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Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: ErikKaffehr on September 22, 2011, 01:17:24 pm

Title: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 22, 2011, 01:17:24 pm
Hi,

I did find the comparison interesting. My understanding is that the IQ180 is better than 8x10". I'd expect the difference to be smaller.

One observation is that the IQ180 images were made at f/11 and f/16. I would expect MF digital to work best at f/5.6 or f/8. Don't know about large format film, is it necessary to stop down to f/32?

Conventional wisdom used to be that 20+ full frame is comparable to 67 analog, and MF digital to 4x5", so I'm somewhat surprised that latest generation MFDBs can match and surpass 8x10" on film. On the other hand this was exactly what Michael stated in his initial preview of the new MF backs.

Best regards
Erik
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Jack Flesher on September 22, 2011, 02:07:57 pm
The real issue is getting a "perfect" capture on 8x10 film since so much can prevent it.  For example, film flatness alone is difficult in a traditional holder. Traditionalists using LF for critical capture used a spray mount to hold the film, or even vacuum backs if hyper critical. By contrast, the digital sensor is dead flat.  Next issue is focus accuracy on the GG, and GG alignment with every holder's film plane, and holders are not all that exact. 

A comment on focus accuracy: when I got my Betterlight scanning back, I thought I was an outstanding GG focuser. I used a 10x loupe and usually nailed my film shots. The Betterlight had a real-time electronic focus mode that actually measured each color channel separately. Anyway, I focused my 210, a light wide on an 8x10, at a 30 meter tree via the GG and took the shot at f16. I could immediately see the actual PoF in the file was closer to 300 meters. I turned on the electronic focus, and adjusted per  -- the adjustment required a bump to my focus knob of about 0.5mm -- basically as fine as I could move the focus knob on my Arca F-Metric -- and that put the focus point right at 30 meter. But, I could not "see" the difference on the GG through my 10x loupe.  Moreover, I was amazed that f16 on the 210 would not carry more than about +/- 25% of the PoF focus area for critically sharp DoF. That is when I sold my remaining 8x10 film camera outfit. The 4x5 and Betterlight went away as soon as I decided to get a P45+...

But, I will say that if you do get a near perfect capture on 8x10, it is a stunning thing to look at.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: mattpallante on September 22, 2011, 02:17:43 pm
When I think of maximum image quality, I don't think of scanned film. I would say the ultimate for 8 by 10 film image quality would be that film and a traditional contact print. I would be interested in comparing that contact print with a like sized print from the IQ180. Certainly you can do more work much easier with the IQ180. My perspective is I'll never have the money for a IQ180, but I would have the money for a used 8 by 10 camera and lens. As far as f stop goes, I think you would be better off at f11-f22. Just sayin......... ;)

Matt
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Bill VN on September 22, 2011, 04:02:26 pm
It should also be mentioned that at f32, lens diffraction comes into play. Testing at f11 might bring sharper results with 8x10.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Ray on September 22, 2011, 07:49:24 pm
It should also be mentioned that at f32, lens diffraction comes into play. Testing at f11 might bring sharper results with 8x10.

Indeed!  Even if one has succeeded in getting perfect focus and perfect flatness of the film, one can't expect a lens to be tack-sharp at F32.

On the other hand, even F32 with 8x10" format does not provide the same DoF as F11 on the IQ180. The diagonal of 8x10" film is approximately 4.8x the diagonal of the IQ180 sensor, therefore for equal DoF one should use an F/stop number which is 4.8x greater, that is, somewhere between F45 and F64.

However, this tendency to use a shallower DoF with the larger format, when making comparisons with a smaller format, seems to be a fairly common practice, in order not to place the larger format at too much of a disadvantage.

It would be interesting to see comparisons also using f2.8 with the IQ180 and F11 with the 8x10 format. But maybe lack of film flatness would be too much of a problem.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: theguywitha645d on September 22, 2011, 08:10:37 pm
If I am correct, Avadon did his 8x10 portraits at larger apertures. I am sure you would get sharper results. I don't think this test is definitive, but it is suggestive. For all intents and purposes you can have 8x10 images out of an 80MP MFD back.

To be fair, they are not identical images. The process imparts character to the image. That does not make 8x10 film obsolete. There are going to be things you can achieve with the large image area and tonal and color palette that you cannot get with the IQ180.

And we need to put in context that we are looking at 100% crops which are far from any real viewing distance we could get no matter how big you make the images.

Nice test. Interesting results.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: madmanchan on September 22, 2011, 09:04:01 pm
I think the point of the comparison setup was to get DOF approximately the same (as if you were trying to get the same landscape shot with two different systems).
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Jack Flesher on September 22, 2011, 10:13:48 pm
32, 45 and 64 are the typical "working" apertures for landscapes in 8x10 because of limited DoF -- it's where "The f64 Group" got their name -- it's what they determined the optimal aperture was. I'd occasionally use f90 on 8x10 if needed. For 4x5, f32 is not uncommon for shooters wanted to extend DoF as far as possible.  Yes, diffraction goes up, but generally at typical enlargement factors, the gains from aperture DoF far outweigh the losses from diffraction.  The next issue is lenses with large enough IC's to cover 8x10 to begin with -- generally one that laid down over 30 LPmm would be considered stellar, 20 average. Keep in mind that a 4x enlargement of 8x10 generates a 16x20 print...  

However, when you start comparing at the pixel level, scan or digital original, diffraction is what you see soonest assuming the lens is sharp enough to begin with. (The less sharp a lens, the harder it is to see diffraction, and per above, 8x10 lenses are not all that sharp.)  So optimally, an 8x10 lens would probably be shot at f16 or f22 while digital MF lens closer to f8 IMHO.  The gains of f16 would possibly improve the shown 8x10 result by a small visible amount, but at the end of the day I think the author did a reasonably credible job given the constraints of the medium.
  
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: DanielStone on September 22, 2011, 10:41:22 pm
...Keep in mind that a 4x enlargement of 8x10 generates a 16x20 print...  
  

its a 2x enlargement btw ;).

And to be fair, the 745dpi scan isn't even close to getting a "fair" fight between the two. 2000dpi(the "sweet" spot for ANY format IMO, on ANY scanner, drum/flatbed or Imacon) would have been best, and then downsample.

Working in 8x10 can be a chore. No doubt. I use it as one of my primary formats. Primarily to contact print(even with color negatives), simply because I like the simplicity of the process.

All you gear heads get you panties in a twist on these things. Get out an make some photographs.

there are still some people shooting 8x10 film for jobs. This guy(Mitchell Feinberg) (http://www.mitch.fr/) even had a digital back (http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/08/23/mitchell-feinbergs-8x10-digital-capture-back/) made for PROOFING ONLY! To me, it shows he's committed to film capture.

I don't know who scanned the film, but the screen scanner they mentioned is pretty old. Yes it gives results, but poor results compared with more recent drum scanners. They should have had Lenny Eiger (http://www.eigerphoto.com/whatotherssay_ep.php) do the scans. He's pretty much as best as they come in the business of scanning.

Another thing: they aren't comparing PRINTS. I mean, what dumba$$ who goes and spends $70k on kit doesn't want to make prints, and just look at them on a screen? Buy a point and shoot if all you want to do is look at them on the computer. Photography used to be about making great prints. Now its about how it looks on the screen. Or at least on this test it seems that way to me...
-Dan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: JeffKohn on September 22, 2011, 10:51:07 pm
its a 2x enlargement btw ;)
So are you saying that if you lay two 8x10's side by side, you get a 16x20????
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: theguywitha645d on September 22, 2011, 10:55:20 pm
So are you saying that if you lay two 8x10's side by side, you get a 16x20????

Magnification is linear...
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: photodan on September 22, 2011, 11:45:40 pm
The image quality of the IQ180 may indeed be better than 8x10 scanned film, and better in more ways than just sharpness. However the test that was done is not valid at all in my opinion. Let's take just the sharpness issue.  First- the color film used was not optimal. Having shot 8x10 color films for years (before giving up the impractical beast, at least for me), the film stock makes a big difference. Fuji Provia for example has finer grain and more sharpness than the Ektachrome. The new Portra 160 has less grain, and probably more sharpness.

As others have mentioned, shooting at f32 will show the effects of diffraction, on the screen, and perhaps at huge prints sizes. F16-22 was usually the sharpest for me (however where Depth.Of.Field. didn't matter at all, for some lenses the best sharpness was at f11). Of course if you want large D.O.F and camera movements won't cut it, then stopping down is necessary. For an 8x10 a lot of stopping down is sometimes necessary (f32 and smaller) and that is a big weak point of shooting 8x10.

8x10 can have a unique look due to the small D.O.F (well, at least compared to much smaller imaging sizes). When printed via analog means 8x10 can have a special ultra smooth look, no matter how close one looks at the print (contact print or moderate size, say 20x24). Not even lightjet or inkjet prints from the best scans have this look. There are advantages to printing digitally however I have yet to see that special look.

Film holders/film flatness and groundglass/focusing accuracy.  Another big weak point of 8x10. However I was able to get excellent results using Toyo holders and a Tachihara camera (not to mention an Ebony brand model), and using a 7x loupe to focus. I was lucky that the particular cameras I had were fairly accurate.

The scanning that was done for the test: This is utterly puzzling - why use a lower-grade scanner, and to scan at such a low resolution, for this type of test? the testers might have gotten better results shooting 4x5" film  and scanning at a higher res - more film flatness and greater D.O.F. The answer seems to be that since the film results weren't that sharp (as seen via a loupe) then  there was no reason to scan it  at higher res. Actually, there was not point to scan it at all then - due to the film and f-stop issues.

And that sums it up - what was the real point of this test? Shooting less than optimal film, non-optimal f-stop, and sub-optimal scanner and  ridiculously low resolution, renders this test of not much use. Yes, IQ180 may very well be better. But this test does nothing to prove that point.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 22, 2011, 11:52:34 pm
Hi,

The author clearly indicates higher resolution scanning would not help. Airy disk diameter at f/32 would be around 42 microns, lenses are said to perform at 20-30 lp/mm. The 20-30 lp/mm figure would grant 1600 PPI scan. My impression scanning 120 film has been that 1600 PPI was enough, but 3200 was wrangling out more detail. I would prefer a higher resolution on the scans, but I presume they used the equipment they typically would use.

I´d suggest that this was tried to be a realistic test. It's very easy to criticize tests made.

Finally, I see nothing wrong with analyzing the data digitally. Most of the printing is done digitally nowdays.

Best regards
Erik


its a 2x enlargement btw ;).

And to be fair, the 745dpi scan isn't even close to getting a "fair" fight between the two. 2000dpi(the "sweet" spot for ANY format IMO, on ANY scanner, drum/flatbed or Imacon) would have been best, and then downsample.

Working in 8x10 can be a chore. No doubt. I use it as one of my primary formats. Primarily to contact print(even with color negatives), simply because I like the simplicity of the process.

All you gear heads get you panties in a twist on these things. Get out an make some photographs.

there are still some people shooting 8x10 film for jobs. This guy(Mitchell Feinberg) (http://www.mitch.fr/) even had a digital back (http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/08/23/mitchell-feinbergs-8x10-digital-capture-back/) made for PROOFING ONLY! To me, it shows he's committed to film capture.

I don't know who scanned the film, but the screen scanner they mentioned is pretty old. Yes it gives results, but poor results compared with more recent drum scanners. They should have had Lenny Eiger (http://www.eigerphoto.com/whatotherssay_ep.php) do the scans. He's pretty much as best as they come in the business of scanning.

Another thing: they aren't comparing PRINTS. I mean, what dumba$$ who goes and spends $70k on kit doesn't want to make prints, and just look at them on a screen? Buy a point and shoot if all you want to do is look at them on the computer. Photography used to be about making great prints. Now its about how it looks on the screen. Or at least on this test it seems that way to me...
-Dan

Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Jack Flesher on September 23, 2011, 12:38:24 am
its a 2x enlargement btw ;).



2x in print parlance, 4x in resolution parlance.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on September 23, 2011, 12:48:32 am
I would prefer a higher resolution on the scans, but I presume they used the equipment they typically would use.

I don't think anyone serious about 8x10 (or large format, or any film format!) would TYPICALLY use a 745dpi scan.... and if they do, they are
1). probably not the most competent or reliable testers
or
2). very competent and smart but realize that a prodigital/antifilm website publishing an article with some 8x10 film camera (they could even use some vintage 80 years old camera with the same results) tearing to shreds the latest and greatest gadget will not be very popular with the digital industry
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 23, 2011, 01:10:16 am
So what resolution do you use when scanning 8x10"?

You can present your tests here on LuLa, but be prepared that there will be a lot of critics picking that apart...

Best regards
Erik


I don't think anyone serious about 8x10 (or large format, or any film format!) would TYPICALLY use a 745dpi scan.... and if they do, they are
1). probably not the most competent or reliable testers
or
2). very competent and smart but realize that a prodigital/antifilm website publishing an article with some 8x10 film camera (they could even use some vintage 80 years old camera with the same results) tearing to shreds the latest and greatest gadget will not be very popular with the digital industry
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on September 23, 2011, 01:38:20 am

You can present your tests here on LuLa, but be prepared that there will be a lot of critics picking that apart...

Best regards
Erik



Well, I think that criticizing the selected scene or the camera make or the time of day the shots were made or the tripod used would be "picking apart" the test. Noting the not so fair scanning setup when comparing digital images is a valid observation and it's not a minor one. Would it be fair to compare a Nikon and a Canon FF digital cameras with the Nikon shooting raw and Canon lowest quality jpegs?
Best regards
P.D. I use 4x5 not 8x10

Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on September 23, 2011, 01:57:38 am
I'm sorry, but I do scanning (and printing) for a living. I have an Aztek Premier, which has an optical resolution nears its 8,000 ppi scanning limit. This is only the last in a series of tests of scans vs digital where the digital camera is the best that money can buy and the scan is made by a cheap junky scanner. In this case, it isn't so much the scanner itself, but the idea that you can't get any more than 745 ppi. It's just plain ridiculous and the article should be pulled. It's clearly misleading.

Lenny Eiger

EigerStudios
Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Wayne Fox on September 23, 2011, 02:23:29 am
The article surprised me.  I recently visited Rodney Lough's gallery in Vegas and most of his images are scanned 8x10. A few are now Phaseone, but I think some (or all) of those have been stitched.  I know a year ago when I chatted with him there, he didn't feel the p65 was as good as 8x10 film, but seeing as how he's doing a capture integration workshop maybe he thinks the IQ180 is. But in examining his prints (including finding a grasshopper on a blade of grass in a 40x60 print with a magnifying glass) I'll be honest ... they look every bit as good and maybe even better than what I see from my current IQ180.

Every time I visit his gallery I'm tempted to try 8x10 film (mainly so I could say I've been there done that), I always come to my senses a few days later before I actually get home from Photoshop world and start searching for the stuff on ebay.  I didn't have the patience for a tech camera ... I'm sure 8x10 film would be much more challenging.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: macz5024 on September 23, 2011, 03:42:48 am
Hi

The internet can show images as precise as some worn out newspaper paper - therefore I would like to add this link:

http://www.markuszuber.com/8by10.html

Markus
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on September 23, 2011, 03:57:12 am
This is only the last in a series of tests of scans vs digital where the digital camera is the best that money can buy and the scan is made by a cheap junky scanner. In this case, it isn't so much the scanner itself, but the idea that you can't get any more than 745 ppi.

Hi Lenny,

I agree, to me this was the more surprising part of the test. Even despite the large format lens (of unknown quality), DOF, diffraction, and film flatness isues, I'd suspect that up to some 4000 PPI there would be some potential resolution that could be unleashed. A high quality film image that is not limited by diffraction will benefit from scans up to 8000 PPI (if only for grain structure), but whether the resolution was there in the images used, I don't know.

Maybe the authors did compare higher resolutions scans, or did an inspection with a strong loupe, but in that case they should have made that point more clear than just stating that scanning at a higher resolution wouldn't have helped. As the article is, there will be doubt as to the fairness of the comparison, which is a pitty. Maybe they can add some info about the lens and scan aspects, or at least use a higher quality scan, followed by proper downsampling.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: qwz on September 23, 2011, 03:58:28 am
Drum scanned (Dainippon screen SG 608) at 745 dpi it is joke????

Acros and Ektachrome you must scan at least at 3000 dpi!

Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Schwarzzeit on September 23, 2011, 04:00:55 am
The test as it is presented is not exploiting the full potential of the 8x10" format, not by a long shot. It's hard to say what went wrong on these shots but my experience with 8x10" has been quite different. What we're fed here is an embarrassment if it's supposed to be a point of reference of what can or cannot be done with an 8x10". Even a good 4x5" scan can look much better than this at 80 MP.

