Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: bjanes on January 25, 2012, 11:33:21 am
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I was posting the reply shown below as the thread was being locked. While some of Mark's claims about the per pixel quality of MFDBs as compared to smaller format sensors are not justified, the need for high resolution in making large prints is correct.
Another point I would make is that moder printers have very high native resolution. The Epsons are said to handle 720 PPI. A Phase One IQ 180 has 10380 pixels so it would print at 14.4" width for maximum resolution on an Epson. My Sony Alpha has only 6000 pixels so it would be able to print at 8.3" wide at maximal output quality.
I would call neither 14.4" nor 8.3" inch print very large, but I have no doubt Jeff Schewe could tell them apart in a 14.4" print using his loupe. Now, according to Norman Koren's writing 20/20 vision at 25 cm resolves about 180 ppi, so with normal vision we could essentially blow up the Sony to 33" and the IQ180 to 57" before an obvious difference would be seen. My experience is that my 12 MP APS-C is pretty good for A2 (about 23" wide) but the 24 MP full frame is marginally better.
Enough of this nonsense about high end stereo and fine wines and back to photography. Roger Clark has a good post (http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/eye-resolution.html) on the acuity of the human eye and relates it to the print resolution necessary to represent that resolution. He did some blinded tests using multiple subjects and concluded that at least 600 ppi was necessary (he was using an HP printer). Jeff Schewe states in the Camera to Print and Screen tutorial that with Epson printers one can readily tell the difference between prints at 360 and 720 dpi. So, Roger and Jeff agree on the necessary resolution. Of course, this depends on viewing distance, but this assumes that the viewing distance was quite close. The subjects presumably viewed the prints at an optimum distance. Anyway, Roger concludes that only a large format camera is capable of this resolution when one is dealing with really large prints.
In another post he demonstrates various print resolutions of a 4*5 inch film image and also provides a chart to determine one's printer resolution. Of course, it makes no sense to send more data to the printer than it can print, so one should determine the resolution of his printer. I printed Roger's chart with my Epson 3880, setting the resolution to 1440 and using finest detail and examined the image under a microscope using a 2x PlanApochromat objective with the setup giving a magnification of 25x in the plane of the sensor. The results are shown. The individual ink dots are well shown. The 1 px lines are not resolved, but the 2 px are, giving a resolution of 720 ppi.
(http://bjanes.smugmug.com/Photography/DX2IQ180/i-S49Jx2B/0/O/RogerCompos.png)
In another post entitled the MegaPixel Myth (http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/megapixel_myth/), Roger evaluates what resolution is necessary to literally knock your socks off with a large print. He concludes that 200 MP are necessary. In summary, Mark and the MFDB crowd are correct in that the high resolution of these backs is necessary to make really large prints. To reach the resolution that Roger suggests, one would have to stitch the IQ180, as Jeff demonstrates in the above mentioned tutorial. In summary, the main readily demonstrated advantage of the MFDB is resolution. The availability of high quality apochromatic primes is another factor. Some of the other claims are questionable.
Regards,
Bill
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I had the same unfortunate experience re. posting...
But anyway, my post was absolutely respectfull, and it was to ask this: "eisegesis" means? I looked it up in the computer's brain, and the best it could reply was eisteddford or ejaculate. I suspect there's more to love than this; if anyone can illuminate this dark corner of my tiny mind, muchas gracias.
Rob C
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http://www.google.com/search?q=eisegesis
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http://www.google.com/search?q=eisegesis
You deserve it: muchas gracias.
Trouble is, it brings up subjective/objective considerations and you know where they lead us!
Rob C
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Rob : Wikipedia's entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisegesis) seems of a different kind of romantism : shortly, it's a way to call each other names among the biblic scholars. Another analogy.
Oops, seems I've been preceded.
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I think I commented three times on the original thread, and never really insulted anyone, and so I hope Michael will give me an extra inch here to summarize what I was thinking about this morning while I was walking the dog. The essential problem with Mark's post was that he created a line of reasoning which not only was demonstrably flawed, and that either intentionally or unintentionally insulted a lot of readers along the way, but that it led to an unpalatable, unreasonable and simply wrong conclusion: and he got there when he shifted from an objective assessment of MF qualities to a subjective assessment, and pronounced MF "the best." It is demonstrably the best by certain technical parameters -- but if you're trailing behind a Marine combat platoon in Afghanistan (to take an extreme example) would you really want to carry your IQ180, a tripod, a lightmeter, a five-pound ball head, etc.? Of course not, not unless you were also suicidal. For that kind of photography, MF is not the best.
The same thing holds in less extreme conditions. Not to put too fine a point on it, I can afford any kind of photographic equipment I want. I shoot M4/3, for my own good reasons. And they are good reasons. In my kind of shooting, MF is totally inappropriate.
