonal structures. Would you call that an aliasing artifact?
Best regards
Erik
Hi Erik,
The absence of AA-filters on most MF sensor arrays is a costsaver for manufacturers, and there are some circumstances why they can get away with it. Unfortunately for fashion photographers, they need to shoot their subjects in focus, and from some distance, which makes it a bad scenario to avoid a lot of damage control/postprocessing.
Cheers,
Bart
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Another question, the "staircase effect" we always see on diagonal structures. Would you call that an aliasing artifact?
Hi Erik,
It's related. It's not aliasing as such, which would add lower frequency aliases to a given feature, but it does show that an analog/continuous transition in the real scene snaps in place between pixel columns and/or rows because inadequate low-pass filtering took place. The use of microlenses (which is not the same as an OLPF) can mitigate the effect, because the sampling aperture size is increased. Point sampling will show more stairstepping than a 100% fill factor area sampling. So sensor design also plays a role in generating stairstepping artifacts. That's why OLPFs need to be tuned to the sensor array for which they are intended. The different thicknesses of the birefringent layers and their relative spacing from the sensor (which also means that the angle of incidence plays a role) are all factors in the design.
So stairstepping is more a telltale sign of insufficient low-pass filtering, and you can be sure that other areas are affected as well, with aliasing. Again, having lots of pixels will help to conceal the artifacts (stairstepped edges and lines are artifacts), so MF backs have some benefit because the artifacts will be smaller (less output magnification required) in output, and create a (fake) impression of sharpness. The same thing can happen if you push the sharpening a bit too far, smooth lines can become stairstepped, but aliases will not form (although deconvolution sharpening can generate ringing artifacts, which is something different).
Cheers,
Bart
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Hi Erik,
Point sampling will show more stairstepping than a 100% fill factor area sampling.
Cheers,
Bart
Hi, Bart...
Does this mean that you get more stair-stepping with a multi-shot back?
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Hi, Bart...
Does this mean that you get more stair-stepping with a multi-shot back?
Hi Dick,
Depending on the implementation (full sensel stepping for per sensel RGB color, or half sensel stepping for additionally increased resolution), probably less stair-stepping in both cases.
First: The sampling density increases which reduces aliasing and increases the signal accuracy,
Second: The sampling apertures may overlap (at half sensel stepping), so less of a point sample and more like a larger fill factor,
Third: You can get more pixels (at half sensel stepping) which helps conceal the stairstepping by reducing output magnification.
More sensels and/or more accurate sensels, is usually beneficial for image quality on multiple levels.
Cheers,
Bart
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Bart,
Just to put things in perspective. There was an article here on Luminous Landscape on the price of the Canon 1Ds, stating that an aliasing filter of full frame dimension did cost around 1000 US$ at that time. The Mamiya ZD had an optional AA-filter. I think it cost about 2000 $ above the alternative IR filter. For sure, prices must have gone down since (the Sony Alpha 850 has an OLP filter and costs around 2000 $). But it's certainly not a cheap part.
Another question, the "staircase effect" we always see on diagonal structures. Would you call that an aliasing artifact?
Best regards
Erik
I'd like to know the ORIGINAL source of that information, because I'm not convinced it makes sense, and there is extremely little information in the public domain about the costs of individual components within these cameras.
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Here's a place which will replace the AA filter in a 1Ds II for $600. Aps-c is $400.
Labor included.
http://www.lifepixel.com/shop/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=64
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Hi,
Thanks for asking...
The price for the OLP filter on the Canon 1Ds was estimated in an article here on Luminous Landscape defending the high price of the EOS 1Ds. The Mamiya prices were essentially taken from the ZD price list. The IR filter was about 1000 USD and the OLP filter was around 3000 USD making the difference about 2000 USD. That was a few years ago, at that time I was much interested in the ZD.
Doing a quick research I came up with:
The article on Canon I was referring to is here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/1ds/1Ds-Pricing.shtml
I found the the following price on BH Photovideo for ZD OLP filter: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/507931-REG/Mamiya_310_222_Low_Pass_Filter_for.html
So the ZD OLP end user price is 2894USD while the IR filter is 435 USD.
The Mamiya prices are obviously end user prices.
Best regards
Erik
I'd like to know the ORIGINAL source of that information, because I'm not convinced it makes sense, and there is extremely little information in the public domain about the costs of individual components within these cameras.
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Hi,
Thanks for asking...
The price for the OLP filter on the Canon 1Ds was estimated in an article here on Luminous Landscape defending the high price of the EOS 1Ds. The Mamiya prices were essentially taken from the ZD price list. The IR filter was about 1000 USD and the OLP filter was around 3000 USD making the difference about 2000 USD. That was a few years ago, at that time I was much interested in the ZD.
Doing a quick research I came up with:
The article on Canon I was referring to is here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/1ds/1Ds-Pricing.shtml
I found the the following price on BH Photovideo for ZD OLP filter: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/507931-REG/Mamiya_310_222_Low_Pass_Filter_for.html
So the ZD OLP end user price is 2894USD while the IR filter is 435 USD.
The Mamiya prices are obviously end user prices.