Some questions that came up:
Why did the author choose these selected crops? Why not offer the full resolution images as a download? Seeing the whole thing would give a much better comparison on the quality of the test images.
Why these odd display ratios? E.g. 200% displayed as 25%? Are we looking at 50% crops from the pixel level? Why not show plain crops on the pixel level?
Ok, on Markus' additional website the crops are presented at twice the size. It's quite obvious from these that the 8x10" shots were not properly focused on the cropped area. At this low magnification I'd expect an 8x10" to look much sharper if the shots were properly focused.
As Dan pointed out, why was the scan limited to 745 ppi which isn't even 80 MP? It's closer to 40 MP. If 745 ppi was the resolution used on the scanner and the pixel dimensions of the scan were 8874 x 7229 then the scanned area had to be larger than 8x10".
If I had seen that the films were not sharp through a 10x loupe on the light table I would have reshot the test or called it a failure. But publishing this as a reference for 8x10" is not really fair towards those readers who have never seen what a good 8x10" image looks like. It is indeed misleading.

I agree with Jack that it is very difficult to use the full potential of 8x10" and larger formats. But it's not that hard to get good enough quality to match only 80 MP if the camera is properly aligned.
A while ago I posted this sample showing some of the potential of what is possible with 8x10" color neg in terms of resolution.

As I've stated before I don't think the resolution of film or a film format can be described by a single number. It's much more complex than that. The resolution of film can be very high if you have lots of object contrast but it drops with lower object contrast. Of course the MTF of the taking lens matters to get as much of that contrast on film. But with a film format as large as 8x10" you should have plenty MTF if you only want to match 80 MP.

Diffraction at f/32 is not a problem on 8x10" at this magnification. With an Airy disc of 42 micron diameter you can resolve details as fine as 11 micron. In fact f/64 would be a closer match in DOF compared to the IQ180 at f/16. BTW, stopped down to f/16 the effect of diffraction can already be detected on the 5.2 micron sensor. If this was necessary to get the desired DOF then it would not have been possible to do any better on this shot with an 8x10" as the shot itself would have been ultimately DOF diffraction limited, and thus the 8x10" should have been used at f/64 or smaller. Sometimes you can get away with a larger aperture by using tilts.

Here is a full resolution Zoomify image of Geiranger Fjord (Norway) I shot in 2009 on 4x5" (lens: Schneider 110 XL at f/16.3; film: Fuji  Acros 100):
http://www.high-end-scans.de/img/bilder/zoomify/DV090809_01_6000ppi/DV090809_01_6000ppi.htm
Please note the full screen view button.

It's a 6000 ppi drum scan with a slight amount of smart sharpening for viewing on screen. After cropping the film rebate the image is about 650 MP. Yes, it's not tack sharp on 1:1 pixel level. Now the question is how well does an IQ180 or Aptus-II 12 file take an enlargement to 650 MP? Any non-stitched samples?

To keep in perspective of what you're looking at here's the same image reduced to about 80 MP and sharpened for the screen:
http://www.high-end-scans.de/img/bilder/zoomify/DV090809_01_res84/DV090809_01_res84.htm

-Dominique
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: qwz on September 23, 2011, 04:22:55 am
Quote
The author clearly indicates higher resolution scanning would not help. Airy disk diameter at f/32 would be around 42 microns, lenses are said to perform at 20-30 lp/mm.
Scneider APO-Symmar 5.6 240mm
clearly has 60 lp/mm at least

Quote
f/11 76  76  60
f/16 67  67  54
f/22 60  60  54
http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/testing.html

You need quadriple ridicolous 754dpi on good scanner.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: djoy on September 23, 2011, 05:14:17 am
I was quite interested to see this article appear, but I'm afraid I can't take it seriously due to the poor way (IMHO) in which the scanning was handled.

745dpi? sorry, that's just not going to work.

It might have given a digital image of similar pixel dimensions as the IQ180, but it was not utilising all the information on the 8x10 transparency. I don't know anyone who would do a master scan like that.

I don't doubt for one moment the quality of the IQ180 is exceptional, especially if one goes to the trouble of using such a technically precise camera system as the Alpa and calibrates the sensor gap as has been demonstrated on this site. Similarly I don't doubt it is significantly more convenient that using 8x10 film and view cameras.

I also don't doubt that an 8x10 piece of film, well shot, contains a *huge* amount of data, much of which went unused in this comparison. :( I've heard it said many times that the skill of the scanner operator is a significant factor in the quality of drum scans, I believe this test reinforces that. A better comparison IMHO would have been to scan the 8x10 at an optical resolution and aperture appropriate to the scanner and film grain, a good scanner operator would know the optimal limits for their scanner. At least that way all the data is used in both formats, a much fairer comparison. Then the scanned image could be down- sampled to the resolution of the IQ180 shot, and it might also be interesting to see the IQ180 shot up-sampled to the resolution of the scan.

I do shoot 5x4 (occasionally) and own a drum scanner, but I do not own either of the formats in this comparison, nor do I expect I ever will. Nevertheless I am still curious as to the difference in image quality between the two, but I'm afraid this comparison leaves me no wiser.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Ray on September 23, 2011, 05:19:35 am
There's an interesting phenomenon at work in such tests, comparing smaller formats with larger formats, whether it's a comparison between the Canon G12 and a P45+, an 11mp Canon 1Ds with a 6x7cm film format, or an IQ180 with an 8x10" film format.

The question is, should all such comparisons be on an exactly equal playing field with regard to all the major parameters that we photographers are concerned about, such as FoV, DoF and (often overlooked) shutter speed.

Matching FoV is a given because that's so central to composition. Matching DoF is not something we're particularly fussy about, and matching shutter speed is just ridiculous.

I'll always remember that comparison between 35mm film and 4"x5" film made by Lars Kjellberg of Photodo fame.

He did his best to match DoF, comparing shots at F5.6 on 35mm with F22 on 4x5. He made a compromised attempt to get shutter speeds 'not hugely different' by using an ISO 100  B&W film with 35mm and an ISO 400 film with 4x5.

The result was, the 35mm shot was slightly sharper but still showed more grain, so one might have concluded, on balance, that the 4x5 shot was preferred.

But what would have been the result if Lars actually had equalised shutter speeds? He would have needed to push process the 4x5 shot to ISO 1000 or greater, and I suspect the 35mm shot would actually have been slightly better in all respects.

The lesson here is that different formats have different strengths under different conditions. If one attempts to get a completely equal playing field for the comparison, it is necessary to make the comparisons on at least two or three different playing fields in order to get an understanding of the comparative strengths and weakness of the different formats.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: theguywitha645d on September 23, 2011, 10:05:02 am
745dpi? sorry, that's just not going to work.

Why? Undersampling usually results in sharper looking images. The images are soft at 754dpi so the scanner is not undersampling. How is this image going to catch up to the digital image by simply adding pixels?
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: John Rodriguez on September 23, 2011, 12:07:12 pm

THIS.

I think all we're looking at here are DOF differences.  I'd like to see a similar test but at equal measured DOF for both systems OR using a target with a very shallow DOF window and optimizing each for diffraction (hell even a brick wall).   


Indeed!  Even if one has succeeded in getting perfect focus and perfect flatness of the film, one can't expect a lens to be tack-sharp at F32.

On the other hand, even F32 with 8x10" format does not provide the same DoF as F11 on the IQ180. The diagonal of 8x10" film is approximately 4.8x the diagonal of the IQ180 sensor, therefore for equal DoF one should use an F/stop number which is 4.8x greater, that is, somewhere between F45 and F64.

However, this tendency to use a shallower DoF with the larger format, when making comparisons with a smaller format, seems to be a fairly common practice, in order not to place the larger format at too much of a disadvantage.

It would be interesting to see comparisons also using f2.8 with the IQ180 and F11 with the 8x10 format. But maybe lack of film flatness would be too much of a problem.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on September 23, 2011, 01:52:02 pm
As I've stated before I don't think the resolution of film or a film format can be described by a single number. It's much more complex than that. The resolution of film can be very high if you have lots of object contrast but it drops with lower object contrast. Of course the MTF of the taking lens matters to get as much of that contrast on film. But with a film format as large as 8x10" you should have plenty MTF if you only want to match 80 MP.-Dominique

This begins to hit the matter on the head. First of all, we all agree that 745 is a joke. We don't know whether it was undersampled or not as we don't know the aperture of the scanner, which is what controls the under/over sampling vs the spi. I will state categorically that the IQ80 can not stand up to what an 8x10 can do, if that's the question people are trying to answer. The test is a fools errand.

Consider this, you have a 4x5 image with a telephone pole in it. The pole is one of those with a thousand shades of reddish brown. It is 1/4 of an inch wide on the film. Compare the 1/4 square of a piece of this pole to an 8x10 of the exact same shot. You now have 4 times the amount of film with which to describe all of these tonal differences. There will be, there is no question, much more tonal information. At 6x7 size, our .25 inch square pole snippet becomes a .1375 inch square, about half the size.

Now if one doesn't care about the tones in the image, you're shooting lith film or something, or making really contrasty prints, then this discussion of resolution becomes reasonable But most of us aren't doing that.

I have been working on understanding all the edges of this scanning stuff for many years. What I can say is that it is much better than the numbers will allow. I am usually scanning 810's at 2666 spi, a number that equates to 568 megapixels (a far cry from 80). I know there isn't enough resolution to suggest that when and if they ever make a 568 mpxl camera, that it will equate. However, it is much further than the 80. And it is patently ridiculous, when my scanner is rated at an optical resolution above 7300, to suggest that one can only get 745. The stuff coming out of my scanner is razor sharp... at these higher resolutions, and I have made the 20 foot prints to prove it.

Lenny
EigerStudios
eigerstudios.com
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 23, 2011, 03:16:10 pm
Hi,

OK, you have images to prove your point, why don't you post them?!

Actually, I'm somewhat skeptical.

745PPI seems like to low res to me, on the other hand the 745PPI scan clearly shows a lot of softness. Increasing resolution would just cause more softness.  My guess may be that stopping down to f/32 seriously limits resolution. According to my testing on DSLRs going from f/8 to f/22 cuts linear resolution in half, turning a 24MP camera into a 6 MP camera. So my guess is that an 8x10" camera at f/32 would be able to produce 1/4 to 1/6 of the resolution achieveable at f/11. To this comes film flatness and film to ground glass alignment.

One of the niceties with digital is that you have immediate feedback, if you botch it you can check directly, with film you see it when it's back from the lab.

Best regards
Erik


This begins to hit the matter on the head. First of all, we all agree that 745 is a joke. We don't know whether it was undersampled or not as we don't know the aperture of the scanner, which is what controls the under/over sampling vs the spi. I will state categorically that the IQ80 can not stand up to what an 8x10 can do, if that's the question people are trying to answer. The test is a fools errand.

Consider this, you have a 4x5 image with a telephone pole in it. The pole is one of those with a thousand shades of reddish brown. It is 1/4 of an inch wide on the film. Compare the 1/4 square of a piece of this pole to an 8x10 of the exact same shot. You now have 4 times the amount of film with which to describe all of these tonal differences. There will be, there is no question, much more tonal information. At 6x7 size, our .25 inch square pole snippet becomes a .1375 inch square, about half the size.

Now if one doesn't care about the tones in the image, you're shooting lith film or something, or making really contrasty prints, then this discussion of resolution becomes reasonable But most of us aren't doing that.

I have been working on understanding all the edges of this scanning stuff for many years. What I can say is that it is much better than the numbers will allow. I am usually scanning 810's at 2666 spi, a number that equates to 568 megapixels (a far cry from 80). I know there isn't enough resolution to suggest that when and if they ever make a 568 mpxl camera, that it will equate. However, it is much further than the 80. And it is patently ridiculous, when my scanner is rated at an optical resolution above 7300, to suggest that one can only get 745. The stuff coming out of my scanner is razor sharp... at these higher resolutions, and I have made the 20 foot prints to prove it.

Lenny
EigerStudios
eigerstudios.com

Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Faintandfuzzy on September 23, 2011, 03:49:45 pm
Erik, considering Lenny's experience in this area, I'll take his word for it.  As to this "test"....I'd say it ranks right up there with the D30 vs Provia and the 1Ds vs 6x7 film.....two tests which have been debunked and laughed at for the better part of a decade.

The part I don't get is the 1Ds vs 6x7 film.  A couple of years after the comparison was 645 vs the 1Ds2.  The confusing part was how it was claimed 11mp beat 6x7 film....yet 17mp "almost" matched 645.  Anyone see a glaring problem there.

No, this test, like the others, were made using poor methods and questionable outcomes.  In other words, a waste of time.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: AFairley on September 23, 2011, 03:53:03 pm
If one is interested in the absolute level of information capture between the two media, a quick and dirty way to take the scanner issue out of the equation (without rescans) would be to shoot macros of the films with a good DSLR, no?  8000 dpi is a piece of cake that way.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Schwarzzeit on September 23, 2011, 04:04:46 pm
Somehow I forgot to include the link to the thread (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=48241.msg402977#msg402977) where I posted the crops of my 8x10" sample.

-Dominique
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: feppe on September 23, 2011, 04:13:09 pm
OK, you have images to prove your point, why don't you post them?!

Actually, I'm somewhat skeptical.

Erik, you might want to google Mr Eiger and his credentials before being skeptical of anything he says when it comes to photographic image quality, especially scanning.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Faintandfuzzy on September 23, 2011, 04:13:39 pm
Somehow I forgot to include the link to the thread (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=48241.msg402977#msg402977) where I posted the crops of my 8x10" sample.

-Dominique

Looking at your crops, the 1440 ppi have a lotr of detail.  But you can still get more which is obvious in the 2400ppi samples....where the blinds pop in as do the flowers.  There is no way one could claim that 745ppi will get all the detail when we can clearly see benefits out to 2400ppi at least.

Thanks for posting this.  I further debunks the "test"
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Wayne Fox on September 23, 2011, 05:03:06 pm
Why? Undersampling usually results in sharper looking images. The images are soft at 754dpi so the scanner is not undersampling. How is this image going to catch up to the digital image by simply adding pixels?

seems like over sampling and then downrezzing to a similar dimension offers sharper images.  Isn't this a pretty typical workflow for 8x10 film ... scan at very high resolutions and then resize downward for output?
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on September 23, 2011, 05:40:07 pm
745PPI seems like to low res to me, on the other hand the 745PPI scan clearly shows a lot of softness. Increasing resolution would just cause more softness.  My guess may be that stopping down to f/32 seriously limits resolution. According to my testing on DSLRs going from f/8 to f/22 cuts linear resolution in half, turning a 24MP camera into a 6 MP camera. So my guess is that an 8x10" camera at f/32 would be able to produce 1/4 to 1/6 of the resolution achieveable at f/11. To this comes film flatness and film to ground glass alignment.

This is incorrect. It's a low end scanner. Softness, given good sharp film, is a function of scanning aperture and quality of scanner. Increasing the spi would not increase softness. It is simply ridiculous to imagine that 745 would match 4000.

Further, digital lenses cut their resolution much lower down the scale than large format lenses. I just tested my 150 Sironar S and the thing was extremely crisp at f45. Sorry, f22 wasn't any better.

One of the niceties with digital is that you have immediate feedback, if you botch it you can check directly, with film you see it when it's back from the lab.

That's true. That's the only benefit of digital however. Those of us that have been doing photography for long enough have worked on our processes long enough to get it right. I almost never have an issue with exposure and development.

Lenny

EigerStudios
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: dreed on September 23, 2011, 06:46:00 pm
That's true. That's the only benefit of digital however. Those of us that have been doing photography for long enough have worked on our processes long enough to get it right. I almost never have an issue with exposure and development.

And having visited one of Ken Duncan's galleries and stared in awe at the quality of prints (very large prints) that he makes from film, I can't disagree with what you've said about those that still work with film. There are other large format prints that I've seen in galleries where a 6'x6' (or similar sized print) is hanging that was made from an 8x10 and you're left wondering how do they do it...
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on September 23, 2011, 07:01:00 pm
And having visited one of Ken Duncan's galleries and stared in awe at the quality of prints (very large prints) that he makes from film, I can't disagree with what you've said about those that still work with film. There are other large format prints that I've seen in galleries where a 6'x6' (or similar sized print) is hanging that was made from an 8x10 and you're left wondering how do they do it...

Truly, its a lot of work. Making a great print with inkjet is the same it takes to do it in the darkroom. Everyone thinks its automatic because its digital, but it isn't. Basically I print something, then I look at it. If I can improve it, I make another print. And so on.... Knowing when you can improve something takes knowing yourself, as well as knowing what's possible. There's no substitute for studying one's Photohistory, working with others' whose opinion you value and taking the requisite years to figure it all out.

Lenny

EigerStudios
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Ray on September 23, 2011, 07:56:38 pm

Further, digital lenses cut their resolution much lower down the scale than large format lenses. I just tested my 150 Sironar S and the thing was extremely crisp at f45. Sorry, f22 wasn't any better.


Hi Lenny,
That interesting! Is this the lens?  http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/43853-USA/Rodenstock_160702_150mm_f_5_6_Apo_Sironar_S_Lens.html

It does mention in the overview that the ideal Working Aperture Range is f/11 -22.