If Mark had simply said, MF images can provide the most detailed large prints available from commercial photo equipment, I doubt that there would have been any comment at all, or perhaps a little controversy about how large you could push other formats, or how important difference between MF and m4/3 are when viewed on a monitor.
Again, the problem is in the shift between technical analysis and value assessment. I don't doubt for a moment that Mark is a very smart guy and a good photographer, but he has to be more careful about making that shift. Much of his post, and the subsequent thread, was a waste of time, but then, a lot of it was pretty interesting, too. I am actually quite interested in the concept of hyper-realism, and despite a certain amount of flak about Mark's use of the term, I understand what he's getting at and find it interesting.
Finally, I'd like to add that Carl Weese, who is basically a large and ultra-large format photographer, recently shot some m4/3 landscapes just to see how far he could push the format, and his subsequent article, on The Online Photographer, addresses many of the issues that Mark touched on, and does so in quite a congenial and interesting way, here:
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/01/raised-expectations.html
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I think john that what happens in internet goes way further than a Mark's semantic issue, if there was one.
I remember when bcooter did the Leica M essay and at one point was transmiting that he found certain unreliability or unfriendliness in the focussing accuracy, the forums were in flame and some posters didn't hesitate to discredit him as a photographer, pointing with arguments that if he wasn't able to focus properly with the M8 he shouldn't call himself a photographer...things like that. And we are talking about one experienced and prestigious awarded pro of this industry.
When Lagarfeld did the Pirelli calendar, tons of criticisms and jalousy postures all over the net by people who knew nothing about him, pointing the fact that Lagarfeld wasn't a photographer when he actually has quite a high level in photography (that a lot of people ignore), and knows and understands fashion way deeper than most photographers who call themselves fashion photographers when it's not high-end fashion photographers. Insults, disprestige of all kinds and we were talking about one of the most influent fashion designer of its time. And why? because he his not labeled "photographer" and because he his excentric.
More recently the Bloom affair, when mister Bloom had issues with a Red Epic on set and reported publically, the Red forum was absolutly in flame, directly insulting him and questionning his professionality just because he had the audacity to point wicknesses within the sacro-saint brand he owned. In part he was faulty, but in part he was true. The Red brand owner had to apologyse publicaly and warn his users that the insults and disprestige in his forum won't be tolerated any further and the poor Bloom had to cure his image the way he could.
Examples like those unfortunatly abund.
What happens to Mark appears IMO way over reacted and can ultimatly leads to a disprestige or the ridiculous of an active professional wich I find particularly 1) unfair, 2) unnecessary and ultimately, damaging.
Edit: and I have absolutly zero contact with Mark, we have never ever meet, but the form in some posts of the closed thread honestly shocked me.
No, there is something more in the internet than just a Mark's fault.
And maybe we should all think twice about the form when we want to disagree and opinate.
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Rob : Wikipedia's entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisegesis) seems of a different kind of romantism : shortly, it's a way to call each other names among the biblic scholars. Another analogy.
Oops, seems I've been preceded.
Thanks, Niko, I shall now hope to remember that word for future use.
However, I'm happy to see that in both cases of help, reference was made to an external answer rather than a direct piece of information; I hope that means I wasn't totally alone in my doubt ignorance!
;-)
Rob C
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We know from the film days that collecting more information rather than less is important. Thus Minox cameras (remember the ones the spies used?) don't do as good a job as 35mm which doesn't do as well as Hasselblad which doesn't do as well as 4x5 which doesn't do as well as 8x10. Now a lot of Ansel Adams pictures were done with sheet film (4x5 or 8x10) but he used other formats as well. I have an 8x10 of one of his Yosemite pictures hanging in my dining room which is a 2x enlargement of a 4x5 negative. The detail is exquisite and and whatever hyper-reality might mean, I suspect that this picture is full of it (personally the only hyper-reality I have ever encountered was when the starship Enterprise moved into warp speed). It's clear to me that with digital things are still the same. Sure there are engineering tweaks that can be done and lens design is still an important factor but as was noted on the closed thread, the more photons that you can capture the better off you are in terms of not only having a good image but being able to print big. With 35 mm Tri-X and my Nikon, I seldom enlarged beyond 7x10. With a digital Nikon 300, I regularly print at 11x17 (on 13x19 paper) and have had a friend print some images on an Epson 7900 (22x34) with very good results.
While I understand where Michael is coming from with his decision to shut down the discussion on the previous thread, I think he was misreading a lot of us who were not taking issue with any of Mark's fundamental points (which I am largely in agreement with) but rather the tone of the post.
@John Camp - thanks for the link to Carl Weese's piece, I had missed that one. Again it notes that mechanical issues can be a cause for problematic images (e.g., use a tripod!!! which I do except when traveling to Europe and cannot lug it along with me).