Best regards
Erik
Thanks Erik, for my likings, I would have preferred that they had saved the money and let us deal with the occasional episode of moire in other ways. But that's history, hindsight and hypothetical, for FWIW........:-)
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Mark,
I have no firm opinion on this. Even if a medium format OLPF is expensive I'd suggest that MFDB buyers would be able to afford them, would they be regarded necessary.
For me there is no clear evidence. I have seen very few examples comparing the same optical system with/without OLP filter. Madmax has a few samples but they are all JPEG. Lloyd Chambers has a comparison of Leica S2 and Nikon D3X where the Leica has a definitive advantage in sharpness but also a lot of moiré. Now, how much depends on the lens and how much on depends on the OLP?
Lloyd also found that stopping down the Leica S2 to f/11 by and large eliminates moiré. That really indicates that an optimal OLP filter on the Leica S2 would correspond to diffraction at f/11.
On the other hand, if we check the lens tests at "Photozone" we can see that the best lenses reach maximum performance at f/4 and loose sharpness well before f/8, even on OLP filtered cameras. So, even if OLPF filtering does reduce sharpness it does not mask the diffraction effects at f/4.
Achieving correct focus at f/4 without live view is no easy task, I believe.
To sum it up:
- I have not seen a really conclusive comparison of two identical optical systems with/without LP filter (except the Madmax semples).
- What would the difference be in correctly sharpened RAW images? An OLP filtered image needs more sharpening than an unfiltered image.
- No doubt that Leica S2 images are sharper than Nikon D3X images, but that may also depend on better lenses.
- Erwin Puts compares Leica S2, M9, Nikon D3X and the Sony Alpha 900 here: http://www.imx.nl/photo/leica/camera/page176/s2part4.html . I don't pretend that I always understand Erwin Puts's argumentation. Anyway he ranks the cameras S2, D3X, Alpha 900 and M9 for "definition". My understanding is that the comparison is based on raw images and critical focusing under lab conditions. The impression I got from the samples may differ.
- Michael Reichmann has both M9 and Sony Alpha 900 and ranks the M9 above the Alpha 900 regarding image quality. This contradicts Erwin Puts findings. Michael Reichmann also contributes the image quality advantage of the M9 over the Alpha 900 to the lack of OLP-filter on the M9.
- Signal processing experts seem to be of the firm opinion that either oversampling or OLPFs are needed to avoid aliasing artifacts.
- On the other hand photographers seem to be quite happy about said artifacts as long as it is not visible as color moiré.
- Aliasing will only show up on perfectly focused images and only at large apertures on small pitch sensors, like the P645D.
A small comment about the Erwin Puts article: Erwin's reasoning is not always easy to follow. Regarding the presence of Moiré on the M9 and it's absence on the S2 I'm pretty sure that he drew the wrong conclusion for the wrong reason. Moiré appears when there is an interference between the sensor pitch and the spacing of a regular pattern. The imaging scale on the S2 is different from the M9, therefore Moiré is not seen.
Here is some analysis I tried to do on images taken by Lloyd Chambers and use with his kind permission.
http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/38-observations-on-leica-s2-raw-images
Best regards
Erik
Thanks Erik, for my likings, I would have preferred that they had saved the money and let us deal with the occasional episode of moire in other ways. But that's history, hindsight and hypothetical, for FWIW........:-)
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Nice analysis Erik. An alternate title could be "Who stole my six stops?" ::)
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Nice analysis Erik. An alternate title could be "Who stole my six stops?" ::)
+1
And I think that Erik was merely using the JPEGs that Diglloyd posted. Analysis of the raw files might show an even greater advantage for the D3x photographic DR, which is clearly greater. The six f/stop claim in not credible. As expected, the Leica images are sharper due to more megapixels and the use of of a US $5000 Summarit-S 70mm f/2.5 ASPH Lens versus the $455 Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D Lens. Nonetheless, the D3x does pretty well, especially with deconvolution sharpening to restore sharpness lost by the blur filter.
Regards,
Bill
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For me there is no clear evidence. I have seen very few examples comparing the same optical system with/without OLP filter. Madmax has a few samples but they are all JPEG.
Erik,
An excellent review and summation. Maxmax (http://www.maxmax.com/nikon_d700hr.htm) does show some results for the Nikon D700, but they are merely JPEG screen captures. In an attempt to see what deconvolution sharpening could do, I used FocusMagic with a 2 pixel radius and amount of 100%. The results are shown and comments are welcome.
Regards,
Bill
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Hi,
I actually used the raw images. Lloyd has a few available for download.
Best regards
Erik
+1
And I think that Erik was merely using the JPEGs that Diglloyd posted. Analysis of the raw files might show an even greater advantage for the D3x photographic DR, which is clearly greater. The six f/stop claim in not credible. As expected, the Leica images are sharper due to more megapixels and the use of of a US $5000 Summarit-S 70mm f/2.5 ASPH Lens versus the $455 Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D Lens. Nonetheless, the D3x does pretty well, especially with deconvolution sharpening to restore sharpness lost by the blur filter.
Regards,
Bill