What's this lens like at F11?

My understanding is a manufacturer will optimise a lens to produce best results over a particular range of apertures which are likely to be the most useful in relation to the format of camera the lens is designed for.

As far as I know, we have not yet defeated the laws of diffraction, although we are apparently working on it, constructing artificial materials through processes of nanotechnology.

The essential problem with all such comparisons involving different formats of cameras, using different lenses which may also have different performance characteristics even at the same aperture, is reconciling the test methodology with the principle of "best tool for the job".

It is a given, in the real world, that any good photographer will not only choose the particular format of camera that best suits his purposes, but also use his chosen format, and the selected lens that goes with it, in a way which produces the best results.

In my view, the purpose of these comparisons between different formats and types of cameras, is to learn in what circumstances one format of camera may produce better results than the other.

Now it seems very clear to me, if the 8x10 format used at F32 cannot even closely match the resolution of the IQ180 used at F16, there's not much point in equalising DoF by using the 8x10 at F64. The differences would be even wider.

I think the results of this test are very clear, that in situations where a reasonably long DoF is desired, the IQ180 without a shadow of a doubt produces better image quality than 8x10 film (at least the film types in the test).

What is missing from this test is a comparison at the shallow end of DoF. For example the IQ180 at F2.8 versus the 8x10 format at F11 or F13. Would this situation favour the 8x10? Somehow, I doubt it, but it would be good to see a comparison, perhaps of a still-life taken in the studio.

I notice that Markus has rescanned the results at a higher resolution which has had the effect of narrowing the differences slightly, but not changing the over all conclusion.

Regards

Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on September 23, 2011, 08:14:39 pm
Hi Lenny,
That interesting! Is this the lens?  http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/43853-USA/Rodenstock_160702_150mm_f_5_6_Apo_Sironar_S_Lens.html
It does mention in the overview that the ideal Working Aperture Range is f/11 -22.
What's this lens like at F11?

Yes, this is the lens. But I wouldn't have any idea what it does at f11. I wouldn't ever consider so wide open. Unless I was shooting something quite 2 dimensional. I am a lover of depth of field. However, I did shoot it at f22, 32, 45 and 64 just yesterday and 22 was not better than 45. 64 did start to get a little soft. Like all of these things, the manufacturer's recommendations don't always work out in real life...
The essential problem with all such comparisons involving different formats of cameras, using different lenses which may also have different performance characteristics even at the same aperture, is reconciling the test methodology with the principle of "best tool for the job".

I have an Ebony, its on a tripod and it was in the garage with the door open, natural light and no wind. No movements were used, simple straight ahead shot of some chisels, etc. I used Delta 100, at 100. I also souped in a Jobo using Xtol at 1:1. Then scanned on the Premier at 10 microns. i created one profile for the first neg and used it for all of them...

Now it seems very clear to me, if the 8x10 format used at F32 cannot even closely match the resolution of the IQ180 used at F16, there's not much point in equalising DoF by using the 8x10 at F64. The differences would be even wider.

I think the results of this test are very clear, that in situations where a reasonably long DoF is desired, the IQ180 without a shadow of a doubt produces better image quality than 8x10 film (at least the film types in the test).

I think the results are quite unclear. An 8x10 in my world would blow the 80 megapixel away on a variety of fronts, both resolution, but more importantly in tonal separation and reproduction.. What you have here is an incompetent setup by unknowledgeable people. Everyone will tell you that the operator is a key factor in a scan. This operator did not know what he was doing. (With all due respect.) Clearly hadn't gone past 745 in the past. He is using an old scanner that is not the top of the line and comparing it to the top of the line... These kinds of tests should be done with a Premier, with an experienced operator. Otherwise, its just bogus.

I'm not the only experienced operator, there are plenty, but choose someone who has some idea how to use the tools, please...


What is missing from this test is a comparison at the shallow end of DoF. For example the IQ180 at F2.8 versus the 8x10 format at F11 or F13. Would this situation favour the 8x10? Somehow, I doubt it, but it would be good to see a comparison, perhaps of a still-life taken in the studio.

I notice that Markus has rescanned the results at a higher resolution which has had the effect of narrowing the differences slightly, but not changing the over all conclusion.

Its nice that he is attempting to be accommodating. What he needs to do, however, is to pass the film to someone who can do it justice....

I'm rushing off, sorry if this sounds rushed.... more later.

Lenny
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Jack Flesher on September 23, 2011, 08:23:10 pm
Re scanning film and resolution. I have no dog in this fight, but back in the day I used an Imacon LF scanner. No, the Imacon was not an Aztek drum scanner, but it was pretty darn good. Anyway, I (and others who shot a lot of LF film) found that in most cases, 1800 DPI was around the maximum point you could extract detail off film -- the best low ISO slide films, neg films went a little higher -- anything higher usually just enlarged grain and gave no real additional usable image detail. And I would probably not argue with somebody claiming they see a wee bit more at 2400, but beyond that, you're chasing windmills.  

Point 2: Regardless, 745 is not everything a perfect 8x10 has to offer.  However, let's keep in mind that if it already looks soft at 745, it 'aint going to be any better at 8000...

Point 3: Lens resolution really depends on how you test. *SOME* LF lenses with 300mm or larger IC's are capable of making 60 line pairs, most are not -- I know this, because I tested a bunch back in the day. (The 150 APO Sironar S will NOT cover 8x10 -- the uber rare 150 APO Sironar W fall just shy of covering fully, but it was close enough and is a cult status optic -- and note it's a BEAST by comparison to the 150S, like 4 times as big.)  Seriously, 30 to 40 line pairs was really good for an 8x10 lens.  Note however we're not talking center-field here, we looked at 1/3 out from center to have a usable average number.  So yes, if you are only talking center field, 60 is probably doable with a few of the best.  

Cheers,

  
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on September 23, 2011, 11:49:03 pm
Re scanning film and resolution. I have no dog in this fight, but back in the day I used an Imacon LF scanner. No, the Imacon was not an Aztek drum scanner, but it was pretty darn good. Anyway, I (and others who shot a lot of LF film) found that in most cases, 1800 DPI was around the maximum point you could extract detail off film -- the best low ISO slide films, neg films went a little higher -- anything higher usually just enlarged grain and gave no real additional usable image detail. And I would probably not argue with somebody claiming they see a wee bit more at 2400, but beyond that, you're chasing windmills.  

See, this is exactly what I was saying... people make judgements about what is possible based on their equipment. Imacon's are ok. I'd say a little higher, likely somewhere in the 2,000-2,300 range. The earlier ones might have been 1800.... don't know. However, that's a CCD scanner. To assume what an entirely different technology could do (or could not do) does not make a lot of sense...

Point 2: Regardless, 745 is not everything a perfect 8x10 has to offer.  However, let's keep in mind that if it already looks soft at 745, it 'aint going to be any better at 8000...

I'd give that a possible. So the fellow was either bad at focusing his camera, has a mediocre lens, regardless of brand. Or maybe he was just bad at scanning. Maybe he was manually focussing the scanner? Or running it at a much higher micron setting. I haven't looked at the film so I can't say either way...

Point 3: Lens resolution really depends on how you test. *SOME* LF lenses with 300mm or larger IC's are capable of making 60 line pairs, most are not -- I know this, because I tested a bunch back in the day. (The 150 APO Sironar S will NOT cover 8x10 -- the uber rare 150 APO Sironar W fall just shy of covering fully, but it was close enough and is a cult status optic -- and note it's a BEAST by comparison to the 150S, like 4 times as big.)  Seriously, 30 to 40 line pairs was really good for an 8x10 lens.  Note however we're not talking center-field here, we looked at 1/3 out from center to have a usable average number.  So yes, if you are only talking center field, 60 is probably doable with a few of the best.  

I use the 150 for my little Ebony 4x5. Sweet little camera. I have a Canham Lightweight 8x10 and I use a 12 inch Sironar S for that one. It's an amazing piece of glass. It's also very big, as you say....

Best,

Lenny
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: qwz on September 23, 2011, 11:55:50 pm
Quote
I think the results of this test are very clear,
Ray, very clear that test is incorrect, if you ever see technically good 8x10 shot.
Of course IQ180 has clear advantage in easiness in photographic process, not in image quality.

For example, i can take digitalback, shot hanheld on iso 800 (convert from RAW to quickproof JPEG in C1) and compare it with Sony NEX with stabilized kit lens and get better result from small sensor too, not because NEX camera has better IQ, but because test is incorrect.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Wayne Fox on September 24, 2011, 01:42:46 am
I know this, because I tested a bunch back in the day.
I enjoy Pawnstars, and they use this expression all the time ... which they normally mean at least 40 years or further back.  Not quite the same as in our business (since back in the day can mean less than a decade when speaking of photographic technology) but despite that when I refer to things I've done "back in the day", I feel kinda old :)
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 24, 2011, 02:03:37 am
Hi,

My guess is that the 8x10" images have a focus problem. Poor luck! It is also possible that scanning was bad, but he tried to verify the image with a 20x loupe and found no better detail.

I'd say that scanning at 750PPI was not a that bad idea. That would give the same kind of resolution as the digital back, for easy comparison. That would not show resolution advantage of the 8x10" film on the other hand. I'd certainly would scan at higher PPI. The comparisons I made between film and sensor were generally at 3200 and 4800 PPI. The impression I have is that we start to get into diminishing returns past 1600 PPI. There will be some gains increasing resolution but not proportionally.

Sensor pixels are generally very good quality, but film scans seem to me to be soft and noisy. Sharpening and noise reduction may matter a lot.

Best regards
Erik


See, this is exactly what I was saying... people make judgements about what is possible based on their equipment. Imacon's are ok. I'd say a little higher, likely somewhere in the 2,000-2,300 range. The earlier ones might have been 1800.... don't know. However, that's a CCD scanner. To assume what an entirely different technology could do (or could not do) does not make a lot of sense...

I'd give that a possible. So the fellow was either bad at focusing his camera, has a mediocre lens, regardless of brand. Or maybe he was just bad at scanning. Maybe he was manually focussing the scanner? Or running it at a much higher micron setting. I haven't looked at the film so I can't say either way...

I use the 150 for my little Ebony 4x5. Sweet little camera. I have a Canham Lightweight 8x10 and I use a 12 inch Sironar S for that one. It's an amazing piece of glass. It's also very big, as you say....

Best,

Lenny
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: luong on September 24, 2011, 04:12:14 am
The fact that the author finds that scanning at a higher resolution did not change much is actually the most telling sign that his procedure did not produce the levels of resolution that 8x10 should.  

I  have worked with well over a thousand 5x7 drum scans at 1800dpi. For most of those cans, I have used the "guide file" workflow described by Rich Seiling of WCI, which consists of doing adjustments on a 750dpi file, and then transferring layers to the full size file. This means that I have seen both 750dpi and 1800dpi versions of the file. I have almost always found the 1800dpi version to contain significantly more detail. This is in real world, uncontrolled, vastly varying situations, with all sorts of depths and f-stops: my National Parks project (http://terragalleria.com/large-format/parks-lf.html).

Based on that observation, that the author finds no significant resolution gain beyond 750dpi would indicate that the transparency was technically flawed.

By the way, since I mentioned him, I had a short twitter correspondence with Rich Seiling (@richseiling) and here is his conclusion in 140 characters:  "Bottom line is that the test methodology does not show the true potential of 8x10. 8x10 is far better than what is shown."
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: j-land on September 24, 2011, 05:18:09 am
Just to add another example... 8x10 Foma 400 (thick base, grainy) shot with a 240mm lens at f45, scanned at 1800 dpi on an Epson 4990, sharpening applied post-scan. Reduce the 100% crops to a third the linear size you see on screen (assuming your screen is approx 100dpi) and you have a 43"x56" print at 300 dpi.
(edit - you may need to enlarge the window of the 1:1 crops to get them to actual pixel size)
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: MHMG on September 24, 2011, 02:12:39 pm
The results of this study can be explained almost completely in terms of depth of field. Choose a scene that requires extreme depth of field, and even a consumer digicam can best that 80 megapixel IQ180 back in terms of overall image sharpness. The scene that was photographed in this study, from truck license plate in foreground, to car at mid range, to building details in far background, although not extreme, would still tax the depth of field on a lens of normal focal length for an 8x10 view camera, and a photographer would be better off moving to 4x5 or medium format camera for this scene (which is what happened in choosing the IQ180 back). We are not talking about optical resolution limits here. We're talking about depth of field issues. If a flat plane like a mountain range at infinity (think Ansel Adams "Winter Sunrise, The Sierra Nevada, from Lone Pine, California") had been selected where you have little depth of field issues to contend with, then the scan resolution would have to be cranked up to at least 4000 ppi to capture what the 8x10 negative can record, and the study would have rendered a vastly different result.

A contact silver gelatin print from and 8x10 negative can render over 30 lp/mm even though a young viewer with very sharp eyes will only resolve 6-10 lp/mm at normal viewing distances. If you've ever had a course in Fourier transform analysis, you will remember that those high frequencies contribute directly to the perceived sharpness in mid frequency square wave response. In other words, even the high frequency details that we can't resolve directly still contribute to the wonderfully diffuse tonality and sharpness that we observe when looking at contact silver gelatin prints made from large format film. Digital print resolution still has a way to go. Ditto for digital image capture. Film still holds the advantage on high frequency details. That said, digital capture has now largely beaten film in terms of low and mid-frequency response. Although low and mid frequency response dominates in terms of our perception of acutance or "sharpness" in an image, whenever you hear photographers talking about "plasticky" looking skin or "smeared" background details, for example, it's often those pesky high frequency details being stomped on by anti-aliasing filters and/or noise reduction algorithms that cause the perceived visual effect.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on September 24, 2011, 03:07:49 pm
This remembers me a lot to the discussion about my thread about "the End of tolerances reached"over in getDPI.
Although I have stopped shooting 8/10" about 12 years ago now, before that I was destroying boxes and boxes of it in my studio every day,
mostly Velvia , my standard lens for that was either the 480 ApoRonar or the 600 ApoRonar, sometimes when needing something shorter I was using a 360 Apo Sironar S.
I was using an 8x loupe for focusing, stuck my sheets into the film holders with double sided tape to keep it flat and blew up to 16000 Ws onto the subject to mostly get around with either 45 or maybe 64, nicely hold by my fat Cambo or Plaubel tripods. This gave stunning results  - BUT - back then most of the time people did not make use of much more of maybe max 200-400 MB scans of these shots (I was working for print stuff nearly exclusively). Even then I can remember that I had a substantial amount of shots where I needed to repeat some shots when the focus was not 100 % right (we had Munich largest lab around the corner so we did  not much polaroids- instead we were waiting for the 1 hour to see if everything came out right .

This I suppose was the maximum that could be done to get Res. sharp and DOF wise sharp images at the time. And still if I look at the images today I know we have gone further with digital now.
The lenses have become better, the sensitivity is so much better and even worse for legend building: today anybody can take a look on their results at 400 % on a 30" Eizo or NEC if needed.
This leaves not much uncertainty about good or bad - you just see it. Under that same conditions  most films hanging around in archives being remembered as legendary sharp, fade by taking the facts to the harsh light of a todays scanner, which are dramatically good and uncover about anything that we did never see 30 years ago.

I have also done scanning services for the Bavarian State library for historical glass negatives, over 100 year old treasures made by finest craftsmanship of the 19th century, photographed with hand made lenses that did cost a fortune back then. There are amazing results, black and white worlds uncovering the finest details. But to the one which makes me speachless there are 50 others which were just barely sharp, defocused, poorly fixed and having staines and so on. We forget that the amount of material that has been used to get a real masterpiece was immense, thus a truly outstanding photo was something very valuable.

This has nearly completely changed today. With a medium format system with 80Mpix you will do nearly 100 % good shots (technically) if you know what you are doing and your equipment is
up to the task. I admit that some of my 8/10" Velvias still today make me stand still and remember what a great Time this was, but I would never go back - for no money on the world.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan Steib - hcam.de
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Schwarzzeit on September 24, 2011, 04:15:14 pm
The results of this study can be explained almost completely in terms of depth of field. Choose a scene that requires extreme depth of field, and even a consumer digicam can best that 80 megapixel IQ180 back in terms of overall image sharpness. The scene that was photographed in this study, from truck license plate in foreground, to car at mid range, to building details in far background, although not extreme, would still tax the depth of field on a lens of normal focal length for an 8x10 view camera, and a photographer would be better off moving to 4x5 or medium format camera for this scene (which is what happened in choosing the IQ180 back). We are not talking about optical resolution limits here. We're talking about depth of field issues. If a flat plane like a mountain range at infinity (think Ansel Adams "Winter Sunrise, The Sierra Nevada, from Lone Pine, California") had been selected where you have little depth of field issues to contend with, then the scan resolution would have to be cranked up to at least 4000 ppi to capture what the 8x10 negative can record, and the study would have rendered a vastly different result.