@Bill - thanks for your printer test. I did the real life test yesterday in printing a couple of images for my wife's new office. I looked at the dpi as per Jeff Schewe's recommendation and saw that it was over 360 and so I set the dpi at 720 as per the recommendation. LR gives a warning that it might not print out because of computer memory issues but I had no problem (and really didn't anticipate any since my computer has lots of memory). I didn't use a Loupe to examine it but it did look a little better visually than the 360 dpi print (maybe a placebo effect).
While I would like to have a MF camera, I'm not sure that I can justify the expense or the added bulk that such a system would mean in terms of lugging it all around. I'll take a close look when the new Nikon 800 comes out and see if this is an option. The one thing I can say, is that my Nikon D300 has some pretty darn good pixels in it.
I'll be interested in Mark's next post on this topic.
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While I understand where Michael is coming from with his decision to shut down the discussion on the previous thread, I think he was misreading a lot of us who were not taking issue with any of Mark's fundamental points (which I am largely in agreement with) but rather the tone of the post.
Oh, I know exactly why Mike shut it down (and even predicted so in the thread). When posters start attacking people personally–such as calling into question somebody's honesty–stuff goes down hill very, very quickly. So, he shut it down...he didn't remove it, just shut it down.
This thread will live as long as personal attacks don't happen and people are civil–note I typed civil, you don't have to be polite, just debate amongst yourselves in a civil manner...cross any lines and this will get shut down as well. And, Mike has already warned that personal attacks will result in a ban on the perpetrator.
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Following the shutdown of the previous thread, I went back to the story and skipped the sections that were not about photography...
Perhaps one of the more interesting conclusions is that photos that depict "hyper-reality" are better than those that are not, for some value of the word "better."
There's another side to this: the further a photograph goes down the "hyper-reality" path, the further it strays from being "natural." And if you venture down that path too far, does that then have a negative net impact on the reception of the photograph?
As an example of this, using the flower photographs in the article, photograph B doesn't look right to me because the shadows are too light. At least for me, the reaction is to reject photograph B, irrespective of whether or not it is considered to be technically "better".
If the shadow detail in B could be retained whilst darkening the shadows to the same level as in photograph A, then the result would be a lot more pleasing to at least my eye.
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I forgot to add to my last post about the unseen. Best example that I can remember in terms of capturing this was the photographer played by David Hemmings in Antonioni's 'Blow Up' who inadvertently captures the unseen which then gets revealed to him in the dark room!!! ;D
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I was posting the reply shown below as the thread was being locked. While some of Mark's claims about the per pixel quality of MFDBs as compared to smaller format sensors are not justified, the need for high resolution in making large prints is correct.
Enough of this nonsense about high end stereo and fine wines and back to photography. Roger Clark has a good post (http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/eye-resolution.html) on the acuity of the human eye and relates it to the print resolution necessary to represent that resolution. He did some blinded tests using multiple subjects and concluded that at least 600 ppi was necessary (he was using an HP printer). Jeff Schewe states in the Camera to Print and Screen tutorial that with Epson printers one can readily tell the difference between prints at 360 and 720 dpi. So, Roger and Jeff agree on the necessary resolution. Of course, this depends on viewing distance, but this assumes that the viewing distance was quite close. The subjects presumably viewed the prints at an optimum distance. Anyway, Roger concludes that only a large format camera is capable of this resolution when one is dealing with really large prints.
In another post he demonstrates various print resolutions of a 4*5 inch film image and also provides a chart to determine one's printer resolution. Of course, it makes no sense to send more data to the printer than it can print, so one should determine the resolution of his printer. I printed Roger's chart with my Epson 3880, setting the resolution to 1440 and using finest detail and examined the image under a microscope using a 2x PlanApochromat objective with the setup giving a magnification of 25x in the plane of the sensor. The results are shown. The individual ink dots are well shown. The 1 px lines are not resolved, but the 2 px are, giving a resolution of 720 ppi.
(http://bjanes.smugmug.com/Photography/DX2IQ180/i-S49Jx2B/0/O/RogerCompos.png)
In another post entitled the MegaPixel Myth (http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/megapixel_myth/), Roger evaluates what resolution is necessary to literally knock your socks off with a large print. He concludes that 200 MP are necessary. In summary, Mark and the MFDB crowd are correct in that the high resolution of these backs is necessary to make really large prints. To reach the resolution that Roger suggests, one would have to stitch the IQ180, as Jeff demonstrates in the above mentioned tutorial. In summary, the main readily demonstrated advantage of the MFDB is resolution. The availability of high quality apochromatic primes is another factor. Some of the other claims are questionable.
Regards,
Bill
I was about to reference the same articles by Clark. You last para is a different conclusion than his. Clark states he does his big landscapes now using large stitched arrays of 135 sized DSLR shots. Of course for wildlife or whatever you need the big resolution.
I appreciate the article. I think the message is fine but with poor examples. I know Mark could have shown us far more impressive shots. I do want to read part 2. If there are some faulty ideas they all get resolved in the discussion. Everybody end up with a better grasp of the subject with the discussion.
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A simple way for me to agree with Mark is to say until there is some way to view an image beside a window looking out over the image, and being unable to tell which is the window, which is the copy, cameras are lacking. No double blind is necessary, there is a cottage industry of HDR software companies trying to make money off filling in the shortcomings. Countless photographers play with sliders in their software to tease out more image quality.
Both screens and cameras have a long way to go.
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Hi,
One aspect that is often ignored in this context is the effects of processing. For instance a raw image does actually not have a color, the color arises during raw conversion. There is a lot of discussion on different system having different color, but that color is added in processing and we have a healthy amount of control over the process.
Another factor is sharpening. Digital images need sharpening, but the amount needed differs, depending on OLP filtering but also on fill factor. So to compare two sensors we would need different sharpening. Look at the enclosed image. The three samples are scanned from prints corresponding to about A0 size at 480PPI (interpolated). Left image is from Nikon D3X, the right one from Pentax 645D and the center one is Nikon D3X with deconvolution sharpening. (From this article http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/51-a-closer-look-at-pentax-645d-image-quality ).
So to compare two images we would need to apply at least sharpening and color.
Next issue is scaling. Both upsizing and downsizing add artifacts to an image, but downscaling adds more artifacts. Any downsizing needs to be followed by sharpening. So if we compare two images of different size and downscale the larger one to smaller size we add a lot of aliasing artifacts and than sharpen.
The way I see it, the best way to compare is to scale the comparison images to "print size", like I maximally print 70x100 at 200 PPI so I would scale my image to 7874 pixels width before comparison. I would suggest that for comparison its basically more sound to upscale than downscale.
This article may also be of some interest: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/62-scaling-up-or-down?showall=1
Best regards
Erik
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Hi,
I'd say that there is much more info in an image than what can be reproduced in a print. The problem is in part that media (print) can only reproduce a DR of about seven steps. Would be compress ten or so EV into 1:128 range it would be very boring.
The sample here illustrates this: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/63-lot-of-info-in-a-digital-image
On the other hand a very similar effect can be achieved easily in Lightroom 4 (see attachement): http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=61027.msg492127#msg492127
All the images here are made from a single raw file.
Best regards
Erik
A simple way for me to agree with Mark is to say until there is some way to view an image beside a window looking out over the image, and being unable to tell which is the window, which is the copy, cameras are lacking. No double blind is necessary, there is a cottage industry of HDR software companies trying to make money off filling in the shortcomings. Countless photographers play with sliders in their software to tease out more image quality.
Both screens and cameras have a long way to go.
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I was about to reference the same articles by Clark. You last para is a different conclusion than his. Clark states he does his big landscapes now using large stitched arrays of 135 sized DSLR shots. Of course for wildlife or whatever you need the big resolution.
Of course. Since everything matters, stitching has to be considered as an option everytime it has a chance to be relevant.
I don't understand how Mark can show examples shot with a Betterlight scanning back and not adopt stitching. This seems very incoherent to me.
Another thing I find surprising is the apparent assumption that all small cameras are identical in performance.
Cheers,
Bernard
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In another post he demonstrates various print resolutions of a 4*5 inch film image and also provides a chart to determine one's printer resolution. Of course, it makes no sense to send more data to the printer than it can print, so one should determine the resolution of his printer. I printed Roger's chart with my Epson 3880, setting the resolution to 1440 and using finest detail and examined the image under a microscope using a 2x PlanApochromat objective with the setup giving a magnification of 25x in the plane of the sensor. The results are shown. The individual ink dots are well shown. The 1 px lines are not resolved, but the 2 px are, giving a resolution of 720 ppi.
(http://bjanes.smugmug.com/Photography/DX2IQ180/i-S49Jx2B/0/O/RogerCompos.png)
For me, there's a tad more than a simple resolution value in that...
What I see is that 6 and 4px lines are well rendered, while smaller ones are much mushier, and I'd think of it as a diminishing MTF - from what I've seen on my printer (R1800, older dither but 1pl drops) I'd say that from our metric 254dpi (100 pixels/cm) rule-of-thumb, MTF goes downward rather quickly (I even heard a custom french printer say that resolution beyond 200dpi is mostly wasted). Comparing two prints of the same image at 240 and 480dpi, the bigger one shows more information to my eye.
Alas, there is no way digital printing can equal the stunning clarity of details of a contact print... (see http://www.custom-digital.com/2008/09/bw-print-quality/ eg)
And my conclusion is that more resolution makes more impact if one prints big : for me, even after remplacing my clogged R1800 with a 17" printer, I may waste the resolution of a stitched 100MP file (I'm letting MFDB out of the debate for mundane reasons).