Mark,

I agree on the depth of field issue. However, it is possible to get exactly the same overall diffraction limited detail level by stopping down the larger format appropriately. Stopping down the 8x10" for this test to f/64 would have almost equalized the DOF with the 645 sensor at f/16. In film photography the larger format still gains from a better film MTF due to the lower enlargement ratio for an equally sized print. On the other hand smaller formats allow faster shutter speeds or need less flash power. If this is critical than there could be a real advantage for the smaller format.

A contact silver gelatin print from and 8x10 negative can render over 30 lp/mm even though a young viewer with very sharp eyes will only resolve 6-10 lp/mm at normal viewing distances. If you've ever had a course in Fourier transform analysis, you will remember that those high frequencies contribute directly to the perceived sharpness in mid frequency square wave response. In other words, even the high frequency details that we can't resolve directly still contribute to the wonderfully diffuse tonality and sharpness that we observe when looking at contact silver gelatin prints made from large format film. Digital print resolution still has a way to go. Ditto for digital image capture. Film still holds the advantage on high frequency details. That said, digital capture has now largely beaten film in terms of low and mid-frequency response. Although low and mid frequency response dominates in terms of our perception of acutance or "sharpness" in an image, whenever you hear photographers talking about "plasticky" looking skin or "smeared" background details, for example, it's often those pesky high frequency details being stomped on by anti-aliasing filters and/or noise reduction algorithms that cause the perceived visual effect.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
Thanks for the explanation, but are you sure that the highest frequencies contribute to the perceived sharpness? Isn't is just a matter of a higher MTF in the visible frequencies that boosts the perceived sharpness?

-Dominique
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: hjulenissen on September 24, 2011, 04:16:15 pm
If you've ever had a course in Fourier transform analysis, you will remember that those high frequencies contribute directly to the perceived sharpness in mid frequency square wave response. In other words, even the high frequency details that we can't resolve directly still contribute to the wonderfully diffuse tonality and sharpness that we observe when looking at contact silver gelatin prints made from large format film.
I did have such courses, and what you are saying makes no sense to me.

-h
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 24, 2011, 04:28:34 pm
Hi,

Thanks for sharing your experience!

Best regards
Erik


This remembers me a lot to the discussion about my thread about "the End of tolerances reached"over in getDPI.
Although I have stopped shooting 8/10" about 12 years ago now, before that I was destroying boxes and boxes of it in my studio every day,
mostly Velvia , my standard lens for that was either the 480 ApoRonar or the 600 ApoRonar, sometimes when needing something shorter I was using a 360 Apo Sironar S.
I was using an 8x loupe for focusing, stuck my sheets into the film holders with double sided tape to keep it flat and blew up to 16000 Ws onto the subject to mostly get around with either 45 or maybe 64, nicely hold by my fat Cambo or Plaubel tripods. This gave stunning results  - BUT - back then most of the time people did not make use of much more of maybe max 200-400 MB scans of these shots (I was working for print stuff nearly exclusively). Even then I can remember that I had a substantial amount of shots where I needed to repeat some shots when the focus was not 100 % right (we had Munich largest lab around the corner so we did  not much polaroids- instead we were waiting for the 1 hour to see if everything came out right .

This I suppose was the maximum that could be done to get Res. sharp and DOF wise sharp images at the time. And still if I look at the images today I know we have gone further with digital now.
The lenses have become better, the sensitivity is so much better and even worse for legend building: today anybody can take a look on their results at 400 % on a 30" Eizo or NEC if needed.
This leaves not much uncertainty about good or bad - you just see it. Under that same conditions  most films hanging around in archives being remembered as legendary sharp, fade by taking the facts to the harsh light of a todays scanner, which are dramatically good and uncover about anything that we did never see 30 years ago.

I have also done scanning services for the Bavarian State library for historical glass negatives, over 100 year old treasures made by finest craftsmanship of the 19th century, photographed with hand made lenses that did cost a fortune back then. There are amazing results, black and white worlds uncovering the finest details. But to the one which makes me speachless there are 50 others which were just barely sharp, defocused, poorly fixed and having staines and so on. We forget that the amount of material that has been used to get a real masterpiece was immense, thus a truly outstanding photo was something very valuable.

This has nearly completely changed today. With a medium format system with 80Mpix you will do nearly 100 % good shots (technically) if you know what you are doing and your equipment is
up to the task. I admit that some of my 8/10" Velvias still today make me stand still and remember what a great Time this was, but I would never go back - for no money on the world.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan Steib - hcam.de
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: BernardLanguillier on September 24, 2011, 05:07:50 pm
Predictably, my question would be... why not stitch with the IQ180 if high image quality really matters?

Stitching is fully applicable for many of the scenes where a 8x10 camera would be used. Stitching will be much faster and will deliver out of this work resolutions by actually re-creating a virtual sensor area similar to that of the 8x10 film.

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: MHMG on September 24, 2011, 06:04:20 pm
Predictably, my question would be... why not stitch with the IQ180 if high image quality really matters?

Stitching is fully applicable for many of the scenes where a 8x10 camera would be used. Stitching will be much faster and will deliver out of this work resolutions by actually re-creating a virtual sensor area similar to that of the 8x10 film.

Cheers,
Bernard


Equally predictable response would be to save a ton of money and stitch with an FF or DX dSLR, notwithstanding the limitations of stitching versus single capture.  And if you are willing to shoot film, the price of entry into 8x10 kit is about an order of magnitude less than the IQ180.  Or for about the same price of owning a decent 8x10 kit, one can rent and IQ180 for a week or two  ::).

At the risk of sounding like sour grapes, I would love to own many of the products that MR and his colleagues at LL have routine access to and/or have purchased for their personal use. No doubt on both technical and artistic merits, this stuff rocks. Yet, in my over forty years of serious amateur photography, I doubt I've spent in totality the amount of money I'd have to drop on an IQ180 back, let alone the camera body and lenses it sits on.  Interesting times we live in.  I will stick to film for a little while longer when I want to shoot a detailed landscape.  For everything else, the newest cell phone cameras and digicams are starting to blur the lines between amateur and pro output!
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Jack Flesher on September 24, 2011, 08:09:30 pm
I enjoy Pawnstars, and they use this expression all the time

Crap. The *OLD MAN* uses it all the time, and I aint anywhere near as old as him!
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 24, 2011, 10:27:26 pm
Hi,

When diffraction limited, MTF is essentially inversely proportional to f-number, pretty sure about that. So if you stop down two stops you loose half of the MTF. The other, more important, factor is that it is more probable that perfection is achieved on a camera without movements  and having live view for focusing, or exactly calibrated helical focusing and laser rangefinder.

I don't really buy into the significance of high frequency detail, this figure shows sensitivity of human eye: [img "http://www.imatest.com/docs/images/csf.gif" /img] . We can certainly see fine detail, but I have not seen any evidence that large format analogue would have more high frequency detail.

One issue, that I have not seen discussed here is that an MFDB with high resolution lenses will produce fake detail due to aliasing. Aliasing arises when the lens has high MTF beyond the Nyquist limit of the sensor. Stopping down to f/16 would eliminate that advantage. It has been said that stopping down to /f11 on the Leica S2 by and large eliminates visible aliasing.

Best regards
Erik

Mark,

I agree on the depth of field issue. However, it is possible to get exactly the same overall diffraction limited detail level by stopping down the larger format appropriately. Stopping down the 8x10" for this test to f/64 would have almost equalized the DOF with the 645 sensor at f/16. In film photography the larger format still gains from a better film MTF due to the lower enlargement ratio for an equally sized print. On the other hand smaller formats allow faster shutter speeds or need less flash power. If this is critical than there could be a real advantage for the smaller format.
Thanks for the explanation, but are you sure that the highest frequencies contribute to the perceived sharpness? Isn't is just a matter of a higher MTF in the visible frequencies that boosts the perceived sharpness?

-Dominique
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Nick Rains on September 25, 2011, 12:01:56 am
Seems to me there is a curious mishmash of comparisons going on here. The worst one is comparing a film scan at 100% on the screen to a digital capture at 100%. How the film looks will depend to a great extent on the spi used by the scanner operator.

The easiest way by far to do these types of tests is to make prints. At what increasing size does one format start to look better or worse than the other? This is subjective I know, but the print has to be the final arbiter, not the theory IMO. That leads me to one problem I have with this article, 745spi is just plain silly. If you want to make a 60 inch print you will end up printing at about 120ppi, hardly ideal, and I know prints of that size from 10x8 cameras are capable of results better than that - Lough, Fatali etc.

I have worked with 4x5 film and roll film for many years, I have recently been working with some guys shooting the IQ180 and I personally shoot the S2. I have also been in the business of fine print making for the past 15 years and I know a bit about how all those formats look. For instance, roll film was always sharper (over any given film area) than sheet film, that's why I shot 6x12 roll film in preference to 4x5. In a 1.5m print the roll film image looked sharper.

And having seen what the IQ180 can do in the right hands I am positive it would be a winner in a 1.5m print
shootout, at least from a pure resolution point of view. Tonally, well that might be a matter of preference or style.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 25, 2011, 12:24:22 am
Hi!

I my view comparing at actual pixels is very much valid. Pixels are pixels and they are what go into the print. Now, if pixels are properly scaled for printing the image on the screen will be far to much magnified. I have seen this in my tests. If I scale two different images for printout at 200 PPI or 360PPI there can be a very large difference on the screen but much less difference in prints.

Prints cannot be distributed over the net, and looking at small crops would essentially like pixelpeeping at the computer.

I guess I could fly to Brisbane (?) Australia to check out your prints, but I need my SEKs for sensors and lenses so I prefer to pixel peep.

The comparison was intended to find out if IQ180 could replace 8x10". With the test methodology of the authors the result was a resounding yes. It may be argued that the authors should been more competent using the 8x10", and I certainly would scan film at higher resolution. The results may also simply indicate that achieving perfection with 8x10" is not easy.

Best regards
Erik
Seems to me there is a curious mishmash of comparisons going on here. The worst one is comparing a film scan at 100% on the screen to a digital capture at 100%. How the film looks will depend to a great extent on the spi used by the scanner operator.

The easiest way by far to do these types of tests is to make prints. At what increasing size does one format start to look better or worse than the other? This is subjective I know, but the print has to be the final arbiter, not the theory IMO. That leads me to one problem I have with this article, 745spi is just plain silly. If you want to make a 60 inch print you will end up printing at about 120ppi, hardly ideal, and I know prints of that size from 10x8 cameras are capable of results better than that - Lough, Fatali etc.

I have worked with 4x5 film and roll film for many years, I have recently been working with some guys shooting the IQ180 and I personally shoot the S2. I have also been in the business of fine print making for the past 15 years and I know a bit about how all those formats look. For instance, roll film was always sharper (over any given film area) than sheet film, that's why I shot 6x12 roll film in preference to 4x5. In a 1.5m print the roll film image looked sharper.

And having seen what the IQ180 can do in the right hands I am positive it would be a winner in a 1.5m print
shootout, at least from a pure resolution point of view. Tonally, well that might be a matter of preference or style.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Wayne Fox on September 25, 2011, 01:17:30 am
Predictably, my question would be... why not stitch with the IQ180 if high image quality really matters?

Stitching is commonly practiced by owners if such backs, and tech cameras are becoming even more popular partially because they allow perfect stitching by moving the back.

Of course, you can't always stitch, and most of the time you don't need to.  I find I tend to stitch when I have a really wide pano I'm trying to capture, because I know I'll get sharper corners than if I throw on my 28mm.

I also have seen images that were stitched 8x10 film ... totally amazing :)
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Schewe on September 25, 2011, 01:22:36 am
The comparison was intended to find out if IQ180 could replace 8x10". With the test methodology of the authors the result was a resounding yes. It may be argued that the authors should been more competent using the 8x10", and I certainly would scan film at higher resolution. The results may also simply indicate that achieving perfection with 8x10" is not easy.

Having spent a lot of time shooting 8x10 commercially and recently upgrading to an IQ 180, I agree that the basic premise of whether or not an IQ 180 could "replace" and 8x10 has been pretty much proven giving a maximum upward size of a print. An IQ 180 has a capture of 10328 x 7760 which equates to a digital print of 43x32.3 at 240PPI. So we're talking a nominal 30" x 40" print.

If you scan an 8x10 (nominally 9.5 x 7.5 unless you compose right to the rebate of the film) at 1600PPI (note I'm not saying that's the best you can get, I'm saying it's a reasonable file size for an 8x10 scan) you'll end up with an image of 15200 x 12000 pixels or about 43x34 at about 350PPI (353.488 to be exact).

In the analog world, that's a big print...heck, how many people have actually used an 8x10 enlarger (or even seen one)? I have and it was a real pain in the arse to make even a 16x20 enlarged print.

So, in terms of a digital print from an IQ 180 and an 8x10 scan assuming about 30x40 inch print, would the IQ 180 at about 240PPI look better than the 8x10 scanned at about 350PPI?

Hum...I don't know...but I'm willing to bet it would be close (and I'm leaning toward the IQ 180 shot on a tech camera with digital lenses). Forget about the reduced DOF on the 8x10 shot...forget about having to have a really good drum scanner to digitize the film...forget about the spotting and cleanup of the scan (which I used to REALLY hate). And of course, forget about dragging an 8x10 with tripod, lenses and film holders around and I think it's a no brainer. Assuming you have the bucks, the IQ 180 is a real competitive answer to 8x10. If you don't have the bucks...an 8x10 film camera is an economical alternative that will, as long as somebody makes 8x10 film and processes it and you have somebody who can scan it, provide really good image quality potential. So one is really, really expensive and the other is cheap (by comparison but weights a lot more :~)

I'll be honest and say that the scans of the 8x10 film don't look great to me...I have had enough 8x10 film scanned to view those scans as being less than optimal and I'm also wondering what the film looked like on the light table through an 8X loupe...

The other thing I will say is that I've had excellent results upsampling digital captures easily to 2x the original capture size. The same can't be said for film though...the grain makes upsampling less good than digital...so the real question is, what size prints do you want? Over 30x40 inches? Well then maybe we have a question here...under 30x40 inch prints? It would be hard to say 8x10 would be a winner considering all the factors aside from price.

But hey, you guys wanna keep yammering, you all go right ahead....personally, I would like to thank the authors for making the effort and at least contributing...you stick your face up in a crowd, you're likely to catch a lot of flak...
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Sheldon N on September 26, 2011, 01:58:44 am
Well said Jeff.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Faintandfuzzy on September 26, 2011, 08:22:07 am
You completely missed the point Jeff.  It would be nice if we were indeed discussing a well scanned and processed 8x10 image scanned at 1600 ppi.  We however, are not.  We are discussing a 745ppi scan.  And I have yet to find anyone experienced with scanning that agrees this is enough for a comparison.  In fact, it's so obviously ridiculous that the article has so far become the laughingstock of the photography forums. 
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 26, 2011, 09:09:02 am
Hi,

We don't know if the image was well executed. The authors wrote that they will rescan the image with higher resolution. Several posters made the comment that if an image is unsharp at the pixel level at 800 PPI it will also be unsharp at 1600 PPI.

I have not seen any similar comparison posted on the net, so this may be the best one there is.

A similar discussion arose when Reichmann, Atkinsson and Schewe compared 4x5" Velvia to P45.

Best regards
Erik



You completely missed the point Jeff.  It would be nice if we were indeed discussing a well scanned and processed 8x10 image scanned at 1600 ppi.  We however, are not.  We are discussing a 745ppi scan.  And I have yet to find anyone experienced with scanning that agrees this is enough for a comparison.  In fact, it's so obviously ridiculous that the article has so far become the laughingstock of the photography forums. 
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on September 26, 2011, 10:08:54 am
Maybe it´s quite relaxing to get some numbers into this discussion - here is a google translated article of german photoscala:

http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fphotoscala.de%2FArtikel%2FWie-viele-Megapixel-hat-ein-Film

additionally there was a comparison of 35mmDSLR - Leica S2 and Mamiya RZ (with velvia) see here:

http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fphotoscala.de%2FArtikel%2FKleinbild-kontra-Mittelformat

The results (for the film) look pretty similar to this test with 8x10 inch.
OK I know the film people don´t want to hear or see this, but there is a trend, and this also confirms what I think - and - probably most of the people do, at least of the PRO-E6 labs we had in Munich
most of them had closed down only 2 left of over 10.
Why should everybody use something more expensive, with worse quality and less usability as the Film defenders state about digital ?
I understand that there are emotions involved here, but I guess it is not helpful to accuse people of doing ridiculous and stupid comparisons here - I would propose try yourself and then
make your own judgements. Many (probably most) people already did this and look at the market now. I think this speaks for itself.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan Steib    hcam.de
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: image66 on September 26, 2011, 10:25:56 am
I suppose I'm just impressed that camera technology from a hundred years ago is holding up as well as it does against a camera costing as much as my house.