NB RNClark's post URL is http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/printer-ppi/index.html
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A simple way for me to agree with Mark is to say until there is some way to view an image beside a window looking out over the image, and being unable to tell which is the window, which is the copy, cameras are lacking.
We go deeper into philosophical territory here...
But I'd say that until now (and probably still for a little while), photography has always been a transcription of the reality : first B&W with the orthochromatic tonal rendition (white skies), then panchromatic, then color, but always 2-dimensionnal and within a limited output DR (and that is enough not to fool most of observers).
For me, the bigger part of a photographer's work is to deal with those constraints, and (if successful) to pass around them, adding some kind of transcendance to the image that makes it a symbol, rather than a depiction, of the reality.
That would mean, as Eleanor Brown said in the other topic (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=61421.msg495730#msg495730), concentrate on content rather than form :
While I want high quality also, in the end the emotional impact of photographic images is what is most important to me personally.
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I've just come in to thank Micheal and 'LL' for this great article which I really enjoyed and learned much from!
My week has been quite good with two 20x16 inch prints now hung in my local Arts Centre. They were made with my little Sony NEX 3, kit lens, ebay adaptor and 30 year old Canon FD lenses on salvaged and repaired tripod. The quality of the prints has surprised me and they stand well among the 'full-frame' work of the other photographers.....
.......And now, this splendid essay which has indeed shown me that everything DOES matter! Who could have thought that a camera phone could give a digital back such a good chase? Further, I need never give any more thought to the slipstream from digital backs costing as much as decent cars and piloted by wealthy retirees posing as pro landscape photographers........
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Indeed everything matters right now!!!
In 2003 I took 3 landscape views of Portland harbour from different vantage points on Portland heights (Dorset UK). I hand stitched multiple images from my new Canon Powershot S50 using Photoshot 6 (or was it 7?) using layers and freeform transform to do aligning and blending then printed on my new Epson 2100 with pigment inks on Epson paper roll.
Now I looked at my images; to see that in a field I had captured some horses, a garden with greenhouse and cabbage patch, a party with a bouncy castle in another, the number 1 bus en-route to Weymouth going down the hill and the air-sea rescue helicoter on the tarmac. So I could see that the middle distance was full of detail that I had not seen when choosing my initial composition. The far distance (far side of the harbour) I could see rows of houses with windows and doors but they were definitely not sharp.
Still, I had to get my 1.6m image framed. Long story short, the framer ended up buying over 100 of my landscapes to sell in his shop so I suppose there was enough detail in my images that some of the public were prepared to part with their cash to own them.
So, what would the images look like if I had had a higher resolution sensor? As my meagre pocket allowed I bought a Canon 20D then a Canon 5D and assorted lenses. I have returned many times in the last 9 years in an attempt to reproduce the original landscapes and this is where my point about EVERYTHING matters comes in:
1) Mother nature refuses to play ball in that I have not had the same clarity of the air and light that I had when I shot the originals.
2) Mother nature makes things grow! 2 of my vantage points are now obscured by trees.
3) The area in the middle ground has been redeveloped; the large oil tanks have gone, the helicopter has a new hanger, the Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy and marina have been built.
So whats my point? ... make the most of what you've got NOW because stuff changes that is outside of your control.
I'm pretty sure Ansel Adams would make some excellent prints, if he were alive today, using digital sensors and ink jet printing, but I'm also sure that like all of us, he would take thousand of images that would be discarded. He made the most of the equipment (cameras, film and paper) available to him at the time, but a lot of his impact comes from his eye for an image. How many people look at one of his prints and say "looks like he used 4x5 film for that one"? If they do, then I think they've missed the point of his work.
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For me, there's a tad more than a simple resolution value in that...
What I see is that 6 and 4px lines are well rendered, while smaller ones are much mushier, and I'd think of it as a diminishing MTF - from what I've seen on my printer (R1800, older dither but 1pl drops) I'd say that from our metric 254dpi (100 pixels/cm) rule-of-thumb, MTF goes downward rather quickly (I even heard a custom french printer say that resolution beyond 200dpi is mostly wasted). Comparing two prints of the same image at 240 and 480dpi, the bigger one shows more information to my eye.
Yes, diminishing MTF at high frequencies tends to take place in most systems. Testing resolution by looking at whether or not line pairs can be distinguished as with the USAF resolution chart is outmoded, and modern testing uses MTF. It has been shown that a high MTF at lower frequencies is more important than resolution at extinction. Norman Koren has stated that it makes little sense to test resolution at a point when it disappears. :)
Although the human visual system can resolve down to about 1 minute of arc (30 cycles per degree), the contrast sensitivity function peaks at about 6 cycles per degree, which corresponds to about 1 cycle per millimeter when the print is viewed at a distance of 34 cm. These characteristics are incorporated into SQF (subjective quality factor). See Bob Atkins (http://bobatkins.com/photography/technical/mtf/mtf4.html). The MTF between 3 and 12 cycles per degree is most important for perceived sharpness. For an 8 by 10 inch print from a 35 mm sensor and viewed at the above distance, this corresponds to between 4 and 16 cycles/mm on the sensor. This compares to the Nyquist of 84 lp/mm for the Nikon D3x.
These considerations indicate that for an 8 by 10 inch print, one can obtain most of the critical image quality with considerably less resolution than afforded by the D3x. The increased resolution of the D3x at high frequencies where the eye is not that sensitive will contribute to image quality to a lesser extent. The same considerations would apply to Mark's IQ180.
Regards,
Bill
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These considerations indicate that for an 8 by 10 inch print, one can obtain most of the critical image quality with considerably less resolution than afforded by the D3x. The increased resolution of the D3x at high frequencies where the eye is not that sensitive will contribute to image quality to a lesser extent.
Yes indeed, it's definitively a matter of diminishing returns.
I'd think it's also a matter of taste : the visual sensation of fine details may be more appreciated by some than by others, giving those SQF calculations a subjective side (and as said, many people can still see the 600dpi print as sharper than the 300dpi, not to mention the 8x10 contact print).
I was about to make an analogy with what one can taste and like in wine (thinking to the vanilla aromas of oak chips, something quite overdone even here in France), but would dismiss it as unappriopriate after a second thought.
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Oh, I know exactly why Mike shut it down (and even predicted so in the thread). When posters start attacking people personally–such as calling into question somebody's honesty–stuff goes down hill very, very quickly. So, he shut it down...he didn't remove it, just shut it down.
This thread will live as long as personal attacks don't happen and people are civil–note I typed civil, you don't have to be polite, just debate amongst yourselves in a civil manner...cross any lines and this will get shut down as well. And, Mike has already warned that personal attacks will result in a ban on the perpetrator.
I'm not certain that merely pointing out that someone has a financial interest in an entity is tantamount to impugning his honesty. Top experts in any field are bound to have conflicts of interest, but they should be duly noted so that readers can judge for themselves if any statements for a particular product are unreasonable and open to question. Since Mark likes analogies readers, should consider an example in a peer reviewed journal.
(http://bjanes.smugmug.com/Photography/DX2IQ180/i-wpLZVsR/0/O/Cancer1.png)
I don't think that many would suspect that these top experts in their field working in prestigious institutions would mislead readers in life and death situations for a mere honorarium. Nonetheless, their potential conflicts of interest are disclosed. However, I don't think Mark's treatise would be published in any peer reviewed journal.
Regards,
Bill
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I don't think that many would suspect that these top experts in their field working in prestigious institutions would mislead readers in life and death situations for a mere honorarium. Nonetheless, their potential conflicts of interest are disclosed. However, I don't think Mark's treatise would be published in any peer reviewed journal.
Regards,
Bill
ROFL!!!! Prior to retirement I worked on this issue (among many others) at the trade association representing this particular industry. We ended up publishing a set of principles for research and the key to everything is adequate disclosure of "potential" conflicts of interest. See section 3.d HERE (http://www.phrma.org/sites/default/files/105/042009_clinical_trial_principles_final.pdf). It's important to note that just because someone has a financial relationship that this does not imply that there is a conflict of interest!!
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This topic is getting very stale, very quickly.
Let me state this clearly and without ambiguity so that the topic can be put to bed once and for all.
Mark and I are, among other pursuits, teachers. We teach in various venues and for various organizations and companies. Among those companies is Phase One. When we teach for Phase One we are paid, just the same as any other teacher. And by "the same" I mean that all instructors on Phase One workshops are paid the same amount for the same period of time.
Neither Mark not I have any other fiduciary or business relationship with Phase One, other than that we spend our own money buying gear from our local dealers. That's it.
Mark and I also have personal relationships with some of the executives at Phase One. We also have such relationships with other executives at other companies in the industry. One can't work in this business for as long as Mark and I have without becomes friends with some people
But, those friendships never never knowingly colour what we write.
Is that clear? Intimating, insinuating, or implying that anything else is the case is simply wrong, and to do so on these pages will lead to being banned because I'm fed up with such innuendo.
Michael
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Sometimes I have the impression the sheer success and quality of this site seems to be the proof for some
that there must be some sort of corruption, because no one would take the effort doing this for free.
Maybe Michael has a hidden castle somewhere with a big park of Rolls Royces and we just don't know of it.
An alternate explanation could be, that Michael is just plain crazy.
Choose your poison.
:P
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Sometimes I have the impression the sheer success and quality of this site seems to be the proof for some
that there must be some sort of corruption, because no one would take the effort doing this for free.
Maybe Michael has a hidden castle somewhere with a big park of Rolls Royces and we just don't know of it.