That said, I see focus and vibration blurring in the 8x10 photo. I agree with others who have stated that if the film isn't sharp at 800 ppi, there is something going wrong on the capture side of the equation.

Ken
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Faintandfuzzy on September 26, 2011, 11:34:49 am
Hi,

We don't know if the image was well executed. The authors wrote that they will rescan the image with higher resolution. Several posters made the comment that if an image is unsharp at the pixel level at 800 PPI it will also be unsharp at 1600 PPI.

I have not seen any similar comparison posted on the net, so this may be the best one there is.

A similar discussion arose when Reichmann, Atkinsson and Schewe compared 4x5" Velvia to P45.

Best regards
Erik




I guess therin lies the problem Erik.....if a 745ppi scan of the film is soft looking...then the issue is more with the capture method than it is anything else.  My scans of 4x5 are not soft at 800ppi, or 1600, or 2400ppi.  So, we're back to this simply being yet another flawed test.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: feppe on September 26, 2011, 12:28:48 pm
Why should everybody use something more expensive, with worse quality and less usability as the Film defenders state about digital ?

It's not that simple. 30-100k EUR/USD buys a lot of film, developing and scanning, so for some film is cheaper, for some, digital. It's also not purely about cost, but ROI: although digital might be more expensive in some cases, the cost of each additional exposure is practically zero, whereas with film it's (at least) the price of film and developing.

Also, with film you are less likely to upgrade your back every few years to a shiny new one.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on September 26, 2011, 02:01:43 pm
@Feppe

well - I think most people forget how darn expensive it was 10 even more 20 years ago to buy this 8x10 " highend equipment, cameras (Sinar P2 full blown with 5 lenses and accessories, nice little expolux shutter or some other gimmicks and you easily went over 20-30000 DM !!!) , lenses (did all of you really forgot what a dollar/DMark was worth 20 years ago - this was Mark=€ today and the large lenses were 4000, 5000 or even 6000 DM !) and  you should not forget all the larger flash equipment which is now no more needed (who needs an 8000ws generator nowadays ? I had several of these !).

The only reason why using 8x10" is "cheap" now is because the Pros have sold their stuff for nearly nothing and moved on to the next technology.......

20 years ago I have often spent around 300 to 500 DM a day for material and E6 costs - pushpull, late lab costs, weekends,....... how can anybody forget this all ?
The only reason why people would do this, was that customers were paying for the material back then.

Now come the stupid photographers (myself included) who at the beginning of Digital were NOT consequent enough to charge a "Material fee" for the used Digi equipment !
It´s our own fault, the competition was and is like this, and I repeat it: Photographers are stupid and bad business men.

Otherwise NOBODY today would be complaining about the 35k$ for an IQ180.
I know there are countries where Photographers are working different, France/Paris I heard there are plenty of rental studios who rent the backs and the studios, Japan/Tokyo seems to be the same.
What I don´t know if these Photographers charge the real costs of the rental per job or if they put this in their day rates.

Would be interesting to hear from someone who is into that rental scene and working like this.

Greetings from Munich

Stefan Steib   hcam.de


Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: hjulenissen on September 26, 2011, 02:56:22 pm
The only reason why using 8x10" is "cheap" now is because the Pros have sold their stuff for nearly nothing and moved on to the next technology.......
I am a hobbyist. At the current price level, anything digital >35mm is out of the question for me. A cheap larger format film camera, dumped by the pros could still be interesting for experimentation (and probably not for taking a large number of pictures).

At the very least, camera movements (combined with reasonable quality) seem to be available cheaper with used film cameras than with existing DSLR tilt-shift lenses (will see if Samyang can change that).

-h
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: feppe on September 26, 2011, 04:07:49 pm
@Feppe

well - I think most people forget how darn expensive it was 10 even more 20 years ago to buy this 8x10 " highend equipment, cameras (Sinar P2 full blown with 5 lenses and accessories, nice little expolux shutter or some other gimmicks and you easily went over 20-30000 DM !!!) , lenses (did all of you really forgot what a dollar/DMark was worth 20 years ago - this was Mark=€ today and the large lenses were 4000, 5000 or even 6000 DM !) and  you should not forget all the larger flash equipment which is now no more needed (who needs an 8000ws generator nowadays ? I had several of these !).

The only reason why using 8x10" is "cheap" now is because the Pros have sold their stuff for nearly nothing and moved on to the next technology.......

I don't see how that is relevant, other than an off-topic discussion of the recent advent of digital and its impact on prices. The fact is, as hjulenissen says, that digital larger than 35mm is prohibitively expensive to everyone except pros who shoot a lot and need a lot of pixels, and the proverbial dentist and trust fund hobbyists. How we got there doesn't really matter.

Agree with your assessment about the lack of business (or I should say financial) acumen in the photography business. Reading some of the economic and financial ignorance on these boards about what is the cost of doing business alone boggles the mind. The most common mistake seems to be that people assume their time is essentially free.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on September 26, 2011, 04:39:17 pm
I say the 8/10" equipment was not cheaper, it´s costs have only been paid years ago. It was the best possible output of 10 years ago, but it is already surpassed.
What will a H4D200 do ? Did anybody already compare an Anagramm or Betterlight with 8/10 " ? I think the 80 Mpix are just another step in an ongoing process.
The CCD´s are just another leftover, next evolution will be large CMOS´s and then quality will become cheaper and even more affordable.

But the question is not about shere image size, the more interesting part is integration of this amount of data into workflows, easy accessability and  immediate control
of what I have shot. And under none of these points film does have any answers that work.

So maybe the flaw in this test is that it should have shown how much effort it took to make the digital shots and how much time and knowledge it took to get to these scans
-which obviously are a broad source of discussion nevertheless.

This is the really interesting part here.

Greetings from Munich

Stefan Steib   HCam.de
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 26, 2011, 04:46:00 pm
Hi!

Have you seen this? Tilt lens on a shoestring:

http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/29-handling-the-dof-trap?start=3

Best regards
Erik


I am a hobbyist. At the current price level, anything digital >35mm is out of the question for me. A cheap larger format film camera, dumped by the pros could still be interesting for experimentation (and probably not for taking a large number of pictures).

At the very least, camera movements (combined with reasonable quality) seem to be available cheaper with used film cameras than with existing DSLR tilt-shift lenses (will see if Samyang can change that).

-h
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 26, 2011, 04:56:32 pm
Hi,

You are probably right about CMOS and increasing resolution. Another possibility may also be that MF digital starves out to competition from DSLRs. I don't think it will, there will always be an advantage to larger sensors, and those who are willing to pay for those advantages.

But, I'd suggest that the main driver behind 8x10" is not image quality but the sensation of craftmanship and uniqueness.

Best regards
Erik

I say the 8/10" equipment was not cheaper, it´s costs have only been paid years ago. It was the best possible output of 10 years ago, but it is already surpassed.
What will a H4D200 do ? Did anybody already compare an Anagramm or Betterlight with 8/10 " ? I think the 80 Mpix are just another step in an ongoing process.
The CCD´s are just another leftover, next evolution will be large CMOS´s and then quality will become cheaper and even more affordable.

But the question is not about shere image size, the more interesting part is integration of this amount of data into workflows, easy accessability and  immediate control
of what I have shot. And under none of these points film does have any answers that work.

So maybe the flaw in this test is that it should have shown how much effort it took to make the digital shots and how much time and knowledge it took to get to these scans
-which obviously are a broad source of discussion nevertheless.

This is the really interesting part here.

Greetings from Munich

Stefan Steib   HCam.de
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Schwarzzeit on September 27, 2011, 06:09:24 am
Another perspective how experienced LF photographers perceived this test can be read here: http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=80963

It's interesting to read from post #57 and onwards that there was another test planned that somehow wasn't made. If you read further it seems that Markus has agreed to reshoot his test with the help of some experienced LF shooters and drum scanner operators. So I guess there's more to come and hopefully a fair test will be published on this site.

In its current form the only conclusion this test gives is that an optimally focused IQ180 on a tech cam does much better than an out of focus 8x10" with a low quality drum scan. It is one example that might reflect the practical experience of some but we all agree that a correctly focused 8x10" can do much better.

Besides the level of detail I don't think it's possible to replicate the unique look you can get with 8x10" film with an MFDB and vice versa. So there's no substitute. If that look is critical to the expression of your vision as a fine art photographer you should use the tools that give you the best starting point in order to achieve that. I think it would have been nicer if such a comparison would show the unique character of what these systems do in different situations, showing their strengths and unique quality at optimum use and also their weaknesses and problems, instead of just picking out some seemingly random crops showing that one system has a better level of detail in these crops on this particular image. It would take much more effort to do such a broad test but it would be very valuable to a lot of readers trying to get an informed opinion. And tests would be much more pleasing if the subjects would be worth being photographed. I like for example what Tim Parkin did when he recently compared all available color sheet films: http://www.landscapegb.com/2011/06/colour-film-comparison-pt-3/

-Dominique
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: dreed on September 27, 2011, 08:29:37 am
I guess therin lies the problem Erik.....if a 745ppi scan of the film is soft looking...then the issue is more with the capture method than it is anything else.  My scans of 4x5 are not soft at 800ppi, or 1600, or 2400ppi.  So, we're back to this simply being yet another flawed test.

And given Michael's comparison shoot test also being flaw'd (NEX-7) ...

I think the best decision that Michael made for this web site was to stop doing resolution tests.

However this begat another problem - how can we judge what he sees when he says A is better than B?

I wonder if the problem is:
* bad technique in the test procedure
* not allocating enough time
* being happy with finding results that support the outcome desired

(or a combination of the above.)

In future resolution tests by Michael and others for this website, I'd like to encourage them to challenge any result that is in favour of the topic and search for ways to disprove themselves.

For example, rather than being happy with the 8x10@745ppi being of lesser quality than the IQ180 and leave it at that, search for ways and means to improve the 8x10's resolution.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on September 27, 2011, 11:41:20 am
I think the best decision that Michael made for this web site was to stop doing resolution tests.

Agreed, but only if the test methodology is not sound.

Quote
However this begat another problem - how can we judge what he sees when he says A is better than B?

Opinions are often subjective, a proper test delivers objective results. Part of the issue is the seemingly allergic reaction to using a proper test target/chart, e.g. one that I developed and is available for free (http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13217). 

By focusing (which is easy on such a target) on a flat surface/chart one eliminates DOF induced defocus. It indicates aliasing artifacts (e.g. at apertures that do not add enough diffraction blur), and it allows to nail the limiting resolution (also of a scanned film even when the scanner is the limiting factor), and it shows whether a very high scan resolution is overkill (producing larger files than needed for the resolution). One can focus optimally anywhere in the image circle and get an optimal outcome despite field curvature or non-parallel target surface and film/sensor plane. Even camera shake will be made visible if it spoils the fun.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Faintandfuzzy on September 27, 2011, 12:22:39 pm
Maybe it´s quite relaxing to get some numbers into this discussion - here is a google translated article of german photoscala:

http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fphotoscala.de%2FArtikel%2FWie-viele-Megapixel-hat-ein-Film

additionally there was a comparison of 35mmDSLR - Leica S2 and Mamiya RZ (with velvia) see here:

http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fphotoscala.de%2FArtikel%2FKleinbild-kontra-Mittelformat

The results (for the film) look pretty similar to this test with 8x10 inch.
OK I know the film people don´t want to hear or see this, but there is a trend, and this also confirms what I think - and - probably most of the people do, at least of the PRO-E6 labs we had in Munich
most of them had closed down only 2 left of over 10.
Why should everybody use something more expensive, with worse quality and less usability as the Film defenders state about digital ?
I understand that there are emotions involved here, but I guess it is not helpful to accuse people of doing ridiculous and stupid comparisons here - I would propose try yourself and then
make your own judgements. Many (probably most) people already did this and look at the market now. I think this speaks for itself.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan Steib    hcam.de

Well, I checked the D3x vs S2 vs RZ images.  And as usual, the digital file had sharpening applied while the film scan did not.  This I find is typical.  Why don't we just run the film scan through a gaussian blur and really make it look bad.  I simply applied some USM to the film scan and voila, it was now better than the D3x.  Simple workflow technique completely changed the result of this comparison. 

A little knowledge goes a long way....but it's rarely applied in these "tests."
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on September 27, 2011, 05:43:38 pm
@faintandfuzzy

Maybe this was/is because some graceful heart/scanoperator gave up because even after applying several sharpness and unsharp mask runs in various combinations the only "improvement" is that the Velvia becomes grainy like an old 1600 ASA color neg but without matching the resolution of the D3x ? ( just tried it myself with CS5.5 and even a deconvolution sharpening in ImageJ. Whereas the D3x image gained sharpness after applying an unsharp mask without getting much noisier, not to speak of the Leica S2 file- which is from another galaxy )

OK I know: grain is art, lack of detail is intentional and belief ist stronger than facts.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on September 27, 2011, 05:48:24 pm
This is ridiculous. If you are going to compare two things, then you should compare things of the same quality. Period. As far as those who would suggest it is just fine for commercial work, I would agree. Digital is easier, you have instant feedback, you don't have the wait for the film, or soup it yourself, etc. Almost everything is for magazine size. Why shoot 80 mp even? If I was shooting commercially, then I would certain be doing it digitally.

However, I am an artist. The question the test was trying to ask was not if it was good enough, but if it was better. Clearly, it isn't. Going for 240 is going for mediocre. That's fine for some, but its not for me.

You can see the difference in printing of you look at over and under 300 dpi to the printer. With b&w inks, I usually prefer 450-500 dpi. I like smooth tonal changes. And you can't be the tonal reproduction of a large negative. No smaller sensor is going to do that. I could easily beat what they are doing with a 4x5 at 4000. You can not argue with film real estate.

In contrast to Jeff I think this kind of sloppiness in testing is less than helpful. We already knew that a fancy back would be handy for commercial work. What then, is the purpose of the comparison? Feels like a lot of marketing to me. I have less than 5K in each of my 4x5 and 8x10 cameras and they work exquisitely. Until they get me a couple of hundred megapixels, I won't be much interested... and I certainly don't want to spend money unless I can charge a client.

Lenny

EigerStudios
Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Faintandfuzzy on September 27, 2011, 07:12:07 pm
@faintandfuzzy

Maybe this was/is because some graceful heart/scanoperator gave up because even after applying several sharpness and unsharp mask runs in various combinations the only "improvement" is that the Velvia becomes grainy like an old 1600 ASA color neg but without matching the resolution of the D3x ? ( just tried it myself with CS5.5 and even a deconvolution sharpening in ImageJ. Whereas the D3x image gained sharpness after applying an unsharp mask without getting much noisier, not to speak of the Leica S2 file- which is from another galaxy )

OK I know: grain is art, lack of detail is intentional and belief ist stronger than facts.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan

Then I would suggest learning how to sharpen.  As to grain, it wouldn't even show in a 16x24 or 24x30 print...I know...because I print them all the time from Astia and Velvia.  If you're getting iso 1600 grain from Velvia, it's your workflow issues...not the film. 

Honestly, this has become tiring.  Defending a ridiculously flawed and biased test to the nth degree goes beyond logic. 
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Schewe on September 27, 2011, 07:19:14 pm
The question the test was trying to ask was not if it was good enough, but if it was better.

No, the original question was a single photographer testing out his new IQ 180 back on both his Phase One camera and his Alpha.

Michael asked the author to also shoot 8x10 so he asked a 2nd photographer to shoot with him.

I do question the 8x10 shot and scans...my 8x10 stuff sure seems higher resolution and with better sharpness & IQ.

I don't question the ability to take well captured IQ 180 captures and make big prints (I've done so, have you) and I don't question the ability to take well scanned, sharp 8x10 film and make big prints.

The question is, how big are you making prints? What media? What printer? How much resolution is sufficient?

Quote
I have less than 5K in each of my 4x5 and 8x10 cameras and they work exquisitely. Until they get me a couple of hundred megapixels, I won't be much interested... and I certainly don't want to spend money unless I can charge a client.

There ya go...showing your real point of view...it all comes down to economics/quality/ease of use.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on September 27, 2011, 07:51:27 pm
No, the original question was a single photographer testing out his new IQ 180 back on both his Phase One camera and his Alpha.

If its anecdotal, then it should be labeled as such.

The question is, how big are you making prints? What media? What printer? How much resolution is sufficient?

Interesting question. Sufficient for what? I generally go for 500 dpi at 40 inches, as I am printing in b&w. In fact, I have printed many 20 foot long prints for other artists. I even scanned an 8x10 at 8,000 for a guy who wanted to do a 35 foot image. I have two 54 inch Roland's, one set up with 12 color inks and the other set up with two sets of b&w inks. I start with Cone's inks and reformulate the top end to get the kind of highlights I want. I have six warm tones and another six cool tones and I do a very nice neutral with all 12. I can also split, of course.

I started with the idea that I wanted to see if I could get a tonal range as long as a platinum print. I have done this and more. For many years I have been printing on PhotoRag and am now moving over to handmade Japanese Kozo which is translucent. Light goes thru the image and bounces off the matte and under the right circumstances its downright luminescent. I've been very successful with the quality of the 32x40's but to be honest I'm moving smaller.

Super-critical sharpness isn't that important to me, I'm more interested in DOF. Most important is tonal reproduction. I'm usually after an effect that makes the viewer feel that they are there, in the scene. The more textural information you can feed them, the more likely this is to happen. How much is needed to distinguish that the light on that tree over there is summer light vs winter light? I can't quantify it. I just do the best I can and I celebrate when it works.

And yes, I have tried many digital cameras. Been doing this a while, I have a 645 AFD I'd love to sell, that came with a DCS Pro Back (that I did sell). That was a lot of money when it was new.... and altho' I got a little break, my scanner retails for $40K new. It isn't about the money. Every tool has its purpose. And these things don't match mine. They will one day, I'm sure...

Lenny


Lenny Eiger
EigerStudios
Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Schewe on September 27, 2011, 10:18:50 pm
Interesting question. Sufficient for what? I generally go for 500 dpi at 40 inches, as I am printing in b&w.

Well...I tend to print out of Lightroom and upsample anything whose native resolution is 360 or about up to 720ppi for output (along with the output sharpening in Lightroom with which I have a "relationship" to)...the P65+ and IQ 180 files often need little upsampling.

If you are printing on non-photo black media, I doubt you need as much resolution. Tonal gradations are a totally separate discussion...only slightly impacted by image resolution.

[/quote]I have a 645 AFD I'd love to sell, that came with a DCS Pro Back (that I did sell). [/quote]

Well, that explains your aversion to digital...and yes, it _IS_ about the money...it's never _NOT_ about the money unless you have a ton of it.

:~)
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on September 28, 2011, 06:25:42 am
Well maybe we need to go a bit astray to get some more data that enlighten the actual status.
The actual highend in Digital  and Film technology is not driven by Photography(with the sole exception of resolution maybe), maybe that hurts, but is the plain truth.
Innovations today happen at the Film/Video people and thus I would suggest taking a look at this

http://vimeo.com/24334733
http://vimeo.com/26772177

These are part 1+2 of the 2011 Zacuto.com shootout of highend film/video gear making a real life comparison on best condition controlled setups.
Huge effort taken, probably some of the best pro´s in the business, giving a pretty good impression of where film and digital stand today.

I believe everybody should know this - this is eyeopening !

regards
Stefan

PS.: Epsiode 3 is announced for October 5th now:   http://vimeo.com/29167694
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on September 28, 2011, 06:31:16 am
Yes,

The Zacuto programs are interesting and fascinatiing.


On the innovation part, I´d say motion film and photography are two different worlds with things in common.

Best regards
Erik


Well maybe we need to go a bit astray to get some more data that enlighten the actual status.
The actual highend in Digital  and Film technology is not driven by Photography(with the sole exception of resolution maybe), maybe that hurts, but is the plain truth.
Innovations today happen at the Film/Video people and thus I would suggest taking a look at this

http://vimeo.com/24334733
http://vimeo.com/26772177

These are part 1+2 of the Zacuto.com shootout of highend film/video gear making a real life comparison on best condition controlled setups.
Huge effort taken, probably some of the best pro´s in the business, giving a pretty good impression of where film and digital stand today.

I believe everybody should know this - this is eyeopening !

regards
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: DaFu on September 28, 2011, 10:12:36 pm
"These are part 1+2 of the 2011 Zacuto.com shootout"

Thanks very much for posting those links, Stefan. They were fascinating.

Dave
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Sareesh Sudhakaran on September 28, 2011, 11:22:32 pm
Video sensors and technology have totally different needs and issues as compared to the still systems being discussed here. I wouldn't use the Zacuto tests to make any sort of judgement on the topic at hand.

On a light note, the sensors of video systems have reached the same sizes as their film counterparts, and it seems the dynamic range is almost there too - yet none has tried to carry that analogy (equivalent size of sensors - a huge deal in the film/video world) to this discussion.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on September 29, 2011, 05:37:44 am
You are right Sareesh, not a very broad interest in building 8/10 " sensors.
But something similar has already been done, a tad bigger though....... -in astronomy:
http://www.astro-wise.org/~omegacam/index.shtml

;-))))

Greetings from right now Tarragona Food festival 2011/Spain

Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Jim Pascoe on September 29, 2011, 01:16:48 pm
I just wandered into this topic by chance and got hooked (as you do).  Very interesting really but about stuff I have no experience of.  Starts off with some of the Forum's luminaries batting it out as usual - all fairly civilised stuff.  Then from nowhere a few impudent newbies appear putting their opinions forward.  Now I know there is a pecking order on this forum, with of course Mr MR at the top (cos he can always have the last word), and there are the tech geeks who have forgotten more about the theory of digital photography than I have ever learned.  And of course their are some who are just good photographers.  Obviously these categories   can and do overlap.
Anyway, there must always be a suspicion that when someone appears with less than 20 posts they must be a bit suspect, right?  So it has been quite fun to see the Newbies doing good battle with the old big guns, and as the posts carried on I started to feel a little intimidated at my comparisons between DSLR and M43, what with all this big stuff about 8x10 and 80 MP backs and f64 and 500MB files flying about.  Just as I was feeling a little exhausted and needing a lie down, the real Daddy of the forum comes in and carpet bombs the whole show.  Yes you know who I'm talking about, and if you Newbies don't then you better get your tin hats on now!
There are a few 'pains in the arses' in these forums (and I'm not referring to anyone in this particular set of posts), but it is lovely to have such a set of characters contributing to an enjoyable debate, even if sometimes the subject is a little over my head, and great to have such a range of experience both from established posters and the 'Newbies'.

I thought I was a knowledgable photographer, but the longer I spend doing it the more I find to learn.

Jim
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on September 30, 2011, 09:55:05 am
 :)  Hi Jim

As I have written before, I´m right now in Tarragona / Spain for the Foodphoto festival 2011 and I can tell you that the vast majority of people here try to get the best unsharpness with their
expensive cameras of different sizes (Bokeh). So there are some more things than shere size and sharpness..........

Regards
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Jim Pascoe on September 30, 2011, 12:35:54 pm
:)  Hi Jim

As I have written before, I´m right now in Tarragona / Spain for the Foodphoto festival 2011 and I can tell you that the vast majority of people here try to get the best unsharpness with their
expensive cameras of different sizes (Bokeh). So there are some more things than shere size and sharpness..........

Regards
Stefan


Stefan

Quite right!  Most of my photography is done hand-held and often at f2, so I appreciate what you are saying.  Still it is an interesting topic though.

Jim
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 05, 2011, 12:55:40 pm
Just for completing the Zacuto links- Episode 3 is out now and the finish is surprising (guess the film people will like it !)

http://www.zacuto.com/the-great-camera-shootout-2011/episode-three

 :)

Have fun

Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: PierreVandevenne on October 05, 2011, 07:38:55 pm
Thanks for the link Stefan! Great stuff. The 4:4:4 4:2:2 4:2:0 test in part two has to be the best demo of the topic I have seen.  As far as film is concerned, it looked great on faces, but struck me as yelling "I am old! I am old!" in low light. I didn't realize my perception had changed so much over the last ten years. I wish I could see the Barry Lyndon candle scene on a real cinema screen today.

And if I had a use for it, I'd go for the Phantom Flex :-)
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 05, 2011, 08:22:21 pm
Pierre

Barry Lyndon is THE lowlight masterpiece of all times and now I will make an unusual statement that I will not repeat anytime again:

In this film I adore any piece of grain visible.
But this s´got nothing to do with sharpness or resolution. It´s pure art - unreached and unique.

This was made by the masters hand - and Kubrick was a god.

OK......? :)

Greetings from Munich
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Sareesh Sudhakaran on October 05, 2011, 11:32:32 pm
Barry Lyndon is THE lowlight masterpiece of all times and now I will make an unusual statement that I will not repeat anytime again:

In this film I adore any piece of grain visible.
But this s´got nothing to do with sharpness or resolution. It´s pure art - unreached and unique.

This was made by the masters hand - and Kubrick was a god.


+1
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: PierreVandevenne on October 06, 2011, 05:12:58 am
Agreed, agreed, Don't shoot me please. ;)
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 06, 2011, 05:21:02 am
Pierre

no you are right, I also would like to see how Barry Lyndon would look like today- if Kubrick would do it. Probably more "gothic" and darker as his last films were.

If I´d imagine to see an Arri Alexa used by K. I´d be real curious about the output. Whereas the rolling shutter was about the only flaw the Alexa was showing.

Regards
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film returning to original topic
Post by: ErikKaffehr on October 12, 2011, 11:56:45 pm
Hi,

To begin with, Dominique Ventzke was kind enough to help me with scanning two of my samples at 6096 PPI on his high end drum scanner. Preliminary results here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=58067.msg472520#msg472520

The results depend much on sharpening.

Dominique also pointed me to this very interesting article examining Mark Zuberg's test: http://www.landscapegb.com/2011/10/the-perils-of-testing/

Best regards
Erik


Pierre

no you are right, I also would like to see how Barry Lyndon would look like today- if Kubrick would do it. Probably more "gothic" and darker as his last films were.

If I´d imagine to see an Arri Alexa used by K. I´d be real curious about the output. Whereas the rolling shutter was about the only flaw the Alexa was showing.

Regards
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 13, 2011, 03:43:45 am
Erik

to me all this uproar on the shown results simply clarifies how much confusion is in all this subject right now.
And how difficult it seems to be to achieve the final quality from a scanned film , not to speak of the exact exposure with all settings made for an optimum resolution.
Whereas this also showed that depth of field is an issue and usability is much more on the digital side. (faster , cheaper, easier to make plenty of variations to nail the target....).
It should also be taken into account that the infrastructure for film is dissolving now, many people who rely on this are forced to move digital, even if they do not want to do it.
Many of the still very knowledgeable colleagues are autark, working off their own experiences of many years of usage of film, develloping their own E6 and now scanning to get their work into the actual workflow. But what is the status of the now younger (20-30) creative who is not  in the knowledge and experience to do this ?
So as much many may regret this I think this will all dwindle away into non existance latest in 10-20 years.
And by then digital will probably heave left behind ANY disadvantages on resolution that 8/10 may still have today- so nobody will even  drop one tear about it.
We should not forget that the professional digital photography is only 16/17 years old(Leaf Brick) and already has erased nearly a complete structure that had grown over 150 years of silverhalogenid.

maybe this is not "haptic" or "romantic" or  "artistic" (yes I liked to build up my huge tripod with my 8/10 and take my black cloth and make my show on the set.....;-)
but photographic craftsmanship is not defined by using film.

It´s about the images , nothing else. In this case the way is not the goal.

Greetings from Munich

Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: John Rodriguez on October 13, 2011, 07:56:05 am
But what is the status of the now younger (20-30) creative who is not  in the knowledge and experience to do this ?


I'm in my early 30s and I've just switched to 4x5 from DSLRs because I want to create large (32x40) prints without spending 40k.  I make 10-20 exposures a month, so the economics of a digital back just don't come close to working out.  Until they do I think large format film will have a place.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 13, 2011, 08:56:39 am
I think this makes sense - use the possibillities of large format and the labs as long as they are there, a viewcamera is the most direct way to understand photography and it´s magic.

But I fear that this will not be a way for many young photographers in the not so far future.

What will happen if the last commercial lab has closed down, tetenal stops making E6 one time chemistry and the last Jobos have died ?
And what will happen as soon as you have success and want to make a living from Photography ? Comes volume - comes economic reasoning- comes need for speed and customer satisfaction.
Romantics are one thing - earning money another one.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on October 13, 2011, 11:25:35 am
Hi,

For me it's more about finding out. I cannot afford an IQ180, nor do I really see the need of it.

I'd agree on the practical side of using digital, but my tests indicate that at least 6x7 Ektar 100 in combination with high end scanning may have an advantage in several aeas over digital full frame 135.

Best regards
Erik


Erik

to me all this uproar on the shown results simply clarifies how much confusion is in all this subject right now.
And how difficult it seems to be to achieve the final quality from a scanned film , not to speak of the exact exposure with all settings made for an optimum resolution.
Whereas this also showed that depth of field is an issue and usability is much more on the digital side. (faster , cheaper, easier to make plenty of variations to nail the target....).
It should also be taken into account that the infrastructure for film is dissolving now, many people who rely on this are forced to move digital, even if they do not want to do it.
Many of the still very knowledgeable colleagues are autark, working off their own experiences of many years of usage of film, develloping their own E6 and now scanning to get their work into the actual workflow. But what is the status of the now younger (20-30) creative who is not  in the knowledge and experience to do this ?
So as much many may regret this I think this will all dwindle away into non existance latest in 10-20 years.
And by then digital will probably heave left behind ANY disadvantages on resolution that 8/10 may still have today- so nobody will even  drop one tear about it.
We should not forget that the professional digital photography is only 16/17 years old(Leaf Brick) and already has erased nearly a complete structure that had grown over 150 years of silverhalogenid.

maybe this is not "haptic" or "romantic" or  "artistic" (yes I liked to build up my huge tripod with my 8/10 and take my black cloth and make my show on the set.....;-)
but photographic craftsmanship is not defined by using film.

It´s about the images , nothing else. In this case the way is not the goal.

Greetings from Munich

Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on October 13, 2011, 01:33:35 pm
For me it's more about finding out. I cannot afford an IQ180, nor do I really see the need of it.
I'd agree on the practical side of using digital, but my tests indicate that at least 6x7 Ektar 100 in combination with high end scanning may have an advantage in several aeas over digital full frame 135.
Best regards
Erik

I agree. I already have a top 8x10, 4x5 and 6x7 camera. I also have an Aztek Premier. When the quality matches and the costs come down I'll be happy to switch. There are clear benefits, basically not having to develop film. I'm not a commercial photographer so the money doesn't come in at a rate that would justify the purchase of an IQ180.

For me, it's about the truth. There is so much disinformation out there. I visit photo.net on occasion and just cringe at many of the responses to a variety of questions. On one of the other forums, there are many who think that an Epson 750 is good enough for their work. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that statement. However, it isn't good enough for me, and more importantly, it isn't the same as a top drum scanner and someone who knows how to use it. Comparing the blurry 750 to a Premier or ICG is like comparing a Maserati to a jackass. Both ways can get you to some destination. But they clearly aren't the same quality, and the results won't be the same.

There is much said about the quality of digital capture, but it isn't there yet, it clearly is NOT as good as film. The public is being informed incorrectly - because the test was incorrect - as have been all of the digital to film comparisons. They have never used a good scanner. It's time this changed.

I agree with Stefan that it will change. However, we have to realize that they are focussed primarily on the endless supply of consumers who need very little in terms of quality for their family snapshots. Today's cameras will definitely suffice. Who will pay for the R&D of the high end, what will be their motivation going forward?

Lenny

EigerStudios
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: hjulenissen on October 13, 2011, 01:54:56 pm
There is much said about the quality of digital capture, but it isn't there yet, it clearly is NOT as good as film. The public is being informed incorrectly - because the test was incorrect - as have been all of the digital to film comparisons. They have never used a good scanner. It's time this changed.
If some film format need a <insert expensive scanner> operated by a <insert expert operator with 20 years of experience> in order to make it "better" than digital cameras for some scenario/quality parameter, then that in itself is relevant information to many. It may mean that the total cost of film (at that level) increase by the price of the scanner. Or that the difficulty in finding a reliable lab that have access to and expertise in handling the right equipment may or may not tip the weight against film.

If it is really difficult to make a fair test scenario where film really shines, then it is perhaps really difficult to make film really shine for day-to-day use as well?

-h
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on October 13, 2011, 02:08:29 pm
If some film format need a <insert expensive scanner> operated by a <insert expert operator with 20 years of experience> in order to make it "better" than digital cameras for some scenario/quality parameter, then that in itself is relevant information to many. It may mean that the total cost of film (at that level) increase by the price of the scanner. Or that the difficulty in finding a reliable lab that have access to and expertise in handling the right equipment may or may not tip the weight against film.

If it is really difficult to make a fair test scenario where film really shines, then it is perhaps really difficult to make film really shine for day-to-day use as well?

-h

Scanner operators don't need to have 20 years experience. One would suffice, but it ought to be someone who at least cares about photography. They should look at the film, see what the person is trying to accomplish and scan with that in mind.

Used drum scanners are around for anywhere from $1500-6500, with all the bells and whistles. That's not far from the cost of a flatbed. It isn't really difficult to make film really shine, or to make a fair test. There are lots of good scanners available, and plenty of good scanner operators who would have done the test for free. They just didn't want to.

The IQ180 is $44,000. That doesn't include all the extras that could add up to another 20K easily, depending on what you are doing. Or that it will be obsolete soon and you will want to buy another. And it won't do as good as something that will cost $6500. That's the truth.