An alternate explanation could be, that Michael is just plain crazy.
I know you are joking, but I would think that the very successful videos and content created by Michael and his team are more than enough to explain the profitability of LL?
Cheers,
Bernard
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I know you are joking, but I would think that the very successful videos and content created by Michael and his team are more than enough to explain the profitability of LL?
Cheers,
Bernard
I can't and don't want to judge if and how profitable it is.
I bought some of the videos and found them a huge help.
My impression just is that some people here sometimes mess up mature criticism with destructivity.
My impression also is, that Michael and the other contributors do enough to disclose and explain their connections to the industry (which not everyone on the forums here does always as he should).
'nuff said.
Time for some better threads.
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Four years ago I was covering the Republican National Convention in St. Paul and we were given credentials by the Republicans for various kinds of access, and wore these around our necks on a nylon string. I didn't notice it at the time, but the Republicans had apparently gotten one of the local businesses (I think it might have been Wells Fargo, but it might have been US West) to donate the halters, and woven into the fabric was the company logo or the company name. So, there was a march by some protesters, and I went along for the story (and shot some pictures along the way) and at some point, realized that a rather large woman was screaming in my direction. I looked around to see who it was, to see what was happening, and realized that she was screaming something at me. She'd seen the halter, and demanded to know why I was wearing it. I said, because we were given it with the credentials. She said it was a conflict of interest for a "supposedly objective" news reporter to be wearing such a blatant corporate endorsement. I mean, I didn't even see it when I got it, and I suppose a thousand or so news people were wearing them without seeing it -- it was just a pattern on a half-inch-wide string -- and this woman was completely out of control. And didn't stop. Picked me out and kept following me yelling this crazy stuff about corruption. I finally lost my shit and shouted at her, angrily, "You think I'd sell out for a fuckin' nickel?" which was about what the string was worth. (When you got done with them, you threw them away. There were hundreds of them laying around.)
Implications of conflict of interest have to be carefully thought through. The ludicrous thing is that some people suggested rather archly, or critically, that Mark was rich, while others suggested that he'd sell out for a nickel; that doesn't seem to compute. I'd hate to see that kind of b.s. curdle the freedom to speak on this forum, but it is pretty stupid.
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Implications of conflict of interest have to be carefully thought through.
It's this sort of discussion that will piss the hell out of Michael (as it does me although Mark always gets a giggle from it). You would do well to get the discussion back on track and quit talking about who owes what to whom for what reason.
If you have issues with the article Mark wrote, feel free to discuss it. If you want to question his motive and agenda, then you risk getting banned. Simple as that.
Just so ya know, I'm NOT an investor in LuLa, I bought my own IQ180 back and do consulting and testing with Adobe. I also work with Epson to advance ink jet printing. My choice of underwear is briefs, not boxers. I occasionally wear Hawaiian shirts (and no I do not get promotional money from Tommy Bahama even though that's the brand I usually wear).
So, you wanna see my 2011 IRS tax returns? Sorry, screw you...I ain't running for the GOP Presidential nominee...
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I have been following this since I first read the article several days ago. I can't believe we are talking about a conflict of interest. There is none in this article.
However, there is poor rhetorical examples and a couple of poor example images.
I read the entire article and I enjoyed it. However, I kept returning to the example pictures at least 4 times, because on my monitor, the first picture looked much better than the second. After careful examination, I saw the decreased depth of field that gave away the medium format back. However, the first picture is much more pleasing to the eye, likely due to increased saturation. It was a perfect illustration of why color and processing is often more important that dynamic range. The added dynamic range really added little to this photograph.
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An alternate explanation could be, that Michael is just plain crazy.
Yes...the option above is correct...having spent a lot of time sitting next to Mike in vidoes, I can confirm he is crazy...and he has an inordinate amount of fun–which I'm down with. At this stage or our lives, if it ain't fun, we ain't doing it...we don't need the money, we have precious little time left (Mike is older but I'm fighting my past even tough I'm prolly now in the best shape of my life. BP is 128/78 and my total cholesterol is 151 with LDL 75 and HDL 47–which is good) and we honestly do want to pass stuff forward...
We don't do this shit for money...we do it because we love it and it's fun. Well, ok, Chris has less fun than Mike and I...since he has to spend months listening to Mike and I go on at great length to the point he begins to hate the sounds of our voices).
And Mike and I are about to start a new tutorial for LR4...my sympathies goes out to Chis and Chuck...sorry.
Nobody I know and associate with are whores...if you think otherwise, then that's your own baggage showing through...
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For me it is simple.
Nothing matters. Just the photograph
However, to produce the photograph everything matters.
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I kept returning to the example pictures at least 4 times, because on my monitor, the first picture looked much better than the second. After careful examination, I saw the decreased depth of field that gave away the medium format back. However, the first picture is much more pleasing to the eye, likely due to increased saturation.