I think they have done marvelously, some of the new features are terrific. They are just "not there yet" in terms of both quality and price for what I want to do.

Lenny Eiger
EigerStudios
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: hjulenissen on October 13, 2011, 02:54:27 pm
The IQ180 is $44,000. That doesn't include all the extras that could add up to another 20K easily, depending on what you are doing. Or that it will be obsolete soon and you will want to buy another. And it won't do as good as something that will cost $6500. That's the truth.
Isnt this just another way of saying that film (and film cameras) have stopped development, while digital has not?

The fact that even better digital cameras will come in a few years does not change the rating of digital vs film today. If the IQ180 is better than film today, it will probably still be in 4 years when the IQ360 is introduced. If it is worse than film today, it will still be in 4 years.

-h
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on October 13, 2011, 03:02:51 pm
Isnt this just another way of saying that film (and film cameras) have stopped development, while digital has not?

I don't think I said that, but I wouldn't disagree.

The fact that even better digital cameras will come in a few years does not change the rating of digital vs film today. If the IQ180 is better than film today, it will probably still be in 4 years when the IQ360 is introduced. If it is worse than film today, it will still be in 4 years.
-h

The IQ180 is not better than film is today. But why would you imagine it won't be in 4 years? Phase, Leaf, Hasselblad and others all seem to be working on it...

Lenny
EigerStudios
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 13, 2011, 03:04:44 pm

If it is really difficult to make a fair test scenario where film really shines, then it is perhaps really difficult to make film really shine for day-to-day use as well?

-h

 :)  Good question ! We are reaching a point here.

Thesis: It always was and it still is difficult to use an 8/10 " film camera to reach it´s limitations. This technology has stopped devellopment, worse support diminishes daily.
It is difficult to reach an 80Mpix Digital backs limitations today, but as we see the speed of development catches up and todays 20-40 (maybe also 60) Mpix are mostly carefree and easy to use.
Devellopment just starts, Autofocus is getting better and better, new concepts in the wings or already existing (mirrorless, electronic finders, live view, electronic leveling.....)

Film already had to go hybrid to survive anyway - nobody today still delivers a slide, the "analogue" photographer relies on highend scanning (drumscans) to reach on par or better quality than digital.
A pro grade drumscanner used to cost 100 000 € and upwards, the only reason why those are cheap today is that they have lost 90 % of their customers so the amount of scanning volume per existing scanner has ruined the prices of hardware. Operation is still a task, it needs good experience and craftsmanship to fully exploit the capability.

Now film is only cheaper if you use it low volume  and this is only true because of the former expensive cameras have also dwindled down in price because of shrinking demand on used analogue  gear. The so called cost advantage is a bit like driving a 15-20 year old Mercedes 600 which has become cheap but still sucks 20 liters/100km and telling - well if I don´t drive it much it´s a cheap car.
Also there won´t be repairs and I also do not need tires if I only get it out of the garage once in a while.

You all know that this is not what this car was built for. And unless you are a collector or 80 years old and do drive only to your heart specialist once in a while to check if you are still alive
using such gear in such a way does not make much sense to me.

A photographer takes pictures , he does not collect historic gear to see how nicely it was working 20 years ago.

Greetings from Munich

Stefan

Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: hjulenissen on October 13, 2011, 03:12:54 pm
The IQ180 is not better than film is today. But why would you imagine it won't be in 4 years? Phase, Leaf, Hasselblad and others all seem to be working on it...
I was merely saying that :
1. Digital will be better in 4 years than what digital is today
2. Film will probably not be better in 4 years than what film is today
3. At that rate, the curves ought to cross at some point in time. Perhaps that point was 10 years ago, perhaps it is 10 years into the future. Internet wars have been fought over that issue and I wont pretend to have the experience to add anything useful to that debate.
4. The fact that digital progress while film does not cannot be a rational argument against choosing digital today:
(about the IQ180)... it will be obsolete soon and you will want to buy another.
My point:
Buy what works best for you today. Don't worry about shinier gadgets being introduced next year.

-h
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: John Rodriguez on October 13, 2011, 04:51:10 pm
The bulk of the photo industry is driven by hobbyists, not pros.  Even if one day I can justify 40k for a back, there will still be plenty of folks who can't.  Obviously film will die once demand is low enough to kill off the last supplier.  At the least that won't happen until the hobbyists that want to print large can do so at an affordable price with digital.  Beyond that I think there's enough interest in the younger generation to possibly keep it around beyond that (I've seen a resurgence in film interest within youth culture, same thing with vinyl records).

I think this makes sense - use the possibillities of large format and the labs as long as they are there, a viewcamera is the most direct way to understand photography and it´s magic.

But I fear that this will not be a way for many young photographers in the not so far future.

What will happen if the last commercial lab has closed down, tetenal stops making E6 one time chemistry and the last Jobos have died ?
And what will happen as soon as you have success and want to make a living from Photography ? Comes volume - comes economic reasoning- comes need for speed and customer satisfaction.
Romantics are one thing - earning money another one.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 13, 2011, 06:03:16 pm

At the least that won't happen until the hobbyists that want to print large can do so at an affordable price with digital.


Well- now comes the funny part: nearly any large print (> A3+) done today is made digitally with plotters, so the "Analogue" people do exactly the same as the "Digital" people.
I have not heard of higher prices for printing of "pure" digital (I was just thinking of Kubrick´s Dr. Strangelove - Scottish well water......;-)  versus converted "Analogue to digital".

in the end its pretty much the same piece of paper for the same price.   Isn´t this crazy ?

Greetings from Munich
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: lenny_eiger on October 13, 2011, 06:14:35 pm
Well- now comes the funny part: nearly any large print (> A3+) done today is made digitally with plotters, so the "Analogue" people do exactly the same as the "Digital" people.
in the end its pretty much the same piece of paper for the same price.   Isn´t this crazy ?
Greetings from Munich
Stefan

Stefan, There are many more choices for digital printing than there are for the standard darkroom. One can print on paper that simulates a darkroom paper, such as a baryta-coated paper (or with a chromira), or a matte paper, on Japanese Washi, etc. Very large prints are also possible. I have made many 20 foot long prints for my customers.

There are lots of different inksets, I print color with a 12-color set, I custom-mix my own b&w from my own formulas, do split tone and everything else...

While I have not appreciated digital capture as yet, I would say that, depending on what one wants to do, digital printing is quite a number of steps ahead. One of the best papers is from Germany, of course, the Hahnemuhle series, very impressive and expensive... I use a lot of it.

Lenny
EigerStudios
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: John Rodriguez on October 13, 2011, 06:32:53 pm
Well- now comes the funny part: nearly any large print (> A3+) done today is made digitally with plotters, so the "Analogue" people do exactly the same as the "Digital" people.
I have not heard of higher prices for printing of "pure" digital (I was just thinking of Kubrick´s Dr. Strangelove - Scottish well water......;-)  versus converted "Analogue to digital".

in the end its pretty much the same piece of paper for the same price.   Isn´t this crazy ?

Greetings from Munich
Stefan

It's only funny if you have an "Analogue" and "Digital" people mindset.  I just want to make large landscape photographs.  I don't really care about what tools I use as long as I like what I end up with and I can afford it.  The majority print digitally because it's high quality and affordable, once capture gets there it will be the same story.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 13, 2011, 06:39:49 pm
Hi Lenny

Good you say it - otherwise someone certainly would have counted down former photopaper brands and how good they were......Did I mention Cibachrome ? I always hated that.... ;-))))

I think I wrote this in another thread, but as even Durst has stopped doing Lambdas and is using plotters now for all and everything I think this says it all.
I am sure a 12 step color set for BW prints will look marvelous. AND you can probably use about any surface any color of paper, elephant skin, pergament like stuff, whatever.
Yes I even think that about 99 % of the so called "Analogue retro hype" have only become possible because of these fine art print media for large format plotters.

And that´s even more crazy........ ;-)

Greetings from Munich

Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on October 14, 2011, 04:56:48 pm
Speaking of crazy and that at the end all that matters are the photos, I'd LOVE to see ONE former LF landscape shooter whose work got better with switching to digital, yet I see a lot of really young people ditching DSLRS and using film, getting better and better and they are all of pragmatic type, not the romantic lomo shooting emos..... that's crazy
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 14, 2011, 05:34:27 pm
Nicolas

I don´t think this has anything to do with digital or analogue. More with the hunger to search for something new.
If some old guns have already done some mileage with good equipment and decide to go digital this is an expression of pragmatism.
this does not necessarily mean they will become better photographers - technics have nothing to do with creativity - I hope we agree on that.
But if a young hungry and searching guy is switching to a new approach that is ANTI-mainstream this expresses a struggle and a wish
to change for better. This and nothing else improves their images..........

So stay hungry, search for change look at everything every day from another angle, forget about the old stuff and mostly forget about all the others.
make your thing, photograph what interests YOU. It does not matter what this is. Sooner or later you will make your pictures.

Ah- I´m getting pathetic. Sorry   :)

Greetings from Munich
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on October 15, 2011, 03:50:40 am
Stefan, actually I was going to argue right until the end of time but have to admit that I agree with you, like Gallen Rowell wrote:
"An equally important trait is the size of the rat...... The rat refers to the voracious creature gnawing at a person's stomach from inside that drives him or her to repeatedly leave the comforts and security of civilized life to challenge him or herself in the natural world".

Now, getting back to the whole technical topic, almost all the test I see tend to be presented on landscape oriented websites but ALL seem to ignore or leave aside several vital issues to the landscape photographer (at least for me :) )
1). Long exposures (battery issues): I do mountain photography, that is several days (quite a few sometimes) far away from any power supply. The solar packs add too much weight considering their effectiveness. About 2 or 3 long exposures with my 5d2 in low temperature with the consequent dark frame drain a complete battery, not fun at all. I can leave my 4x5 or almost any mechanical camera ticking for hours in below 0º with no side effects.
2). Long exposures (highlights and DR): just a couple of quick and simple tests I did a while ago to calibrate my developing (all epson, I didn't drumscanned these samples):
Number 1 is a long exposure (more than 20min) made more than an hour after the sunset. The same shot on digital (at least with the 5d2) would have the sky completely blown to a thermonuclear white with absolutely no hope of recovery, I don't have the digital sample at hand but anyone who tried it, know that this is true. It can only be done on digi with some really heavy filtration, impossible to use in many cases.
(http://blog.patagonialandscapes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/muelle-blog.jpg)
Number 2 is a long exposure made in similar conditions, the same story here, I could leave my 4x5 ticking there for the whole night and walk away with a correct exposure.
(http://blog.patagonialandscapes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/test-le75blog.jpg)
3). Contrasted scenes: I'd compare the performance of digital and film in really contrasted scenes. For example a flat scan of a mountain forest scene shot during the winter (with temperature that have me swapping my digital batteries after a while outside). The sun is directly exposed with no filters. As I mentioned above, these are epson samples, I didn't drummed them yet. On the neg, the only thing blown out is the sun itself! Even the patches of snow on the PP have texture. And I have other scenes shot over glaciers in high mountain with the same result. And no flare!
(http://db.tt/mTMky39P)
4). Big prints or big upsamples of completely organic nature: Almost all the tests I see out there are usually done in some parking lot with some leaves on a wall, or cars, or other regular, monotone, man made objects. These are pretty easy to blow up, even a 6mpx DSLR can provide enough horsepower to upsample a regular, predictable surface to a huge size using the current interpolation algorithms. But landscapes are shot in the wilderness and usually are about the nature, not some license plates. I'd like to see how the digis hold up an interpolation to a 4000dpi scan size (from a 4x5 or a 8x10) of an organic, chaotic scene, full of textures, leaves, irregular patterns and completely random objects distributed all over the scene. In my tests, the digi that I own, that is a 5d2 is completely pathetic in this situations when compared to scanned film. How an MFDB would perform for example in the following situation? I shot this scene in the jungle some time ago using fine grain slide film, it has all the features I mentioned. Sorry, once again, it's a fresh sample and I have just the epson version at hand, but here is the full scene anyway in a pretty straightforward scan
(http://db.tt/gYFKCcBv)

And some random crops from my 11000 pixels sample scan. No PS sharpening applied, it's what it would look like on a 90cm print viewed from close distance and unsharped. And a drum scanner would add an additional truckload of info, and crisp info
(http://db.tt/8CLuj8hi)

(http://db.tt/ZQAdnddF)

(http://db.tt/zSCvWBTy)

I guess that a test published on a website that has the word "landscape" in its name, should at least try to walk through common landscapes situations and use real life scenes before drawing some conclusions :)

Best Regards
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 15, 2011, 09:27:53 am
Nikolay

I also have to agree that for the long exposures and available light photography off the tracks film still has a stronghold.
As long as neither Phase , nor Leaf , nor Hasselblad do darkshot compensation afterwards (which is possible).

see also other thread here om LL   http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=58394.0   my reply #9

The method exists described as : "Denoising photographs using dark frames optimized by quadratic programming" see here (english pdf download)
and is develloped by people from Stanford and Max Planck Institute so I guess they know what they are writing about :

http://www.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/files/publications/ICCP09-GomezRodriguez_5491%5B0%5D.pdf

I also see that new sensortechnology is in the wings, coming up from the lowend amateur mini chip usage (e.g. backside illuminated sensors, Fuji´s EXR technology)
Battery usage will also be improved as a side effect of Car battery research we will have very cheap and usable batteries at least in 5-10 years. Lab samples already exist.

So we are on the wings of change.

Today -for this kind of photography use film. Definitely.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: hjulenissen on October 15, 2011, 06:42:29 pm
1). Long exposures (battery issues): I do mountain photography, that is several days (quite a few sometimes) far away from any power supply. The solar packs add too much weight considering their effectiveness. About 2 or 3 long exposures with my 5d2 in low temperature with the consequent dark frame drain a complete battery, not fun at all. I can leave my 4x5 or almost any mechanical camera ticking for hours in below 0º with no side effects.
If and when your usage pattern matches one technology much better then another, then the choice of technology should be obvious. Seems that film clearly fits your use. I don't do such long exposures, and I charge my single battery once every 2 weeks or so, so clearly I belong to another cathegory of users.

Did you consider doing the dark frames once per session (or one for each likely iso setting at e.g. 20, 0 and -20 degrees Celcius)? That might have the potential to double the available number of exposures. Perhaps others have experience with heating the battery pack or using 3rd party batteries that can stand the cold (if such a thing exists)?

-h
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 17, 2011, 01:17:16 pm
Nicolay

of course there are some people doing digital long time exposures with dedicated cameras and  P45+ backs ;-))) see here

http://www.bulbexposures.com/home/2011/10/13/out-there-with-the-hartblei-hcam-b1.html

regards

Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: barryfitzgerald on October 18, 2011, 09:14:30 am
About time we had another film v digital crop shot test  :o ;D
Anyway back to the topic if only resolution and crop shots mattered to real world photography, but unfortunately it's a lot more involved than this. IQ is more than just resolution taste plays a part as well.

Interesting thing is there is a bit of a revival in the old ways with newer folks coming along curious about film and trying it out. I'm glad to see we're not dancing on the grave of film which probably disappoints the digital die hard fans, but embracing a choice for photographers of a creative medium of their own choosing. Choice is good.
As for the tests, well it's a bit like the ex smoker who rants about those smoking..but secretly desires one more puff  :-X

Anti film folks need only visit ebay to relieve that desire completely  ;)
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 18, 2011, 01:25:45 pm
As 8/10 " is actually not so big here a link for the current Large format crown:

http://www.canhamcameras.com/20x24.html

Contacts - I only say contacts !   :)

Greetings from Munich

Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on October 18, 2011, 01:44:02 pm
Hi,

I'm doing some tests right now, comparing 24 MP DSLR with my Pentax 67. They are very different animals. It seems that drum scanning can improve significantly over CCD based scanners, the image are cleaner and have very nice grain.

Digital is simpler, you press the button and check the histogram for exposure and the image on display (zoomed 15X) for sharpness, with color negative you need to wait a week for the lab.

One area where analogue is advantageous is the rendition of specular highlights, where digital normally clips and analogue rolls off. I think there is place for film, but the question is if the market is large enough to sustain the film industry the way we now it.

Best regards
Erik

About time we had another film v digital crop shot test  :o ;D
Anyway back to the topic if only resolution and crop shots mattered to real world photography, but unfortunately it's a lot more involved than this. IQ is more than just resolution taste plays a part as well.

Interesting thing is there is a bit of a revival in the old ways with newer folks coming along curious about film and trying it out. I'm glad to see we're not dancing on the grave of film which probably disappoints the digital die hard fans, but embracing a choice for photographers of a creative medium of their own choosing. Choice is good.
As for the tests, well it's a bit like the ex smoker who rants about those smoking..but secretly desires one more puff  :-X

Anti film folks need only visit ebay to relieve that desire completely  ;)

Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on October 18, 2011, 10:35:53 pm
Nicolay

of course there are some people doing digital long time exposures with dedicated cameras and  P45+ backs ;-))) see here

http://www.bulbexposures.com/home/2011/10/13/out-there-with-the-hartblei-hcam-b1.html

regards

Stefan

Well, thanks for the link Stefan, interesting indeed, but I still can't help to think about it as some kind of cool and interesting "experiment". Today they are doing 6 minutes on a 30000 dollars back and I hope the noise is better than the "golf ball" noise samples provided in a long exposure review here on LuLa. And they might even pull several shots out of it before the battery dries out. Tomorrow, or perhaps in a few years a 5000 dollars back would do hours and use a couple of AAA batteries bought in a convenience store in the middle of nowhere in Bolivia. It will happen indeed and it's going to be interesting.....
Best regards,
Nikolay.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on October 18, 2011, 10:49:32 pm

Digital is simpler, you press the button and check the histogram for exposure and the image on display (zoomed 15X) for sharpness, with color negative you need to wait a week for the lab.


Erik, histogram is a wonderful tool but an exposure is not such a difficult thing to determine, especially with print film, it's just a matter of self confidence and practice. And if you are willing to work with film once again and don't have a deadline, self developing is a pretty straightforward affair.
For instance, I can shoot all day, get back to the home lab, develop my color or BW sheets, hang them and in 2-3 hours they are ready for scanning, almost as fast as digital :) 
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: Stefan.Steib on October 19, 2011, 04:33:23 am
Nikolay

the P45+ can do 1hour (which actually will be a 2 hour shot- because of the dark calibration...:-(((  )
 But you are of course right about the long time qualities of film. Do you know Michael Wesely ?
Currently holding the worldrecord on long time exposures with about 3 years ?

http://www.itchyi.co.uk/thelatest/2010/7/20/the-longest-photographic-exposures-in-history.html

This I think is probably something that will be possible ONLY with film (and I dare to say) ever.

Greetings from right now Karlsruhe
Stefan
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on October 21, 2011, 02:37:46 pm
Nikolay

the P45+ can do 1hour (which actually will be a 2 hour shot- because of the dark calibration...:-(((  )
 But you are of course right about the long time qualities of film. Do you know Michael Wesely ?
Currently holding the worldrecord on long time exposures with about 3 years ?

http://www.itchyi.co.uk/thelatest/2010/7/20/the-longest-photographic-exposures-in-history.html

This I think is probably something that will be possible ONLY with film (and I dare to say) ever.

Greetings from right now Karlsruhe
Stefan

Michael Wesely, yes I read about him some time ago. Very interesting, BUT, think about it, as much as I personally like film (and defend it here) I think a similar project in a urban area could be done with a web cam of some kind, connected to a harddrive. After all these images are interesting due to their aesthetics, not tech quality.
P45+ is great indeed, and from what I heard has been a LF killer for a lot of big names in landscape photography. The bang for buck isn't there yet for all the small fish like myself however.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on October 24, 2011, 01:43:10 am
Hi,

Just for your information, I was shooting film for about 40 years...

Best regards
Erik

Erik, histogram is a wonderful tool but an exposure is not such a difficult thing to determine, especially with print film, it's just a matter of self confidence and practice. And if you are willing to work with film once again and don't have a deadline, self developing is a pretty straightforward affair.
For instance, I can shoot all day, get back to the home lab, develop my color or BW sheets, hang them and in 2-3 hours they are ready for scanning, almost as fast as digital :) 
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on October 24, 2011, 01:52:11 am
Hi,

I will recall from my last in film shooting that there was something called Schwartzschild effect, or reciprocity failure for film. So film is loosing sensivity for long exposures. Digital sensors are not subject to reciprocity failure to the same extent. So with digital your exposures would be significantly shorter.

Reciprocity data from Kodak for TMAX 100 and Tri X included below.

Best regards
Erik



Stefan, actually I was going to argue right until the end of time but have to admit that I agree with you, like Gallen Rowell wrote:
"An equally important trait is the size of the rat...... The rat refers to the voracious creature gnawing at a person's stomach from inside that drives him or her to repeatedly leave the comforts and security of civilized life to challenge him or herself in the natural world".

Now, getting back to the whole technical topic, almost all the test I see tend to be presented on landscape oriented websites but ALL seem to ignore or leave aside several vital issues to the landscape photographer (at least for me :) )
1). Long exposures (battery issues): I do mountain photography, that is several days (quite a few sometimes) far away from any power supply. The solar packs add too much weight considering their effectiveness. About 2 or 3 long exposures with my 5d2 in low temperature with the consequent dark frame drain a complete battery, not fun at all. I can leave my 4x5 or almost any mechanical camera ticking for hours in below 0º with no side effects.
2). Long exposures (highlights and DR): just a couple of quick and simple tests I did a while ago to calibrate my developing (all epson, I didn't drumscanned these samples):
Number 1 is a long exposure (more than 20min) made more than an hour after the sunset. The same shot on digital (at least with the 5d2) would have the sky completely blown to a thermonuclear white with absolutely no hope of recovery, I don't have the digital sample at hand but anyone who tried it, know that this is true. It can only be done on digi with some really heavy filtration, impossible to use in many cases.
(http://blog.patagonialandscapes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/muelle-blog.jpg)
Number 2 is a long exposure made in similar conditions, the same story here, I could leave my 4x5 ticking there for the whole night and walk away with a correct exposure.
(http://blog.patagonialandscapes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/test-le75blog.jpg)
3). Contrasted scenes: I'd compare the performance of digital and film in really contrasted scenes. For example a flat scan of a mountain forest scene shot during the winter (with temperature that have me swapping my digital batteries after a while outside). The sun is directly exposed with no filters. As I mentioned above, these are epson samples, I didn't drummed them yet. On the neg, the only thing blown out is the sun itself! Even the patches of snow on the PP have texture. And I have other scenes shot over glaciers in high mountain with the same result. And no flare!
(http://db.tt/mTMky39P)
4). Big prints or big upsamples of completely organic nature: Almost all the tests I see out there are usually done in some parking lot with some leaves on a wall, or cars, or other regular, monotone, man made objects. These are pretty easy to blow up, even a 6mpx DSLR can provide enough horsepower to upsample a regular, predictable surface to a huge size using the current interpolation algorithms. But landscapes are shot in the wilderness and usually are about the nature, not some license plates. I'd like to see how the digis hold up an interpolation to a 4000dpi scan size (from a 4x5 or a 8x10) of an organic, chaotic scene, full of textures, leaves, irregular patterns and completely random objects distributed all over the scene. In my tests, the digi that I own, that is a 5d2 is completely pathetic in this situations when compared to scanned film. How an MFDB would perform for example in the following situation? I shot this scene in the jungle some time ago using fine grain slide film, it has all the features I mentioned. Sorry, once again, it's a fresh sample and I have just the epson version at hand, but here is the full scene anyway in a pretty straightforward scan
(http://db.tt/gYFKCcBv)

And some random crops from my 11000 pixels sample scan. No PS sharpening applied, it's what it would look like on a 90cm print viewed from close distance and unsharped. And a drum scanner would add an additional truckload of info, and crisp info
(http://db.tt/8CLuj8hi)

(http://db.tt/ZQAdnddF)

(http://db.tt/zSCvWBTy)

I guess that a test published on a website that has the word "landscape" in its name, should at least try to walk through common landscapes situations and use real life scenes before drawing some conclusions :)

Best Regards
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on October 24, 2011, 11:15:50 am
So with digital your exposures would be significantly shorter.


Erik,
I happen to use this exact Kodak data sheet for my long exposures (well, at least used to, now I just memorized it from using). It does require some tuning.
But I think you've missed my point. The first exposure I presented was around 20 minutes, the equivalent digital one (canon 5d mark II), considering the film reciprocity compensation was around 8 minutes (the correct exposure) and it had absolutely, completely, totally blown sky. No RAW processing could recover it.
I shoot a lot during these hours of the day and know for sure that it's not possible to accomplish a long exposure with my digital equipment without some very heavy filtration or tedious expo blending.  
The same goes to the second long exposure and to the winter tree. In the winter tree scene, conserving the shadows in digital means blowing off the lights and the highlights or doing exposure blending. BW film just gets it from one click
I don't know what's your experience with long exposures is but digital or film, the scene reading are the same. For instance, during a starry night with no moon, I'd need more than just a few minutes of exposure with my digi, frequently half an hour or more, given the dark frame and cold weather I deplete a complete battery in just a few shots.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on October 24, 2011, 11:33:28 am
And here is an example of what I mentioned in the previous post:

(http://blog.patagonialandscapes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/4280261414_8bde8c5ec4_o1.jpg)

This is a digital one I did with the canon 5d. It's a blend of two images- one for the FG and one for the sky. It was a dark, starry night, to expose a sharp FG from my position I had to shoot it during dusk at f8 and leave the camera there until the stars came up to make the stars exposure.
When I made my exposure for the sky, the metering for the FG was around 45min at f5.6, add to this the DF and bye bye battery.
One solution to this problem is to shoot at f2.8 and high iso and then stack for DOF, but if you have an object on the FG it'd take at least 10 or 15 exposures to accomplish the desired DOF.
With film, you can just stick the camera there, open the shutter and go to sleep.

Both methods give interesting results and I know several landscape photographers who create wonderful images using the "high iso open lens multiple shots for DOF at night" technique.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on October 24, 2011, 11:44:09 am
Hi,

Just for your information, I was shooting film for about 40 years...

Best regards
Erik


Erik, I didn't mean to imply that you somehow lack film handling skills or questioning your experience, just saying that given some background (and from your post, you have a lot), the exposure and developing is not a deal breaker when considering a landscape system,
Best regards.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on October 24, 2011, 12:15:29 pm
Nicolas,

Sorry for my sneaky remark. Just wanted to indicate that I was not a SLR kiddy but have some real experience with the old way of making pictures.

Best regards
Erik

Erik, I didn't mean to imply that you somehow lack film handling skills or questioning your experience, just saying that given some background (and from your post, you have a lot), the exposure and developing is not a deal breaker when considering a landscape system,
Best regards.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on October 24, 2011, 12:44:21 pm
Hi Nicolas,

No, I have little experience with long exposures. Just wanted to mention the reciprocity failure. What I discovered in my film days was that once I exposed long exposure time would increase even more due to Schwarzschild. I also have the impression that the lack of reciprocity failure on CCDs is one of the main reason astronomers went for CCDs quite early. I also got the impression that quantum efficiency is much better on sensors compared to film.

Now, if you have tested both you obviously know what works best for your application.

I'm very much aware of negative film handling the high end of the brightness scale differently from digital. I'm doing some testing on it right now. Interestingly I have seen widely varying figures. The film I'm testing is Ektar 100, and my initial measurement gave 12 stops, but those measurements may have some issues, so there will be a retest. Roger Clark reported 7 stops for Kodacolor Gold ( http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/film.vs.digital.summary1/index.html ) and Tim Parkin about 16 stops for Portra.

Going back to the original posting, Tim Parkin posted some very interesting points on the 8x10" vs IQ180 test: http://www.landscapegb.com/2011/10/the-perils-of-testing/

My own view?

- Well to me it seems that my Pentax 67 using Velvia is about on par with my 24.5 MP digital DSLR
- Ektar 100 scanned on my own CCD scanner (Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro) has somewhat less detail than the DSLR
- Colors are less consistent both on Velvia and Ektar
- Professional drum scanning gives better results than my own scanning
- Tonal separation on low contrast detail is weaker on Ektar than on my DSLR
- Extrapolating from this I would not expect a Phase One IQ180 to match a well executed 8x10" film image when properly scanned
- But, 8x10" is very demanding and a perfect exposure may be hard to achieve

On the other hand I find digital more practical, and I have not seen that much real benefit from my testing the 67 film based equipment.

Best regards
Erik






Erik,
I happen to use this exact Kodak data sheet for my long exposures (well, at least used to, now I just memorized it from using). It does require some tuning.
But I think you've missed my point. The first exposure I presented was around 20 minutes, the equivalent digital one (canon 5d mark II), considering the film reciprocity compensation was around 8 minutes (the correct exposure) and it had absolutely, completely, totally blown sky. No RAW processing could recover it.
I shoot a lot during these hours of the day and know for sure that it's not possible to accomplish a long exposure with my digital equipment without some very heavy filtration or tedious expo blending.  
The same goes to the second long exposure and to the winter tree. In the winter tree scene, conserving the shadows in digital means blowing off the lights and the highlights or doing exposure blending. BW film just gets it from one click
I don't know what's your experience with long exposures is but digital or film, the scene reading are the same. For instance, during a starry night with no moon, I'd need more than just a few minutes of exposure with my digi, frequently half an hour or more, given the dark frame and cold weather I deplete a complete battery in just a few shots.
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: NicolasBelokurov on October 24, 2011, 02:44:25 pm
Hi Nicolas,

No, I have little experience with long exposures. Just wanted to mention the reciprocity failure. What I discovered in my film days was that once I exposed long exposure time would increase even more due to Schwarzschild. I also have the impression that the lack of reciprocity failure on CCDs is one of the main reason astronomers went for CCDs quite early. I also got the impression that quantum efficiency is much better on sensors compared to film.

Now, if you have tested both you obviously know what works best for your application.

I'm very much aware of negative film handling the high end of the brightness scale differently from digital. I'm doing some testing on it right now. Interestingly I have seen widely varying figures. The film I'm testing is Ektar 100, and my initial measurement gave 12 stops, but those measurements may have some issues, so there will be a retest. Roger Clark reported 7 stops for Kodacolor Gold ( http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/film.vs.digital.summary1/index.html ) and Tim Parkin about 16 stops for Portra.

Going back to the original posting, Tim Parkin posted some very interesting points on the 8x10" vs IQ180 test: http://www.landscapegb.com/2011/10/the-perils-of-testing/

My own view?

- Well to me it seems that my Pentax 67 using Velvia is about on par with my 24.5 MP digital DSLR
- Ektar 100 scanned on my own CCD scanner (Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro) has somewhat less detail than the DSLR
- Colors are less consistent both on Velvia and Ektar
- Professional drum scanning gives better results than my own scanning
- Tonal separation on low contrast detail is weaker on Ektar than on my DSLR
- Extrapolating from this I would not expect a Phase One IQ180 to match a well executed 8x10" film image when properly scanned
- But, 8x10" is very demanding and a perfect exposure may be hard to achieve

On the other hand I find digital more practical, and I have not seen that much real benefit from my testing the 67 film based equipment.

Best regards
Erik






Erik, I agree with each and every one of your points and actually use my Canon camera a lot.
BUT, in my opinion, if we speak about landscapes (and the site is called Luminous Landscapes after all) and stay in the MF vs digi 35mm terrain, a myriad of other factors are more important to the quality of the final print then the mere pixel by pixel comparing.
IMO, a very well scanned slide creates a better looking big print than 35mm digital. No matter how hard I try, I can't match the color and the clarity I get with a MF slide with 21mpx digital. The objects have volume and the colors are rich, tasty and naturally deep. For me in a color photograph, the colors and the contrast weigh way more than resolution. The tonality and highlights are more important for me in BW than resolution. I only shoot digital because it's light, fun and good enough for small prints and every time I catch an interesting scene in digital, I can't help saying to myself: "Oh man, I wish I had my 4x5 for this"
A similar digi frame looks plasticky and requires a lot of postpro. The same happens with BW.
I can't speak about high end DMFB vs 4x5 or 8x10 because I never used one or seen digital prints from those backs. I do suspect however that if we compare real life landscapes with lots of shapes and textures, the film would look better to me.
My own view?
I'm 29, I have a different job and I pretty much can shoot whatever I like without some art director breathing on my neck and demanding some files just for yesterday. I'm extremely lucky I still have a chance to shoot at least a couple of more years of film before they blast it away to the digital darkness.

Best regards,
Nikolay :)
Title: Re: Interesting comparison of IQ180 and 8x10" film
Post by: ErikKaffehr on October 24, 2011, 05:05:44 pm
Hi,

Do you mean a well scanned 4x5" slide or smaller ones, too? My testing so far is not very favorable to 67 Velvia, but I could see that 4x5" would be different. How do you scan?


I have published my findings on Velvia 67 vs. Digital here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/16-pentax67velvia-vs-sony-alpha-900

I have also some work in progress here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/59-sony-alpha-900-vs-67-analogue-round-2

The latter article also compares with high end drum scans.

This article compares some of my scans with drum scans made by http://www.high-end-scans.de in Berlin.

Best regards
Erik

IMO, a very well scanned slide creates a better looking big print than 35mm digital. No matter how hard I try, I can't match the color and the clarity I get with a MF slide with 21mpx digital. The objects have volume and the colors are rich, tasty and naturally deep. For me in a color photograph, the colors and the contrast weigh way more than resolution. The tonality and highlights are more important for me in BW than resolution. I only shoot digital because it's light, fun and good enough for small prints and every time I catch an interesting scene in digital, I can't help saying to myself: "Oh man, I wish I had my 4x5 for this"