If one of the pictures is by far less saturated than the other, you might want to try another browser. For me, Firefox and IE work, Chrome does not. You need a browser or image viewer that is able to display the ProPhotoRGB color values of the second picture correctly. The MF picture actually does look better if its colors are rendered faithfully. On a (color managed) wide color gamut display it even shines ;-)
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If one of the pictures is by far less saturated than the other, you might want to try another browser.
Ditto!
One can check http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter to ensure images are properly displayed (bottom result with 4 different squares is bad, middle result with uniform bottom half and 2 different squares on top is good, top result with uniform image is even better but not compulsory if one keeps in mind that v4 profiles are scarce).
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If one of the pictures is by far less saturated than the other, you might want to try another browser. For me, Firefox and IE work, Chrome does not. You need a browser or image viewer that is able to display the ProPhotoRGB color values of the second picture correctly. The MF picture actually does look better if its colors are rendered faithfully. On a (color managed) wide color gamut display it even shines ;-)
Thanks Bart. I looked again at the photos in Safari and the MF back does the photo justice. However, this is a great example of why I shoot in sRGB, for my needs, it is adequate and there is no risk of my photos looking like ungraded video.
That being said, I am glad there are photographers like Mark who push the envelope of image quality. Larger format really does give a crisper smoother picture. However, the law of diminishing returns always rears its ugly and head and with a new generation of FF DSLRs about to be introduced, I believe the differences will become even smaller.
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Too funny ... in an article about paying attention to "the little details", a non-sRGB jpeg was uploaded?
Really???? The irony there is pretty thick ...
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For me it is simple.
Nothing matters. Just the photograph
However, to produce the photograph everything matters.
Best post, by far in this entire discussion....
Thanks
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That being said, I am glad there are photographers like Mark who push the envelope of image quality. Larger format really does give a crisper smoother picture. However, the law of diminishing returns always rears its ugly and head and with a new generation of FF DSLRs about to be introduced, I believe the differences will become even smaller.
I just don't get this. There are many ways to push the enveloppe way beyond the image quality delivered by a single IQ180 image. 8x10 scans, scanning backs, stitching,... Besides all of these approaches are much cheaper.
Using an IQ180 might be the most convenient way to achieve a high level of image quality, but it is very far from being the end of the road in terms of image quality.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Hi,
In my view there is nothing wrong with expensive equipment. If you afford an IQ180, go and buy it.
There is little doubt that same or better resolution can be achieved by other means. Stitching certainly can do it in many cases. With stitching, essentially any resolution is achieveable, assuming that the subject cooperate. Large format film will also give higher resolution if properly deployed and scanned at high enough resolution.
With the IQ180 you take a shot, check histogram and focus on the LCD and you have it in the bag.
Now, if you happen to have an IQ 180, I'd suggest it is nice if you can make best use of it. Putting it on a body with tight tolerances, calibrate as well as possible and put the best lenses on it.
In my view Mark makes a lot of good points on image quality. On the other hand it is my firm belief that we need to make large prints to observe fine detail or print at very high resolution and pixel peep on the print, possibly using a loupe.
Mark states that the differences can be seen in a small prints, which I think is missleading information.
1) Downsizing an image introduces a lot of artifacts (unless properly made)
2) You never know if downscaling was properly made.
3) You need to sharpen after downscale. The advantage, does it come from the original image or from the sharpening step?
4) Impression of sharpness depends on contrast. Adding a color checker and adjust grey fields to match levels the playing field.
5) I actually find that pixel peeping is fine. The pixels are actually what are going into the print. Does color mapping and dithering in the printer driver add artistic value to the print?!
I certainly don't agree with everything Mark writes. That said, I did not have the opportunity to test neither the Phase One IQ180 nor the Leica S2 that he uses. Testing those camera would be great fun. Would I have the opportunity to use that kind of stuff, I may change may mind.
I don't think that Mark's or Michael's writing is colored by their teaching efforts and cooperation with Phase One. Obviously they like Phase One and that is the reason that they use Phase and take part in PODAS. Not the other way around.
I use Sony, and tell about my experience. I never ever said that Sony is better than stuff I have not tested. That said I may see the world trough Sony glasses.
One more issue I'd like to point out, and that is openness. Michael Reichmann knows those guys at Phase One, he met their engineers and have seen how they build their cameras. Leica has done something similar. That kind of openness is a good way of creating trust and relations.
Best regards
Erik
I just don't get this. There are many ways to push the enveloppe way beyond the image quality delivered by a single IQ180 image. 8x10 scans, scanning backs, stitching,... Besides all of these approaches are much cheaper.
Using an IQ180 might be the most convenient way to achieve a high level of image quality, but it is very far from being the end of the road in terms of image quality.
Cheers,
Bernard